She turned on the chair, trying to smile, but afraid that her expression was a combination of oh-my-god-I-want-you and what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here?
She swallowed hard. “Hey.”
He was in a pair of jeans and a fitted gray t-shirt. His hair was wet. He didn’t have any shoes on. And he looked stunned.
“Surprise,” she said, again trying the smile. And again, pretty sure it looked more like a grimace. “I was just—”
Before she could even finish the thought, not to mention speaking the sentence, he was there, pulling her up from the chair and cupping her face.
His mouth covered hers, and she melted.
Everything is going to be okay.
That was the only thought in her head as he kissed her.
Mitch was kissing her right now, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, his hands holding her possessively, his big body hot and hard against hers, and there really wasn’t anything else she wanted to think about right then.
He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her. She kissed him back, of course, but she was aware they had an audience so she didn’t grip his shoulders and climb up his body to wrap herself around him the way she wanted to.
“Maddie, you are never going to guess where I am and what’s happening.”
Kennedy’s voice infiltrated, and Mitch lifted his head.
He kept a hold of Paige’s face with one big hand, staring into her eyes, but he reached over and plucked the phone from Kennedy’s fingers.
“Hey!” she protested.
He hit the button to disconnect the call. Then tucked the phone into his back pocket.
“Give me a fucking break, Ken,” he said, still looking at Paige. “I need a little time here.”
Paige wet her lips. “Time for what?”
“Time to absorb you myself before I have to share you.”
Her heart flipped. Again. Because of the tone of voice and the look in his eyes. But then she registered the actual words. “Share me?”
“How did you find my house?”
“I asked Bud. At the gas station.”
He nodded. “So not the bar or the garage or the tour company or Landry Construction or Landry Accounting or Landry… anything?”
That was a lot of Landrys. “No.”
“You didn’t talk to anyone with Landry or Boys of the Bayou on their shirt?”
“No.”
He smiled. “Then we probably have about ten more minutes…maybe fifteen…to get out of here.”
“Get out of here?”
But Mitch had already taken her hand and started for the back door.
“Hey! Phone!” Kennedy called after him.
“No,” Mitch said simply, pulling Paige across the back porch and down the steps.
“How about a ride home?” Kennedy yelled.
“No,” Mitch called back.
“I’m taking all your beer when I leave!” Kennedy told him.
“Don’t care.”
“Then I’m taking your pickles too!”
“Touch my pickles, and I’ll tell Bennett about the time you told Jason Guillory that you wanted to have six babies with him.”
There was a beat of silence. Then Kennedy yelled, “I was seven!”
Mitch just laughed.
“And Bennett will think that’s adorable!” Kennedy added. “He’s obsessed with me!”
Mitch stopped by the dark green pickup and pulled the passenger door open, turning to Paige.
“Pickles?” she asked. “That’s a threat?”
“I love pickles, and I don’t share. Especially Alice’s.”
“Who’s Alice?”
“Lady over in Bad.”
“And how did you meet Alice?”
Was she feeling jealous of the pickle queen? Yep.
“I met her when she was waitressing at the café over there. I drive through a lot. I stopped for lunch often. She quit waitressing about two years ago, so now I stop and check to see if she needs anything. Leaky faucets fixed, oil change on her car, that kind of stuff. She pays me in home-canned pickles.”
“And she’s young and blond and thinks you’re amazing.”
He chuckled. “She is seventy-two and used to be a brunette. But yeah, she thinks I’m pretty great.”
Paige had no trouble believing that. Any of it. She hadn’t known him long, but what she did know made it very easy to imagine Mitch stopping to check on an older lady just because he wanted to be sure she was okay.
“Bad?”
He grinned. “Bad, Louisiana. About ten miles up the bayou.”
“That’s a… strange name.”
“Long story.” He shrugged. “They’re our rivals in just about everything. Football and stuff. But some of the guys over there are pretty great.”
“Do they call themselves the Bad Boys?” she joked.
“They do.”
She laughed. “It would be a huge, missed opportunity if they didn’t.”
“That’s what they say. We call them bad at everything. It’s been a long-running, very obvious, but still a funny joke.”
“Do they have tourist businesses to compete with too?” It was clear that Mitch was friends with some of the guys from Bad and that immediately made her curious about them. She wanted to know everything about Mitch and the things and people he liked.
She supposed that was normal. When you were interested in someone, you wanted to know them. But she’d never really felt that way before. Then again, she’d known most of the guys she hung out with for years, if not her whole life. The things and people they liked were things and people Paige liked too.
It probably did make sense that she would marry one of them. But she just couldn’t deny the feeling of ugh—that was really the best way to describe the emotion—the idea brought on.
“They do not have tourist business,” Mitch said. “In fact, that’s something they give us shit about. They think we’re selling out by bringing all these strangers down here to tromp around, disrupt the wildlife, and make easy money off of boat rides.”
Paige lifted a brow. “Is any of that true?”
“Nah. They’re just mad because they’re not creative enough to do what we do.”
“And is Bennett one of the Bad boys?”
“Nope. Our girls don’t fraternize with those guys.”
“Really?”
He laughed. “That’s what we like to say. It’s not true, of course. But Bennett is Kennedy’s fiancé. He’s from Savannah and is one of the owners of Boys of the Bayou. Probably one of our next state senators too. And he is, in fact, obsessed with Kennedy and thinks her crazy shit is adorable.”
Before Paige could come up with a response, Mitch moved in close, again cupping her face in both hands.
“Speaking of adorable, crazy shit—I’m so damned happy to see you,” he said gruffly.
She couldn’t help but smile. “Am I the adorable, crazy shit, or is my just showing up here the adorable, crazy shit?”
“A little of both,” he said with an affectionate smile. “Though I don’t know if I’d call you crazy. I think you’re just…”
“Difficult?”