all. And just be. He definitely didn’t need to be the center of attention.
There were plenty of attention hogs in the family.
Mitch let the conversation, joking, and laughter go on for another ten minutes, but finally, he pushed his chair back and stood. Thankfully, Zeke was getting up as well.
Mitch didn’t even bother to tell them he was heading out. Obviously, he was leaving. The family did keep track of one another, but at the same time, it was pretty easy for them to all guess where he would be. Ellie’s, the docks, or his house. Or in his truck traveling in about a thirty-mile radius of Autre. He didn’t get too far from home. None of them really did.
It was interesting that all the Landrys who had settled down had done so with people who had come to Autre intending to stay only temporarily but who now called it home. Tori, Juliet, and Bennett were all from elsewhere. Maddie was from here but had lived in California for twelve years. Still, when she’d come back that last time, she hadn’t intended to stay. Not for good.
So, it was possible that Paige might decide to stay.
Mitch shut that thought down immediately.
Ellie stopped him on his way out the back door.
“Sawyer has a point.”
Mitch looked at his grandmother. “About?” But he knew what she was talking about.
“Living with a woman who you’d like to be more serious with but who doesn’t want that.”
“You think I’m going to get my heart broken?”
She nodded. “I do.”
He felt his eyes widen. “Really?”
“You already have feelings for her. I was there when you called Chase and told him you were thinking about staying in Iowa,” she reminded him.
Chase, one of his best buddies and Juliet’s younger brother, had been in Autre for Christmas. He was in medical school at Georgetown and so didn’t live in Autre, but he had every intention of returning to the bayou to be their small-town doctor. Bailey, the alligator conservationist he’d fallen in love with, had a lot to do with that.
Another example of someone not from here who’d spent a short time in Autre and upended his whole life plan to come back.
“Yeah. And she shot it down right away,” Mitch said about the idea of him staying in Iowa.
“And now she’s here and staying for a while.”
Mitch put a hand on a hip and regarded his grandmother. “You know, you’re not usually the one talking people out of falling in love.”
In fact, his whole family was love and happily-ever-after crazy.
Ellie nodded. “Well, Josh and Owen and Sawyer and Kennedy wanted to fall in love.”
Mitch laughed. “I don’t remember Sawyer and Kennedy wanting to fall for Juliet and Bennett.”
Ellie smiled. “Just because they didn’t realize it didn’t mean it wasn’t true.”
Ah. “And me? You don’t think I’m ready or want to fall in love?”
That made a jab of pain hit him in the chest.
He was ready.
That thought stunned him slightly. He was crazy about Paige, yes. He had an inkling that he could fall in love with her. But he hadn’t really thought about it as being ready and wanting it. He’d been a very happy bayou bachelor for a long time. When had this ready-for-love thing happened?
Over the back end of an alpaca on a hot, sunny day in July outside of Appleby, Iowa. When he’d met Paige Asher.
Dammit.
“I think you are,” Ellie said. “But not with Paige.”
Mitch frowned, the pain in his chest felt sharper. “Why not?”
“Because she’s not ready,” Ellie said. “So she’s not the one.”
“How did you know Juliet and Bennett and Tori were the right ones for them?” He didn’t mention Maddie. Everyone had always known that Maddie was the right one for Owen.
“It was obvious,” Ellie said. “They didn’t know they were going to fall in love because they were here for other reasons and temporarily. But they hadn’t ruled it out.”
Mitch thought back to the first time he’d seen Tori and Josh together. And Juliet and Sawyer. And Bennett and Kennedy. And, of course, Owen and Maddie.
Yeah, it had been obvious.
“And Paige has ruled it out,” he said, flatly.
Ellie nodded. “And until she opens herself up to it, she could definitely break your heart.”
Yeah. Fuck. She sure could.
He swallowed hard. “Did I fuck up telling her to come here, knowing how she felt?”
Ellie shook her head. “No. You were doing what you always do.” She gave him a smile full of love. “You were being exactly what the person in front of