Beauty and the Bayou

by Erin Nicholas

  Juliet blew out a breath. “There’s plenty of that moonshine to go around, right?”

  Sawyer was nearly overcome by the urge to kiss her at that moment. “Always plenty of moonshine,” he promised.

  Then he headed for Chase. The Dawson he was supposed to be spending time with and influencing, before he ended up kissing the one who was feeling like a pretty damned good influence on him.

  Testosterone. Freaking. Everywhere.

  Juliet risked a glance in Sawyer and Chase’s direction.

  They were cutting boards. As they had been for the past hour or so. Just as she’d asked them to do. Exactly according to plan.

  So why did everything about coming to Autre feel unexpected?

  Juliet flipped her long ponytail over her shoulder and focused on the board in front of her. She bent and traced a line in pencil along the edge of the ruler. She was behind where Chase and Sawyer were with cutting the boards, but there were two of them, one of whom had done this before. And she had to measure everything five times. But still, the point wasn’t how many boards they could cut in what amount of time, it was Chase actually cutting boards with his own two hands.

  She hadn’t been exaggerating or kidding about wanting him around men who worked for a living rather than men whose idea of manual labor was lifting their skis on and off the top of their SUV.

  Was she bitter toward Rhett and Ryan because they’d left her out of all of those ski trips? Yep. She owned that. She loved her brothers, but she didn’t really like them much. They hadn’t given her a lot of reasons to like them. They’d left her behind. Rather than slowing down and making some adjustments for her, they’d gone on without her because taking her along had been too much work. That was hard to like.

  But she’d had Chase. He’d been her travel and adventure buddy. That meant more things like sightseeing tours and hot-air balloon rides rather than rock climbing and hang gliding. But he’d been okay with it.

  Well, he hadn’t really known what he was missing.

  The past four years had been a little different. He’d been in college and she’d been in law school. He’d been in the fraternity with guys who skied and scuba dived. She hadn’t come home to visit as often once she was buried in law school work, so he’d had some time with Ryan and Rhett without her. They’d started inviting him along, first for beers, then ball games, and then, yes, skiing.

  “You need to do something with your hair.”

  Sawyer’s deep voice startled her and the pencil line veered sharply to the right as she looked up quickly. She’d been lost in thought about Chase and hadn’t even noticed that their saw was quiet. She looked over but didn’t see her brother.

  “He headed into Ellie’s for a break,” Sawyer said.

  “Oh.” She frowned and glanced at her watch. They’d been working for a while and it was getting warm. “Okay.”

  “You need to do something with your hair,” he said again.

  She had her long hair in a ponytail hanging down her back. Well, when it wasn’t slipping forward as she bent over. She flipped it over her shoulder again. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s too long to just pull back. It keeps blowing in your face. Or it’s going to get caught in the tools or something.”

  Juliet glanced at the circular saw that lay to one side. “You think so?” Could her hair get caught and twisted around the blade? That was a scary thought. “Wouldn’t the saw just cut it off?” she asked, truly curious.

  Sawyer looked at the saw then back to her. “Maybe. But it keeps blowing in your face. What if it does that while you’re using the saw and you don’t see how close to you are to your finger and you cut the tip off?”

  Okay, that was terrifying. Her eyes widened and she dropped her pencil and shook her work gloves off. She pulled the hard hat off and grabbed her ponytail, pulling it up and wrapping it around the base into a bun. She didn’t have anything to secure it with, but she grabbed the hat again and put it on, tucking the hair up underneath it. She dropped her hands and looked up at Sawyer.

  “Bend over,” he said.

  Her eyes got wide again but not for the same reason. That sounded…

  “Bend over the board and pretend you’re measuring or cutting,” he explained, almost as if he knew what she’d been thinking.

  Juliet wasn’t sure if she should grin or blush at that. She wasn’t used to her mind wandering into dirty territory so easily. Then again, she wasn’t used to being around men like Sawyer Landry. At all.

  It was the testosterone all over the place. Had to be.

  She did what he suggested, bending over to pick up her pencil. The hat wasn’t sitting fully on her head with her long hair piled up under it and it tipped, her hair slipped, and the hat fell off with her hair swinging free again. She sighed.

  “You have a pair of scissors?” she asked him, straightening.

  “Scissors? No. I can get some.”

  “You want to help me chop it off?”

  “Your hair?” he asked, eyebrows up. “Uh, no.”

  “You think Kennedy would do it?” she asked, bending to retrieve the hat and setting it on top of the board she’d been drawing on.

  “I do,” he said. “But you’re not cutting your hair.”

  “It’s in the way.”

  “Don’t overreact.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Braid it,” he said, lifting a shoulder. “A French braid would keep it at the back of your head and out of the way.”

  Juliet blinked at him. “You know about French braids?” Sure, she supposed he’d seen them. His grandmother’s hair had been braided that morning. He had a sister. But she didn’t think men paid all that much attention to hairstyles or at least what they were called. Or realized that sometimes they were just functional and had nothing to do with the men looking at them.

  “I do know French braids.” He stepped closer. “I know lots of things.”

  She couldn’t help her grin. He was flirting with her. Again. He also seemed a little startled by it. Again. It was as if it was happening accidentally.

  “Well, that’s not a bad suggestion,” she told him. “But I can’t French braid.”

  She knew the basics. She understood how French braids were formed. She might have been able to do it on someone else. Maybe. But the problem doing it on herself was two-fold. Her right hand struggled a little with fine motor movements at times and without being able to see the back of her head, she was unable to go by feel.

  “I do.”

  Again, she just blinked up at Sawyer. That seemed to happen a lot. This man surprised her a lot. “You know how to French braid?”

  “I do.” He studied her hair. “I mean, we could just put it up in a twist and secure it with that pencil, but you seem to need that pencil.” He gave the board she’d been drawing on an amused look. “A lot.”

  “Measure twice, cut once,” she said. “That’s a well-known rule in construction.”

  He nodded. “Where’s the measure five times come in?”

  He’d apparently been watching her. She’d been trying not to watch him—unsuccessfully—but she hadn’t noticed him watching her. That gave her a surprising tingly feeling. She was used to people watching her, actually. Her parents had downright hovered, especially when she was handling sharp objects. But Sawyer hadn’t hovered. He’d let her work. This whole thing with her hair was the first thing he’d really commented on, period. And he wasn’t wrong about it.

  Her parents, on the other hand, were also pros at the What-If game. It wasn’t like she’d fallen into that habit on her own. After Juliet had fallen off the slide at the water park, broken her arm, and nearly drowned, Patricia Dawson had become an expert at assuming the worst would happen. It was what had created Juliet’s penchant for safety and protective gear and her elaborate planning ahead. Those were the only things that had made her mother back off even slightly.

  Juliet decided to ignore Sawyer’s comment about her measuri
ng repeatedly. “You could put my hair up in a twist and secure it with a pencil?” she asked. That seemed very practical and yet something that she was surprised Sawyer would even think of, not to mention be able to do.

  He nodded, studying the top of her head again. “But that would make that hard hat not fit. And I assume you want to keep that on?” His amused gaze was on her face now.

  “I do,” she said. “Head protection is important.”

  “Especially when everything you’re working with is on the ground.”

  “Something could happen,” she protested. “What if I’m cutting a board and a bird suddenly swoops in and startles me and I jerk the saw and bump into the board and it goes flying?”

  Sawyer shook his head, almost as if amazed by her What-If scenario. “The board is going to fly up rather than falling to the ground?”

  “If I jerk and bump it just right.” She wasn’t saying it was likely. But it was possible.

  “Okay. So, the hard hat stays on,” Sawyer said easily.

  He wasn’t going to make fun of her or argue. She liked that.

  “That means a French braid,” he concluded.

  It wasn’t a bad idea. In fact, it was a pretty good idea. But he was going to have to do it. Suddenly she realized that meant Sawyer was going to put his hands on her. Tingles tickled down her spine and she swallowed hard. “You’re going to braid my hair?”

  His eyes darkened slightly. Was the whole his-hands-on-her occurring to him, too? And affecting him?

  “Guess so.” His voice was a little gruffer.

  “Well, okay then.”

  He moved in closer. “Turn around.”

  She did, preparing herself for his touch. It’s just your hair. It’s a braid. This isn’t sexy.

  Sawyer dragged the hair elastic from her ponytail and then combed his fingers through her hair.

  Yeah, she’d so been lying to herself. This was very sexy. Sawyer started at the base of her skull and raked his fingers up through her hair, rubbing along her scalp, then pulling them through her hair, tugging slightly, and Juliet felt her nipples beading.

  Wow. She crossed her arms over her chest and tried to focus on…anything else.

  It was impossible, of course. All she could really think about was how big Sawyer’s fingers and hands were, how the roughness of his skin caught on her hair slightly, how confident he was even when braiding hair, how he’d come over in the first place because he was concerned.

  It wasn’t just his hands, either. He was standing close, obviously, his huge body right behind her, emanating heat and bigness and hardness. No, hardness and bigness didn’t seem to be things that could be emanated, but dammit, Sawyer Landry did.

  As he started braiding her hair, his fingers and the backs of his hands skimmed over her neck and upper back and she knew he noticed the goose bumps. He didn’t comment, but then, he didn’t really have to, did he? She was just grateful that she didn’t actually shiver.

  It didn’t bother her that Sawyer might know she was attracted to him. It was more that something as simple as having him braid her hair made her horny was a little embarrassing.

  It had been a while since she’d scratched this itch. Quite a while, actually. And it wasn’t her fault that nature made women react to the big, alpha protectors with the urge to strip naked. It was just science. Yes, she was attracted to men’s minds and hearts, too. Sure she was. At least until a particularly gruff and rugged one put his big, hot hands on her and made her not care if he knew anything about anything other than all the best places to put those hands. For an hour or so. Then she’d go back to caring about the other stuff. Probably.

  She felt Sawyer loop the elastic ponytail holder around the end of the braid.

  “There you go.”

  His voice was so deep anyway, but she could have sworn it sounded a little huskier now.

  Juliet tried to pull herself together and turned to face him with a great-thanks-for-the-help smile that would hopefully cover the fact that she was nearly panting. She reached back and felt the braid. It seemed perfect.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  He leaned in suddenly and Juliet sucked in a quick breath. But he was simply reaching past her to grab her hard hat. He put it on her head. But his fingertips trailed down the side of her face and down her neck before he stepped back.

  Okay, that hadn’t been an accident.

  She blew that air out. Holy. Crap.

  “How do you know how to do that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know if you’ll believe me.”

  An ex-girlfriend. It had to be. “Bet I will.”

  “Kennedy.”

  Juliet frowned. “Really?”

  “Really. And I can do a lot more than French braid.” He grinned at her surprised, confused look. “Ken was a beauty queen until she was thirteen. Was in tons of pageants.”

  Juliet felt her eyes growing rounder.

  “She competed regularly. It was a family affair, and Josh and I not only had to listen to her practice hours on the fiddle, but we learned to do hair and makeup.”

  “Wow.” This family was…just wow.

  He nodded.

  “She fiddles?”

  “She’s awesome.”

  “Why did she stop at thirteen?”

  “She read a biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and decided to become a feminist outspoken against the superficial and unfair standards we put on women and their bodies.”

  Juliet stared at him, taking all of that in. “That’s…”

  He nodded. “I know.” He looked over her pile of boards. “You ready to take a break, too?” he asked.

  Juliet shrugged. “I’m okay.”

  “You need to stay hydrated and take time to cool off once in a while.”

  Yeah, cooling off was probably a good idea, but it had nothing to do with the Louisiana sun. If Sawyer would just move his big, hot body away from her, she’d be fine.

  “I’m good for right now.” She gestured toward the water jug she had sitting on the dirt a few feet away. She squinted up at the sky. “I was thinking about putting a tent thing up though. What do you think?”

  “A tent thing?”

  “You know, one of those portable canopy things that people take to ball games and picnics for shade?”

  He also looked up at the sky, then ran his gaze over her from head to toe. “You’re pretty well covered.”

  She looked down. She was very well covered. “No fear of flying debris, bug bites, or sunburn,” she said with a nod.

  “Guess that’s true.”

  “But the shade?” she asked. “For some relief from the heat?”

  He shrugged. “I guess when we need relief from the heat, we go, you know, into the actual shade.” He looked amused. “Among other things.”

  “Other things?”

  It wasn’t so much that she needed to know other ways to keep cool. But she really liked the way he looked when he was mildly amused. It was a very good look on him.

  “Lots of water and sweet tea,” he said.

  She gave an involuntary shudder.

  His amused smile grew. “No to sweet tea?”

  “Not my favorite,” she admitted. “But don’t tell Ellie,” she added quickly.

  He chuckled at that. “I would never.”

  Yeah, the chuckling was nice, too. “I’ve got the water covered though,” she said.

  “Good.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, when we get hot there are a couple of other things we do,” he said.

  Had he moved closer?

  Juliet swallowed. “Like what?”

  “We take clothes off,” he said.

  Yeah, his voice was definitely deeper now.

  “I gue—” She cleared her throat. “I guess that makes sense, but there are bugs and sunburn to consider.”

  He gave her a nod. “Sunscreen and bug repellent are important. Cora makes bug repellent that’s amazing.”

 
Huh. Homemade bug repellent. She might have to give that a try. These people intrigued her, she had to admit. “What about the flying debris?”

  Sawyer glanced at the boards behind her. “Yeah, well, I guess we do take some risks down here.”

  Ah, ha. “I’d rather be a little hot than dealing with an infection from a piece of wood imbedding itself in my skin and muscle tissue.”

  Sawyer paused, then shook his head, almost disbelievingly. “Okay, girl. Then that only leaves one other thing to do when you get too hot.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Swimming.”

  For a moment, looking into Sawyer Landry’s eyes, for the first time since she’d been ten years old, Juliet wanted to take her clothes off and jump into a body of water.

  That lasted about twelve seconds. But that was twelve seconds longer than she’d considered doing it to that point.

  “I don’t have a swimming suit.”

  “You don’t need one. The fewer clothes the cooler you get.”

  “Skinny-dipping?” she asked.

  “Skinny-dipping,” he confirmed.

  “You actually skinny-dip?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  Sawyer Landry naked.

  She just took a few seconds to relish that thought…and the images that went with it. Skinny-dipping with Sawyer might be the one way she would ever even possibly consider any of that. “Do you have a private pool with lots of chlorine and a maximum depth of three feet?” she asked.

  She wondered if being naked but with a life jacket on still counted as skinny-dipping.

  “Don’t need a pool when I’ve got a whole bayou in my backyard.”

  She shuddered. “There is no way I’m jumping in there. Clothes or not.”

  “So, the naked part of skinny-dipping isn’t the problem?” Sawyer asked. “It’s the water?”

  “It’s absolutely the water,” she said. It was actually all water, but water where she could see the bottom, touch the bottom, and that was pumped through a filtration system was tolerable. Maybe. For a short period. With plenty of floatation devices within reach. “I mean, other than just the dirt, there are snakes and alligators and fish…and fish and alligator poop in there.” She frowned. “Do snakes poop? I mean, they probably do, right?”