There were gasps from the few tables occupied around them. Griffin quickly turned to the room and held up his hands. “No, no, it’s all okay. The otter is going to be fine.”
“He is? Are you sure?” Charlie asked, her voice scratchy.
Griffin turned back. “He is. It was serious, but we got to him in time.”
“You got to him in time,” Charlie corrected. “You’re the one who saved him. I’m the one who almost killed him.”
“It’s going to be okay. You didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“No, but I was careless. I didn’t think it all through. I got in way over my head. Like I always do,” she said. Her eyes slid shut, and she shook her head. “I was one of those people who hurt you in the past. I thought I knew better, thought I knew what I was doing, didn’t give it enough thought, and just went ahead. And it ended up threatening another living thing. A living thing that you love.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him with an expression that nearly tore his heart in half. She was hurting. For him.
“You told me you didn’t want to get attached. You had so many good reasons. And I ruined it all! I made you get attached. I pushed you. You didn’t want any of this, and it all happened because of me.”
He ran a hand down her arm and linked their fingers. She tipped her head to look up at him. “Yes, you did all of that. You pushed me. You made me do things I didn’t want to do. And you made me get attached.”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “I’m so sorry, Griffin.”
He shook his head. “Don’t you dare be sorry for making me fall in love.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
He nodded. “I fell in love. Because of you, Charlie. With your family, with the animals, with all of these big ideas and plans, with teaching, with interacting with people and watching them learn and fall in love with the animals themselves.” He reached up and cupped her cheek. “Okay, I was already falling in love with the place and your family when you got here. But you pushed me the rest of the way. And,” he added, running his thumb over her bottom lip, “you made me fall in love with you. I was an idiot to think that I could possibly resist that.”
She sucked in a quick breath, and her eyes filled with tears again. “I fell in love with you too, Griffin.”
His heart expanded almost painfully. He took a deep breath, realizing that he needed to hear that more than anything. “Charlie—”
“And that’s why I don’t know if I can do this.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I can watch you get hurt. And you will. Things will go wrong with this park. I didn’t think about that before. It was just a big project for me. It was all just on paper and in sketches. But now, it’s real. They are real living things. And they’re dependent on us to keep them safe. And keeping them all safe and healthy is a lot. And sometimes they will get sick and hurt, and even if it’s not because of humans, it will still hurt you. And I don’t know if I can help build this up knowing that it could hurt you someday.”
He shook his head. “I know how this works, Charlie. I’ve been a vet for a long time. It’s part of the job. And yes, I’ve been hurt in the past. And yes, I’ll be hurt in the future. But what I’ve realized since being here, is that the fun, and discovery, and adventure, and teaching, all of the wonderful moments, are worth it. And,” he said, moving his hand to cup the back of her head, “doing it all with you and your family is the only way I want to do it.”
A tear slid down her cheek. But this time, Griffin was sure that it was a happy tear instead of the ones she’d been shedding previously.
“Please stay. Please open the animal park back up. Please do this with me.”
She swallowed. “I might have done something stupid. I emailed a bunch of people.”
“Yeah, I’m about to fire your ass for it as a matter of fact,” Sawyer said.
Charlie’s eyes widened, and she turned to her cousin. “You can’t…”
But clearly, she realized that he could, in fact, fire her.
“That is a fair reaction,” she said instead. “I’m so sorry. I… overreacted. But I can fix it. I’ll send another email. We’ll have a big event. Beer and…” She looked at Tori. “How quickly could I get a beaver?” Then she looked up at Griffin. “Maybe just Oreos and otters? Use it as a teaching experience about the toothpicks. Can they eat Oreos? Or maybe…”
“The email will be enough,” Griffin interjected.
“You’re sure?”
“Maybe not for a normal human being, but for you? The most charming woman on the planet? Yeah, I’m sure.” He was also sure his smile was full of love and wonder and God-I-fucking-want-you-so-much.
She blew out a breath and nodded. “Okay.” She looked at Sawyer. “Let me fix it.”
“You sure you want to fix it?” Sawyer asked.
Charlie looked up at Griffin.
She could leave. This would be a good reason. She could cut and run. Go back to Shreveport. Find another marketing job. One with less mud and blood and lots of other messy stuff.
But she smiled for the first time and nodded. “Yeah, turns out this little job, in this little town, with this little petting zoo, is the biggest, most important thing I’ve ever done. Next to falling in love, of course.”
That hit Griffin hard. She meant it, and it filled him with a strange sense of happiness, contentment, and possessiveness. Not just because she wanted this job, in this place, with him. But because he was going to be able to make her dream of growing a business into something truly influential and meaningful while also fulfilling his dreams of working on wildlife conservation and education initiatives right in his own backyard.
He could give the woman he loved her dream. That meant more to him than anything he’d done before.
“Bigger than Paris?” Griffin asked gruffly, teasing.
“The only thing I fell in love with in Paris was a chocolate croissant. I’ll take a bunch of otters, a trio of lemurs, a sloth, and some goats any day.”
He noticed he wasn’t on that list, and he leaned in, nearly touching her nose with his.
“And we’re going to have kettle corn here. That beats chocolate croissants, right?”
She lifted her hand to his chest, placing it over his heart. He covered it with his own.
“Oh yeah, I’m totally here for the otters and kettle corn.”
“Well, and a kangaroo, right?” His voice dropped a little lower.
“I did do some pretty… hard… work for that the other night, didn’t I?” she asked, her smile mischievous.
“You really did.”
“But I’d definitely be willing to work toward two or three.”
“Hmm. Kangaroos are somewhat solitary animals. I don’t know if we need more than one.”
Her smile was so sweet that Griffin felt his heart squeeze. She loved when he teased because he didn’t do it that often.
But she might have to get used to more of it.
“Oh, well, then I guess I won’t need to do the thing I was planning on doing…” She said, trailing off.
“Okay, fine. Five kangaroos,” he said.