Home > Otterly Irresistible (Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild #1)(4)

Otterly Irresistible (Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild #1)(4)
Author: Erin Nicholas

If this guy and his tiny hints of charm also had a little bossiness and a whole lot of competence underneath—and he continued with this general air of reluctance about spending a lot of time with her—this was going to be way more fun than even her grandpa’s moonshine at a triple family wedding.

And her grandpa’s moonshine had been known to lead to things like fireworks and skinny dipping. In other words, lots of fun.

“I need to get these animals back across the street,” the man said.

“Across the street?”

He nodded and tipped his head in the general direction of the Boys of the Bayou office. The company offered swamp boat and pontoon tours of the bayou and fishing expeditions. It was owned and run by, as it so happened, the three men and one of the women who had tied the knot tonight. It had been her grandfather’s business before he’d sold it to her cousins, so it had been in the family for years. It was a staple in Charlie’s life, and she had spent many wonderful summer days on those boat docks and out on the bayou on those boats.

The office was situated across the dirt road from Ellie’s bar.

The Landry family, other than Charlie’s father, all lived and worked within a twenty-mile radius of one another, and the little town of Autre was home to a multitude of Landry family businesses. In addition to the bar and swamp boat tour company, there was also a construction company, an accounting business, a mechanics garage, and many others. Her cousin Zander was even the town cop, and her cousin Kennedy had recently been elected mayor. The Landry family more or less ruled Autre, Louisiana. It was a unique and very special place, and Charlie loved it with her whole heart.

“You’re going to put the goats in the office?” Charlie asked.

“No, I think I’ll put them in their barn.”

Charlie glanced toward the swamp boat company again. “Their barn?”

“The barn that’s next to the swamp boat docks,” the man said.

“Why is there a barn next to the docks?”

“Because that’s where they put the petting zoo.”

“There’s a petting zoo?” She really should start reading her grandmother’s emails more carefully.

Ellie would have definitely filled Charlie in on a new petting zoo. But Ellie’s emails tended to be as long as the stories she told out loud. And she didn’t hit ENTER very often. The emails were solid blocks of running text, and they made Charlie’s head hurt a little, even as they made her smile.

Plus, Charlie’s schedule had been crazy lately. She was leaving for a new position with her company in two days. In Paris. Yes, France. She was going to be working in Paris, freaking France.

So yeah, she’d been a little busy. Still, it seemed that her mom or dad or one of her sisters would’ve mentioned that their cousins were starting a petting zoo as a part of their tourist business.

“There is a petting zoo. Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild.” The man seemed put out by the mere suggestion of a petting zoo, not to mention the reality of one.

Charlie felt a little smile curling her lips. The man seemed a little put out in general as it had to do with goats, ducks, and pigs. It seemed that perhaps he had more to do with this dinky zoo than he wanted to have, especially if he knew one of the goats well enough to consider her a stalker. But adding the Gone Wild to the Boys of the Bayou business name was pretty clever.

So this man worked for her family’s new business. And while the goats seemed to be a bit of an irritant in his life, he was gruff but sweet with them. There was just something about him that made her think that he was a good guy. If her family had hired him and worked with him every day, she had absolutely no reason to worry about crossing a dark dirt road and going into a barn with him at night when no one knew where she was.

“Well, the petting zoo is news to me,” she said. “But that’s fun.”

“Oh yeah, it’s a ton of fun.” His tone was dry.

Charlie grinned. “Well, I don’t know what a petting zoo has to do with swamp tours, but has it increased business or revenue?”

“I have no idea. The business’s accounting is not in my job description.”

Got it. “So you just take care of the animals?”

She loved to dress up in Valentino heels and loved to do her makeup, and though she hated fake eyelashes, she definitely enjoyed cocktail dresses and a great blowout. However, she’d always been attracted to blue-collar guys who worked with their hands and weren’t afraid to get dirty.

She attributed that to growing up spending summers on the bayou. She was a Louisiana girl, raised in Shreveport, but there was something about the small-town bayou boys that, especially as a teenager, she’d noticed were just a little bit more than the city boys she was used to.

She was blessed to have a large number of male cousins who happened to have a lot of friends who loved to spend time swimming and fishing off the Boys of the Bayou docks just outside her grandma’s house and bar.

Charlie definitely had an affinity for rugged, outdoorsy, hard-working men. And even if he didn’t have a Louisiana drawl, she liked the gruff edge to this guy and his inadvertent charm. Southern boys could turn the charm on and off like a faucet. This guy seemed to be unaware he was being charming.

And then he scooped Sugar up in his arms and started across the road, shepherding three other goats along in front of him. “You comin’?” he called back.

To her, Charlie assumed.

It took her just a moment to gather her wits. It was probably the biceps bunching that got her a little flustered, but the way he cuddled Sugar against his chest as if he had done it before made Charlie feel a little warmer than she had a moment ago.

She looked around, still not entirely sure what he expected of her, exactly. But clearly, she was supposed to somehow get a group of animals away from Ellie’s, across the street, and to the barn that she had, so far, not even noticed in the hours she had been in town.

“Okay, let’s go, guys,” she said to the goats, who were still munching grass and not paying a bit of attention to her. One of them lifted its head and blinked at her. “Yeah, you, let’s go.” She jabbed her thumb in the general direction the man had headed. The goat blinked again, and then went back to eating grass. Charlie sighed and called after the man, “Hey, what are the rest of their names?”

He turned back. “Are you just trying to get me to say goofy goat names?”

“They have goofy names?”

“They’re named after the Seven Dwarves. The goats are, anyway.”

Charlie grinned. “What about the ducks?”

“The Brady Bunch.”

Her eyes widened. “Jan? Bobby? Marcia? All of them?”

He sighed, obviously not as delighted by this fact as she was. “Yeah.”

Charlie laughed. “And is there a Harry and Ron to go with Hermione?” she asked of the pig.

“Yep.”

Charlie loved everything about this. “Tori and Maddie and Kennedy named them, right?”

“Of course.”

Oh yes, he knew her family well. Kennedy was her cousin. Tori and Maddie were two of the brides tonight and Charlie’s new cousins-in-law. And yes, the Landry girls—even those who were Landrys by marriage rather than blood—were as much trouble as the boys. Especially when they got together and ganged up on someone. Like a poor, unsuspecting, put-upon farmer from…

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