Four Weddings and a Swamp Boat Tour - Erin Nicholas Page 0,28

you needed you to be. In this case, Paige needed a friend and a haven. So you, of course, gave that to her.”

“So, I’m a sucker who doesn’t think about what I want but just goes along with everyone else.” He sometimes felt that way, actually. He didn’t have a lot of goals of his own. Everything he did was according to what other people needed or wanted. He often felt like his grandpa’s fishing boat on the bayou, just floating along, letting the current—and the people around him—determine where he went.

“Sometimes,” Ellie agreed.

Mitch snorted. His grandma wasn’t the warm, fuzzy, cuddly type. She was wide open with her thoughts and feelings. They all knew how much Ellie loved them, but they also knew when they’d screwed up and pissed her off. If he wanted an opinion or input from Ellie, he knew it would never be sugarcoated.

“I’m a sucker?”

“Yes. You are so into making everyone else’s life easier that you don’t worry about yourself.”

“That’s a bad thing?” It wasn’t. Or it better not be. It was how his father had taught him to be.

Be helpful, be grateful, make yourself useful, make them glad to have you around.

Those were the things Sean Landry had told him repeatedly growing up.

“It’s not always a bad thing,” Ellie said. “But it can, obviously, leave you open to heartbreak. And I don’t like that idea. I want you to be happy, Mitch. And helping Paige will make you happy. To an extent. But if you start thinking this is something more than she does, you could end up hurt. I don’t want her to make you unwilling to look for love.”

“You think that love might come along for me while Paige is here, and I’ll blow it off because of her?”

“Maybe. Or after she leaves, and you’re nursing a broken heart.”

“So you’re afraid that Paige being here is going to make me less willing to try a relationship with The One when she comes along?”

Ellie nodded. “Maybe.”

Mitch sighed. “What do I do, Ellie?”

They all called Leo and Ellie by their first names. There were too many grandparents in the area to refer to them as grandma and grandpa, and Leo and Ellie weren’t the Maw-Maw or Papa types.

“Move her out of your bedroom, for starters,” Ellie said. “Keep your hands and lips to yourself. Think of her as a roommate and a friend, but nothing more.”

Mitch had figured that’s where this was going. It was strange that this advice was coming from one of the biggest romantics he knew. Ellie was tough and gruff and had a no-nonsense edge, but she was definitely a believer in happily ever after.

“Okay.” He’d be a dumbass not to agree. For one, because she was very likely right. She often was. For another, she’d probably smack him upside the back of his head if he didn’t agree.

“I love you, Mitch,” Ellie said.

“I love you, too.”

“Now go home. And take the box of food to Griffin.” She pointed at the to-go boxes on the bar.

They were plain brown boxes that looked like shoe boxes. She’d used Styrofoam containers for years. Then Bennett Baxter had come along and convinced her to change to something more environmentally friendly.

She’d rolled her eyes. But she’d done it.

Ellie was stubborn, and she liked things her way and was right ninety-nine percent of the time. But she was also reasonable. Ish. And she respected people who earned it.

Mitch should listen to her about Paige.

He knew that.

“I need some bread pudding, too. For Paige.”

Ellie looked approving about that. “You know where it is and how to use a serving spoon.”

He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”

He dished up bread pudding for Paige, added it to the stack of boxes, called goodnight to everyone, and headed for home.

To Paige.

Paige came down the stairs with her hair up in a towel.

She’d eaten her grilled cheese, fed her cats, and then taken a shower. Everything had been easy to find, and she felt a lot more normal now.

It had been a long day. Between the drive and emotions of seeing Mitch again, she felt like it had been a week since she’d left Iowa rather than just two days.

She’d texted Piper and Whitney before she’d gotten in the shower. Then had relented and texted her mom and two sisters in a group message.

As she went back down the stairs, she read the responses.

Oh, my God! Paige! That’s amazing! had been Piper’s response. She was the boldest of any of the people Paige