Beauty and the Bayou

by Erin Nicholas

  She’d love to really feel that she deserved all of his admiration. She would earn the admiration of her bravery if she went out onto the bayou with him.

  “Of course,” she told him. Because what else could she really say?

  The smile he gave her in response was everything she needed to see.

  He gave her a big hug and then grabbed her hand, pulling her out to the dock where everyone was getting ready.

  Juliet eyed the water and, ironically, felt her mouth go dry.

  Sawyer breathed deep as the rumble of the airboat hummed through his body, and he watched the front of the boat cutting through the water, the people bobbing on the padded metal benches of the boat. And not just any people. One of his best friends, some of his favorite kids in the world, and the woman that he was falling in love with.

  He couldn’t see her face, but Juliet sat right in the middle of the boat, her life jacket strapped tightly around the body that he was completely, officially addicted to, gripping the bench with both hands, her body stiff and tense.

  Her being on the boat with him was a big deal. He got that. She was a little freaked out here. She was out on the water for him, because of him. She would have never gone out with anyone else and that meant the world to him.

  But he was determined to show her that would be fine. He was determined to show himself that it would be fine.

  Stella was, as usual, bouncing in her seat. Maybe more than usual. The little girl had been away from her beloved bayou for a while and it made sense that she was overly excited. At one point, he’d slowed considerably as he’d noted a big gator basking on the bank and wanted to be sure the kids saw it. He didn’t point it out. For one, the airboat engine was too loud to talk over. For another, the kids were scanning the water and banks like hawks looking for mice. He knew Cooper spotted it when he pointed and Stella popped up and leaned close to the railing.

  Juliet reached over and gently tugged Stella back into her seat by the strap on the back of her life jacket. Then she nodded as Stella looked at Juliet with a big grin and pointed at the alligator. She didn’t have to hold onto Cooper. He was obediently sitting right next to Gabe in front of Juliet.

  Sawyer grinned at the whole damned thing.

  A few minutes later, he turned them into the area where Hank, the gator who loved him the way Wilma and Betty loved Owen—purely for the snacks they brought, of course— and killed the engine.

  They all took their headsets off, and the kids were able to move around, standing and getting close to the railings on the sides of the boat.

  Everyone moved, except for Juliet. Who stayed glued to her seat. With her headset on.

  Sawyer didn’t push. This was her first time out on the airboats. They were loud, they moved fast along the straightaways, and they drove right through the swamp grass into areas you couldn’t get to any other way. The only way out of this part of the bayou was by boat—specifically airboat since a regular boat’s motor would get almost instantly tangled in the grass and vegetation—or with a rope dropped from a helicopter.

  They found Hank after a few minutes of floating and chatting. Sawyer tossed him a few pieces of chicken and he came close, delighting Stella and making Cooper look fascinated and sick at the same time. The way it always had been with these kids.

  Sawyer kept casting looks in Juliet’s direction. She met his gaze and gave him a wobbly smile a couple of times. For the most part she seemed…resigned. She wasn’t delighted or thrilled. That was clear. Even Cooper seemed more interested in the whole thing than she was. But she wasn’t hyperventilating. Or vomiting.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have brought her out here.

  The thought floated through his mind.

  She didn’t need to be out here. He’d needed her. She made him feel better. But was that really fair if it made her feel anxious?

  Sawyer frowned.

  She was out on a fucking airboat, on water, far from solid ground, surrounded—whether they could see them or not—by alligators, snapping turtles, snakes, spiders, and more. Seeing her sitting there with her life jacket on, long sleeves to protect from sun and bugs, and the steel-toed boots that would actually not be great in the water, made him realize that she truly was facing her fears here today. For him.

  “Juliet—” He started, stepping toward her.

  Just then a huge drop of water hit the floor of the boat in front of him. Another hit him on the cheek. He looked up as a rumble of thunder rolled through the clouds overhead. It had been overcast all day, but that just meant it had been slightly cooler. That morning it had occurred to him that maybe they’d get a little shower at some point, but…he also hadn’t looked at the weather forecast.

  He’d been distracted. Chase’s party last night and send-off that morning had thrown their usual Saturday routine off, and then he’d been preoccupied with the idea of seeing Gabe and the guys and kids again. What if a storm rolled in while they were out today wasn’t something he’d prepared for. That was unusual. But he’d been excited about this group coming down, and his preparation had only gone as far as get them here and hold your shit together.

  The raindrops started falling faster, and Gabe looked up as another, louder, rumble of thunder sounded. Juliet didn’t hear a thing since she still had her headset on, but she definitely noticed the rain falling. She looked up with a frown and pulled her headset off.

  “It’s raining, Daddy,” Stella said, lunging for Gabe’s hand, her expression worried.

  Gabe nodded, drawing her close. “It is.”

  It was sprinkling, actually. But Sawyer didn’t correct them. Darker clouds were rolling closer from the west and he knew it was going to be real rain real soon.

  “Is this a hurricane?” Cooper asked, also moving close to Gabe and grabbing his father’s belt.

  “No, buddy, not a hurricane. Just some rain,” Gabe said, in a calm, reassuring voice.

  In spite of not looking at the forecast, a hurricane warning wasn’t something Sawyer could have missed. Everyone in Autre would have been talking about it, as a storm like that affected everyone from the fishermen to the roughnecks. But a hard afternoon shower could make the bayou tours much less pleasant and even dangerous.

  Dammit.

  “But it could have lightning,” Cooper said. “Lightning comes with thunderstorms and lots of people die from lightning while out boating.”

  “Okay,” Gabe said quickly over the top of his son. “We don’t need to talk about that right now.”

  But it was too late. Stella had heard him.

  Gabe loved to talk about his kids, and Sawyer knew that Stella had a fear of storms. Sawyer hated the idea of Stella out on the boat on the bayou in one. His injury hadn’t made her scared of the bayou but being caught in a storm out here really could.

  But it was more than just Stella’s fear of storms that had his heart pounding now. Cooper was right. Thunderstorms came with lightning and the people most often struck were those outside on the water.

  “Okay, everyone back in their seats,” Sawyer said, clapping his hands. “We’re heading in.”

  The rain was picking up, making the bottom of the metal boat slippery, and he grabbed the backs of the benches as he made his way to his seat. He glanced at Juliet. She was still exactly where she’d started, still buckled tight into her life jacket, but now her face was white. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. She turned to look at him as if she’d been lost in thought.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She read his lips and nodded.

  He didn’t really believe her. He shouldn’t have brought her out here. Not only was she out on the water, no doubt realizing how far away from the safety of shore they really were, but now it was storming. Stella wasn’t the only one he was worried about here.

  But he wasn’t sure how to fix it for Juliet. He wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her it would be okay. There were two things wrong with that, however. One, he had to drive the boat back to the dock
. Two, he couldn’t tell her that. She knew better than anyone that no matter how prepared you were, things could still go wrong. Knees still got scraped, bats still got caught in nets, splinters still got stuck in fingers. No, telling Juliet Dawson “it will all be okay” was never going to be an adequate approach.

  He was just going to have to show her.

  “You wanna help me drive, Stell?” Sawyer asked as he straightened. “We can go extra fast with two drivers.” That wasn’t true, but he was hoping he could get her thinking about something else.

  This boat was one of their bigger ones and did have two seats, so he could put her back there with him and maybe distract her from the storm with a new view. Sometimes two of the guys would take it out together, one driving and one on the mic, talking to the tour through their headsets. He hadn’t needed to do that today since all of these people had been out on the swamp tours before. Except for Juliet, of course, but he figured she didn’t particularly want a play-by-play of what they were doing. She’d been concentrating on just holding on tight.

  “Okay.” Stella was looking a little nervous, but she managed a smile. Her tennis shoes also slipped on the wet floor, but she held on and made it to the shorter single seat that sat in front of Sawyer’s at the back of the boat.

  He got Stella strapped into the higher seat and was just turning back when he heard, “Cooper!”

  He swung around to see Juliet come up out of her seat and lunge for the side of the boat.

  Cooper was reaching over the side of the boat for something floating in the water. Juliet grabbed for the little boy, catching him by the back of the life jacket. Instinctively, Sawyer jumped over the seat in front of him and charged toward her.

  He reached out just as she skidded on the wet deck, sliding forward.

  He could admit he had visions of grabbing the back of her pants the way he had on the dock the first day, saving her just in the nick of time.

  Unfortunately, he’d completely underestimated how much adrenaline was pumping and how slippery the deck really was. He slid and, rather than grabbing her and pulling her back, he crashed into her, sending Cooper over the edge, and Juliet and himself over the railing and into the bayou.

  10

  They landed with a splash and a scream. Sawyer’s head dipped below the surface for a moment. The water wasn’t cold and Sawyer felt his feet brush the bottom almost immediately, but his brain didn’t care that the bayou was only about six feet deep here. He could barely touch. It wasn’t as if he could really plant his feet firmly. Frankly, his instinct was to panic. He’d been in this water thousands of times in his life. But not since Tommy. He didn’t think about all of the times it had been fine. All he thought or felt was that this was dangerous, and that Juliet and Cooper were in here. More specifically, that Juliet and Cooper were in danger.

  There were shouts from the boat and he could hear Cooper crying for his dad. The rain was coming down harder now, giving everything a gray haze, but he spotted Juliet and Cooper right away. His heart hammered painfully against his chest, and his mind raced as he realized they were too far away to reach. Somehow Cooper had gotten further out from the boat than Sawyer and Juliet and she’d had to swim to him. Probably because Cooper was smaller and lighter than the two of them and the force of Sawyer plowing into them had sent him flying. Hell, it had probably sent Juliet out several feet, too. The woman who had almost drowned as a little girl.

  “Daddy!” Cooper cried. “Daddy!”

  “It’s okay, Coop.”

  Sawyer heard Gabe trying to reassure his son. “It’s okay, Sawyer’s got you.”

  But Sawyer didn’t fucking have him. Cooper was holding onto a woman who was too short to touch the bottom out here, who had only one good leg and arm to use to swim because the other side was weaker from her stroke. Not to mention that she had to be petrified right now. Oh, and there was a big old alligator swimming around out here.

  Sure, Hank would likely get the hell away from all the splashing and screaming. Then again, Sawyer was one of the people in the water and he brought Hank chicken. It wouldn’t be crazy to think that Hank might swim over for a closer look in the hopes of another snack.

  Sawyer looked around, blood roaring in his ears. He didn’t want to kill an alligator or lose a limb to one in front of a boatload of little kids, but he fucking would put himself between the animal and Juliet and Cooper if he had to. If he saw the thing. It wasn’t as if alligators weren’t masters at sneaking up on prey.

  Dammit.

  Sawyer tried to calm down. Hank wasn’t going to be a problem and they were only a few feet from the boat. He knew those things were true. He dragged in a deep breath.

  But then his eyes landed on a dark shape a few feet away. It was nearly black, and the odds were nearly a million to one that it was a log. A simple fallen tree. There were hundreds out here. Dark objects just under the surface of the water were very, very likely just logs.

  But what if it’s not?

  The thought went through his mind unbidden. Tommy had maybe seen the shark that attacked him that day. He’d maybe thought it was a log, too.

  Sawyer’s mouth went dry and he felt like he was going to be sick.

  “What if there’s a lightning strike?” Cooper called to Gabe. “I’m a sittin’ duck!”

  That was it. In a few powerful strokes, Sawyer was beside them. He grabbed Juliet’s arm, but she pulled away.

  “Dammit! Juliet!”

  “I need my arm to stay above water!” she shouted at him. “Cooper will pull me down on this side!”

  “Let me have him,” Sawyer said, reaching for the boy.

  But Cooper shook his head and squeezed Juliet’s neck tighter. “I can’t let go!”

  “Let me pull you to the boat,” Sawyer told her, reaching for her again.

  “I’m not strong enough to hold him and paddle much longer.”

  Her voice was edged with panic and Sawyer reacted to it, fear and frustration surging through him. Sawyer wrapped a big arm around Juliet’s waist, hugged her and Cooper to his side, and kicked off with everything in him. He got them to the boat and Gabe was immediately there, hauling Cooper onto the deck and then Juliet. Sawyer pulled himself up.

  Adrenaline still pumping, Sawyer surged to his feet. Cooper was wrapped in Gabe’s arms. Sawyer hauled Juliet to her feet and crushed her to his chest.

  That’s when the shaking started.

  He wasn’t sure if it was him or her, but his entire body was quaking within seconds. The life jacket was in the way of getting her up against him fully. He pulled back and started to unbuckle her.

  But she knocked his hands away. “No!”

  He looked into her face for the first time.

  She was ghost white, her eyes were huge, and her breathing was too fast.

  “Jul—”

  “I’m not taking it off,” she said firmly. She grabbed the end of one of the buckles and pulled it tighter in fact.

  Right. She was still out on the boat. She’d just fallen in. Okay, she’d just been pushed in.

  Sawyer dragged in a deep breath. He reached under the nearest seat and pulled out another life jacket. He wrapped it around her and the one she had on, tightened it, and then set her on the bench. He wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

  He’d been fine, having a great time in fact, when she’d been sitting stiffly and safely in the middle of the boat. The moment she’d moved, he’d freaked. That was a problem. The people in his life couldn’t just sit still all the time. But clearly he wasn’t over the overreacting after all.

  She sat still, staring forward.

  He glanced at Cooper and Gabe. The little boy was cuddled on his dad’s lap with his sister right next to them, her hand on his back.

  “Stell?” he asked, his voice gruff.

  She looked over her shoulder.

  He gestured toward Juliet. The little girl nodded and moved back a row to sit next to Juliet. She took Juliet’s hand and Juliet let her
.

  It was sweet. And Sawyer hated it. He wanted to be the one comforting her.

  But he had to drive the boat back.

  He was also the one who’d pushed her into the bayou because he’d overreacted to her leaning over the side.

  And he’d frozen up once in the water. He hadn’t grabbed her immediately and gotten her back onto the boat. He’d panicked. He’d freaked out. And, with a weaker right side, she’d had to try to tread water while holding onto a scared little boy in the bayou that not only was she scared of, but that she had every reason to fear.

  He’d lost Tommy because he hadn’t been there.

  But he could have lost Juliet today and he had been there. Right there.

  Sawyer forced himself onto the seat at the back of the boat, started the engine, and turned them for the docks.

  She had no idea how to feel.

  Wet.

  That was mostly how she felt at the moment. And not in a good way.

  The ride back to the Boys of the Bayou dock seemed forty-seven hours long. The rumble of the airboat and the droning sound that cancelled everything else out put her in a bubble with her thoughts. She was vaguely aware that Sawyer had sat her on a bench, put her headphones on her, and wrapped her in a blanket. She felt Stella’s hand in hers. She knew that Cooper was with his dad. She didn’t have anyone to worry about. She knew that Cooper was physically okay. He’d been dunked under the water briefly, but she’d gotten to him quickly. But in the back of her mind she was concerned about his mental state. He was clearly a worrier. Something the two of them had in common. She’d seen him reaching for the hat that had blown off his head and she’d panicked. He’d been reaching too far and the deck of the boat had been slippery, so she’d grabbed the back of his vest…

  And Sawyer had pushed them all into the bayou.

  Sawyer. The guy who’d caught her the other day, who’d kept her out of the bayou day one, who understood how she felt about the water.