Four Weddings and a Swamp Boat Tour - Erin Nicholas Page 0,56

on.”

Zeke nodded his approval. “Cool.”

It probably did sound cool to Zeke. He was very into itch-scratching. And temporary.

Mitch needed to talk to Zeke about it more often. He seemed pretty willing to accept this at face value. That’s what Mitch needed. Someone who thought this all made great sense.

“Well,” Fletcher said. “Don’t go falling in love with her.”

Yep, that was really good advice.

“I’m fine,” Mitch said.

Zeke nodded, obviously convinced.

Fletcher lifted a brow in an uh-huh-sure expression.

Mitch definitely needed to spend more time with Zeke.

Mitch pulled up behind his house three hours later. He didn’t keep set hours. He worked until the work was done or until he ran out of daylight or supplies or patience.

Today, they’d knocked off when they’d found a stopping point. Which meant the river portion of the enclosure was mostly dug out, and they’d reinforced it enough that any pending rain wouldn’t undo a whole day’s work. It would just be him tomorrow. Fletcher had only had one day off from school, and Zeke was working on a house renovation on the other side of town.

Griffin’s truck wasn’t at the house when he pulled in.

That meant he and Paige were alone. At least for a little while.

He’d stopped at the office to pick her up, but according to Sawyer, Kennedy had already taken Paige back to his place.

Mitch ignored the way his heart was suddenly hammering. He couldn’t wait to see Paige and hear how her day had been. That was new.

He didn’t come home to women. He met up with them or picked them up at their places for dates. But he’d come home to Paige at her place in Appleby, and he’d liked it far more than he should have. And now, kicking his boots off on the back porch and stepping into the kitchen, knowing she was somewhere inside, felt really fucking good.

The kitchen was empty though. As was the living room.

“Paige?” he called.

He hadn’t really thought about how the date night was going to go beyond them being together and being able to kiss her.

And he wanted to start right now.

“Out here!”

He followed her voice out to the front porch.

Where she was in his hammock.

And she looked so damn right there that he stopped for a moment and just gripped the door frame between the house and the porch.

She looked over at him with a soft, contented smile.

Soft and contented after a day with the Landrys. That was something.

“Hey,” she greeted.

“Hey.” He gripped the edge of the doorframe a little harder.

She shifted a little to look at him more directly, the hammock swaying gently. “You okay?”

His heart was pounding hard, and he could hear Fletcher’s voice in his head. She is not just a friend no matter what you say, dumbass. “Yeah. Do I not look okay?”

“You don’t look okay,” she said.

“What do I look like?” He wondered if she could see him trying not to fall in love with her as he stood there half on and half off his own porch.

“You look wound-up,” she said after studying him for a moment. Her eyes tracked over him. “And hot.”

He felt the corner of his mouth tick up. The wound-up part was probably as accurate as anything.

“Hot? As in ‘damn, it’s hot out there’?” he asked.

She nodded. “But also, damn, you look good all sweaty and dirty.”

He looked down at himself. This was how he came home most nights. His t-shirt and jeans were streaked with dirt. As were his hands and probably face. He was sticky with sweat. His hair was probably sticking up.

“You didn’t get all sweaty and dirty in Appleby,” she said. “You did all that save-the-whole-town manual labor thing, but it was too cold for you to get all messy.”

He relaxed his grip on the doorjamb as his grin grew. “You did mention picturing me in a tool belt though.”

She nodded, her gaze again tracking over him from head to toe. “I did do that.”

“I used tools today too,” he said.

This woman’s eyes on him did things to him that no other woman had ever done even with her hands, or hell her mouth, on him.

“Big tools?” she asked, her tone flirty and her smile I-know-what-I-do-to-you.

He liked that she knew how to push his buttons. The fact that she wasn’t staying—was intent on leaving actually—should make him want to pull back and not let her have a lot of leverage over his emotions.

But he wanted her to know how he felt about her. Even if it hurt in

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