Page 1 of Beauty and the Bayou

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“Nailed.Pounded.Drilled.”

Sawyer Landry stopped with his hand on the doorknob to his office and turned at the sound of a male voice.He didn’t see anyone and it sounded like the voice was coming from around the corner of the building.

“Don’t forget hammered and banged.”

He also didn’t recognize that female voice.It wasn’t Kennedy, Maddie, or Tori.There weren’t many other females who’d be down here at this time of day.Sawyer scowled and headed around to the dock.Who the hell was here at seven in the morning?Was someone here early for their boat tour?Or were there some teenagers making out down here on the dock where they didn’t think they’d be caught?

“Of course, there are also terms likepoleandshaftand good oldtoolif you want to go with nouns versus verbs,” the guy said.

The woman laughed.“Why are there so many sexual terms that are also construction terms?”

“Well, buildingishot and dirty.”

Sawyer’s scowl deepened.He didn’t see anyone on the benches outside their main building where the tourists gathered to wait for their airboat and swamp boat tours, but the voices were coming from over here for sure.

“Come on, you have to stretch,” the guy said a moment later.

“I’m trying.It’s too long.”

“Use your other hand.”

“I can’t.I need that one right there.”

“How bad do you want it?”the guy asked her.

“Bad,” she said.“But I might need to get someone else to do it.”

“Hey, there’s only so much I can do from here.”

“I know.”

Sawyer stepped around the last row of benches and saw…not what he’d been expecting to see.

A woman was lying on her stomach, hanging off the edge of the dock, reaching under the boards with one hand, while gripping the railing with the other to keep from pitching over the edge.

She was dressed in dark green hip waders—tall rubber boots that covered not just the feet and lower leg but went all the way up to the hips—and a bright orange life jacket.There was also a bright yellow hard hat beside her on the dock.

“A little more,” the man’s voice said.From underneath the dock.

Sawyer had no idea what was going on.

He was, however, aware that this was the first time he’d stopped to admire a woman’s ass in about nine months.The space between the top of the woman’s boots and the lower edge of the life jacket framed the magnificent curve of a denim-covered ass that stopped him in his tracks.Literally.

Not a bad way to start a Monday morning.

But fine ass or not, there was a stranger lying on his dock, dangling over the edge, doing…he had no idea what.He didn’t know what to think of her outfit and the hard hat, either.Was she here to go fly fishing?Boating?Build something?She seemed dressed for all three.Her conversation about pounding and nailing came back to him, and Sawyer was proud of the fact that his gaze only lingered on her ass for another millisecond.

“What thehellis going on?”

“Eeep!”The woman gave a startled little scream and jerked.

The motion started her body sliding forward, headfirst off the edge of the dock, her hand slipping on the railing where she was holding on.Or trying to.

Well, shit.

Sawyer instinctively took a huge step forward and grabbed for the first thing he could get a hold of—the back waistband of her shorts.

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