Beauty and the Bayou

by Erin Nicholas

  “And what?” he asked. He heard the tightness in his tone.

  Juliet must have, too, because he felt her hand reach back and squeeze his thigh.

  That actually made him breathe and soften his tone. “What’s going on, Tori? You can tell me.”

  Huh, Juliet was reigning him in. Interesting.

  Tori looked over her shoulder to Josh, who gave her a slight nod. Maddie moved over a step but stayed by Tori’s side. Owen moved in closer to the little cluster as well.

  Sawyer almost rolled his eyes at the sign of solidarity. They didn’t need to do that.

  But, then he admitted that maybe they did. He didn’t know what Tori was about to tell him but if it was something that was less than fully safe and sound, they had good reason to think he might yell first and listen later.

  “We might need to…reallocate…a few…things…from my clinic to other places while Bailey and anyone else come out to nose around the wildlife in the area,” Tori said carefully.

  Juliet squeezed his thigh again and Sawyer realized he’d been pulling a little hard on her hair. He loosened his grip and continued braiding.

  “What does that mean?” he asked, his eyes on Juliet’s hair instead of on his family. In case he was scowling. Which he probably was.

  “Just tell him,” Josh said.

  Tori sighed. “I have a bald eagle in the barn.”

  Sawyer looked up. “What?”

  “Broken wing. I’m just nursing her back to health and will let her go, obviously,” Tori said.

  Sawyer paused in the braiding again. The silky feel of Juliet’s hair in his hands kept him breathing steadily, though, and he asked calmly, “What else?”

  Tori chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment. Finally she said, “A gray wolf. And her pups.”

  Sawyer bit his tongue. Literally. Bald eagles and gray wolves were on the threatened species list. He had to assume it wasn’t just A-Okay with government officials for private citizens to keep them in their homes. Or their vet clinics.

  “They’re a vulnerable population,” Tori said, before he could comment. “When she chose our back shed as a place to give birth, we decided to let her stay. And not tell anyone.”

  “Well, you didn’t put her there,” Sawyer reasoned. “Surely they wouldn’t have a problem with her being there.”

  Tori shrugged. “It could be complicated. They’d probably want to rehome her. She’s a wolf after all and she’s kind of close to town.”

  She was in town. Technically. Tori and Josh lived on the edge of town, but they were still walking distance from Ellie’s and the boat docks and lots of other places with lots of people.

  “Is rehoming her a bad idea?”

  “The pups are still small and mom has an infected foot,” Tori said. “It would probably be better if they could stay put for now.”

  “Is she a threat?” Sawyer asked.

  “Um…” Tori looked like she was trying to come up with a good answer.

  “Tori,” he said firmly.

  She sighed. “I mean, she’s a wolf. It’s not impossible to think that pets or chickens or stuff like that could be at risk. But I’m keeping her fed and safe so she won’t feel threatened so she won’t act out in self-defense or hunger. I think if we can keep things stable until the pups are a little older then we can rehome her just fine.”

  Sawyer went back to braiding, finally finishing it and tying it with the elastic band that Juliet handed to him over her shoulder wordlessly.

  He let her hair go, but he didn’t step back. He liked being close to her. The lilac scent that surrounded her fit now. She was sweet and comforting and fresh and made him feel lighter. He liked how he felt when she was close. She also didn’t move away from him. He was still in arm’s reach if she needed to reach back and squeeze him.

  Sawyer actually smiled thinking about that. He liked that she could read him.

  “So you don’t want Bailey what’s-her-name down here poking around about Gus because she might find out about your other animal projects.”

  Tori nodded. “I know you probably don’t approve of all of that.”

  “Messing with endangered species that could get you into trouble with wildlife protection agencies…or that could take one of your fingers off. Or worse,” Sawyer said. “No. But I trust that you’re doing it for a good reason and that you’re being as careful as you can.” It struck him as he said it that this was probably a little like how Juliet’s mom must have felt. He’d have to figure out what to do to be ready to help Tori with this.

  Tori looked at him with surprise but gratitude and obvious affection that punched him in the gut. “Thanks, Sawyer.”

  “I’ll always have your back,” he told her. “All of your backs.”

  “So you’ll be okay with whatever plan I come up with for Gus?” Tori asked.

  Sawyer felt trepidation slide down his spine, but then he caught a whiff of lilacs and he heard himself say, “Yes. Whatever you think will work.”

  “I’ll need to capture him,” Tori said, almost sadly. “I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to scare him and I don’t want to keep him in a cage, but hopefully it will just be temporary.”

  “If Bailey can’t find him, she can’t confirm he doesn’t have rabies,” Maddie pointed out.

  “But if she does find him, I don’t even know if she’ll bother to confirm it,” Tori said. “He’s a river otter. Not endangered. She might just want to get rid of any potential risk.”

  “Oh.” Maddie looked downright horrified at that. “My God, I’m so sorry.”

  Owen wrapped an arm around her and pulled her up against his side. “We’ll fix it,” he told her. “It might not be perfect, but we’ll figure it out.”

  And that was the bottom line, Sawyer realized. It didn’t have to be perfect to work and to fix it.

  “How will you capture Gus?” Sawyer asked.

  “I haven’t thought it all out,” Tori said. “But he trusts me, so I can get him to come up to me, I’m sure.” She looked sad. “I hate using the fact that he likes me to get him into a cage.”

  “It’s to save him, Tor,” Josh told her, running a hand up and down her back, comforting her.

  “He won’t understand that,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Josh insisted. “You’re doing it for the right reasons, that’s what matters.”

  Sawyer felt his gut tighten again. He realized listening to them, and watching them, that Juliet had been right. None of them blamed him for how he reacted to the dangers that confronted them. Even the perceived ones that weren’t all that dangerous at all. They understood and they tolerated it. They even protected him in their own way.

  Almost as if she could sense his emotions, Juliet reached back again, but instead of squeezing his thigh, she hooked her pinky finger around his.

  Desire that was so much more than just physical swept through him, and it took everything in him to not wrap his arms around her and pull her in against his body.

  “I’ll have to do it tonight,” Tori was saying as Sawyer tuned back in to something other than his fierce craving for the woman in front of him.

  “After dark,” Tori went on. “I can’t risk someone seeing me.” She chewed on her bottom lip, clearly lost in thought.

  Sawyer did not like that idea at all. Tori would have to get down on the banks under the far dock to get near where Gus hung out. Down where there could be cottonmouths and God knew what else. Just as he’d told Juliet the first day. In the dark it would be even more dangerous. She’d need to watch where she stepped, and it could be hard to judge the water depth even in the light. Tori, while definitely more of a tomboy than Juliet, was not a bayou girl. She’d grown up on a farm in Iowa. She was no expert around the murky waters of the swamp.

  But he forced himself to breathe in and out and swallow his protests. He became aware that his finger was curled tightly around Juliet’s, but she wasn’t trying to get free or asking him to loosen hi
s hold. In fact, when he did start to relax, she trapped his finger with hers, squeezing.

  “We can build a whole enclosure thing for him. Even get one of those little plastic swimming pools for him,” Owen said. “We’ll put it behind Leo’s trailer. No one will think anything’s goin’ on over there. The damned thing looks abandoned anyway.”

  Sawyer couldn’t disagree. Their grandpa had moved out of the house he’d shared with Ellie into a double-wide about a hundred yards away when they’d split up. He didn’t bother with things like painting it or fixing the roof, claiming that it felt a lot like camping and he loved being able to look up at the stars through his living room roof. The truth—that was suspected by everyone including his ex-wife—was that he didn’t fix the place up because it meant he got to sleep at Ellie’s when it got stormy. Initially, he’d slept on the couch. Now, everyone was pretty sure he was back in the bedroom. And not just when it was raining. But no one asked specifically because Ellie and Leo were both more than willing to share far more information than anyone in the family really needed or wanted to have.

  “Hell, we can set the eagle and wolves up in the trailer, too,” Josh said. “Make it into a mini preserve. No one will go looking and it will give Leo a great excuse to stay with Ellie.”

  That got a grin out of Tori. “Why don’t they just tell us they’re back together?”

  “And be boring and traditional?” Owen asked with a laugh. “Just not their style.”

  Sawyer didn’t laugh with them. Instead, he was biting back words. Lots of words. Words about how making Leo’s old trailer into a wildlife preserve for potentially dangerous and mostly endangered animals—that could get them fined or arrested or both if discovered—was a terrible idea. Words about how if the cops showed up to arrest Tori, he knew Leo would tell them it was his trailer and the animals were all his and he’d go to jail for it and how ridiculous that was. Words about how Sawyer knew the Boys of the Bayou would pay whatever fines there were but how stupid that would be when they really could use the money for so many other things. But he didn’t. Gus was important to Tori. And hell, Gus shouldn’t suffer because Maddie had tried to defend Josh. Sure, she should have thought it through and not overreacted, but that was how Maddie did things…passionately. And Sawyer wouldn’t change that about her, even if it did—and always would—make his life a little more chaotic.

  Tori shouldn’t have an eagle and a wolf secretly under her care, either, but Tori’s heart for animals was one of the things they all loved most about her.

  He wouldn’t change either of these women. He didn’t want either of them to be more “careful” if that meant being less of who they were. So that meant dealing with the consequences of the things they did and said. Bandaging it all up later.

  They were going to move a wolf, an otter, and a bald eagle into their grandfather’s trailer, risking snake bites, jail time for Leo, and debt and bad news coverage for the business. And Sawyer wasn’t going to say one damned word.

  He focused on Juliet’s finger. Then thought of all the other places he’d like to have her fingers. Then shifted, slid all of his fingers between hers, linking their hands together, and said, “Okay, so Juliet and I are going to go work on the dock.”

  He started for the door.

  There was total silence other than the sound of Juliet’s boots on the wood floor as she tripped along behind him, clearly as surprised as the rest of them.

  “You are?” Owen finally said. “That’s it?”

  Sawyer stopped and looked down at Juliet. She was watching him with surprise and satisfaction. That was all he needed to see to know he’d made the right call. He looked up at his family. “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “You don’t want to talk us out of this?” Maddie asked.

  “I…” He took a deep breath. “Of course I do,” he told them honestly. “But I’m not going to.”

  “You’re not?” Tori looked stunned. “You’re not even going to run down all the things we should be sure to think about and plan out?”

  He gave her a sincere smile. She was expecting a bunch of What-Ifs. She and Maddie and Josh and Owen—and hell, Leo and Ellie and everyone else—might sometimes make his life a little more adrenaline filled than he’d like, but he would do anything for any of them. Tori and Maddie had come into their lives more recently and brought a hell of a lot more good than bad.

  “Let me know if you need a bandage for any bloody knees,” he said. Of course, that was totally for Juliet’s sake. And he was rewarded with a squeeze to his hand.

  “Um…okay,” Tori said slowly.

  “And call me if you need help building anything at Leo’s or carrying stuff over there,” he said. “Or bail money. Or an alibi. Or…anything.”

  Tori gave him a big smile, her eyes bright, almost as if they were watery. “I will.”

  He gave her a little nod and then headed out the door with Juliet in tow.

  7

  They made it a few steps up the wooden planks that led to the sidewalk when Juliet pulled him to a stop. “Hey.”

  He turned to face her but didn’t let go of her hand.

  “That was great,” she told him with a big smile. “You did good.”

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Because you have a big job now,” he told her. He gave her a little tug, making her take a step closer.

  “Oh?” she asked, her voice softer. “What’s that?”

  “Distracting me.”

  “Distracting you from?”

  “Whatever they’re all getting into,” he said, inclining his head toward the office.

  “You don’t want to stay and hear it yourself?”

  “No. I think it’s best if I just trust that they’ve got it covered.”

  She smiled. “Remind yourself that they took that safety class and bought all the safety gear for the bike ride.”

  He nodded. “Something like that. And hope that they’ll tell me about the fall if there is one.”

  Juliet squeezed his hand again. “I think they will.”

  “And so while they’re off on their ‘bike ride,’ I need something to preoccupy me.”

  She tipped her head. “Huh,” she said softly.

  “What?”

  “I never really thought about it, but I’ll bet my mom tried to distract herself while I was out on those bike rides, too.”

  “I’m sure she did,” he told her. He was absolutely certain. You didn’t just forget that someone you loved was off taking a big risk.

  “She started doing stained glass artwork,” Juliet said, looking past his shoulder as if lost in thought for a moment. “Around that same time. I never really thought about why.” Her gaze focused back on him. “I’m happy to help you however I can.”

  Sawyer wondered if she had any idea how sexy her smile was just then. He wanted her. The only question left was what exactly he wanted her for. Sex? Abso-fucking-lutely. But there was more. Like her pinky hooked around his. For starters.

  “Do you want to meet Gus?”

  “The probably-not-rabid but definitely-wild river otter?”

  Sawyer grinned. “Yep.”

  “I’m good. Also, no on the wolves, too, before you even ask.”

  He laughed. “Gus is pretty cute.”

  “And he’s well-loved and protected by Tori. He doesn’t need me.” She leaned closer. “Besides, you’re pretty cute. I’d rather hang out with you.”

  Sawyer gave a little snort of surprise. He’d never been called cute, not even as a kid. Precocious, yes. Cute, no.

  And more, maybe Gus didn’t need Juliet. But maybe Sawyer did.

  “Then let’s hang out,” he said. He had no intention of not being around her today.

  “Okay.”

  They grinned at each other, then turned together and started across the grass toward the building area.

  “You don’t have to help me with the dock though,” Juliet said.

  Sa
wyer stopped next to the closest stack of wood. “You think I’m just gonna sit here and watch you work?”

  He would. Happily. Watching Juliet do just about anything was a pleasure. But no way was he going to have her pounding nails and putting together his dock while he sat in a lawn chair and drank lemonade.

  She shrugged. “Show your family you remember how to relax and kick back.”

  He stepped close and reached up to run a finger down the side of her face. He knew it was an intimate, probably unexpected gesture, but the fact that she didn’t seem surprised pleased him. “I think they’re seeing some important changes in me,” he said honestly. He dropped his hand, trusting that she knew he meant they saw how he was reacting to her. “Besides, do you have any idea how much shit I’d get if I sat around while you worked?”

  She laughed. “Well, okay. But mostly because Chase is helping Cora with some stuff this morning and then I overheard Ellie and Leo say something about taking him out fishing ‘the right way’ and I need a second pair of hands to get the boards onto the frame today.”

  Sawyer grinned. “The right way means with actual fishing poles.”

  “Mitch hasn’t been taking fishing poles when he’s taken Chase fishing?” Juliet asked, the corner of her mouth twitching.

  “I’m guessing ‘fishing’ with Mitch has been more screwing around on the boats and a lot of bullshitting. Maybe some flirting with girls at the other docks. Probably not a lot of actual fish catching.”

  Juliet laughed. “Chase has been having a really good time. I hope he’s been helpful, too.”

  Before, he’d been annoyed that Chase had gone off and left Juliet behind to work. Now he was fine with it. Partly because Chase being with his family was actually making Juliet even happier than when the kid was building the dock. And partly—okay, mostly—because now Sawyer got her to himself.

  “Ellie and Cora have made sure he’s stayed busy,” Sawyer assured her. He dropped his voice a little. “Mixing business with pleasure is somethin’ we know a lot about down here.”