Beauty and the Bayou

by Erin Nicholas

  He eyed her footwear. No, they probably couldn’t. But he didn’t like the idea of her tromping around where those fuckers might be. “What if you slip and fall on one and it bites your arm?” he asked.

  Her arms were bare. She was clearly wearing a tank under the life jacket. There was a lot of exposed skin.

  Smooth, silky, tan skin…

  “Ugh.” She looked like she was going to be sick. “Yeah, okay, I’m not going down there.”

  A really strange, surprisingly strong surge of satisfaction went through him. Someone was listening to him. Someone was believing him when he said something wasn’t safe. Damn, that felt good. He didn’t have to argue, or get firm, or glare. She just said, “Yeah, okay.”

  He could get used to that.

  “Who was the guy on the phone?” Why did he care? Did it matter? Not even a little.

  He just liked her. Yeah, the brown eyes and curves were part of it. Of course they were. But he also liked her because she was wearing a hard hat. And listening to him. That second thing for sure. But the hard hat was something. It was overkill. Who needed a hard hat on when walking around on a dock? Even if you were leaning over the edge of it? But overkill with safety was okay with him.

  God help him if she ever put safety goggles on.

  “Brandon.” Then she lunged for the railing as if just remembering about her phone and the guy on it. “Brandon! Oh my God, he’s probably so worried.”

  Sawyer leaned to look over the edge, too. Her phone was upright, lodged in the mud, the screen now dark. “You’ll have to call him back on my phone or something.”

  “I don’t know his number!” she exclaimed.

  “You don’t?”

  “I just tap on his name and it dials.”

  “You don’t know your boyfriend’s number?” He was absolutely fishing for information with that question.

  She looked up at him with an eyebrow arched.

  Ah, she knew he was fishing.

  He didn’t care.

  “He’s my client, actually,” she said when he just met her gaze and waited. “And my friend.”

  “Client?”

  “I’m an attorney,” she told him. “I helped him with a couple of things. Now he’s helping me.”

  “Helping you what?” Suddenly Sawyer remembered that he had no idea what she was doing here. On his dock. Before business hours. Acting startled that he’d shown up. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  “I was showing Brandon the dock. The underside of it, actually, when you snuck up on me and scared me and made me drop my phone.”

  Oh, he was on to her already. Even if she hadn’t told him she was an attorney, he was used to people turning arguments around on him and saw right through it. His sister was great at it. And she’d learned from his grandmother. Ellie Landry was good at a lot of things—guilt trips for one—but admitting she was wrong was not one of them.

  “Why did Brandon need to see the underside of my dock?”

  “Because he—” She paused and frowned. “Wait, your dock?”

  “Yes. My dock,” he said. “So not only did I save your pretty neck from going over the edge and possibly ending up paralyzed, but you’re also trespassing, and I haven’t called the cops. You owe me twice.”

  “Paralyzed?” she repeated.

  He nodded. “If you’d gone headfirst, you could have suffered a serious spinal injury. Your hard hat, which you weren’t even wearing, might not have protected you. Just the right angle and—”

  “Okay,” she broke in. “Okay. You’re right.”

  Yep, he really liked those last two words she’d said. The chances of her becoming paralyzed were probably slim, but it was a possibility.

  “Why did Brandon need to see under the dock?” Sawyer repeated. He was very familiar with Kennedy redirecting conversations she didn’t want to have.

  “Just to confirm the design and materials. I’ve looked most of it up, but he’s done construction before—not docks, but he’s done a couple of decks and other stuff. Decks and docks are very similar in construction.”

  Well, yeah. Okay. But… Sawyer stared at her. What the hell was she talking about? “Design and materials for what?”

  Instead of answering, she dropped to her knees. “Hold my feet.” She got down on her stomach and scooted to the edge of the dock, ducking her head under the bottom rail.

  Sawyer looked down at her. And blinked.

  There was a long pause, then she looked back at him. “Hold. My. Feet,” she said again. Slowly. As if he was stupid.

  Frankly, he was feeling kind of stupid. “What for?” he asked, definitely sounding stupid, too.

  She looked over the edge of the dock. “If you hold my feet and lower me over the edge, then I won’t fall in the water or step on snakes or strangle myself or whack my head or paralyze myself. Then you can pull me back up.”

  She thought she was going to hang from the dock with him holding her ankles and actually reach her phone? Even if that was possible, which it was not, he was a complete stranger. She was just going to trust him to hold her ankles and pull her back up?

  “No way,” he said simply.

  She looked back. “Why not?”

  “That will never work.”

  “You are really big.” She winced. “I mean you look really strong. I think you could do it.”

  Sawyer felt something happening that hadn’t happened in a while. At least not on a regular basis. He felt the urge to laugh.

  “What if your boots slip off?” he asked. “I’ll be up here holding empty boots and you’ll be down there with the snakes. Hopefully not paralyzed.”

  “Dammit,” she muttered. She sat up and started to push one boot down.

  It took Sawyer a second to stop her. She was baring more of that smooth tan skin after all. He didn’t dwell on the fact that women came down here in shorts every single day, and he hadn’t felt distracted like this in a long time.

  Still, he wasn’t going to hold her by her bare ankles off the edge of the dock, either.

  “Even if I could pull you back up”—she was petite. He was sure he could pull her back up if she was hanging off the edge of the dock—“you still wouldn’t be able to reach that far down. The phone’s gone, darlin’. Let it go.”

  She stopped with the boot, looked back down at the mud below, and sighed. She put her forehead on her bent knee. “Of course it is,” she muttered.

  “Tell me about Brandon’s need for design and materials for my dock.”

  She tipped her head back, staring up at the exposed wooden beams overhead. “We’re going to rebuild the dock.” Then she frowned at him. “And how is this your dock?”

  He moved closer so he could look down at her directly. “I own it.”

  “No. Wait.” She glanced over his left shoulder at the sign that hung on the side of the building. “The Landrys own Boys of the Bayou, right? Well, and Bennett. And Maddie is kind of like a Landry. Am I on the wrong dock?”

  Sawyer felt trepidation trickle down his spine. She knew his partners’ names.

  Hot on the heels of the suspicion, however, was resignation. Mixed with frustration. What had they done?

  He owned thirty-five percent of the Boys of the Bayou. What the fuck was this woman doing here, knowing all four of his partners, without him having a clue about what was going on?

  “I’m Sawyer Landry,” he said, his tone firm and don’t-fuck-with-me. “Josh is my brother. Owen is my cousin. Maddie is a family friend. Bennett is our newest partner.”

  Juliet’s brown eyes grew rounder. “You’re Sawyer Landry?”

  “Yes.” The majority partner, thank you very much. The other four each owned about half the amount he did. Bennett and Maddie each had seventeen and a half percent, while Josh and Owen each owned fifteen.

  “Wait, you’re…working here. You’re around?” Juliet asked, breaking into Sawyer’s thoughts.

  “Clearly,” he said. Then he frowned. “Why wouldn’t I
be around?”

  “Well, I read the brochure and everything online, but I guess I assumed you were older and retired or something? I mean…why weren’t you at the meeting? And why are you acting like you know nothing about me being here?”

  Sawyer lifted a brow. “Because I don’t know anything about you being here.”

  “They didn’t tell you about me?”

  “I think I would have remembered mention of a gorgeous brunette comin’ down here to give me a hard time,” Sawyer told her.

  She looked startled by the “gorgeous” bit—which was ridiculous because this woman’s gorgeousness was like the bayou being muddy…it just was. But she quickly recovered.

  “So why weren’t you at the meeting?”

  “What meeting?”

  “The meeting in New Orleans last week where we set this all up.”

  His four partners—two of whom were blood relation and one of whom he liked better than almost all of his blood relation put together—had met with this woman last week and hadn’t told him? What the fuck was going on?

  “Why don’t you tell me what you think y’all set up?” Sawyer asked. “And we’ll go from there.”

  “I don’t think we set it up. We did set it up,” she said firmly as she got to her feet. “I’m Juliet Dawson.”

  Sawyer just looked at her.

  “Dawson,” she repeated. “I’m Chase Dawson’s sister.”

  Okay, there was a tiny niggle at the back of Sawyer’s mind with that name.

  “Chase Dawson. The dumbass who did that.”

  Juliet pointed down the dock to the end that had been busted up when a bunch of stupid frat boys had taken an airboat out for a spin—uninvited and untrained—and realized too late that airboats don’t have brakes. Thanks to Owen and Maddie, they’d jumped off the boat at the last minute before the boat had crashed into the dock, but the boat had been totaled and the dock smashed to pieces.

  Sawyer frowned at her. “You’re the kid’s sister?”’ he asked, disbelief rocking through him. Then anger. “The kid who could have killed his friends? Who could have killed my friends? And himself?” Sawyer took a step forward. “The kid who decided that because I’d thrown him and his drunk buddies off one of my tours, that they could come down here and steal a boat?” He took another step. “And drive it down the bayou? Then take out one of my docks and set me back on the tours that my partners and I need to making a fucking living?”

  He was definitely shouting by the end of his tirade, and he realized he was now towering over her.

  To Juliet’s credit, she didn’t shrink away. In fact, she stood straighter and faced him squarely. She nodded. “Yeah. That’s him. The dumbass.”

  Sawyer blinked at her again. Not because of those brown eyes—though they went beautifully with her full lips, which were impossible to ignore now that he was nearly on top of her—but because she looked truly sorry. She wasn’t sticking up for her brother. She was acknowledging what had happened. And she wasn’t scared of Sawyer.

  He was a big guy, with a deep, loud voice. He was intimidating when he got pissed. He knew that. He didn’t get pissed that often, but— Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. Over the past nine months, he got pissed off on a daily basis. Not to mention worried. But he’d been a nice guy before that. Laid-back, even.

  “Why are you here?” he asked her, propping his hands on his hips.

  He wasn’t trying to make her nervous, exactly. But if he could get some answers, and get her off his dock, he’d be happy. Or at least not as pissed off.

  Why did he have the sense that he needed to get her off of his dock? And then far, far away? He wasn’t sure. There was just something about her that made him think this is going to complicate my life.

  There was no specific reason for that feeling. Except that his four partners had been conspiring behind his back, and just looking at this woman made him forget what he’d been about to say.

  “To make up for what Chase did.”

  He blinked at Juliet. Again. Fuck. Then he looked down at her feet. “Not sure why you need hip waders to write a check.”

  “No, I’m—” She blew out a breath and stepped forward as she reached out. “Let’s just stop this.”

  Her tiny hands encircled his wrists and pulled his hands from his hips. It was likely the surprise at her moving into his personal space—something not many people had done in the past few months, for fear of getting bitten probably—or the shock at her touching him that enabled her to move him. He was clearly much stronger than her. But his arms dropped easily to his sides as he stared down at her.

  “There. Much better.” She tipped her head to look up at him, and not stepping back. “You don’t need to be all angry and defensive.”

  Sawyer felt both of his brows arch. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not your enemy and I’m not here to fight with you.”

  Her breasts brushed his stomach as she took a deep breath, and Sawyer felt his body tighten. What had she just said? Something about fighting with him? He honestly had no idea suddenly. He took a big step back. But his hands stayed at his sides.

  “I’m also not here to write a check,” Juliet told him. “Chase and I are going to rebuild the dock for you.”

  That also made no sense, but Sawyer wasn’t sure if it was because of what she’d said or because of her breasts.

  “You are going to rebuild the dock?” he repeated. Was that what she’d said?

  The lilacs and brown eyes and breasts…what the hell was going on? He needed to get his shit together.

  “I am. With my brother.”

  “As in, with your own two hands?”

  “Yes.”

  Sawyer’s eyes flickered to the hard hat on the dock behind her. “Are you in construction?” What were the chances that the guy who had trashed his dock actually knew something about construction? Not very damned likely. That just wasn’t how Sawyer’s luck had been working lately.

  “No,” Juliet confirmed.

  Yeah, he’d figured. He sighed. “Then why would you rebuild the dock?”

  “Because when you mess something up, you should be the one to try to fix it,” she said. “Chase needs to do this.”

  All right, Sawyer could respect that. He agreed with making reparation for the things you did wrong. But he really wanted this dock to be, well, functional. Solid. Usable. “Why would I let you rebuild my dock when you and your brother have no clue how to actually do that?”

  “Because you need your dock rebuilt,” she said. “And you shouldn’t have to use your time and money to do it.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s all true.”

  “So, we’re going to pay for the materials and take care of everything.”

  “No offense, Ms. Dawson,” Sawyer said in a tone that he knew conveyed clearly that he didn’t really care if she was offended. “But I’d really like to have a professional rebuild my dock. I’m all for you payin’ for it to assuage your guilt though.”

  She frowned. “Chase won’t learn anything from that.”

  “It’s not my job to teach Chase things.”

  “No, but it’s my job,” she said. “My little brother will not turn into an entitled asshole, Mr. Landry. He will be getting his hands dirty, developing some blisters, sweating through his favorite designer T-shirt to rebuild the dock that he helped demolish. He doesn’t get to steal your boat, endanger everyone around him, and destroy your property without any repercussions.”

  Damn, this woman was beautiful. Even more so when she was agreeing with him about avoiding snake bites and concussions. But she was downright gorgeous when she was riled up and impassioned about something. And it was clear she was impassioned about this.

  It also happened to be something he agreed with.

  “I appreciate everything you’re saying, Ms. Dawson,” Sawyer said, wondering how he’d gone from having his hand tucked in her shorts to Mr. and Ms. He really did appreciate what she was saying. He supported the general idea
. Just not when it came to his dock. “But I can’t let a spoiled frat boy rebuild the dock I need to have fully functional and completely sound for my business.”

  “I understand that,” she said quickly. “I take safety very seriously. Brandon is one of the best, and I’ve done a ton of research and I’ve got some guys lined up from here to help and—”

  “You’ve got guys from here lined up to help?”

  “Yes. A Mitch and Leo? I emailed a Kennedy about it and she said she’d find some local guys who could help.”

  “Okay, that’s it,” Sawyer said. He needed to yell at someone but even he, who really wasn’t picky about who he yelled at these days, knew that he couldn’t yell at Juliet. She was here with good intentions. Crazy intentions but good. Seriously, though, how the hell did this little woman, who thought she could video chat with someone to figure out “design and materials,” think she was going to rebuild a functional boat dock? That was ridiculous. “Let’s go.” He turned on his heel and started in the direction of his grandmother’s bar.

  The main culprits would be there. Owen and Josh, Maddie and Tori, and freaking Kennedy, who had lined up their cousin Mitch—who could actually be helpful—and their grandfather Leo who, while seeming much younger than his seventy years, was a troublemaker and would spend his time telling stories, most of which would be tall tales, drinking sweet tea, and flirting with Juliet rather than actually building anything.

  “Wait, go?” Juliet called after him. “Where are we going?”

  He turned back. “Well, at least you’re asking questions before going off with some strange guy.”

  She gave him a look. “You had just saved me,” she said. “The adrenaline was rushing and I just reacted. I don’t go around spontaneously hugging strange men.”

  “I’m not complainin’,” he told her. Having her up against him had been the best part of his day. The day hadn’t been going on for very long, but he knew that wasn’t going to change. “But I’m glad you’re acting at least slightly skeptical.”

  “So, are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “We’re going to get my partners and my employee”—oh yeah, he was going to remind his baby sister that she worked for him—“to admit that this was all just a big joke they’re pulling on me.”