Page 38 of Beauty and the Bayou

He gave her a grin and a wave and headed back for Ellie’s.

“And now you can take a break,” Sawyer said to her.

“I’ve still got wood to cut.”

“But you’re here working with Chase, right?You didn’t bust up the dock.You don’t have to work when he’s not here.”

She frowned.“Of course I do.We made a promise to rebuild the dock.If he can be helpful otherwise, that’s great, but there’s no reason I can’t keep going.”

Sawyer opened his mouth to reply—or argue—but finally he just said, “Okay.Don’t overdo.”

“I’m safe from sunburn, bug bites, my hair getting caught in a saw or blowing in my face so I hack off a finger,” she said with a smile.“I’m good.”

He clearly wanted to say something more, but he nodded.

She fired up the circular saw and tried to concentrate on cutting along the line she’d drawn.She could feel him standing there, just watching her for several long moments, but eventually he moved off, and she let out a little breath.

Sawyer was damned distracting and she found herself thinking it would be fun to have him around.A lot.Talking in that low drawl, telling her about his family, teasing her about skinny-dipping.

Maybeinsistingshe go skinny-dipping with him.

Or at least insisting she do the first step of skinny-dipping—stripping down to nothing—with him.

Juliet scowled at the board she was cutting.She needed to pay attention.If she got distracted, she could cut something crooked.Or cut somethingoffafter all.

4

He hadn’t hoveredat all.Over anyone.For three days.

That was…fucking amazing.

Sawyer stepped back from the workbench, wiping his hands on the rag he pulled from his back pocket.

Owen had asked him to look at the motor on their backup airboat and Sawyer had jumped at the chance.

He’d been working on paperwork and running errands for the last two days, but he hadn’t had as much to do as he’d hoped.That was all Maddie’s fault.Since she’d come home, things had been running much smoother.Files were organized, invoicing was caught up, and their vendors—the guys who delivered bottled drinks, snacks, and T-shirts, and who spent inordinate amounts of time shooting the shit with Josh and Owen and flirting with Kennedy—were suddenly a lot more efficient with Maddie around.Which was helpful from a business standpoint but made things difficult when Sawyer was trying to stay busy and act nonchalant about the dock building going on.

Truthfully, he was trying to act nonchalant about the woman who was doing that dock building.

He’d walked down to the dock yesterday morning, seen Juliet running a circular saw underneath a blue nylon canopy, and been glad that she’d had her hard hat on—if the wind caught the flimsy tent, it could have collapsed right on her.And turned on.Turned on by the hatandthe fact that he was sure she’d thought of the danger of the tent whacking her in the head.Thankfully, also by how gorgeous she looked in the morning sun in her long-sleeved blue shirt and the blue jeans that made her ass look amazing when she bent over to measure a board.Because wanting her because of that ass in those jeans was normal.Wanting her to wear a hard hat in bed wasn’t.

Juliet was quirky, but that shouldn’t even be a blip on his radar.Quirky was par for the course around here.In fact, it was a polite term for what the people around here really were.But he’d had a hell of a time walking past her and into the office.

After he’d decided her hair needed to be French braided so it wouldn’t get caught in the saw—for fuck’s sake—and had then flirted with her over skinny-dipping and fish poop—for fuck’s sake—he’d realized that he also wanted to be sure she was completely covered in sunscreen and that the area was fully cottonmouth-free.

Sunburn and snake bites were real threats.

For a woman without long sleeves and pants and steel-toed boots.

That was not Juliet.

He and Chase had been working a few feet away from her for a little over three hours, and it had been clear from the first minute that Juliet had everything handled.A plan.The right tools.Protective wear from head to toe.Literally.Then, instead of just being impressed and happy to have someone so well prepared around, he had made up a stupid excuse to What-If about her circular saw and had French braided her hair.

He’d quickly realized that the only way to be nonchalant about her and to try to break his new attraction to neon green and yellow plastic was to avoid her.

The old Sawyer would have never come up with that bit about her hair.Of course, the old Sawyer wouldn’t have been turned on by her steel-toed boots, either.

He was determined to remember old Sawyer.To show his family that he remembered him.Among other things, old Sawyer knew how to take time off.So that’s what he’d done.

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