Page 5 of Beauty and the Bayou

He could get used to that.

“Who was the guy on the phone?”Why did he care?Did it matter?Not even a little.

He just liked her.Yeah, the brown eyes and curves were part of it.Of course they were.But he also liked her because she was wearing a hard hat.And listening to him.That second thing for sure.But the hard hat was something.It was overkill.Who needed a hard hat on when walking around on a dock?Even if you were leaning over the edge of it?But overkill with safety was okay with him.

God help him if she ever put safety goggles on.

“Brandon.”Then she lunged for the railing as if just remembering about her phone and the guy on it.“Brandon!Oh my God, he’s probably so worried.”

Sawyer leaned to look over the edge, too.Her phone was upright, lodged in the mud, the screen now dark.“You’ll have to call him back on my phone or something.”

“I don’t know his number!”she exclaimed.

“You don’t?”

“I just tap on his name and it dials.”

“You don’t know your boyfriend’s number?”He was absolutely fishing for information with that question.

She looked up at him with an eyebrow arched.

Ah, she knew he was fishing.

He didn’t care.

“He’s my client, actually,” she said when he just met her gaze and waited.“And my friend.”

“Client?”

“I’m an attorney,” she told him.“I helped him with a couple of things.Now he’s helping me.”

“Helping you what?”Suddenly Sawyer remembered that he had no idea what she was doing here.Onhisdock.Before business hours.Acting startled that he’d shown up.“What are you doing here anyway?”

“I was showing Brandon the dock.The underside of it, actually, when you snuck up on me and scared me and made me drop my phone.”

Oh, he was on to her already.Even if she hadn’t told him she was an attorney, he was used to people turning arguments around on him and saw right through it.His sister was great at it.And she’d learned from his grandmother.Ellie Landry was good at a lot of things—guilt trips for one—but admitting she was wrong was not one of them.

“Why did Brandon need to see the underside of my dock?”

“Because he—” She paused and frowned.“Wait,yourdock?”

“Yes.My dock,” he said.“So not only did I save your pretty neck from going over the edge and possibly ending up paralyzed, but you’re also trespassing, and I haven’t called the cops.You owe me twice.”

“Paralyzed?”she repeated.

He nodded.“If you’d gone headfirst, you could have suffered a serious spinal injury.Your hard hat, which you weren’t even wearing, might not have protected you.Just the right angle and—”

“Okay,” she broke in.“Okay.You’re right.”

Yep, hereallyliked those last two words she’d said.The chances of her becoming paralyzed were probably slim, but itwasa possibility.

“Why did Brandon need to see under the dock?”Sawyer repeated.He was very familiar with Kennedy redirecting conversations she didn’t want to have.

“Just to confirm the design and materials.I’ve looked most of it up, but he’s done construction before—not docks, but he’s done a couple of decks and other stuff.Decks and docks are very similar in construction.”

Well, yeah.Okay.But… Sawyer stared at her.What the hell was she talking about?“Design and materials for what?”

Instead of answering, she dropped to her knees.“Hold my feet.”She got down on her stomach and scooted to the edge of the dock, ducking her head under the bottom rail.

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