Four Weddings and a Swamp Boat Tour - Erin Nicholas Page 0,48
at once. And that makes her extra grumpy. So, we’re all glad you’re here to help.”
“Well, you’re working horribly long hours with the tours and then working on the books after hours,” Juliet said to Maddie. “And Tori’s trying to help out along with her practice and the farm.”
Tori shook her head. “But I’ve got Griffin at least. You’re helping out by cleaning up the boats and the office after you get home from New Orleans. And you hate being down by the water.”
“She’s a lawyer,” Maddie explained to Paige. “So she’s working long hours in the city before coming home and pitching in. And she’s got a little… phobia… about the water.”
“I’m fine if I’ve got my life jacket on.” Juliet waved that away.
“And your hip waders and hard hat?” Maddie asked, her tone and smile affectionate.
Juliet nodded, smiling too. “Right.”
“And Sawyer,” Tori said. “He’ll keep you safe from… whatever.”
“I don’t know,” Maddie said. “She ended up drenched the other day when she was down cleaning off the dock because he startled her, and she dropped the hose, and in some weird domino effect I can’t even explain, they both ended up soaking wet.”
Juliet rolled her eyes. “You’d think he’d know better than to sneak up on me after all this time.”
Tori and Maddie were laughing out loud by now.
“Plus,” Juliet went on. “I’m not doing anything extra that no one else is doing. Griffin’s helping, but you still have all your clients that won’t let anyone touch their animals but you.” She looked at Paige. “Tori has a clinic attached to the barn behind their house, but she ends up making more house calls than anything.”
Paige nodded. “She always did that for me.”
Tori laughed. “Well, it would have been very difficult to get all of those cats to the clinic at once.”
“How many cats?” Juliet asked.
“Um… more than ten,” Paige hedged. She knew she was a borderline crazy cat lady.
Tori shared a smile with her. Tori knew how many there were, but she wasn’t telling. And this was the kind of thing that made Tori so damned likable.
The other woman was older by a few years and had grown up in the next town over, but Paige hadn’t known her until Tori had called about an orphaned litter of kittens and had then become Paige’s vet.
They’d spent the house calls talking and playing with cats, and the time had extended long beyond the appointment and had included opening a bottle of wine at least twice.
Having another woman about her age who was animal crazy had made Paige feel a little less odd. She suspected Tori felt the same way about their relationship. Paige had been sad when Tori had told her she was moving to Louisiana.
“So the petting zoo is made up of all of your farm animals?” Paige asked Tori.
“Yep.”
Maddie grinned. “The cow and the pigs and the goats and the llamas are all here.”
“Actually, they’re alpacas,” Tori and Paige said in unison. Then grinned at each other.
Maddie laughed. “Right. Well, anyway, they’re all adorable, and one night when we were all sitting here talking about the otter encounter and how we should call the whole thing Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild as a joke, Josh brought up how much her cow and the pig and the goats would love the attention too, and the idea was born.”
Paige had to admit that was funny. Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild definitely brought to mind images of alligators. Maybe even a wild cat or a bear or something. Not pot-bellied pigs, alpacas, and otters.
“I love it,” she said. “How long until it’s open?”
“Probably a month or so,” Tori said. “We’re just building the enclosure—well, Mitch and Zeke are building the enclosure with Zander and Fletcher’s help. Then we need some new fences and pathways for people to walk.”
“And a concession stand,” Maddie said. “And a gift shop. And an office.” She shook her head. “We actually have a lot of work to do. But it’s not that different, business-wise, from what we do with the tour boat business, so it shouldn’t be too long.”
“Mitch can build all of that?” Paige asked. She definitely found his handyman side sexy, but she hadn’t known how far it extended.
“For sure,” Maddie said. “And Zeke is in construction for a living. He owns his own contracting company. And Zander is his main right-hand guy.”
“They’re twins, right?” Paige remembered Mitch mentioning them last week in Appleby.