Page 58 of Beauty and the Bayou

Juliet frowned.“Are you not okay?”

“I’m…” He took a deep breath and shook his head.“No.Not really.”He met her gaze.“I think…” He stopped, then started again.“I think I’m scared of the bayou, too.”

She sat up a little straighter.“Really?How is that possible?”

Juliet realized, at the back of her mind, that she shouldnotlike that Sawyer had some kind of trauma or something in his past.She didn’t, exactly.But it made her feel like they were bonding.He hadn’t freaked out about her having a stroke.Maybe that was because he had something, too.

“Has anyone told you about my scar?”

She shook her head.“I haven’t asked.”

He gave her a little smile.“I should have known.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You wouldn’t pry into someone else’s stuff.”

She shrugged.“I’ve mostly just been hit by how hot it is.I haven’t thought about asking anyone else how you got it.”

He leaned in slightly.“You think it’s hot?”

She nodded.“Very.”

“How’s that work?”

“Hell if I know,” she said honestly.“Why does having a day’s worth of stubble and callouses on your hands and grease on your shirt work?I’m not sure, but it does.”

He lifted a hand and ran it over his jaw, almost absentmindedly.“No kidding.”

Juliet laughed.“I amnotthe first woman to tell you that she finds you attractive.”

“No,” he said, again almost as if he was thinking out loud.“But you’re the first to lay it out like that.And the first with the scar.”

“I’m not,” she said, with absolute confidence.“I might be the first tosay it, but no, Sawyer, other women have found that hot, too.I promise you.”

“Huh.”

She smiled.“Not sure I should have told you that about the other women.”

He reached out and snagged her hand, surprising her but spreading warm tingles up her arm as he ran his thumb over her knuckles.“All I heard was thatyoufind me hot.”

Juliet laughed.“Good recovery.”

“I’ve never been turned on by hip waders.Until I foundyouon my dock.”

Those warm tingles danced up her arm again and then down to her we-love-Sawyer-so-much nipples, and lower.“Oh yeah?”

“And the life jacket and the safety goggles and the bright neon green safety vest and the fucking steel-toed boots.”

“Aw,” she said teasingly.“I knew we’d get along the second you jumped in on the What-If game.”

He nodded, still stroking her knuckles.“I haven’t always been like that.”

“What happened?”

“My best friend, Tommy, died out on the bayou about nine months ago.”

Subconsciously, Juliet’s fingers tightened on his.She hadn’t been expecting an answer like that.“What?”

---