“He does,” Knox said, still speaking of himself in the third person.
Charlie watched Fiona and Knox square off, hiding her smile by pressing her lips together.
Knox was a big guy, and when he planted his hands on his hips and glowered, he seemed even bigger.
Petite Fiona wasn’t the least bit daunted, however. She continued to sit. In fact, she was now leaning back, her legs crossed, looking at Knox as if he was boring her. But her cheeks were pink, which spoke to either anger… or excitement.
“Well, then, he should be thanking this group for providing an increase in traffic and business to the town,” she informed him.
“Except that, a lot of the businesses in town won’t see an increase in revenue from this,” Knox said, clearly exasperated. “The clothing shop, the hardware store, the mechanic. But they’ll have to deal with the increased motor and pedestrian traffic, littering, not to mention animal noises and smells.”
Fiona shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Families will decide to stick around for the crawfish boil and will head downtown and look around the shops and buy stuff. And inevitably, someone will have car trouble while they’re here and will need the mechanic. And you can’t tell me that Mitch doesn’t buy a lot of his supplies from the hardware store when he’s building new pens for the animals, especially when the woman bringing the animals doesn’t give them a whole lot of time to order things in.”
Knox just stood looking at her. Then he sighed. “Is your last name Landry?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you sure act like a Landry.”
Fiona gave him a smile. “Well, thank you very much. But no. It’s Grady. Do you want my number too?”
“I have a feeling I’m going to be seeing a lot of you without needing to call.”
Her smile widened. “Lucky you.”
“Yeah,” he said dryly. “Exactly what I was thinking.” He looked at Zander again and pointed a finger at the town cop. “You realize this means less fishing and more actual police work?”
“Oh, I’ll be in the front row at the next city council meeting,” Zander said. “We really are going to need more traffic lights to cut down on fender benders.”
“You mean cut down on the paperwork you have to do,” Knox said.
“Potato potahto,” Zander said with a shrug.
Knox sighed, seemingly at them collectively. “Make sure you get the licensing taken care of. The last thing we want is the USDA making a big deal about all this.”
He headed for the door, and they all watched him go.
Fiona was the first one to speak. “Wow.” She looked at Fletcher. Then to Zeke. “You all even grow the nerds big and hot down here.”
Zeke, the contractor-slash-accountant, stretched his arms straight out in front of him, fingers interlaced, and cracked his knuckles. Then he sat back in his chair, arms spread wide, and said, “Thank you very much.”
They went back to talking, laughing, and eating.
Charlie thought about everything Knox had mentioned. He had actually made some good points. Again, she hadn’t fully thought out her plan and how it would impact people beyond the Landrys. But yes, an increase in traffic would affect Zander, the local businesses, and simple things like the roads and parking lots.
She sighed. She was used to making plans that involved a lot of other people who handled details like this, but here, it was all a lot more up close and personal. And frankly, she didn’t really know what she was doing when it came to things like stoplights and paperwork for the USDA.
She needed some air.
She pushed her chair back and stood. The whole group looked at her.
“I’m going to head out.”
Several nodded, and a couple wished her a good night.
But Mitch said, “He’s probably with the otters.”
Charlie paused and looked back at her cousin. “What do you mean?” She knew who “he” was, and she wasn’t going to deny she wanted to go looking for him.
“Griffin hangs out with the otters when he’s had a bad day,” Mitch said. “And if you are real quiet going over there, you might overhear their conversation.”
“Whose conversation?” Charlie asked.
Mitch chuckled. “Griffin’s conversation with Gus and Gert.”
“Gus and Gert, the otters?”
“Yep.”
“He talks to the otters?” Charlie felt the familiar warmth in her chest that always occurred when it came to Griffin interacting with animals.
“Yeah, and it’s pretty funny,” Mitch said with a grin.
She smiled. Of course he talked to the otters.
Charlie knew Mitch and Griffin were good friends and that Mitch wasn’t making fun of Griffin. But he was wrong.
Griffin talking to the otters wasn’t funny.
It was downright delightful.
15
Griffin heard the footsteps approaching the otter enclosure. He handed out the rest of the treats to Gus and Gertie and stretched to his feet.
His heart thunked hard when Charlie came around the bend in the path.
She spotted him immediately and lifted her hand.
The high glass walls around the enclosure weren’t soundproof, but he didn’t want to have to raise his voice to talk to her. He gestured toward the door to the side of the enclosure. She nodded.
They met at the door, and he pulled it open.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said at the same time.
They stopped and smiled at each other.
“What are you sorry for?”
“For not handling losing the dog well. For leaving without making sure you were all right.”
That made his chest tight. “It’s part of the job, Charlie,” he said. “It’s not that it’s easy or no big deal, but it happens. It’s not your job to make sure that I’m all right.”
She stepped closer and tipped her head to look up at him. “But… it kind of feels like my job.”
That made it hard to take his next breath. He had friends. His brother Donovan and he were a lot closer now, and since coming to Autre and meeting the Landrys, he’d felt more cared for than he had in a very long time. But it had been years, even before his parents had died, that anyone had felt like they needed to take care of him.
He didn’t think that Charlie actually believed that he couldn’t handle this without her. But she wanted to make it better. And dammit, her being here, with concern in her eyes, did make it better.
And he wanted to make it better for her too.
He realized that should have sent a wave of panic through him. Instead, it felt right. Like this was part of what he was supposed to be doing.
He took her hand and lifted it to his chest. He pressed it over his heart, the spot where she often touched him. “I’m okay. Are you all right?”
She wet her lips and then shook her head slowly. “That was really hard. Not just the dog dying but watching you work so hard and having it not turn out. I wanted to help you, and I couldn’t, and that also felt bad.”
“Honestly,” he told her, realizing he was about to confess something that was going to change things between them and realizing that he wanted to say it anyway. “You just being here now helps me a lot.”