Sweet Home Louisiana

by Erin Nicholas

  Who the hell cared? So the stupid alligators were laying eggs. That just meant more stupid alligators. She watched, her body frozen, her mind whirling as Wilma headed for where Owen was. She saw him, Maddie was sure of it. That alligator was on her way over there because Owen was there.

  She looked around. There were no trees for Owen to climb. That was a great go-to move. The ground he was on was marshland. Running away from Wilma/Betty/whoever-the-fuck-she-was—the second-best option to get away from a gator—wasn’t going to work.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Maddie glanced down at her shoes. She’d read about a woman who had scared an alligator off by slapping her flip-flops together. Would Converse work the same way?

  “Oh my God, the alligator is getting so close!” someone yelled.

  Maddie felt like her heart had frozen and she tried to pull in a deep breath.

  Wilma was enough of a threat. But if that was Betty and that was her nest…

  “There’s another one!” one of the kids shouted, pointing.

  Maddie felt a buzzing in her ears as she spotted the head and snout of another alligator also swimming in Owen’s direction.

  Holy shit, was that Fred? Did it matter? Females were smaller than males, but they were also vicious predators that didn’t really give a fuck if Owen was a wild hog or just a stupid guy strutting for his tourists.

  That was it.

  Maddie swung around and located the metal box under her seat. She knew what was in there, and she knew how to use it. Maybe she hadn’t actually done it in a long time, but she was going to have to hope that it was like driving an airboat.

  She unlocked the box and within two minutes, even with hands shaking badly, she swung around holding a loaded rifle. She hadn’t held a gun in years and her stomach twisted as she looked down at it. She couldn’t shoot this thing. But then she glanced over to where Owen stood and the alligator that was within ten feet of him, and she lifted the gun.

  One of her passengers noticed and gasped. Her husband turned. “Hey, what the hell?”

  Maddie shook her head. “It’s fine. I know what I’m doing.”

  “You have a gun!”

  That caused people in Owen’s boat to swing around. One of the women screamed. One ducked, covering her head with her hands.

  Maddie would have rolled her eyes, if she hadn’t been trying to keep her hands steady and her focus on the alligators that were getting closer to Owen.

  But Owen’s attention was on Maddie. And the gun.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. He seemed genuinely confused.

  “Gators. Two of them,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know. They live here. I see them every day.”

  “They’re coming at you.”

  Owen turned to face the boat fully, his hands lifted. “Maddie, you know how this goes. They know I’ve got food. That’s why they’re coming over. Put the gun down.”

  “Just…come back to the boat,” she told him, not really hearing what he was saying. Her eyes were firmly on the alligator to his right. “Then I will.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Everything’s okay.”

  Her arms were shaking now, too, and she knew it was fear and adrenaline, but she told herself it was because she hadn’t held a heavy gun in a long time. Or any gun in a long time. Did she want to shoot the alligators? Of course not. For one thing, the best way to kill an alligator was to shoot it right in the head. Which meant getting way closer to the damned thing than she ever wanted to be. But could shooting in the water near one scare it off? Sure. Theoretically.

  “Owen,” she said, noting that her voice was as wobbly as her arms now. “Get back in the fucking boat. Now.”

  Her eyes were starting to sting, but she had to keep them clear to see what she was doing.

  One of the alligators was now only two feet away from Owen. She knew that the danger zone for an alligator strike was about half its body length straight in front and ninety degrees to either side. This was the kind of stuff she and the boys had all been taught by their dads and grandpas growing up down here. She’d never been a big hunter but the boys had, and Leo had insisted she and Kennedy learn to shoot and all the basic hunting safety the boys had to learn.

  She was very grateful to Leo right now.

  She just really prayed that she didn’t accidentally shoot his grandson.

  Maddie lifted the gun, rested the butt against her shoulder, and lined it up with the ground to the left of the alligator that was closest.

  Oh God, I can’t do this.

  “Ah! That alligator is right by him!” one of the little girls yelled, clearly caught up in the moment.

  Maddie’s mouth went dry as the alligator put its front feet up on the mud less than half its body length away from Owen.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Maddie took a deep breath, pressed the safety, and then pulled the trigger.

  The gun jumped, kicking into her shoulder and taking her breath. The blast was loud, everyone screamed, there was a splash, but Maddie instantly zeroed in on Owen.

  Who was striding toward her through the water, his face stormy.

  “Oh my God, did I shoot you?” she asked as he climbed aboard her boat and moved toward her.

  He grabbed the gun from her in one hand and wrapped his other around her wrist, holding her in place. She didn’t care. She ran her eyes over him, followed by her free hand.

  “Are you all right? I didn’t hit you?” Her palm ran over his shoulders, his chest, down his ribs, to his hip.

  “Jesus Christ, Mad,” he nearly growled. “No you didn’t fucking shoot me, but you could have.”

  Her eyes widened. “I was aiming for the dirt! I just wanted to scare it!”

  “Well you—”

  His words broke off as she ran her hand over his abs, still, maybe stupidly, looking for injuries. Gunshot wounds, but also alligator bite marks.

  Owen swore under his breath. He quickly unloaded the gun and bent to store it, with her hands running over him the entire time. Then he grabbed both her wrists, pulling her hands away. “You gotta stop,” he said, his voice lower, but gruff. “I’m okay.”

  “They were coming right for you.” Her voice sounded like a whisper but she didn’t have enough air to put behind them.

  “They always come to me.” He blew out a breath. “You know how this goes. We feed them so they’ll come up to the boats for the tourists.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t know that!”

  He frowned. “Well, you should have. We’ve been doing this forever. The gators get used to the boats and to us coming out here with food. They swim up, but they wouldn’t attack. They know us.”

  She took a deep breath and let his words sink in. They fed the alligators. Every day. The animals were used to them by now.

  One of the women in the boat asked, “They know you?”

  Owen glanced over. “They do.” He shrugged. “They know my voice. And my smell.”

  “Come on.”

  “Seriously. There’s a big old gator down the way that knows my partner, Sawyer. He won’t come out for me, but he always shows himself for Sawyer’s boats.”

  “You’re telling me that you’ve trained these alligators?” one of the men asked.

  Maddie let them talk around her, breathing deep. The adrenaline was dissipating a bit now that he was standing here right in front of her and was fine.

  “Kind of. Not exactly, but like I said, they recognize me, they know I have food for them. We do it for you all,” he said to the tourists. “We can get them up close for you this way.”

  Yeah, she should have known that. She had known that. She’d just forgotten because it was Owen, and seeing even a hint of danger near him obliterated any rational thought.

  Maddie swallowed, letting all of that sink in. “I’m really sorry I overreacted.”

  Owen’s attention was immediately back on her. “I should have gone over it with you ahead of the tour. I’m sor
ry I didn’t.”

  Maddie dragged in a huge breath and, looking into his eyes, realized that she’d screwed up big time. She’d pulled a gun out. And shot it.

  Holy crap.

  Her eyes started to burn and she had to swallow hard. “You jerk. You scared the shit out of me.”

  He nodded, his expression a little pained. “I know. I really am sorry. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I thought you were in danger like that. I’d probably kill the thing with my bare hands.”

  The intensity in his tone and eyes along with his words made the rest of her fear disappear. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to feel him. His big, strong, hot body that was completely healthy and whole and uninjured. Well, she’d already made an ass of herself.

  She went up on tiptoe, gripped his shoulders, and kissed him. And it wasn’t a quick brush of her lips. It was a full-on, I-want-to-consume-you-right-here-and-now kiss with lips and tongues. Yes, plural. Because Owen didn’t act even mildly surprised. He gripped her hips, pressed her against him, and kissed her back.

  It took almost a minute, but eventually the wave of desperation and fear faded and she was able to let him go.

  He stared down at her as she settled back onto her flat feet, his hands still gripped the denim at her hips. Finally he gave her a little nod. “You okay now?”

  “Better, anyway.”

  He took a deep breath and let her go, stepping back.

  And revealing two airboats full of people gawking at them. Even the kids.

  Maddie’s cheeks got hot and she gave everyone a smile. “Sorry, folks. I might have freaked out there a little bit.”

  “A little bit?” the guy in her boat asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s been a little while since I’ve been out here.”

  “Looks like it’s been a while since she did other things, too,” the woman next to him muttered.

  Well, she wasn’t wrong. But Maddie felt her cheeks turn redder thinking about how she’d just forgotten everything else and kissed Owen like she was crazy about him and was ready to strip his clothes off right here and now.

  Again, the woman wasn’t wrong.

  “You don’t even know what you’re doing?” the guy asked.

  “I know…” God, she really didn’t know what she was doing. Not out here. Not with the fucking alligators. Not with Owen. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Truly.”

  The guy didn’t look convinced.

  “Hey, it’s all good,” Owen said, moving toward the front of the boat. “We’ll get you guys back to the dock.” He jumped from Maddie’s boat to his. The resultant rocking made the kids squeal and laugh. “I’ll tell you what,” he said to them as he got up on his seat. “You had something happen on this trip that doesn’t usually happen. You’ve got a unique story.”

  “You can say that again,” Maddie’s tourist muttered.

  She sighed. She’d apologized. This was minor compared to some of her freak-outs. She could tell him about the shed, but she wasn’t sure that would really help the situation.

  Everyone watched as Owen opened the big blue cooler he had on board and pulled out raw chicken quarters.

  “They’re not cute, cuddly pets,” he said as Wilma and Betty started for the boat. “But like any animal, they become a little tamer around humans when they’re fed and when we respect their territory.”

  The alligators got closer and he tossed them each a hunk of chicken.

  Everyone oohed and awed as the alligators ate. Owen tossed them more and gave everyone a few more fun facts about gators in general.

  When the chicken was gone, Owen turned back. “Okay, who’s got questions?”

  He answered a few—probably questions he got on every tour—and then he got them all back into their headsets.

  When they got back to the dock, Kennedy and Josh were there with complimentary water, soda, and sports drinks for the passengers. There was also no sign of the alligator stickers they usually gave out to the kids after they took a ride.

  Josh helped dock her boat and after everyone had disembarked, she asked, “Owen texted and said you all needed to do something to smooth the feathers of the people who thought I was about to shoot them?”

  He grinned. “Something like that.”

  “And we’re avoiding giving out the stickers so that later, when their dad goes to write a review of the tour on a travel site, he doesn’t look across the table, see the alligator on the sticker, and get all riled up again?”

  “Exactly.”

  She blew out a breath. “That was bad.”

  “Owen thought it was great.”

  She glanced over to where he was talking to the older couple after having helped the woman off the boat. “Yeah?”

  “He’s been wondering when you’re going to do something really crazy for him.”

  Her heart thumped at that. “Crazier than inventing a typhoid fever outbreak?”

  He laughed. “Yep.”

  It was a freaking miracle she hadn’t done something stupider because of Owen before this and they all knew it. “I kind of thought the shed would carry me for a while.”

  Josh chuckled. “Guess today was the expiration date.” He gave her a little side hug. “Go on and get out of here. We’ve got this.”

  “This?”

  “The complaints.”

  She groaned.

  But she did make her way to the office. She just wanted to shut the door between her and everyone else for a little while so she could breathe and figure out what the hell was going on.

  No, she knew what was going on. She was losing her mind. As usual in Autre. But she’d pulled a gun today. That was next level.

  Maddie made it around the far side of the building and into the office, before she really started shaking. She closed the door and leaned back against it.

  The chances of her shooting anyone on the boats had been slim. She’d shot a rifle before. She knew basically what she was doing and the barrel had been pointed away from them.

  But it had been pointed at Owen.

  Not at Owen, but near him. And she hadn’t shot a gun in over a decade. She easily could have missed her target—the dirt next to Wilma/ Betty/ whoever-the-fuck-that-was—and shot Owen.

  She dragged in a deep breath as her chest tightened. What the fuck had she been thinking?

  Someone turned the knob, and the door she was leaning against pushed inward. She stumbled forward, barely missing knocking a huge stack of papers to the floor, and turned as Owen came through the door. He didn’t look surprised to find her, which meant he’d come looking for her. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look mad, either.

  He shut the door behind him firmly and locked it.

  12

  Maddie felt her heart start pounding without even knowing exactly why.

  He took the two steps to where she stood, grabbed her elbow, and pulled her in.

  She went into his arms gratefully. As his arms wrapped around her, she started shaking. Adrenaline coursed through her and she felt jumpy and like crying and like she needed to push him away even as she slipped her arms around him and squeezed.

  His arms tightened around her and she felt him kiss the top of her head.

  And the tears started.

  He just held her as she cried. She let it all out. The fear, the embarrassment, the confusion, the happiness.

  Because, yeah, there was happiness mixed in there, too. She wasn’t proud of her reaction. She hadn’t used her head and had gone on pure emotion. That was stupid. It was also something she hadn’t done in over a decade. Everything she did now was controlled and planned and rational.

  Not here. Not with this guy. The guy she was clinging to like he was a life preserver and she was in the middle of the ocean, at risk of drowning.

  She just cried, her hands gripping the back of Owen’s shirt, for a few minutes.

  He rubbed his big hand up and down her back and talked to her in a low, soothing voice. “You’re okay.”
“I’ve got you.” “It’s all okay.” “I’m right here.”

  And slowly the fear and humiliation started to fade, and in its place was a warmth—she hadn’t been hugged and comforted since, well, he’d done it on the dock the first night she was in town. Before that, it had been a very, very long time. He was solid and warm, his heartbeat strong, his hold on her tight and secure. He made her feel safe. He made her feel like someone had her back. They all did. She’d freaked out, screwed up in front of customers, and yet her partners had just met her on the dock and worked on diffusing the situation as best they could, giving her a chance to get it together.

  Partners.

  They were her partners. But in more than business. She had no trouble believing that any of them would go out of their comfort zone for her if needed.

  Her tears stopped, but she didn’t let go of Owen. In fact, she cuddled in closer. God, he was so…real. He smelled like sunshine and dirt. He was hot, not just body temperature but from being outside in the sun for the past hour, too. He was hard, the planes of his muscles firm against her, and she knew that he could pick her up and carry her out of here if he wanted to. If she asked him to.

  She really wanted to ask him to.

  Of course, if she said, “Will you carry me out of here?” she’d also add, “and up to your bedroom?”

  He’d do it. She knew that, too. They were balancing on the edge of tipping over into hot, crazy, this-is-going-to-tear-up-my-heart-but-I-want-it-anyway.

  Part of her attraction was to his huge heart. The one beating a little fast against her ear, but also the one that allowed him to love big and completely. His family could do anything and he’d still be there for them. If someone said, “Hey, can you help me bury a body?”, he’d show up with a shovel. And she knew that extended to her as well.

  The arousal that was always coursing through her just below the surface when Owen was around grew stronger as the fear, mortification, and the muddled feelings faded. With a deep breath, she pulled back and looked up at him.

  He met her eyes.

  They just looked at each other for a moment. Then his hands moved up to cup her face.