Page 16 of Sweet Home Louisiana

Maddie’s eyes widened.Sawyer gave a little groan and took her elbow.“Let’s change this subject.”

She was all for that.Besides not needing any further details about Leo and Ellie rekindling their “fire” once in a while, she really didn’t need to be thinking about rekindling fires of any kind down here.Especially given the…smoldering…going on between her and Owen.

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They made their way toward the back of the bar, people parting like Sawyer was Moses.Mitch and another guy Maddie didn’t know were pulling tables together to make one big, rickety conference table.

But Maddie’s attention was pulled to Kennedy Landry, who was sitting at the end of the bar, her feet—in black combat boots—propped on the stool next to her.Her black hair was streaked with purple, her eye makeup was a thick, bold mix of the same colors, and her nose and ear piercings glinted in the lights that hung over the bar.It was a sharp contrast to the beauty queen Maddie had known growing up, but Kennedy had started her feminist rebellion against the pageants and what she deemed their “superficial emphasis on defining what makes a woman worthy of attention” when she was thirteen.On stage.At the last beauty pageant she ever entered.She’d left the stage in the semifinals looking like a sweet southern belle and come back out for the finals with jet-black hair, temporary tattoos, a not-so-temporary series of ear piercings, and, yes, combat boots.She’d lost, but she’d made her point, and Maddie had been the person applauding loudest from the audience.

Kennedy gave Maddie a huge grin and a little salute with one of her chili cheese fries.

Maddie grinned back.She’d always really liked Kennedy.The other woman was a couple years younger than Maddie but their families had spent so much time together, Kennedy felt like a cousin or even a sister.The only two girls in a group with an overload of testosterone, they’d stuck together.They’d drifted apart, too, over the years.Maddie just hadn’t had the energy to stay close to anyone in Autre, and Kennedy had only been fourteen when Maddie had left.She’d had a full life, revolving entirely around Autre, and Maddie had figured it was easiest, for them both, to just live their own lives.

“So Maddie was on this horrible date for Valentine’s Day,” Maddie heard Kennedy say as she drew closer.

She noticed that Kennedy was talking to another woman.One Maddie didn’t know.“Hang on, I want to say hi to Kennedy,” she said to Sawyer.

He gave her a nod and went over to help the guys arrange the tables and to tell Josh and Owen that it was too early for beer and to help Cora, who had started carrying plates to the tables.

It looked a lot more like a family dinner than a business meeting but that just further emphasized how this business worked.You couldn’t untangle the family from the business or vice versa.

Maddie felt her stomach knot a little.She wasn’t really family, anymore, but Tommy had been.These guys had been like brothers to him.Why didn’t you just leave the business to them?she asked her brother silently for the millionth time.

After her grandpa had passed away, his portion of the business had gone to Cora.She’d sold thirty-five percent of her portion to Tommy and fifteen percent to Owen.Leo had sold thirty-five percent of his portion to Sawyer and fifteen to Josh.

Since the guys had owned it, the business had grown and now it was worth far more than they’d paid their grandparents for it.Before they’d taken it over, Leo and Kenny had mostly taken groups out hunting and fishing and camping.The boys had expanded it into a true tourist attraction.They’d also committed to rolling most of their profits back into the business, expanding and improving and advertising.Which meant that, ironically, they couldn’t afford to buy Maddie out.

Now she was going to have to break up the family business.

She hated that she was in this position.She, of course, felt guilty.But she also felt panic when she thought about keeping a connection to this place that felt familiar and scary at the same time.

“Owen had the guy up against the wall, cutting off his windpipe, telling him that he was going to throw him off the swamp bridge if he ever touched Maddie again,” Kennedy was saying as Maddie slipped onto the stool next to her.

“Hey,” she said.“Did I hear my name?”

“Oh, I’m just tellin’ Tori you and Owen’s story.”Kennedy popped a fry into her mouth and chewed.

“Our story?”

“Ilovethe stories from around here,” the other woman, who Maddie assumed was Tori, said.“I especially love that Owen has one.”

Maddie lifted a brow and reached out her hand.“Hi, I’m Madison Allain.”

“Oh, I know.”The woman took her hand with a huge smile.“I’m Victoria Kramer, but everyone calls me Tori.”

“You’re new here.”

“She’s Josh’s,” Kennedy said, running a fry through some cheese sauce.“Just moved down here from Iowa about three months ago.She’s a vet.”Kennedy grinned.“Josh bought her a farm.And peacocks.”

Maddie looked at Tori, who was now smiling with a touch of pink in her cheeks.She looked a little shy but also very…satisfied.She was an outsider, though.Not from here.New.Maybe Maddie could have a normal friend here for the next month.Someone to remind her of the great big wide world outside of the Autre city limits.“Josh, huh?”

Tori’s smile grew.“Yeah.”She was dressed in cutoff denim shorts, a basic blue tee, had her hair back in a ponytail and Converse tennis shoes on her feet.She had a smudge of dirt on one leg, short fingernails, a faint smattering of freckles over her nose, and when she reached for one of Kennedy’s fries, Maddie could see where the tan on her arms ended just under the edge of her sleeve.A farmer’s tan.No makeup.Just a girl who apparently worked outside with animals.

But when Tori heard Josh’s name, her smile softened, and her voice took on a dreamy note.Like she was madly in love.

“Josh is a great guy,” Maddie said.“Probably my favorite Landry, to be honest.”

Kennedy snorted.“Bullshit.”

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