Page 25 of Sweet Home Louisiana

The snakes in the area were another story.Did she remember to look for those?Were there snakes in San Francisco?Probably not along the streets that ran to swanky art galleries.

At least she was wearing decent shoes and clothes now.

She was now in denim shorts and a tank top.Not that she looked any less devastatingly beautiful.He’d choked on his swallow of beer when she’d first stepped out of Ellie’s, carrying a plate of corn on the cob.In fact, she looked even more gorgeous in denim.Because now she looked like the Maddie he remembered.The bayou girl.

Most importantly, she had Converse tennis shoes on her feet now.Those were far more practical than those fuck-me heels she’d shown up in.

Still, they wouldn’t necessarily keep her from getting bitten by a snake if she didn’t see the thing coming.Or if she didn’t remember what to do if shedidsee one coming.

“Hey,” he said softly, not wanting to scare her.

He saw her shoulders rise and fall and then she glanced back to him.“Hey.”

“You okay?”

“Um…” She took another deep breath.“Probably not.”She focused on the dark water again.

Her answer made his chest tighten.Fuck.He moved from the path onto the dock.“You want to be alone?”He really hoped she wouldn’t want to be alone.Leaving her alone when she was two thousand miles away was one thing, but when she was right here?It was going to be extremely hard.But if she was “probably not” okay?Yeah, forget it.

She made a soft sound that was not really a laugh, but not really a sigh.“It’s funny.I’m alone a lot.But here…it feels weird.”

He took a few steps forward, shoving his hands into his pockets.“I’m not sure I’ve ever actually been alone here.Not unless I take a boat out on my own or something.Even then, it’s maybe thirty minutes before someone’s calling.”

She nodded.He stopped a few feet away.

“Tommy was out there alone, right?”

His chest tightened further and he felt a cold arrow of regret shoot through him.He cleared his throat.“Yeah.”

God, that had been a horrible fucking day.Easily the worst of Owen’s life.

They’d all been out on the bayou alone at one time or another.They fished.They just drove the airboats around the way someone might take a drive down a backroad.They headed out to the cabin just to get away.But never without telling someone where they were going and never without their phones.The bayou was home, but it could be a dangerous place.Cottonmouths, copperheads, and alligators were just a few of the things that they learned to live alongside growing up here.

Bull sharks were something else.They weren’t common, not like snakes and gators, but they could get into the bayou and rivers from the gulf on occasion.There had been several in Lake Ponchartrain.They were able to live in less saline waters and had even been spotted as far up the Mississippi River as Illinois.Still, people were always surprised by the idea of sharks in rivers and lakes.And in the bayou, they were even more of a problem.They were hard to see in the muddy waters, blending in with the colors and looking a lot like logs until you were too close.They were also aggressive as hell.Even the babies.

The one that had attacked Tommy had been a juvenile.And it probably wouldn’t have done much damage, really, if it hadn’t hit his femoral artery.He’d managed to call Sawyer, but by the time he’d gotten there, Tommy had lost a lot of blood.Too much blood.He’d been out cold by the time Sawyer got to him and he’d died en route to the hospital.Sawyer had been attacked while he was trying to rescue Tommy, too.The shark had charged and though Sawyer avoided the shark’s mouth, its tail had swiped over Sawyer’s face and the sharp scales had left a deep laceration.He still had the scar.He always would.It made him look badass, actually.But Owen knew that every time Sawyer looked in the mirror, he was reminded that he hadn’t gotten there in time to save his best friend.

Owen scrubbed his hand over his face.He had nightmares about the whole thing.They all did.No one was more agonized over it than Sawyer, though.Tommy’s best friend.The guy who blamed himself for Tommy being out there alone.Even though that was bullshit.

“I miss him.”Maddie’s voice was soft and sad.

Owen felt his fists ball inside his pockets.

“I do, too.Every damned day.”

She nodded.“I guess I don’t.I mean, I didn’t see him every day.We didn’t talk every day.”She sighed.“We didn’t talk at all.Maybe a few times a year.”She shifted and wrapped her arms around her middle.“So how can I miss him?”

Fuck.

Owen knew it was probably a bad idea, but he took a big step toward her.It had to be a bad idea to not try to comfort her, too, right?It was just a matter of which was a worse idea.

“You miss him because he was a part of Autre for you,” he said.

“Yeah.”She took a deep breath.“My mom and dad, too.None of them are here anymore.So yeah…I’m probably not okay.”

With a resigned sigh, Owen took the rest of the steps between them.

“You know, I had never wanted to hug someone as much as I wanted to hug you at Tommy’s funeral,” he told her.

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