Page 32 of Sweet Home Louisiana

Typical.

5

“Yeah, I’ll take care of it.”

Owen watched as Sawyer pocketed his phone and climbed up out of the boat.

“Folks, it’s just gonna be a second,” Sawyer told his boat full of tourists.“Sorry about the delay, but we’ll head out soon.”

“What’s up?”Owen asked as he joined Sawyer on the dock.He had a tour loaded and ready to go out, too, and he’d just been waiting for Sawyer to move his boat.

“Need to talk to Maddie.”

Sawyer didn’t look happy as he headed for the office.Owen told his boat the same thing and followed Sawyer.Though he wasn’t sure who he was going in to protect.

Maddie had been working in the office every day for eight days now.She’d taken the inventory and books seriously.She’d been going through all kinds of records and she’d already negotiated a new contract for shipping with one of the parts dealers they worked with in Mobile.

She’d also put her foot down with Leo, telling him that he had to stop offering moonshine to the passengers on his bus.Leo and their cousin Mitch drove the buses back and forth between New Orleans and Autre, picking tourists up at their hotels and then delivering them back after the tour.Leo thought that the moonshine gave them a taste of the local area and also loosened them up so they had more fun—and tipped better.He wasn’t wrong.The people loved it.

Maddie didn’t.

She didn’t like the liability that went along with getting people drunk or offering food in general to people in light of all of the food allergies out there in the world.Not to mention the fact they didn’t have a liquor license, and there could be a case made that they shouldn’t be serving drinks without that.

Owen knew better, though.She was being a stick-in-the-mud on purpose.She was coming down on the fun so that they’d all get annoyed and not want her to be a part of all of this.She was wily.But he wasn’t going to let her get away with it.

They stepped into the office and were met by the unusually cool air.She’d put a window air conditioner in on day three—and yeah, she’d literally put it in herself, which meant she’d used tools and she’d threatened to take Josh’s truck engine apart if he didn’t stop teasing her about it.She’d also had to order some new clothes—clothes with less material—after nearly passing out day two when she’d worn pants and a shirt that she wore to the art gallery.That was both a blessing and a curse.Owen really did love looking at her in less clothing.So did a lot of the other guys who came through the office.Including the guys who stocked the drinks and snacks for the tourists to purchase.

One of them, Brody Carson, was leaning on the front counter at that very moment, as a matter of fact.It might have been that he was taking a break from the hot sun, but Owen was pretty sure that it was more because of the gauzy yellow material of Maddie’s sundress than the AC.Theshortsundress.It was so light it was nearly see-through with the sun coming in the window behind her.He couldn’t reallyseeanything, but Owen scowled at the whole situation anyway.Of course, it probably didn’t matter what she wore.She’d had her hair up in ponytails to keep it off her neck the past few days, and she’d said she was done with makeup considering it was melting off by noon.She was now, after only a week, the perfect picture of a sweet, sun-kissed, southern girl.

Until she spoke.

“That is a ridiculous price for candy anyway,” she was telling Brody.“And now I have to keep the stupid candy bars in the fridge to keep them from melting, which means they’re costing me more than if they were on the shelf.”

Not only did she sound like a Yankee, she sounded like a cool Yankee businesswoman.

“You think I should make up the difference of what you’re spending on electricity on a fridge that’s running anyway?”Brody asked her.But he was grinning.And not as if he was making fun of her but just as if he was…having fun sparring with her.

Owen knew the feeling.At least he had at one time.Maddie had been pretty much avoiding talking to him much and when she did, there wasn’t much flirtatious about it.It was very straightforward and always about business.She’d been avoiding family dinner at night, too.He swore she was doing it to make him crazy, but that was just a knee-jerk reaction.She didn’t want to be here and she didn’t want to get too close to any of them.Family dinner would have made that hard.He knew she cooked for herself at Cora’s and then worked on stuff from San Francisco rather than coming over and joining them all at Ellie’s.But Cora had said she’d gone to New Orleans two nights ago.That was making Owen super itchy.He wanted to know what she was doing.And who she was doing it with.And it was definitely none of his damned business.

“I think you should give me a fair price on the candy,” Maddie said.“Or I can find another way to feed our tourists.I mean, sending them over to my grandma’s place for pie and bread puddin’ sounds like a better idea than selling them overpriced Snickers bars anyway.”

Had she just dropped the ‘g’ on pudding?Owen was distracted for a second.But only one.Because Brody reached out and put his hand on top of Maddie’s.“Well, maybe if I had some of this…pie, I’d agree with you and we could just toss the Snickers bars.How about we head across the road and you can introduce me to it?”

Owen felt Sawyer’s hand on his chest, pushing him back before he’d even realized he’d taken a step forward.“Whoa.Jesus.They’re talking about candy bars,” Sawyer said low enough for only Owen’s ears.

Yeah, no they weren’t.Brody’s emphasis onpiehad been all full of innuendo.“You know that’s not true.”

“And I know she can handle it,” Sawyer said.“Cool it.I don’t need you gettin’ wound up just because he smiled at her.We can’t afford new windows in here.”

It wasn’t Sawyer’s hand that kept Owen from crossing the space between him and Brody.It was how satisfying Owen knew it would be to actually throw Brody through one of the windows.Fuck.

“But then I wouldn’t get to see your smiling face once a week,” Maddie told Brody, pulling her hand back from his.

“Oh, we could figure out a way for you to keep seeing me.”

“I couldn’t do that to you,” Maddie said, feigning disappointment.

At least she’d better be faking it.

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