“We can’t take them down every waterway. Some are too narrow, but if you just want to get a boatload of people out on the bayou, that would be a way to do it.”
“Yes!” She pivoted back to look around. “Could you get it down to the place where Maddie almost shot the alligator?”
She felt Mitch shift, and when she glanced at him again, he was looking at her with a mix of amusement and puzzlement. “Who told you that story?”
“Sawyer.”
“Really?” Mitch looked sincerely surprised.
“Yeah. He came into the office before one of his tours. I asked him how he met Juliet, and he told me about how he found her literally hanging off the dock one morning. And how she and her brother came down here to rebuild the dock after Chase and his buddies crashed an airboat into it.” Paige narrowed her eyes, studying Mitch. “Why do you look totally amazed by this?”
“Because Sawyer just isn’t… chatty. He’s not the one I would have expected to be telling you stories.”
Paige gave him a little smile. “Maybe I’m very charming.”
His smile was a lot more wicked. “Oh, I find you very charming. I’ll tell you any story you want me to tell.”
“I’m going to keep that in mind.” She wanted to hear all of his stories. She shouldn’t. That would make it so much harder to keep him in the casual-fling category. But looking into his eyes right now, she could admit, to herself only of course, that he’d already jumped over to the oh-shit-I’m-in-trouble category.
“And then Sawyer told you about Maddie and Owen?” he asked, clearly intrigued by Sawyer’s talkativeness.
That made Paige feel good. She wasn’t one to sit around and gossip and trade stories for fun. At least not before now. But today, she’d been asking for a purpose. Still, it did make her feel good to think Sawyer had been comfortable talking to her after only knowing her for a few hours. And she’d enjoyed the stories. Even if they hadn’t been fuel for her ideas about the weddings, it had been fun hearing someone talk about how they’d met their true love.
Paige almost rolled her eyes at herself. She wasn’t into love stories. She’d heard dozens over the years. Her family was love-crazy. Every single couple had a story that had been told over and over again.
But now that she thought about it, she really did like the story of how her grandparents had eloped. And how her dad had first developed a crush on her mom in third grade when she brought a caterpillar to school for Show and Tell.
She realized that she couldn’t remember the details of how her other grandparents had gotten engaged. She knew they’d met at a dance but didn’t remember how her grandfather had proposed. She should ask about that story.
“Paige?” Mitch nudged her. “Sawyer told you about Maddie and Owen?”
“Oh, yeah.” Paige shook herself and focused. “I asked him how Maddie and Owen met, and he told me they grew up together and had been together until she went to live with her grandparents in California and got back together when she came home after her brother died.”
“He even told you about Tommy dying?”
Paige frowned slightly at the concerned look on Mitch’s face. “Yeah. Why?”
“That’s…” Mitch shook his head. “That’s pretty big. Tommy was Sawyer’s best friend. His death was terrible and really hard on Sawyer in particular.”
That had been easy to read in Sawyer’s face. “That was obvious,” she agreed. “But yes, he told me.”
“Wow.” Mitch gave her a little smile. “It’s a big deal he felt comfortable telling you that.”
Paige felt a little flutter in her chest. “He also told me about how Tori came down here to find Josh when she came back to Louisiana for Mardi Gras last year. I knew about their story mostly—how they met on Mardi Gras and then agreed to find each other again the next year if they were still interested—but I didn’t know she caught a ride on one of your tour buses and came down here to find him when they didn’t reconnect in New Orleans.”
That had sounded so out of character for her friend, and prior to seeing Tori and Josh together, Paige wasn’t sure she would have believed that story, but now she had no trouble imagining Tori doing anything to get to Josh. And vice versa.
Mitch grinned. “Yep, the Boys of the Bayou dock has seen a lot of romance.”
Paige nodded. “Exactly. So, shouldn’t they all be saying their vows on the site where it all began?”
“You mean have the weddings on the dock?”
“Well, I think Josh and Tori should have theirs on the main dock. Juliet and Sawyer should have theirs on the dock they built together. And Maddie and Owen should get married on an airboat in the cove, where Maddie almost shot an alligator for him.”
Mitch just stared at her. Paige bit her lip.
What did she know about all of this? These people weren’t her friends. She’d been in town for a day. One day. What the hell was she doing? She was planning their weddings? The minute they’d started talking about bouquets she should have come up with an excuse and high-tailed it out of Ellie’s. Instead, she’d sat there listening to it all, suggesting the girls should be sharing their big day, putting that idea in their heads. Then she’d been thinking about the weddings all day. She’d asked Sawyer about their love stories, for fuck’s sake.
“Say something,” she finally told Mitch.
“That’s sexy as hell.”
She blinked at him. “What is?”
“You getting involved. Wanting to help the girls. Having these ideas. These romantic ideas.”
She sighed. “They are romantic, aren’t they?”
Dammit.
He grinned. “They are.”
“Well, you came to my town and saved the day.”
“You’re doing this for me? That’s even hotter.”
She laughed. “I don’t know who I’m doing it for. I’m just…” She shrugged. “Doing it.”
His smile softened. “Now that, might be the hottest thing of all.”
She shook her head, but she couldn’t help but notice the flip in her chest in the general vicinity of her heart. “You find weird things sexy.”
He slid an inch closer. “Nah. You get it. You found it sexy when I rewired the town square in Appleby.”
She had. She’d even admitted that to him. “So being helpful is an aphrodisiac?”
“I think it’s the caring about other people.” He lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
“But the people in Appleby were strangers to you. And all of these people are strangers to me except Tori. Why do I care that Maddie and Owen should get married on an airboat?” She shook her head, then sighed. “But they really should.”
She could see it clearly in her mind. Even just hearing the story from Sawyer, she could picture how it had all happened, and it seemed that even if that wasn’t the moment they’d fallen in love—or realized they were in love—that moment showed them what being in love meant.
“Well, this is going to sound conceited,” Mitch said. “But me caring about Appleby, and you caring about these weddings, isn’t about who they are to us. It’s about who we are. We see something we can help with, so we do.” He lifted a shoulder as if it was all really that simple. “We have that in common. And it’s a good thing.”