Page 28 of Sweet Home Louisiana

“Oh my god,” she said, shaking her head.Though she didn’t seem to be having trouble believing it.

“It was empty.For the record,” he said.

“That’s something, I guess.”

“It was after he told me that he’d hoped we’d end up in a cell overnight.He hadn’t been planning on the hospital.But that it was accomplishing the same thing.”

“Keeping you away from me until I was on the airplane.”

He nodded.

“He was concerned about you, too,” she said.“I realize that putting you in the hospital doesn’t seem like it, but he was.He was concerned about us together.”

“Well, we probably would have just been in a jail cell.I was the one who tackled him by the window.”

She pulled in a breath through her nose, closing her eyes for a moment.“I wasn’t scared ofyou, Owen.Tommy wasn’t scared of you for me.We were scared ofme.”

Her answer didn’t shock him.Which shocked him.“What’s that mean?”He felt his chest tightening again.He’d wanted to have this conversation for twelve years.He really hadn’t intended to dump it all out there on her first night back in town, but that’s how things seemed to go around here.And with him and Maddie in particular.Emotions spilling out all over the place, as she’d said.

“My mom talked Bobby Gravier into doing shots with her at the bar.Because it sounded fun and he would do it.Just because it sounded like fun and shefeltlike it.Then she got into his car so he could drive her home because she didn’t think through silly things like consequences.Like Bobby hitting the shoulder of the road because he was drunk and the car flipping and her not walking away from it.And my dad losing his mind because what the fuck was she doing with another guy anyway and what the hell was Bobby doing getting behind the wheel.And him driving his F-150 through Bobby’s living room and then going after him with a crowbar.”

Owen took it all in.He knew the story.Everyone knew the story.“You didn’t think that I seemed an awful lot like your dad?”he asked.“Because I did.”

She shook her head.“Only because I was an awful lot like my mom.”She took a deep breath.“You could get wound up,” she admitted.“But only after I egged you on.”

“Come on, Mad—” he started.

“You have two scars and a police record because of me.You didn’t have any of that before you and I got together.”

“Juvie record,” he said.“Doesn’t count.”

“Come on, Owen,” she said, mimicking him.“You were not that guy before I called you away from your girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, got you into a fight with Wade, and then kissed you.”

Okay, that was true.He’d wrestled and shoved and argued with Sawyer and Josh and Tommy growing up.But he’d never punched a guy or put his hand around a guy’s throat until he did it that night to Wade.Because of Maddie.

“That doesn’t mean you werebadfor me,” he said.

She stepped forward and ran the tip of her finger up the scar on his arm.Heat shot straight to his cock.

“I don’t think you can really make that argument,” she said, almost sadly.

He captured her hand, holding it but stopping the stroking.“We were kids.Jacked up on drama and hormones and not sure how to handle all of our intense feelings.”

She nodded.“But back then, I didn’t know that we would grow out of it.I knew I needed to leave before one—or both—of us went too far.”

“But we did grow up.Right?So there’s nothing to worry about now?”He was truly asking.Because he wasn’t sure.The limits of his self-control hadn’t been tested.Because Maddie hadn’t been here.

“I…don’t know.”

“How many California sheds have you burned down?”he asked, trying for light.But his thumb was tracing over the scar on the back of her hand.The burn scar from when she’d tried to put the shed fire out after starting it.

“None,” she admitted.

“There you go.”

“But you haven’t been in California.”

“You think it’s just me that makes you…”

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