Page 25 of Beauty and the Bayou

Maddie’s eyes widened.“Really?Just like that?”She looked at Owen.“That’s all it took?”

Owen shrugged.“Big brown eyes.I knew her big brown eyes would get to him.”

Sawyer didn’t deny it.But it wasn’t Juliet’s eyes that had gotten to him.

Okay, it wasn’tjusther eyes.

Josh gave Sawyer a huge grin.“Sure.Her eyes.Couldn’t have been those curves underneath the hip waders.”

Sawyer took a deep breath.He and Josh and Owen hadn’t joked around a lot lately.Josh and Owen were two of the most laid-back people Sawyer had ever met.They were friendly and fun and knew how to make people feel instantly comfortable.And they’d been walking on eggshells around him, protecting him by taking on more of the tours and dealing with customer issues as much as they could, trying to make things easier on him since Tommy had died.He’d still been worrying too much and bitching at them.

“She had on hip waders?”Maddie asked, her eyes wide.

“And a life jacket,” Owen said with a grin.

Sawyer really liked when Josh and Owen and Maddie grinned and teased.He wanted them to joke around and laugh.With him.

Maddie looked up at Sawyer.“You made her put a life jacket on already?”

He was going to relax.Chill out.Show them that he was not a complete emotional wreck and that he could be happy.

Even if he had to fake it every single day for the next two weeks.

It would be easier to convince them if he was on the shore building a dock while they were doing the tours though.They all spent long hours every day together.It was damned difficult to hide anything from anyone around here.But if they were out on the bayou, focused on their customers, and he was on land, preoccupied with Juliet and Chase, it would be a lot easier to fake laid-back and happy when he was with his family after hours.

And he would be with them after hours.In Autre, Louisiana, there was no escaping the Landry clan.They worked, played, ate, fought, laughed, and cried together.For better or worse.

Sawyer tucked a hand in his front pocket and consciously relaxed his shoulders.“I found her that way,” he said, as he’d told Leo.

“She showed up in a life jacket and hip waders?”Maddie asked.“No way.”

He nodded.“Yep.Seems Ms.Dawson is all about preparedness and safety.”

He couldn’t help the little smile he felt thinking about that.They’d played the Yeah, But game.Juliet Dawson might be as big a pessimist as he was.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to fakeeverythingabout relaxing and enjoying things with Juliet around over the next two weeks.

“Wow,” Maddie said.“I didn’t even know that about her.”She gave Owen and Josh a conspiratorial smile.“This should be interesting.”

Could he let the Dawson siblings try to build a dock, shrug a little, say “sure” a few times to make his family feel like he wasn’t a total emotional loss?

Sure.

“And she has her own safety goggles.”

There was a long pause and then they all laughed.Sawyer felt a pang in his chest.Fuck, when was the last time he’d made themlaugh?

Tori and Maddie had madehimgrin a few times.Even Josh and Owen with their stupid jokes and the way they handled the customers made him smile.Buthehadn’t madethemlaugh in far too long.

“She also has on very short shorts,” Josh filled in for Maddie.“Under the hip waders, of course.”

Maddie grinned at Sawyer.“You would go for someone who was capable and cautious.”

Yeah, it seemed to fit.He could admit.But that was the thing.He wouldn’t have gone for that type typically.Wearing hip waders and a life jacket on a boat dock when she had no intention of getting in the water and was doing it as a just-in-case measure was an overreaction.A year ago, he would have seen that.That would have been his first impression, in fact, rather than thinking it was the hottest thing he’d seen in forever.He would have been all about her stripping it alloffrather than thinking about her putting safety goggleson.

A year ago, he would have been flirting his ass off rather than talking to her about potentially strangling herself over the edge of the dock.Okay, that had felt a little flirtatious—strangely—but that wasnotsexy.Hell, a year ago that wouldn’t have even occurred to him.

A year ago, he would have thought this whole plan was great, in fact.He would have thought that Chase Dawsonshouldrebuild the dock, and he would have thought Juliet wearing those hip waders was hilarious.He would have loved the idea of torturing a spoiled frat boy with manual labor and would have already asked Juliet out.

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