back to the barn, right?” Jill asked.
“I figured she’d already herded them to the motel, actually.”
“And you were just going to let her keep them there until the motel manager called Knox?”
The big man growled.
“I had a concussion,” Zeke said quickly.
Jill lifted a brow. “Are you saying that the concussion influenced all of your actions last night and that you can’t be held responsible for anything you did?”
He gave her a slow grin. “Oh no, things cleared up nicely after I got that ibuprofen from you.”
She returned the grin. Then realized the entire table was watching them.
With interest.
And that Michael knew at least enough of the story—like the part where Zeke had gone back to her room with her—to make them even more interested.
“So if the goats keep getting out, why would you not just fix the gates and the pen?” Jill asked, trying to change the subject.
They all laughed.
“We’ve definitely tried that. There’s one goat who always can figure a way out though,” Bailey said.
“We don’t call him Satan for nothing,” Zander said.
“You call him Satan?” Jill asked. Wow, none of these people were very nice to goats.
“We definitely call him Satan,” Knox said.
“But the girls decided that was mean, so they make everyone call him Stan,” Bailey said.
Jill looked at Zeke. “The girls?”
“Tori, Maddie, and Juliet, my cousins’ wives, and Kennedy, one of my cousins.”
Yeah, this place was a lot like Bliss. Everyone was related to everyone else.
“Don’t worry, you’ll meet them all soon enough,” Zeke said.
Worried wasn’t exactly what she was feeling. More like exasperated. Already.
But if these people were one big happy, boisterous family, and Griffin was a part of it because of Charlie and his partner, Tori, Jill realized that avoiding all of this would take some work.
It was definitely one reason she’d liked living in a bigger city. The bigger the place, the more anonymous you could be and the more your business stayed your own. Small talk and gossip and just hanging around seemed like such a waste of time. Didn’t these people know the planet was dying around them?
The climate was changing, water levels were rising, and entire animal species were edging closer and closer to extinction.
She knew from experience that it could be difficult to make people understand how penguins that lived almost entirely on an island just north of the equator had anything to do with their own lives. But that was one of the beauties of the work that zoos did.
Initially, Jill had thought she would travel the world and literally get her hands on penguins in their natural habitats. But as she’d grown up and learned more, she realized that zoos, animal parks, and preserves did a lot of important educational work as well. These relatively small groups of humans who cared about the animals directly weren’t big enough to save them by themselves. Larger groups had to become interested.
Jill took a deep breath. She knew she sometimes let her passions and personal mission cause her to judge other human beings and how they chose to spend their time and resources. It was part of the reason she’d chosen to bring the penguins to Autre versus anywhere else.
She knew Griffin. She knew Donovan’s reputation. She’d also met Griffin’s friend Fiona who ran a large animal park in Florida. She knew they were all passionate about wildlife and conservation efforts. If she was going to immerse herself in this penguin project, she was going to need like-minded people around her. Who wouldn’t think she was entirely crazy.
She glanced at the hot tattooed guy next to her, who had already gotten her off track and had her sitting in a rundown restaurant by the bayou waiting for a brunch she didn’t want instead of talking about her new penguin habitat. And she realized that perhaps he wasn’t someone she should spend a lot of time with.
That was too bad. He was not just hot, but funny, charming, and sweet. He’d kept her from panicking about the alligator in her yard, and he’d remodeled her bathroom and bedroom in the old house even when she hadn’t returned his emails.
“Come on, let’s just rock-paper-scissors this thing and get it over with,” Bailey said. “If it ends up being my job today, I need to get the goats back home so I can get out and check on the alligator nuisance call from yesterday.”
“You do alligator nuisance calls?” Jill asked.
“I’m the one people call if there’s an alligator some place they shouldn’t be.”
“There