Sweet Home Louisiana Page 5

  After her grandpa had passed away, his portion of the business had gone to Cora. She’d sold thirty-five percent of her portion to Tommy and fifteen percent to Owen. Leo had sold thirty-five percent of his portion to Sawyer and fifteen to Josh.

  Since the guys had owned it, the business had grown and now it was worth far more than they’d paid their grandparents for it. Before they’d taken it over, Leo and Kenny had mostly taken groups out hunting and fishing and camping. The boys had expanded it into a true tourist attraction. They’d also committed to rolling most of their profits back into the business, expanding and improving and advertising. Which meant that, ironically, they couldn’t afford to buy Maddie out.

  Now she was going to have to break up the family business.

  She hated that she was in this position. She, of course, felt guilty. But she also felt panic when she thought about keeping a connection to this place that felt familiar and scary at the same time.

  “Owen had the guy up against the wall, cutting off his windpipe, telling him that he was going to throw him off the swamp bridge if he ever touched Maddie again,” Kennedy was saying as Maddie slipped onto the stool next to her.

  “Hey,” she said. “Did I hear my name?”

  “Oh, I’m just tellin’ Tori you and Owen’s story.” Kennedy popped a fry into her mouth and chewed.

  “Our story?”

  “I love the stories from around here,” the other woman, who Maddie assumed was Tori, said. “I especially love that Owen has one.”

  Maddie lifted a brow and reached out her hand. “Hi, I’m Madison Allain.”

  “Oh, I know.” The woman took her hand with a huge smile. “I’m Victoria Kramer, but everyone calls me Tori.”

  “You’re new here.”

  “She’s Josh’s,” Kennedy said, running a fry through some cheese sauce. “Just moved down here from Iowa about three months ago. She’s a vet.” Kennedy grinned. “Josh bought her a farm. And peacocks.”

  Maddie looked at Tori, who was now smiling with a touch of pink in her cheeks. She looked a little shy but also very…satisfied. She was an outsider, though. Not from here. New. Maybe Maddie could have a normal friend here for the next month. Someone to remind her of the great big wide world outside of the Autre city limits. “Josh, huh?”

  Tori’s smile grew. “Yeah.” She was dressed in cutoff denim shorts, a basic blue tee, had her hair back in a ponytail and Converse tennis shoes on her feet. She had a smudge of dirt on one leg, short fingernails, a faint smattering of freckles over her nose, and when she reached for one of Kennedy’s fries, Maddie could see where the tan on her arms ended just under the edge of her sleeve. A farmer’s tan. No makeup. Just a girl who apparently worked outside with animals.

  But when Tori heard Josh’s name, her smile softened, and her voice took on a dreamy note. Like she was madly in love.

  “Josh is a great guy,” Maddie said. “Probably my favorite Landry, to be honest.”

  Kennedy snorted. “Bullshit.”

  Maddie looked at her. “I mean, I like Sawyer a lot, too. But he always backed Tommy up when he was telling me what to do and not to do. And Ellie’s great, of course, but she doesn’t let you get away with anything. Leo is probably my second favorite. He’s funny and sweet.”

  “He’s cantankerous and full of shit,” Kennedy said of her grandpa, but her smile was nothing but affectionate.

  “Well, there’s that, too,” Maddie agreed with a laugh.

  “But no way any of them are your favorite,” Kennedy said. She got a sly smile on her face. “You never burned anything down for any of them.”

  Maddie sighed. “I’m never going to live that down.”

  “Are you kidding?” Kennedy said. “It’s a fantastic story. Especially since it’s Owen.”

  Tori nodded. “Owen is so laid-back and charming and friendly. I can’t imagine someone getting that worked up over him. And vice versa.”

  Yeah, well, she and Owen had always created sparks. Figuratively and literally.

  “Crazy,” Maddie said. “It’s someone getting that crazy because of him.”

  Tori grinned. “Yeah. I mean, he’s awesome and the girls seem to really like him. And I get it. He’s hot. And the charming thing,” she added.

  Maddie sighed. Oh, she was sure the girls liked Owen. She had no trouble at all believing that Josh and Owen were the main attraction for a lot of the swamp boat tours. They did a lot of bachelorette parties and groups of girls in town for spring break, Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day and…hell, most major holidays. Even girls who came with groups of friends or their families would, no doubt, find the view at the front of the swamp boat even more enticing than anything they’d see in the bayou. From her rare phone calls with her brother, she knew that Tommy had been the more serious, business guy. He’d led most of the fishing and hunting parties. Sawyer tended to take the families with kids out. He liked to take more of an educational angle, teaching the kids about the animals and plants and history. Josh and Owen were the party guys.

  “But he’s just so easygoing,” Tori said. “I’d assume he’d be pretty great at apologizing and talking you out of a snit if he did something wrong.”

  Kennedy laughed. “She didn’t burn the shed down because of something Owen did.”

  “No?” Tori turned wide, interested eyes to Maddie. “Then why?”

  “She was defending him,” Kennedy said.

  Tori’s mouth formed a little “o.” “Tell me,” she said pleadingly to Maddie.

  Maddie shrugged. Looking back, she’d gone over-the-top, but she still remembered how she felt when Owen’s mom told her that Wade had shown up on their front porch. “My ex-boyfriend threatened him after we broke up.”

  “Did you break up with him because of Owen?” Tori asked, softly, almost as if she was hoping that was the answer.

  Maddie nodded and Tori let out a happy sigh.

  Maddie wasn’t sure if she should laugh or roll her eyes. Clearly Tori was one of them now. If she was into big huge displays of this-is-mine-and-you’d-better-back-off, then she was in the right place.

  The story was public knowledge. Maddie had no doubt it had grown a little over the years, but it didn’t have to grow much to be pretty entertaining. Twelve years later she could look back and mostly just roll her eyes. She was a little embarrassed by the whole thing, of course, but in Autre, where over-the-top was a way of life, she was a bit of a celebrity because of her overreaction on Owen’s behalf.

  Of course, outside of Autre was something else altogether. She wouldn’t want anyone outside of Autre to know about her past actions. The owner of the art gallery where she worked thought she was a sophisticated, composed, intelligent woman. So did her few girlfriends, the men she dated, her co-workers, really everyone. Because that was exactly who she was. Outside of Autre.

  Tori leaned her elbows in on the bar and looked at Maddie eagerly. “What did he do? What did you do? What did Owen do?” She glanced over to where Owen was helping set up for the “partner meeting”.

  Maddie reached out and swiped one of Kennedy’s fries and popped it in her mouth. She chewed for a moment, regarding Tori. She was involved with Josh. Josh was the least intense of the Landry guys. He was fun and friendly and flirtatious, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a little larger-than-life in him. Tori had also been around these people now for three months. Nothing Maddie was going to say would shock her. In fact, it almost seemed that she would be delighted.

  Maddie swallowed and brushed her hands together. “Okay, here’s the story. Wade was being an asshole at the Valentine’s Day party we went to. He kept saying that the only present he wanted from me was sex. I kept telling him no, he kept drinking and the more drunk he got, the more insistent he got. Finally, I’d had enough and called Owen to come and get me. He, of course, came right away. I didn’t tell him what had happened until we got to my house but after I did, he dropped me off and went right back to find Wade. I wasn’t there for that
but there were lots of witnesses. Owen pretty much threatened to rip Wade’s dick off if he ever said anything inappropriate to me again.”

  Tori’s eyes were predictably wide and Maddie felt herself smiling. She should not enjoy remembering or telling this story. But dammit, she kind of was.

  “I found out about it pretty much as it was happening and I went straight to Owen’s house.”

  “To yell at him?” Tori asked, leaning in.

  “To kiss him,” Maddie said.

  She grinned at Tori’s delighted, “Yes.”

  Maddie lifted a shoulder. “I’d wanted to kiss him for a long time and that seemed like a good reason.”

  “Very good reason,” Tori agreed. She leaned in further, clearly anticipating the rest of the story.

  Maddie laughed. “Well, Wade wasn’t happy about the breakup or Owen’s threats, but he was especially pissed off to find out that I’d spent the night in Owen’s room.”

  Tori gave a little gasp.

  “Yep. But we didn’t have sex. That night. I just slept there. In his bed, while he took the floor.”

  “Aw, he’s a good guy,” Tori said.

  He was. He always had been. One of the best. Owen was everything she’d grown up thinking she wanted. He was loyal, hardworking, funny, and cute. At age seventeen, he’d been very, very cute. That cute had turned into hot. But she’d always been attracted to him.

  Part of it was his blue eyes and his I’m-mostly-full-of-shit grin and his willingness to jump into any situation where one of his family members needed him. He’d reminded her of her dad. Danny Allain had been a great guy, always willing to help anyone out, plus steady and protective. Which was good, because Maddie’s mom had not been steady. She’d been fun. She’d fit right in with the Landrys. She’d loved the always-a-little-chaotic environment around the Landrys.

  Maddie hadn’t fully realized it until she’d lived with her mom’s parents and understood what a stifled atmosphere her mom had grown up in. It had been a relief to Maddie after all the craziness surrounding her mom’s death and her dad’s imprisonment. But it was easy to believe that Molly Allain had left California and found a lifestyle that was fun and loud and boisterous and so different from the way she’d been raised, that she’d jumped right in.

  Owen was wrong. Maddie wasn’t worried about being like her dad. She was worried about being like her mom. And making Owen like her dad.

  “What happened next?” Tori asked.

  Maddie shook off the thoughts of her mom’s love of a good party and the way she’d yell at football games and do shots at the bar and argue politics with the old men. She was always loud and in the middle of everything and happy and fun. Everyone had loved her.

  Danny had been the steady one. The quieter one. The one who smiled indulgently watching his wife pull a wallflower out onto the dance floor or call for another round.

  Danny Allain plowing his truck into a living room wall, trying to kill the guy who’d killed Molly in a drunk driving accident, had been a shock to literally everyone who knew him. Put simply, he’d snapped.

  If that could happen to him, it could definitely happen to a guy like Owen, who hadn’t hesitated to put Wade up against the wall with his hand on Wade’s throat, or who’d gone crashing through a plate-glass window with her brother.

  Maddie cleared her throat. “Well, Owen and I got together and our exes didn’t like it. Wade tried to start something by showing up at Owen’s house one night, threatening to take his dog since Owen had stolen me.”

  “Noooo,” Tori gasped. “Not the dog!”

  Maddie glanced at Kennedy who gave her a nod and a wink. “Yep. His dog. That pissed me off, so I went to Wade’s house.”

  “And…the fire?” Tori asked.

  “Yep.” Maddie nodded. “I took his football jersey, a T-shirt he’d given me, a teddy bear, and a photo of us together. I threw them on his front lawn, doused them with lighter fluid, and tossed in a match.” She felt herself grinning, remembering. She quickly made herself stop grinning. That wasn’t a good memory. She never should have done that. It was a huge overreaction.

  But damn if she didn’t clearly remember the feeling of satisfaction that washed through her when she’d struck that match. And when the football jersey started to burn. And when Wade had come thundering out onto his front porch.

  “I thought you set a shed on fire?” Tori asked, glancing at Kennedy.

  “Wait for it,” Kennedy told her, tossing another fry into her mouth.

  Maddie shook her head. “I set Wade’s stuff on fire. But their grass was really dry, which I didn’t notice or even think about, and the fire took off. It ended up at the shed and…it took a bit to put it out.”

  Tori stared at her for a moment, then she grinned, and started laughing. “Wow.”

  Maddie nodded. “Yeah. Wow.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “Firefighters showed up, including my dad.” Danny had been a volunteer firefighter in Autre for as long as she could remember. “They put it out, but there was a lot of damage. Wade and his dad were furious. The police chief took me downtown and asked me a bunch of questions and my dad had to pay a fine and then Owen and I had to rebuild the shed.”

  It had been okay. No one had gotten hurt, she’d made her point, and she and Owen had been able to spend a bunch of time together. Owen without his shirt on. And her kissing him and touching him and flirting with him the entire time, especially whenever Wade was around. Right in his backyard.

  That had been fun. The kissing and touching for sure. But the revenge, too.

  Maddie shook her head. No, she had to quit thinking that way. Normal people didn’t burn things down when someone said something mean to their boyfriend. Wade had had a reason to be jealous. She and Owen had definitely started a hot and heavy relationship immediately after she’d broken up with Wade.

  They’d been sixteen and seventeen. Kids. Dumb, hormonal, crazy kids. And they’d acted like it. Even more, they’d acted like Landrys in love.

  She’d grown up with a steady guy who had been quietly romantic, indulgent, and supportive, but she’d also been raised around a family that believed in big gestures and that when you fell in love, you made sure everyone knew it without a doubt. That was what she’d believed falling in love was like. Big, loud, bold, and yeah, crazy. She’d been led to believe that her father was the exception rather than the rule. In Autre, Louisiana he was. But not in the real, normal world.

  She knew better now. She knew that she should feel bad about the shed. Sheepish.

  Maybe she did. A little.

  But not enough to reassure her that she’d grown out of all of this.

  Kennedy had finished off the fries and now sat forward, reaching for a bottle of beer. “Ask her about the car she stole,” she said to Tori.

  “You stole a car, too?”

  Maddie frowned at Kennedy. “Not exactly.”

  “That’s not what the cops said,” Kennedy said with a smirk before tipping her bottle up.

  Maddie sighed. She was right. “I…took back the parts that Owen had put in Sarah’s car. He paid for them with his own money. They were technically his.”

  “Sarah was his ex?”

  Maddie nodded.

  “How many parts did he put in her car?” Tori asked, her mouth twitching.

  “Just three. Like the wipers.”

  Kennedy snorted. “The four tires count as just one thing?”

  Tori grinned and Maddie felt the corner of her mouth twitching, too. “Yeah.”

  “Hard to drive a car without the tires,” Tori said.

  “Maddie could have left the tires alone,” Kennedy said. “The missing transmission was probably enough.”

  “You took her transmission out?” Tori asked.

  Maddie nodded.

  “You know how to do that?” Tori asked to clarify.

  “Know how to put one in, too,” Maddie said with a wink. She felt a little surge of pride at tha
t.

  “And if she’d just taken the transmission, she wouldn’t have gotten caught,” Kennedy added.

  “You got caught taking the tires off?” Tori asked.

  Maddie shook her head. Then she felt a little snort emerge. Then a full chuckle. “I got caught taking the wipers.”

  Tori’s eyes widened. “You got away with the transmission and the tires?”

  “Yep.”

  “You couldn’t just let the wipers go?”

  “Fuck no. I didn’t want her to have anything of Owen’s left.”

  They all looked at each other and then started laughing.

  “Oh, wow, you really are a Landry,” Tori said.

  That sobered Maddie a bit.

  Tori shook her head. “I mean, I know you’re not, but it’s clear there’s been an influence.”

  Maddie took a breath and nodded. She couldn’t deny it. “Yeah, well, there’s plenty of crazy in my family, too.” She’d inherited it from her mom, but it was her crazy and she had to lock it down.

  “I love this place,” Tori said, shaking her head.

  “You do?”

  “I’m from Iowa. Very regular. Very…normal.” Tori winced slightly. “I mean that in the nicest way possible.”

  Maddie gave her a smile. Normal was nice. She knew very well. “Just so you know, it’s not an Iowa thing. Iowa is fine. This is an Autre thing. Autre is…not fine.” Autre was a tiny village of enablers. It was very easy to start thinking that being impulsive and going with your gut and having no filter was normal.

  It wasn’t.

  “I love Autre,” Tori said with a tiny frown.

  Maddie sighed. They’d gotten to her. Tori was her one chance at having a friend who knew what the outside world was like. But they’d already sucked her in. Dammit.

  It wasn’t Tori’s fault. Autre combined with sex with a Landry boy? Yeah, Tori hadn’t stood a chance.

  But Maddie could survive.

  It was only thirty days.

  She just had to get a grip and then hold on tight for thirty freaking days.

  Unlike Tori, she knew the risks here. Surely that gave her an advantage.