He also got the impression he shouldn’t give this woman any hints to his inner thoughts. And not just the lusty ones. She would use them—all of them—against him. Somehow he knew it.
Griffin set Sleepy down on the floor of the barn. The goat scampered off to explore the barn as if he’d never seen it before.
The other goats darted about the enclosure, two of them climbing up on one of the boulders, another headbutting one of the plastic barrels. Alice and Mike, the ducks, waddled off to find the rest of the Brady Bunch. And Hermione had already reunited with Harry, Ron, and Dumbledore.
Sugar, of course, hadn’t gone far when he’d put her down. Sugar loved him. He didn’t understand it any more than he understood why this human woman wanted to keep talking to him, but in his weaker moments, he could admit that Sugar was cute. And it never hurt a guy’s ego to have someone, or something, adoring him.
Other than Sugar and Hermione—who was scared of thunderstorms—the rest of the animals in the barn could give a rat’s ass about him. In fact, most of them didn’t like him. They associated him with being poked and prodded and stuck with needles. But such was the life of a veterinarian. If he needed an ego boost and Sugar wasn’t enough, he could always go over to the otter enclosure. The otters were smitten with him. They chittered to him like he was a long-lost friend every time they saw him. They could actually give this woman a run for her money when it came to chatter. And they were a lot louder about it.
Okay, yes, sometimes he snuck them treats, and yes, when no one else was around, he sat down and let them climb on him, and he’d pet them and talked to them, but he also poked, prodded, and stuck them with needles.
He watched the woman turn a full circle, taking in all the details of the barnyard. He knew the exact moment when she noticed Al, one of the alpacas.
Al had come to the fence that separated his pen from the goat yard and was now peering over, checking out the commotion.
Their emu, Elmo, then wandered over to see what Al was looking at.
The woman spun to face Griffin. “Is that a llama?”
He almost smiled but caught himself just in the nick of time. “Actually, it’s an alpaca. That’s Al.”
His full name was Al Pacacino. And Griffin really hoped she wouldn’t ask. He also did not want to tell her about Alpacalypse, Alpacasso, Alpacaman, or Alpacapella.
They couldn’t call them all Al, of course. Al Pacacino was the oldest, so he got the nickname. The rest, Griffin mostly referred to as number two, number three, and so on. He most definitely didn’t want to tell her about Chewpaca. Who he did, in his weaker moments, call Chewie.
Elmo was the only emu. For now. But Griffin definitely feared they would add more, and they’d all be named after Sesame Street characters.
“Oh my God, I really need to read my grandmother’s emails more carefully,” Charlie muttered, shaking her head.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sure that she would have emailed me about alpacas in Autre.”
“Your grandmother lives here?” Yep, he shouldn’t get involved with her.
Her eyes narrowed. She seemed to be thinking something over before she answered. “She does. And I think that’s all I’m going to tell you.”
Yeah, now he liked her even more. “We’re not going to share a lot of details?”
“You don’t seem like the detail-sharing type of guy.”
“But you seem very much like the detail-sharing type of girl.” He knew he could walk out of here knowing her favorite flavor of milkshake, her birthday, and her shoe size if he wanted to. Which made his attention drop to her feet again, and the shoes that screamed, Look at us! Aren’t we sexy as fuck?
Yes, yes, they were.
She nodded. “Typically yes. However, I think that it might be in my best interest right now to be a little less my usual type of girl and a little more your usual type of girl.”
That pulled his attention right back to her face. He took a step toward her without really meaning to. “What do you think my usual type of girl is?”
“Casual. No strings attached. Willing to share only first names and no other details.”
Griffin wasn’t sure what exactly his heart rate was reacting to, but his pulse had definitely picked up. “And why might that be in your best interest right now?”
“Well, you turned me down for a dance earlier, but that was before we had a chance to really talk.”
“And you think now that we’ve talked, I’m going to be more open to the idea of dancing?”
She laughed. “Actually, I think now that we’ve talked, you might be even less inclined to say yes to a dance.” She paused. “Or anything else.”
Again, he took a step forward without consciously deciding to make his feet move.
He liked her. She was talkative. God, was she talkative. She was clearly high-maintenance. She was also bright and bubbly, though she hadn’t quite crossed over to perky yet. But this was the most interesting evening he’d had in a very long time. And he worked around a bunch of crazy, loud Cajuns, and his days were filled with otters, alpacas, and potbellied pigs. His days were not boring. And yet, this woman was definitely the most fun he’d had in a while.
She was also absolutely gorgeous.
Had he mentioned that? Yes, he had. Even without a goat in her arms.
And then there was the goat thing. She hadn’t picked the animal up by herself, and she’d commented on the smell, but she’d carried it to the barn, and she was still here. In the barn, in the middle of the smell.
“So you’re thinking of asking me to dance again?”
She tipped her head. “Actually, I’ve moved on to the anything else part.”
His pulse kicked up another notch, and he took a step forward again. He was now close enough that he could reach out and touch her. And God, he wanted to reach out and touch her. That was a huge red flag. He shouldn’t be touching anybody. He shouldn’t like anyone this much. Certainly not someone that he had just met and knew next to nothing about. But she certainly had a point about his type of girl.
He was definitely a casual, no-strings-attached type of guy. Now. He hadn’t always been that guy, but definitely, over the past few years, he’d become that guy. It was just safer.
“Define ‘anything else,’” he said, his voice gruffer.
Now she took a step forward. This was way more than being within touching distance. The air around him heated slightly, and he caught the scent of expensive perfume over the scent of goat. He supposed it took an expensive perfume to be smelled over the scent of goat. That was certainly a point in the pro column for pricey perfume.
“The good news is that ‘anything else’ does not include dancing…” She paused. “Or talking.”
Well, damn. He was on board.
For better or worse, despite the fact, he had flashing warning signs in the back of his mind. In spite of the fact that he had successfully kept from doing anything stupid since he had been in Autre—and there was a tiny niggling voice in the back of his head telling him this was going to be stupid—he said, “There are a lot of things I like better than dancing and talking.”
She smiled, and he felt a punch to the gut. It wasn’t the first smile he’d seen. She’d been smiling and laughing since she’d walked up on him and Sugar and the rest of the gang outside the bar. In addition to being talkative, she was a very smiley person, which should have put her in the not-my-type category. Smiley people were happy people. And happy people didn’t put up with growly people, like him, for long. It was a sure set-up for disappointment for someone.