“Where are you from?” she asked. Yeah, it seemed out of the blue, but his lack of accent stood out down here.
He clearly agreed it seemed out of the blue. “Here. Now.”
“But before here.”
“D.C.”
“That’s where you grew up?”
“Nope.”
Mr. Congeniality was going to have to try harder than one-word answers to turn her off. Especially now that he was holding a goat like someone would a puppy. Or a child. No matter how annoyed he seemed, he liked the animals, and that was sexy.
“You sound like you’re from the Midwest.” She did lots of calls and meetings with people from around the country.
“Good guess.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted to keep talking to me.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because it would be a lot faster and end the conversation sooner if you just answered the question. The way you’re going, you’re just making me more curious and more determined to keep talking.”
He sighed. “Kansas.”
She grinned. She’d figured out how to push at least a couple of his buttons. “Kansas. Yep, that sounds right.”
“Maybe if you start talking to the goats, they’ll decide to come to the barn to end the conversation too.”
She nodded, not even a little insulted. He acted annoyed with the goats but was actually kind of sweet to them. It seemed he was treating her similarly. She was okay being on the same level as the goats with this guy. “Maybe. Good idea.” She turned. “So, guys…” Then she looked over her shoulder. “Wait. They’re not all named after the Seven Dwarves. There’s Sugar. And there are more than seven remaining.”
He sighed. “You’re going to keep asking me about their names, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
He looked resigned. “There’s Sugar and Spice. They’re sisters.”
“Does Spice adore you too?” Charlie teased.
“Nope. They all love Josh. The pigs too.”
Charlie could see that. Josh was a sweetheart. And he was married to Tori, the soft-hearted, animal-crazy veterinarian from Iowa that he’d met at Mardi Gras a couple of years ago. He probably got big brownie points with her for being sweet and spending time with the animals.
The man pointed to the goat furthest away from the group. “That one’s Stan. His real name is Satan. Owen named him. But the girls think that’s mean so they call him Stan instead.”
Charlie laughed. “Does he live up to the Satan name?”
“He’s the one who opens the gate for Sugar,” the man said as if that was all the proof she should need.
Charlie looked at the goat in his arms. “He likes Sugar?”
“Nah. He just likes to be a pain in the ass and knows that opening the gate is the best way to piss off the humans.”
The guy was talking. Like, multiple words in a sentence and multiple sentences in a row. It was about goats, but honestly, Charlie was pretty charmed by all of this.
“So, Sugar, Spice, Stan…”
He sighed but pointed again. “Vinny.”
“Vinny?”
“Short for Vincent Van Goat.”
There was just a beat, and then Charlie snorted. “No way. Is he missing an ear?”
“He is. Are we done now?”
"What? No! I need to know what happened to his ear!”
"I shouldn’t have made that a question,” he said. “We are done now.”
Charlie shook her head, still smiling. “But that leaves only five goats with dwarf names.”
He started to turn away.
“And there are seven dwarves,” she said.
“Huh.”
He was definitely not into this. Or he was pretending anyway.
“I’ve met Dopey.” She glanced at the goat, a little surprised to realize that she remembered which one he was. “That leaves Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy—weird name for a goat.”
He just shrugged.
“Happy, Doc, and Grumpy,” she finished. “Which one’s which?”
“No Doc. Or Grumpy.”
“Why not?”
“Tori is Doc.”
Charlie smiled. “That’s cute. And…” A thought hit her, and she narrowed her eyes even as her grin grew. “Who’s Grumpy?”
“Ran out of goats.”
“Uh-huh. But they didn’t name one of these Grumpy because…”
“No idea.”
“Are you sure it’s not because they already had a Grumpy… in you?”
He lifted a brow. “Are you going to actually be helpful now or not?”
That wasn’t a denial that he filled the role of Grumpy.
She loved every damn thing about this petting zoo so far.
“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” she told him. “I’m definitely going to help.”
He sighed.
Feeling suddenly lighter and happier than she had in a long time—and that was saying something as she was generally light and happy, not to mention on her way to Paris soon—Charlie turned back to the animals.
“Okay, now that we know each other better, how about you all be sweet and head back to the barn? We can keep this party going over there?”
Not one animal even looked at her.
“Hey, Stan?” she called. “You’re clearly a leader. How about you show me that you can do some good with all that staunch determination and lead everyone back to the barn?”
“You can’t be serious,” the guy said. “Talking to them isn’t actually going to work. You know I don’t really think that.”
“Talking is what I do.”
“No kidding.”
She just lifted a brow. “So what should I do instead?”
Maybe he could give her an opening for charming him into putting that very nice, smirky, sarcastic mouth against hers and…
“Nudge ’em,” he said simply.
Now she blinked at him. “What?”
“Nudge them,” he said again.
“Just… nudge them? As in, push them?” She narrowed her eyes. Were they talking about goats? Or were they maybe talking about grumpy farmers who needed more than a subtle flirtation to make a move?
“Sometimes that’s all they need.”
Okay then. She was going to keep that in mind.
“So…” He nodded toward the goats.
She blew out a breath. Okay, so for right now, they were talking about goats.
Charlie approached the smallest of the animals. He—or she—looked up at her. “Hello, I’m Charlotte. Would you please accompany me across the street back to your barn?” She heard the man’s snort even from a distance. That made her smile even though she was still stuck with the problem of herding goats.
The goat, of course, didn’t move a step.
“I would very much enjoy it if you would grant me the pleasure of your company across the street at your barn,” she told the goat.
This time the goat didn’t even lift his head.
Charlie propped a hand on her hip. “I don’t feel that we know each other well enough for me to actually put my hands on your body, so it really would be easier if you would just head in the general direction of your barn.”