Her eyes widened slightly. “Really? I don’t know what to say or do.”
“You came looking for me.”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded.
“I guess that’s all I needed. I feel a lot better already.”
She looked at him for a few seconds, then said simply, “Me too.”
That made the tightness in his chest loosen slightly. Not only had it been a long time since someone had wanted to take care of him, it had also been a very long time since he’d wanted to take care of another person. Not since he’d failed with and then finally gotten Donovan on the right track. Caring about animals, and dealing with feeling inadequate when things went wrong for them, was hard enough. Caring about and being unable to help human beings was just not something he wanted to take on again.
Or so he’d thought.
Then Autre, Louisiana, had happened to him.
And then he’d met the Landrys.
And then Charlotte Landry had walked out of Ellie’s bar and into his life.
And now, like it or not, he had even more things to care about, worry about, and potentially be disappointed by.
Which didn’t explain at all why his next action was to gather Charlotte close, wrap his arms around her, and hug her.
She was wearing tennis shoes rather than her heels, and her head fit perfectly against his shoulder. She seemed to melt into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and snuggling in. He felt her back rise and fall as she took a big breath and let it out.
She felt amazing. This was the perfect fit. Physically, for sure, but seemingly in every other way as well.
They just held each other for a few minutes. They didn’t talk, they didn’t move, they just breathed together. And Griffin felt the tension and the disappointment of the day fading.
Charlie was the first to speak. Of course. But he grinned as she said, “So…”
He didn’t respond, knowing she would go on anyway.
“You don’t seem like much of a hugger. But you’re really good at it, for the record.”
“I’m not much of a hugger, no,” he agreed.
She tightened her arms around him. “Thanks for making the exception for me. I really needed this.”
“You have a lot of people in this town who would happily hug you, Charlie.”
She nodded, her cheek moving up and down against his chest. But she didn’t let go. “I do. And they always make me feel better. But this”—she squeezed him slightly—”is officially my favorite hug.”
It was a stupid thing to feel proud of, but the Landry clan was a very touchy-feely bunch. There had been lots of hugs in Charlie’s life. If he could out-hug Ellie Landry, that was something.
“Well, you have a way of making me willing to make a lot of exceptions.”
He realized giving that knowledge to a woman like Charlie—someone who epitomized the saying “give her an inch, and she’ll take a mile”—was dangerous. But it was true. And if she didn’t know it already, she was surely starting to figure it out.
“You mean like owning a sloth?”
He smiled against her hair, but said, “Like not getting attached.”
That made her lift her head from his chest and look up at him. Her lips, right there, were tempting, but he knew she was going to use them to ask him a bunch more questions, and even if he kissed her now, those questions would come up. It was maybe better to have this conversation first.
“You try not to get attached?” she asked. But it didn’t really sound like a question. It sounded more like a clarification.
He nodded. “I do. I try not to get attached to people or animals. Anymore.”
“Because of what happened in the past? At the zoos?”
“Yes. It felt like getting invested and pouring a lot of emotion into things ended up making me overreact and eventually lose everything.”
“But you know the things you did were the right things to do,” Charlie said.
“I don’t regret doing them,” he said. “Just like you don’t regret what you did to get fired. But that doesn’t necessarily make it easier to have lost those things that mattered.”
“The animals?”
“Yes. I was very attached to some of them. But I also lost all the work I put in, the potential for the programs, and my respect and trust in the people that I worked with. I thought I was on the same page with my colleagues and bosses, and they put other priorities ahead of my expertise and beliefs.”
“So you came here, to what you thought would be a simpler job, to work with Tori—who you knew you could trust—and figured there wouldn’t be as many animals and people to get attached to and be disappointed by,” she summarized.
“Exactly.”
“But now you are getting attached?”
“You know Autre. It’s pretty hard not to get attached,” he said.
She nodded. “Of course, I’ve never tried not to get attached.”
“Trust me when I say it’s impossible. Especially with your family.”
“And with otters and goats who fall in love with you and pigs who are scared of thunder?” She smiled up at him.
“Yeah, all of that too.” His voice was rougher now as he looked into her eyes.
“And Ellie’s gumbo?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“And now you have lemurs.”
“Yep.”
She wet her lips again. “Anything else?”
“Definitely. In spite of my best efforts and better judgment.”
“You don’t want to be attached?”
“I didn’t.”
“But you’re changing your mind?”
“I’m starting to understand that falling for things in Autre, Louisiana, is different than getting attached to things other places. For one, here, it’s deeper. I also realize that things here last. People do what they say and say what they mean here. And people do the right things for the right reasons. Or if they screw up, they say they’re sorry and do better next time. And everyone still has their back. That’s the kind of place I want to be.”
He could tell by the look in her eyes that that touched her and that she was very pleased that was his answer.
“So, you’re attached to my family, the otters, Ellie’s gumbo, the way everyone is fully accepting of everyone else—even when they screw up—and now you’ve got lemurs,” she said. “Is that the full list?”
He needed to tell her that he was falling for her. It would be dangerous. Charlie already knew that she had him pretty well wrapped around her little finger when it came to this new animal park idea. Knowing that she was working her way into his heart as well would make her even more brazen about the big, crazy ideas she brought into his life.
But he suddenly wanted big and crazy.
Actually, he’d always wanted big and crazy. The big and crazy ideas had once been his. But he’d let circumstances rob him of that creativity and joy.
It was back now. Because of this woman. Of course, he was falling for her, and he was willing to take the risk of admitting that to her. No matter how much that was going to turn his life upside down.
“If I was another guy, here is where I would say something sexy and flirtatious,” he told her, dropping his hands from her lower back to her ass and pulling her closer to him. “But I’m not. I’m pretty straightforward. So, I’ll tell you that the number one thing on the list of things I’m getting very attached to is a sassy, sweet, larger-than-life hot blonde who has no idea what the word ‘no’ means and is, for some reason, insisting that I need to be happy.”