Page 63 of Sweet Home Louisiana

She shook her head.It wasn’t really for anyone now that it was all mixed together.“My dinner.”

“So why whiskey and ginger ale?”He seemed amused.

“For your throat, cough, or stomach.Again, depending on what’s going on.”

He stretched an arm out along the back of the swing, angling his body more toward her.“What would be going on?”

“Kennedy and Tori said you’re sick.I came to check on you.Your grandma gave me this stuff to help.”

There was a beat of silence and then he chuckled softly.“Ah.Well, I guess I don’t know what best treats typhoid.”

Maddie froze.“Wait.What?”

“Typhoid is kind of a stomach thing from what I understand.”

Typhoid.Right.He had typhoid.Supposedly.Maddie groaned.“Those bitches,” she said softly.She shook her head.“So everyone knows about that?Youknow about that?”

“That you told some girls that I had a very contagious, and kind of disgusting, disease to keep them off my boat?”

He said boat with the same inflection the girls had used and Maddie felt herself frown.

“Yes, I know about it,” Owen said.“I also know that you don’t get typhoid from rats.That’s bubonic plague.Or rabies.”

“You looked it up?”she asked.

He grinned.“I just knew it.”

Thankfully those girls hadn’t.

“And rats?In my house?Really, Maddie?”

She tipped her head back.“Oh my God.Kennedy and Tori and Josh knew I’d come over to check on you if I thought you were actually sick.They totally played me.”

He chuckled again.“Well, I’m not gonna deny that you showing up to make sure I’m okay makes me feel a lot better.But then, so did you getting jealous enough to scare some girls off.”

She could argue.She could insist that it wasn’t jealousy.That she’d been concerned for some other reason.But he wouldn’t believe it.Because it wouldn’t be true.“Why did I come up with a stupid story like that, though?”she asked.She set the box down on the floor of the porch but carried the whiskey and ginger ale to the swing.She sat next to him.“Because you make me crazy,” she said, answering her own question.

“I hope you’re not looking for an apology,” he said, his voice a little gruffer.

She sighed.“No.It’s not you.It’s me.”

He gave a noncommittal grunt at that.

Maddie popped the top of one of the cans of ginger ale and leaned over to pour about half of it over the edge of the porch and into the bushes.Then she unscrewed the top of the whiskey bottle and poured whiskey into the can until it was full.She swirled it, mixing the two, then took a drink.

Not bad.

“It’s why I pulled you into the office the other day, too,” she said after she’d swallowed.“I was hiding you from those same girls.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I mean, that was kind of an overreaction, too.It’s not my job to decide who you flirt with or date or hook up with.”

“Nope, not your job.”

For some reason that made her feel worse.

“But I still like that you did it.”

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