She coughed lightly now, her lungs giving her a little hey-don’t-freak-out-and-suck-anything-into-us reminder.
Yeah, well, she wasn’t the one who was going to be shocked that she was standing on Mitch’s front porch today.
Okay, okay, she was a little surprised that she was here. That she’d done this. That she’d thought about running away from home, and he was the person she ran to. But he’d be shocked to see her too. She was going to just focus on that and not all of the what is it about this guy? that kept swirling through her mind.
She took in the details of the house. It was nice. Simple. Small. White. Well kept. There was a huge tree in the front yard that she thought was likely a magnolia tree. She didn’t have a lot of experience with magnolia trees, of course, but she’d seen a lot of them as she’d scrolled through the results of her What You Need To Know About Louisiana search last night on her laptop in the roadside motel.
She eyed the front of the house. Did she knock on the porch door, or did she go onto the porch and knock on the front door? The front door, surely, right?
But when she opened the light screened door to the porch, she felt almost as if she was stepping into a living room.
The porch was adorable. Sure, it belonged to a hot, sexy, alpha male who gave her eye-crossing-toe-curling orgasms. But he had a freaking adorable porch. There was no way around it.
There were potted plants everywhere, hanging from baskets overhead, sitting on shelves, and even on the floor. On one end of the porch, that stretched the entire length of the front of the house, was a porch swing long enough to fit two or three adults. It faced the street and would be the perfect place to sit and rock and watch the neighborhood go by.
She glanced around. Of course, not much was going on in this neighborhood. It was very quiet. The houses were set back from the street several yards, and there were wide expanses between them. This was the far end of town, furthest from the highway and closest to the bayou. The houses were older. The front walks cracked and uneven, the plants and trees very established. There was also an overgrown field that stretched out behind this house and the two to the west. It spread out all the way to the line of trees in the distance.
She couldn’t see or hear it from here, but she knew the bayou was on the other side of those trees. Less than a mile from the houses. She hadn’t known which house was Mitch’s, but she’d checked out the town of Autre online.
That wasn’t super creepy. Was it? It wasn’t weird that she’d looked the town up since she was moving here. Temporarily, of course, but she was going to be staying for a couple of weeks. Or three. Or for the summer. Which was still several months away.
Okay, when she’d first considered coming to Louisiana for the summer, it had been because she thought that was when Josh and Tori’s wedding would be.
Instead, they were getting married on Mardi Gras. Which was a Tuesday. In February.
Even once she’d heard it was a Mardi Gras wedding, Paige had still assumed it was a few months away. She wasn’t sure why she’d thought of Mardi Gras as a warm weather holiday, but she did. Probably the plethora of naked breasts associated with the celebration.
Anyway, she knew where the bayou was from here. And where the highway was. In case she needed to head back north.
This porch, though… she wasn’t in a hurry to go back north suddenly. She didn’t have a porch there. She definitely didn’t have a porch with a hammock in it.
But Mitch did. The hammock was hooked onto the house and onto a post that seemed to have been secured to the floor of the porch specifically for that purpose.
Paige could already imagine lying in that thing on a rainy day with a good book. Or maybe with a hot, laid-back, Louisiana boy. Or both. A hot guy and a book? Yes, please, sign her up. Specifically, Mitch Landry and a dirty romance.
Okay, she could knock on this door if that was how she was going to get a couple of afternoons in that hammock.
She knocked and waited, holding her breath.
She heard footsteps inside, and her stomach swooped.
A second later, the door swung open.
And a gorgeous brunette, with streaks of pink in her hair and tattoos that ran the entire length of her left leg and her left arm, opened the door.
Paige knew that the leg tattoo went from ankle to hip because the woman was wearing nothing but a t-shirt. As in, no pants. The shirt was at least three sizes too big for her and covered everything important, but it still left a lot of skin bare.
Paige could only assume it was a man’s shirt. As in Mitch’s. The man who lived here–who would have t-shirts here.
Paige’s swoopy stomach knotted, and the breath she’d been holding came whooshing out.
Dammit.
This kind of…hurt.
“Hi,” the woman said, looking at Paige with a combination of surprise and curiosity. “Can I help you?”
“Um… yes, if you can tell me this is not Mitch Landry’s house.”
That would be good. Sure, it looked exactly as Bud had described it, but maybe there were two white houses with big trees in the front and a screened-in front porch. None of those things were particularly unique.
The woman smiled. “No, this is Mitch’s place.”
“Dammit,” Paige muttered.
“You okay?” the woman asked.
“I mean…maybe. I could be. If you told me you’re his sister.”
Though that would mean the woman was lying to her.
She and Mitch had been texting for nearly six months between his two visits to Appleby and they’d shared about their families. Mitch was from a big, loud family that all lived within about ten square miles of one another. But he was an only child to a single dad. He had lots of cousins and aunts and uncles, but no siblings.
The woman leaned into the doorjamb. “Not his sister,” she said with a knowing smile.
Paige nodded. “Yeah, I figured.”
“Cousin.”
Paige nodded again but then paused. “Oh.”
The woman smiled. “Yeah.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Kennedy.”
Paige took it. “Paige.”
Kennedy’s eyes widened, and her hand tightened on Paige’s. “Iowa Paige?”
Paige felt her brows arch. “He told you about me?”
“He told Chase and Owen who told Sawyer who told Juliet who told me,” Kennedy said. She tugged on Paige’s hand. “Come on in. I can’t even tell you how awesome it is that I get to meet you first.” She pulled Paige into the house. “I mean, I do get to meet you first, right? You haven’t seen anyone else? Because I haven’t gotten any texts or calls.”
Paige had no choice but to follow the chatty woman through the living room. “Um, just Bud, at the gas station.”
Kennedy nodded. “Good. Okay. I mean, he’ll tell someone. Or call the bar. But I get to meet you first.” She gave Paige a grin. “That’s very good.”
“Oh. I…” Paige had no idea what to say.
Kennedy had thrown a lot of names at her. Chase she recognized. He and Mitch were good friends. The others she had heard of, but she wasn’t sure who they all were exactly and how, or if, they were even all related. As far as she could tell, everyone became a part of the Landry family once they spent about five minutes with them.