When passion is the perfect storm

Successful career woman Paxton Jones has come a long way from her dirt-poor roots—and the girl with an unrequited crush on high school football star Sawyer Robertson. Gauthier’s privileged golden boy was way out of her league…until one passion-filled night. But when a project close to her heart reunites them, Paxton has to rein in her still-smoldering feelings for the devastatingly handsome civil engineer.

Three years ago, Sawyer shared the most incredible night of his life with the woman he’d long admired. Afterward, Paxton left town without even saying goodbye. Now, thrown together on a mission to protect their vulnerable Louisiana community, they clash on everything—except their reigniting desire for each other. As disaster threatens and Sawyer and Paxton put aside their differences for a greater cause, will they find a love that can heal all wounds?

He nudged his nose behind her ear and whispered, “It’s a risk to go any further in a public park, but I’m willing to go all the way if you are.”

Even as his words caused a shudder to run through her, they jerked Paxton out of her sensual daze.

She couldn’t get lost in his kiss again. She wouldn’t. She still shouldered so much guilt from the last time they did this. She couldn’t take on any more.

“I can’t,” she said, pulling slightly away. She gave him a gentle push, when what she really wanted to do was pull him closer.

Damn it. She so didn’t want to stop.

But she knew she should. After the way she’d preyed upon his vulnerabilities the last time, using him for her own pleasure yet again would just complicate things. They still had to work together; she could not afford complications.

He swooped in for another kiss, but she held him back. “Stop,” she said.

Paxton could feel the reluctance in the way his shoulders dropped, but he backed away.

When he looked at her his expression was a mixture of annoyance and lingering desire.

“Why do you keep doing that?” he asked. “For someone who’s so damn smart, you keep making this same stupid move. We can be good together, Pax. Can’t you see that?”

“No,” she said, straightening her blouse, which had skewed during their unbelievably heated kiss.

Dear Reader,

When I first started the Bayou Dreams series, I was certain it would end after the third story. Yet, here we are six books later, and I am still as enamored with the fictional town of Gauthier as I was when I penned the first book, A Forever Kind of Love. It seems that every time my imagination returns to that sleepy bayou town, more and more interesting characters pop up, demanding that their stories be told.

This was definitely the case with Sawyer Robertson and Paxton Jones. I had great fun delving into their lives and giving these two the perfect happily-ever-after. I hope you enjoy reading Stay with Me Forever as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Blessings,

Farrah Rochon

Stay with Me Forever

Farrah Rochon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

FARRAH ROCHON had dreams of becoming a fashion designer as a teenager, until she discovered she would be expected to wear something other than jeans to work every day. Thankfully, the coffee shop where she writes does not have a dress code. When Farrah is not penning stories, the USA TODAY bestselling author and avid sports fan feeds her addiction to football by attending New Orleans Saints games.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Copyright

Chapter 1

The newspaper Paxton Jones held over her head was no match for the fat raindrops being pelted from the storm clouds hovering in the gray skies. She tossed the useless shield onto the backseat, cursing her bad habit of forgetting to put her umbrella back in the car after she used it.

“Girl, get out of that rain before you catch a cold!”

Paxton looked over her shoulder to find her mother standing on the narrow porch that surrounded what, up until this weekend, was known to the people of Gauthier, Louisiana, as Harlon’s Bar. Over the past three days, the fifty-five-year-old clapboard structure had undergone a massive overhaul, complete with a new owner and a brand-new name: the River Road Bar and Grille.

At least that was the official name on the new deed, but Paxton had never been one to kid herself. She knew it would take an act of Congress to convince the longtime residents in Landreaux—which was technically still part of Gauthier but was divided from the rest of the town by Landreaux Creek—to call this place anything but Harlon’s. If they were lucky, maybe she and her mother could eventually cajole them into calling it Belinda’s, but Paxton wasn’t holding her breath.

“You’re going to get sick,” her mother called again. “Get in here!”

“Give me just a minute,” Paxton called back to her.

Scooping up the bags of cleaning supplies she’d just purchased from the Gauthier Pharmacy and Feed Store, she dashed from her Lincoln MKX to the bar’s newly installed wooden steps. As she made her way up to the small landing, Paxton slipped on the second to last step, nearly dumping the bags.

“Watch it,” Belinda Jones said, reaching out for her.

“I’ve got it.” Paxton righted herself. “But maybe you should add installing nonskid protectors to the list of things that need to be done before the bar’s grand reopening.”

“You’re probably right,” Belinda said. She gestured for Paxton to go ahead of her as they walked through the gaping hole where the new door would be hung as soon as Rickey Price finished constructing it at his cabinetry shop. “I’ll call Nathan Robottom at the hardware store. I’m sure he’ll have something we can use.”

“Good,” Paxton said. “Because after the blood, sweat and tears that you’ve put into this place, I won’t allow a slip-and-fall lawsuit to ruin it all.”

“We’ll take care of the steps. I’m more concerned about you catching your death out here in this rain.”

Just as Paxton opened her mouth to remind her mother for the seven thousandth time that being caught in the rain did not automatically give you a cold, she coughed.

Perfect timing.

The I-told-you-so lift to Belinda’s brow was a well-practiced, well-executed blast from Paxton’s childhood. Make that her adulthood, too. Because at thirty-seven years old, she found it as effective as it had been when she was seven. It made her want to cringe.

“No need to break out the warm socks and hot tea,” Paxton said. “I was clearing my throat. I don’t have a cold.”

“Not yet,” her mother said with a lift to her chin.

Paxton released an overly exasperated sigh as she laughed at her mother’s haughty expression.

“I’ll take some cough syrup before I go to sleep tonight,” she said. “Will that do, or do you have to take my temperature before you’re satisfied?”

“So do they teach classes on how to sass your mama up there in Little Rock, or did you learn how to do that on your own?”

She barked out another sharp laugh. “If anyone taught me how to sass, it’s the woman standing right in front of me.”

Belinda winked. “You got that right.” She reached for the plastic bags, but Paxton twisted them out of her reach.

“I’ve got this,” she said as she started emptying the supplies she’d picked up during her quick trip to downtown Gauthier—items that would have cost about half of what she’d paid if she’d driven over to the new Target in neighboring Maplesville. Paxton prided herself on being a strong, independent woman who made her own decisions, but even she wasn’t brave enough to walk into this bar carrying a red-and-white Target shopping bag. Her mother was firmly on the boycott-big-business bandwagon.

Paxton had not been in town for more than an hour before she had been presented with a pledge sheet that was being circulated by the Gauthier Civic Association to boycott the big-box store, along with several other establishments. Tensions between Gauthier and Maplesville had been simmering back when Paxton relocated to Arkansas a year ago, and the opening of yet another large national chain store that could take business away from Gauthier’s mom-and-pop shops had only elevated the friction.

Paxton had been happy to sign the pledge. She felt it her duty to support the local businesses in her small hometown. Even more so now that her mother owned one.

Just thinking those words caused an excited tingle to rush through her. It was like a human-interest story worthy of one of those cheesy but sweet headlines.

Belinda Jones: From Bartender to Bar Owner.

Followed by Paxton Jones: Daughter of the Year.

Pretentious? Possibly, but she knew her mother would agree with her, and not just because Paxton had taken a sledgehammer to her 401(k) in order to purchase this bar. Belinda had placed the Daughter of the Year crown on Pax’s head ever since she’d won third place in the fourth-grade spelling bee.

“You can check the final building inspection off your list,” her mother, who had resumed her sweeping, said. “Josh Howard came over while you were out. He gave the place a clean bill.”

“Without a front door?”

Belinda waved that off. “I told him it would be installed later today. Rickey is his second cousin on his mama’s side—he knows he’s good for it.”

Paxton shook her head. “Gotta love a small town,” she said as she stacked the sponges, all-purpose disinfecting spray and grout cleaner on one of the new pub tables that had been delivered that morning.

A loud whistle drew her attention to the left side of the bar.

“I knew I smelled trouble in the air.”

Paxton grinned as Harlon Lewis, the bar’s previous owner, entered through the side door entrance. He shucked off his raincoat, leaving it just inside the door. He was accompanied by his grandson, Donovan, who carried two large fleur-de-lis wall decor pieces crafted out of dented sheet metal and spray painted a shimmering metallic gold.

Paxton balled up the plastic shopping bags and tossed them in the blue recycle bin as she made her way over to Harlon. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a loud kiss.

“It’s so good to see you,” she said. She leaned back and smiled up at the man who had been the only father figure she’d ever known. “I’ve missed you, old man. You weren’t at the house when I dropped by yesterday.”

“You gotta get there early to catch me, girlie. I’ve got places to be.”

“Thanks for picking these up for me,” she said, gesturing to the fleur-de-lis. She’d commissioned Gauthier’s own metalworks artist and restoration specialist, Phylicia Phillips, to start making them as soon as the sale of the bar went through.

“It was no problem,” Harlon said. “Phil’s new shop ain’t too far from the house.”

“Still, you saved me a trip,” Paxton said, plopping another peck on his cheek.

“Hey, where’s my kiss?” His grandson Donovan asked, leaning toward her.

“Boy, get out of here with that mess.” Harlon swatted him with the dusty Vietnam War vet baseball cap he’d been wearing for the better part of the three decades Paxton had known him.

Donovan frowned at his grandfather, then winked at Paxton.

“You can put those over there,” Paxton pointed toward the bar, which had been freshly waxed earlier that day. “I have an X marked with electrical tape on the wall. You’ll find a nail right above it that you can hang them on.”

“Fine, but it’ll cost you a kiss,” Donovan said with another wink.

Paxton rolled her eyes and released a heavy sigh. This one would be a problem.

When she’d driven over to Harlon’s house on the lake yesterday, she’d been informed by the twenty-two-year-old—whom she used to babysit for extra money back when she was in high school—that his grandfather was on a hunting trip. Donovan invited her to join him inside for a beer, an invitation Paxton had instantly turned down. It only made him more eager.

The little scrub had the nerve to tell her that he was going to make her his cougar. Paxton was so stunned by his boldness that she’d laughed in his face. She’d hoped her remarks about eating little tiger cubs like him for breakfast would have put an end to his pursuit, but apparently not.

While his grandson hung the artwork, Paxton threaded her arm through Harlon’s and took him on a tour. A ribbon of pride curled around her as he remarked on all the changes that had been done in the past couple of days.

“Girl, you are amazing. You turned this old dump into a palace.”

“This bar has never been a dump. You always took good care of it. We just spruced it up a bit.”

“Spruced it up, my foot. This place looks a hundred times better than it did before. A thousand. You did good by your mama, girl. I’m proud of you. She deserves this.”

Paxton barely managed to swallow the lump of emotion wedged in her throat. She coughed, ready to lay claim to the cold her mother had accused her of catching. Sentimental public displays had never been her style, and the sincerity in Harlon’s voice brought her close to the brink.

“Owning her own place has been a dream of hers for a long time,” Paxton said. “Thank you for selling it to us at such a reasonable price.”

He waved that off. “I’m sorry I had to sell it to you at all. If I’d been better at tucking money away, I would have given it to her.”

“She never would have taken it from you,” Paxton said.

She and Belinda had a lot of things in common, but that stubborn streak of pride was, by far, the strongest thread tying them together. The Joneses did not accept charity. Ever. They worked hard for what they wanted, and if they couldn’t get it on their own, then they weren’t meant to have it.

Paxton had lived by that simple philosophy all her life. It compelled her to never settle for second-best, because there was nothing like basking in the satisfaction of seeing your hard work pay off.

Like right now. The pure joy emanating from her mother as she swept a floor she’d swept thousands of times over the past two decades warmed every part of Paxton’s heart, and it made all the hard work and sacrifice it would take to pay for this bar worth it.

“Look at that smile on her face,” Paxton whispered in Harlon’s ear as they both stared at her mother.

“Not sure when I last saw her like this. Maybe when you walked across the stage to pick up that fancy college degree.” He nudged Paxton’s shoulder. “You just make sure she lets me come in and work every now and then.”

“She wouldn’t let you work when you owned the place,” Paxton said with a laugh. “I don’t know why you think things would change now.”

She guided Harlon to the new kitchen that had been added onto the bar. It had been under construction for the past month. With the installation of the three-part sink this morning, it was officially operational.

Donovan walked in and braced both hands high against the doorjamb. His shirt hem lifted slightly, exposing a set of tawny, well-defined abs. For a half second Paxton was intrigued, but then she remembered she used to change this kid’s diapers.

The momentary flourish of awareness was an understandable physical reaction considering the drought she’d been in over the past six months. The handheld device she brought to bed at night wasn’t doing the job it used to do.

“You need some help in here?” Donovan asked, winking again.

Then again, maybe she just needed to refresh the batteries.

“You’d better get that eye checked out,” Paxton told him. “All that twitching can’t be healthy.”

He entered the kitchen, stepping up to her. “Why are you giving me such a hard time? I’m not a little boy anymore. I can rock your world.”

Harlon knocked him upside the head with his baseball cap again.

“Dude.” Donovan rubbed his ear. He scowled at his grandfather. “Stop blocking my game, Grandpa. I’m trying to get something going here.”

“It will never happen,” Paxton told him.

“We’ll see,” Donovan said, a cocky smile tilting up the corner of his mouth.

Harlon shook his head. “Hormones got that one acting a damn fool. If he gets too vexing once he starts working here, just strangle him.”

“Hopefully he’ll be too busy helping customers to bother me with his tired pickup lines,” she said.

Her mother had hired Donovan to help out at the bar while he took yet another semester off from college to “explore his options.” Paxton was about 96 percent sure that she would, in fact, have to strangle the little Casanova before she returned to Little Rock.

If she returned to Little Rock.

She stifled a sigh. She had only been back in town for two days and already the should I stay, should I go back dance was getting the best of her. It happened every single time she came home to visit. But Paxton knew it was better to have some distance between herself and Gauthier, especially now that a certain someone was back in town. Permanently.

The rumble of a diesel engine and tires crunching over gravel came through the open doorway, tearing her attention away from those thoughts she had no desire to explore at the moment.

“Finally,” Paxton said, making her way past Donovan and through the kitchen. “That must be the TVs.”

She exited the side door and rounded the front of the building, waving at the delivery truck driver. Thankfully, the rain had lightened to a steady but weaker sprinkle.

“Over here,” Paxton called, waving her hands.

A loud bark came from just behind her a second before Heinz, the huge mutt she’d nursed back to health after he’d gotten into a fight with a coyote, came barreling into her legs. Paxton’s fingers automatically scratched the scruff behind his ear.

“What in the world,” Belinda said as she came down the stairs, followed closely by Harlon and Donovan. The four of them stood to the side, surveying the deliverymen as they carted a fifty-five-inch LCD TV into the building.

Harlon pointed to the delivery truck’s raised gate. “What did you do, girl? Buy out the entire store?”

“You can’t have a sports bar with that little black-and-white television behind the bar,” Paxton said.

“How many TVs did you buy?” Belinda asked, her voice a combination of awe and trepidation.

Bracing herself for her mother’s reaction, Paxton said, “Eight.”

“Eight!” Belinda’s screech echoed around the open clearing. “No, no, no.” She held her hands out in an attempt to stop the deliverymen. They bypassed her and carried in the second television. “There’s not enough room in this bar for eight TVs.”

“We’ll make them fit,” Paxton said. “Oh, I forgot to mention that the guy from the satellite company will be a little late, but it should be installed by tonight.”

“Oh, yeah,” Donovan said, rubbing his hands together. “You got the football package?”

“Of course.” Paxton nodded. “And I’ve already ordered the NBA package, too.”

“This place is gonna be fiyah. Maybe I don’t need to worry about college. I can just work here.”

Belinda grasped Paxton’s forearm and gave it a slight squeeze. “How much is all of this costing you?” she asked.

Despite the genuine concern in her mother’s voice, Paxton ignored the question, just as she had ignored it the 542 times Belinda had inquired about the cost of all of this in the months since Harlon decided to retire and sell the bar.

She knew her mother was concerned about the money. She was always concerned about money. She’d tended bar at Harlon’s for the past thirty-two years, and although Harlon had always paid her a fair wage, this little watering hole on the low-income side of Gauthier had never made enough to make anyone rich.

Barely scraping by had been a way of life for her mother for far too long. She’d sacrificed everything—food in her belly, clothes on her back, countless hours of sleep—all to make sure Paxton had an easier road than the one she’d traveled.

One could argue that Paxton had sacrificed just as much as her mother had. After all, she’d spent the better part of her adolescence working side by side with Belinda in this very bar. They were a team, always had been. But the few hours she spent helping out in the evenings and weekend here at Harlon’s was nothing compared with the time and hard work Belinda had put in day after day, year after year.

That she could now afford to properly thank her mother for all she’d given up for her filled Paxton’s chest with pride.

Which was why she refused to engage in any discussion of what all of this was costing her. As a project manager for one of the largest engineering firms in the Gulf South, she’d managed to build a nice nest egg in a relatively short amount of time. Sure, she’d emptied it in order to buy this place and renovate it, but Paxton had a set of career goals in front of her; she was confident she would be able to replenish her savings in a matter of a few short years. Especially if things went as she’d planned them out in her head.

“With all the money you’ve put into this place, you’ll have to sell a lot of beer and tater skins to break even,” Harlon remarked as the final television was carted through the door.

“Could we please close this subject?” Paxton said. “We still have a lot to do before the grand opening, and I’ve got to be at the Gauthier Law Firm early in the morning.”

“What you got going on over there?” Harlon asked. “You need Matt Gauthier to get you out of a bind?”

Paxton shook her head. “Matt has been kind enough to let us use the extra conference room as a temporary office for the flood protection project I’m working on. I’m lucky that he had some available space.”

At least Paxton thought she was lucky, until this past Thursday when she’d discovered that the state engineer who’d been assigned to the project had abruptly left the Army Corps of Engineer Civil Works department. He’d been replaced by another civil engineer. Sawyer Robertson.

The muscles in her belly tightened just at the thought of his damn name.

Why, why, why did it have to be Sawyer?

Although it didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why, of all the civil engineers on the state’s payroll, Sawyer would be the one chosen to take over for the departing engineer. It was the same reason the management team at Bolt-Myer had tasked her with this project. They were both familiar with the area. Like her, Sawyer had grown up in Gauthier. He knew the lay of the land, and, even more importantly, he knew the people. The people in Gauthier could trust that both she and Sawyer would give their all to this project.

Still, if given the option, would she trade her car instead of working with Sawyer? Heck yes, she would.

She’d tried to convince herself that it wasn’t a big deal, but the thought of facing Sawyer tomorrow had her stomach in knots. She hated it, but Paxton couldn’t deny it. She was human, after all. She had an exceedingly acceptable reason for why just the thought of working with Sawyer made her nervous and uncomfortable and ready to bury her head in the sand and not come out until this project was over.

But she couldn’t do that, either.

Nor could she walk into that office tomorrow with even a hint of trepidation or intimidation at seeing Sawyer Robertson for the first time in three years. She’d made her bed where he was concerned—literally. And now it was time to lay in it.

No. No. No! There would be no lying in bed with Sawyer. It was bad enough they had to share the same work space for the next four weeks. She didn’t want to be anywhere near a bed when Sawyer was around.

Okay, so that was a lie, but she was prepared to tell herself whatever was necessary to get through these next four weeks with her sanity intact.

Four weeks! Good God, how would she survive being confined to a tiny conference room with that man for an entire month?

She clutched her stomach with one hand in an attempt to combat the anxiety rioting through her belly. She’d faced some tough challenges in her thirty-seven years, but Paxton had a feeling this would be one of the toughest yet.

* * *

“Fine, you win.”

Sawyer Robertson tossed the package of fancy adhesive strips on the table and looked around for some good old-fashioned Scotch tape. Detesting the thought of admitting defeat, he quickly picked up the adhesive strips again, his fingers aching from the strain of twisting the heavy cardboard and plastic back and forth.

He dropped his head back and sighed. “Scissors, you idiot.”

Shaking his head at his own stupidity, he walked out of the Gauthier Law Firm’s small conference room and over to office manager Carmen Mitchell’s desk.

“Hey, Carmen, can I borrow a pair of scissors?” Sawyer asked. “I swear they don’t want you to get into this thing.”

“Give me that,” Carmen said. She plucked the package from his hands, poked a hole in the cardboard with a letter opener and sliced it open, then handed it to him.

She snorted, shaking her head. “And to think you were considered one of the smart ones.”

Sawyer couldn’t help but laugh. He’d attended Gauthier High School with the law practice’s longtime secretary. Nice to see she was as smart-mouthed as ever.

“Trust me. Advanced calculus is ten times easier than opening this package,” Sawyer said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Carmen waved him off. She motioned to the small table in the corner that held a coffeepot. “There’s fresh coffee over there, but it’s decaf.”

“In other words, there’s fresh brown water over there.”

“You sound like Matt,” she said. “And just like I tell him, you can buy one of those nice single-serve coffee machines with the individual coffee pods, or you drink what I make.”

“Or I can just walk across the street to the Jazzy Bean for my caffeine fix,” Sawyer said.

“That, too. But I still want the fancy coffeemaker.” She looked up from her computer and nodded in the direction of the conference room. “You need any help setting up in there?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got it from here.” Sawyer turned back toward the conference room but then pivoted on his heel. “Hey, Carmen. The project manager should have been here already. Can you point him to the conference room whenever he gets in?”

“Sure, but you know the project manager is—” The phone rang. Carmen held up a finger. “Gauthier Law Firm.”

Sawyer held up the pack of adhesive strips and mouthed, “Thanks again,” before returning to the conference room and closing the door behind him so that he wouldn’t disturb Carmen any more than he already had this morning.

The room was on the smallish side. An eight-foot well-worn, but polished, wooden table took up a vast majority of the space. There were two makeshift desks on either side of the room—small folding tables, each with a table lamp and a chair. A two-drawer filing cabinet stood next to the table on the opposite end of the room from the one he’d chosen. His desk sat underneath a window overlooking Heritage Park.

It was one of the perks of being the first to arrive. If P. Jones wanted a say in which desk he would work at for the next four weeks, he should have shown up for work on time.

Someone, probably Carmen, had placed a yellow legal pad, a pack of pens and a box of paper clips on each desk. All in all it was pretty bare-bones, but that wouldn’t last for long. If the past projects he’d worked on were any indication, by the end of the week every surface in this room would be covered with modeling charts, cost estimates and reams of paper covered in specs.

Sawyer unrolled the preliminary diagram of the flood control structure that had been proposed by Bolt-Myer Engineering, the Arkansas-based firm that had won the bid for this project. The company was smart enough to have several Louisiana branches; the state legislature was known for awarding contracts to local companies.

Using the adhesive strips, he tacked the design up to the conference room’s paneled walls.

“Much better,” Sawyer said as he gave each twenty-four-by-thirty-six-inch printout a cursory glance. He would still need at least another day or so to pore over all the documents he’d received from his supervisor at the Army Corps of Engineers, where he’d worked since returning to Louisiana seven months ago.

He had only been assigned to this project this past Thursday, after his former colleague, Raymond Burrell, abruptly left for a more lucrative position in the private sector. Sawyer couldn’t really blame the guy. Ray had a wife and three kids; he had to do what he had to do in order to provide for his family.

Sawyer had missed Friday’s kickoff meeting with the project manager from Bolt-Myer. He’d flown out to Los Angeles to be with his aunt Lydia who’d celebrated her sixtieth birthday with a party at her new home in Chatsworth. Sawyer knew it was something his father would have wanted him to do, but that wasn’t the only reason he’d flown out there to surprise her. Lydia had been somewhat of a surrogate mother to him ever since his own mother had died more than two decades ago, back when he was still in high school.

But now that his family obligations were fulfilled, Sawyer was ready to get to work. He’d wanted on this project from the very beginning, but he’d been too busy finishing the levee surveying study around Lake Pontchartrain. He put his heart and soul into every job he worked on, but this one was different.

This was Gauthier.

Ray’s departure had opened the door for Sawyer to work on something that was close to his heart—saving his hometown from potential disaster.

Once he was done hanging the computer-assisted-design drawings on the walls, he went over to his desk, taking a moment to appreciate the brilliant view of Heritage Park. It was just one of the things he’d missed about Gauthier in the three years that he lived in Chicago.

Sawyer tried not to think about that time for a number of reasons, his ill-fated marriage being only one of them. But of the things he regretted during his short stint in Illinois, the awkward farce of a relationship with Angelique wasn’t even at the top of the list.

That spot was reserved for another disaster, one that Sawyer would not allow to happen here in Gauthier.

His complacency back in his old job had cost business owners their livelihoods. It cost some people their homes. Some even lost their pets. All because he hadn’t spoken up sooner when his gut told him that something wasn’t right.

This was his chance to make up for those past mistakes. He would not remain silent this time.

Would it change what happened in Illinois? No. Nothing would make up for what his inability to speak up had caused, but at least he knew better now. He wouldn’t allow the catastrophe that had happened on his last project to happen here.

This town—the place where his mother was born and raised, the place his father had quickly adopted as his own—meant too much to him to let anything happen to it. He wasn’t doing this just for the people of Gauthier. He was doing it for his mom and dad. He would take care of the town they both loved so much.

He would make sure this P. Jones person understood that from the very beginning. When it came to Gauthier’s flood protection system, there would be no cutting corners.

Sawyer checked his watch—the silver Seiko his father had given him as a gift years ago—and cursed underneath his breath. He’d always considered punctuality to be the most telling sign of a professional. Apparently, he wasn’t dealing with a professional here.

He sat behind his makeshift desk and lifted the plans for the proposed reservoir; then he heard muffled voices coming from the other side of the conference room door. He recognized Matthew Gauthier’s voice. Matt’s family had founded the town of Gauthier and had owned this law firm for generations. There was a feminine laugh. Sawyer figured the other voice must belong to Carmen. But then the conference room door opened. And his heart stopped.

Paxton Jones plopped a hand on her hip and said, “Well, hell.”

Chapter 2

“Paxton? What are you doing here?”

The shock on Sawyer Robertson’s face was laughable. If this were a laughing matter.

It was not. There was nothing even remotely funny about this.

The moment her eyes popped open that morning, Paxton knew she would live to regret not checking her phone to make sure she’d set the alarm. She and Belinda had stayed out at the bar much later than originally planned, getting the last bit of odds and ends done before tonight’s reopening. By the time she fell face-first onto her pillow, Paxton could barely move, let alone check the alarm on her phone. When her mother knocked on the door of her childhood bedroom that morning, Paxton discovered that she’d overslept by more than an hour.

To make matters worse, there was only one bathroom in the single-wide trailer where she’d grown up, and, as per usual, she had to fight Belinda over bathroom time.

Why did she allow her mother to talk her into staying at home instead of at Belle Maison? Not only was the quaint bed-and-breakfast closer to the Gauthier Law Firm, but Bolt-Myer would have footed the bill for it. Instead, Paxton had to make the twenty-minute drive in from Landreaux, which didn’t help with getting in to work on time.

Not the best way to make a first impression.

Paxton gestured to Sawyer’s desk. “I wanted that table,” she said. Then, remembering that she had to share this space with him for the next four weeks, she added in a more amiable tone, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he replied. He stared at her for a moment before his eyes widened. “Wait.” He picked up one of the documents from his desk and, pointing at it, said, “You’re P. Jones?”

“Since birth,” Paxton answered.

The combination of bafflement and amusement remained on his face as he tossed the papers back on the tabletop and rose from his chair. It was downright mystifying how this man could make a simple pair of gray slacks and a plain white button-down look so good. The unassuming clothes fit his tall, solid frame to perfection, the sleeves of his shirt folded back at the cuff, giving the barest glimpse of his powerful forearms.

Sliding his hands into his pockets, he sauntered toward her.

Paxton braced herself for the onslaught of longing that never failed to pummel her whenever she was around him.

Breathe through it, girl.

“This is a surprise,” Sawyer said, a hint of a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “I knew you worked for Bolt-Myer, but I never put two and two together. I assumed the P stood for Paul or Patrick.”

“Oh, wow! Really?” she asked with exaggerated exuberance. “Your 1950s mentality makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”

He held his hands up. “The only thing the paperwork had on it was P. Jones, which you have to admit is a pretty common name. But I shouldn’t have automatically assumed it was male. If it makes you feel better, I’ll burn a couple of bras to make up for it.”

She flat-out refused to smile at his quip.

Sawyer crossed his arms over his chest, and for a moment she forgot to breathe. She had a thing for arms, and could remember all too well what it felt like to have his wrapped around her.

He leaned his hip against the larger conference room table. The way the material pulled across his firm thigh made Paxton want to bend over and bite it. She resisted. Barely.

“Now I understand why Bolt-Myer chose to send someone from their Little Rock offices instead of picking a project manager from Baton Rouge,” Sawyer said, completely unaware of her vampiric thoughts. “You probably know this area better than anyone in the entire company.”

“Hmm.” Paxton did her best impersonation of Rodin’s The Thinker, dipping her head and fitting her fist strategically underneath her chin. “You know, there’s actually a chance that they chose me because I’m one of the best project managers they have.”

“Come on, Paxton. I apologize, okay?”

“And what are you apologizing for? Assuming I was a guy, or for insinuating that I’m here because it’s convenient instead of my skill to get the job done?”

“For both,” he said. “Can’t you find it in your heart to give me a break?”

“I’ll give you a break when you get out of my spot.”

She set her briefcase on the larger conference table next to his leg. Which, yes, she still wanted to take a bite out of. Dammit.

“How is this your spot?” Sawyer’s voice oozed incredulousness. “I was here first.”

“No, I was here first. I claimed that spot on Friday when Carmen and I set up this conference room.”

He looked over his shoulder at the folding table, then turned back to her, one corner of his mouth tipping upward in a self-satisfied grin. “Maybe you should have left a sign on it,” he said.

Oh, how she wished she didn’t find the smugness on his face attractive as hell. Seriously, who in their right mind was turned on by cockiness?

Anyone who encountered a cocky Sawyer Robertson.

“Just think of how much confusion could have been avoided,” he continued. “I would have known that the P in P. Jones stood for Paxton. I wouldn’t have been surprised with the Queen of the Tardy Slip showing up late on the first day of the job. And I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to fall in love with this desk and its perfect view of the park.” He leaned forward, as if getting ready to impart a deep, dark secret. “I have to be honest, Pax. It really is the perfect view. You’ll be sorry you didn’t get here early enough to claim it.”

She bit the inside of her mouth to stop herself from smiling. She’d prepared herself for this. She would not allow Sawyer’s teasing to throw her off her game. Because Lord knew if any man could fluster her, it was this one.

“Don’t call me Pax,” she said.

His brow arched. “So, it’s like that?”

“Yes, it’s like that.” she said. She couldn’t handle him calling her by her nickname. It brought up too many memories of the numerous times he’d whispered it throughout that night they’d shared three years ago.

Don’t think about that, Paxton silently chastised herself.

“And bringing up that Queen of the Tardy Slip thing is just wrong,” she said.

She’d earned that title back in high school, when she would routinely show up late for homeroom. Unlike most of her classmates who had the luxury of going to bed at a decent hour on school nights, she was often helping Belinda out at Harlon’s. It made her chances of getting to school before that 7:10 a.m. bell nearly impossible.

Her best friend, Shayla Kirkland, used to joke, saying that the snooze button was Paxton’s real best friend.

“No need to get upset,” Sawyer said. “It’s just nice to see that you’re still living up to your name.”

Paxton let out an aggravated sigh. “Why did Ray Burrell have to quit?”

He slapped a hand to his chest, his dark brown eyes wounded. “I’ll try to pretend that doesn’t hurt.”

She gave him some serious side-eye action before walking over to the other desk, the one that faced a wall. A wall. Why hadn’t she set her alarm?

Sawyer followed her. Great.

He assumed the position he’d taken on the other side of the long conference table, crossing his arms over his chest and perching himself on the edge of it.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were the project manager?” Sawyer asked.

“When would I have gotten the chance to tell you? I only came into town a few days ago. Besides, I didn’t think I had to. I figured you would have run across it while you were reviewing the information you were given when they transferred you to this project.”

“I haven’t had much time to review the materials. I was out of town this weekend. A family thing.”

“That’s what I was told during the meeting on Friday,” she said.

“It was a party for my aunt Lydia,” he explained. He paused for a moment before continuing in a slightly lower tone. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard or not, but I’m no longer married.”

Paxton put her hand up. “Not my business.”

His head jerked back a bit. “So it really is like that?”

“Look, Sawyer, it’s not my business where you spend your free time or who you spend your time with.” She moved her briefcase to the desk and turned to him. Mimicking his pose, she crossed her arms over her chest and said, “As long as you understand that between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., your time is my time.”

He made a production of looking at his watch. “Is that the case even when you come in at eight forty-five?”

She’d placed the ball squarely on the tee for that one.

Doing her best to maintain a calm, professional air, she said, “I apologize for being late. As project manager I should be the one setting the example.”

“I was only joking, Pax.” She continued to stare at him. Waiting. “I mean Paxton,” he corrected himself with a pinch of annoyance.

“Thank you.”

The laugh he huffed out was devoid of all humor, but Paxton would not allow it to affect her. The only way she would get through these next four weeks with her sanity intact was if she stayed within the boundaries she’d laid out in her head the minute she had learned Sawyer would be replacing Ray Burrell as the state’s civil engineer on this project. Allowing Sawyer to speak to her in such familiar terms crossed those boundaries.

“I’m just trying to be professional here,” she explained.

“Yeah, I get it,” he said, pushing himself up from the table. The traces of humor that had colored his voice earlier were nowhere to be found. “I would, however, appreciate a call if you know you’re running late. Just, you know, as a professional courtesy.”

Paxton acknowledged the slight sting from his words. She guessed she deserved that.

“I agree,” she said. “But I don’t have your number.”

The moment the words left her mouth the mood in the room shifted. Sawyer’s gaze caught hers and held. Her admission was almost laughable, considering their history. She had knowledge of his body in the most primitive, elemental way, yet she didn’t even know his phone number.

“I guess that’s something we’ll have to rectify,” Sawyer said.

“Yes.” She cleared her throat. Nodded. “I’ll need your number in case I need to get in touch with you about something for the project.”

His gaze remained on her. Probing. Penetrating. It took everything she had within her not to squirm.

One brow peaked over his dark brown eyes. “Is that the only reason?”

“Yes,” Paxton said. “That is the only reason I will need your number.”

He released another of those irritated breaths, running a hand down his face before assaulting her once again with that intense stare.

“Trying to pretend it didn’t happen doesn’t erase the fact that it did, Paxton. You know that, don’t you?”

The subtle drop in pitch of his already decadently deep voice caused a million butterflies to take flight in her belly. Her body reacted to the mere memory of hearing that voice. She could still feel it on her skin, the goose bumps that rose as he whispered the sexiest words imaginable into her ear as his body slowly entered hers.

Paxton sucked in a deep breath. She could not do this to herself. Would not.

There was too much at stake to get distracted by Sawyer and his seductive voice, or the subtle dip in his chin that begged for her tongue to lick at it, or those deep brown bedroom eyes that saw too much. She needed to remain focused. She had a coworker back in Little Rock who tried to show her up every chance he got. Clay Ridgely was on a mission to take Paxton’s spot as the leading project manager, and she’d be damned if she let him do it.

That’s why she was determined to ignore the hormones spinning around inside her. She had too much riding on this project to allow anything to get in the way of it, especially an out-of-control libido.

With a will she didn’t realize she possessed, Paxton reined in her body’s reaction to him and focused on the myriad reasons why it was important they keep things strictly professional.

“It’s obvious I will have to set some ground rules on how things will work over these next four weeks,” she said.

“Ground rules?”

“Yes,” Paxton answered. “We are here to do a job, and that’s the only thing I plan to discuss while we’re here. This conference room is small enough. We don’t have any room for our personal lives to invade it. Are we clear?”

“No,” he said.

Her head jerked back. “Excuse me?”

“I disagree. I think it would be better for both of us if we tackled this issue head-on instead of allowing it to hover over us.” He shrugged. “Like you said, this place is small. We don’t have room for that eight-hundred-pound gorilla you refuse to talk about.”

Just the knowledge that they were both thinking about those hours they spent together caused a tingling sensation to travel up and down her back.

This would be a long four weeks.

But she would get through it. There was no way she would allow that one ridiculously delicious indiscretion she’d succumbed to one night several years ago to derail her plans.

“I’m here to do a job, Sawyer,” Paxton repeated. “And so are you. Unless it has something to do with this project, I have no intentions of discussing it. End of story.” She straightened her spine and lifted her chin just a touch. “Now, I’ll ask you again. Are we clear?”

His eyes bored into hers with an intensity that made her breathless. Finally, thankfully, he relented. Hunching his shoulders, he said, “Fine. You’re the boss.”

Those words, coming from his mouth, set off a different reaction within her, one of pride.

She was the boss. Her. Little Paxton Jones from the wrong side of Landreaux Creek.

What she wouldn’t give to go back in time, to return to that reticent, unsure girl she was twenty years ago. The girl who’d secretly longed for the man standing across from her, just as every other girl had. Back when he was the star quarterback, student body president and the most handsome human being to grace the hallways of Gauthier High School.

Paxton wondered what that girl’s reaction would be if she told her that she would one day be the boss of Sawyer Robertson. Her teenage self would likely laugh and give her a snide get real sneer.

But that’s okay. Because this Paxton knew better.

“Good,” she said to Sawyer with a curt nod. “Now that we’ve established that, would you please consider switching desks with me? I really want that spot by the window.”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s only fair that I get to keep it. If you knew you wanted a certain desk, you should have gotten here early enough to claim it.”

She stopped just short of growling, but Paxton decided not to push him on it. This was a battle not worth fighting. In fact, it was probably for the best. Without the beautiful view of Heritage Park to distract her she would be more inclined to keep her head down and work harder. This phase of the flood protection project was slated to last for four weeks, but the quicker they worked, the quicker it would be over.

And the quicker she could get away from all this temptation.

As she went about setting her things out on the table that sat underneath a portrait of an old patriarch of the Gauthier family, Paxton laid out the ground rules.

“My team at Bolt-Myer has spent the past six months designing the initial concept package. The next four weeks are basically a state-required bridge between the concept proposal and the design phase, with an out-of-town trip to tour another flood protection system scheduled toward the end of this phase.

“A detailed report of the ICP has been at the courthouse for residents to review since mid-September. The only thing we have to do is present it at the stakeholders’ meeting in a few weeks and address resident concerns, review whatever questions have been posted to the website we set up for public input and finalize the preliminary implementation plan.”

“You don’t have to explain, Paxton. This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve worked on enough public–private partnerships to know how this works.”

She turned and faced him. “Well, I just want to make sure you understand how a project that I’m managing works. We have a timetable that we need to stick to in order to get this done on time, and I intend to adhere to it. Are you on board with that?”

He nodded. “I am.”

“Good, then let’s get to work.”

* * *

It had been nearly four hours since Paxton arrived at the office, but it had taken Sawyer less than twenty minutes to get a clear picture of what the next four weeks would be like for him.

Pure. Unmitigated. Torture.

Even though she sat on the opposite side of the conference room, he was acutely aware of her every move. Every key she hit on her computer, every time she moved her chair the barest inch, every second she took a damn breath. He felt it all. And it was both intoxicating and agonizing.

His body was still suffering the effects of the jolt it had received when she’d walked through the conference room door, her slim black skirt gently hugging her delicately curved hips. The impact of staring into those rich hazel eyes again hit him with the force of a tornado. Her hair was shorter than it was the last time he’d seen her. The pixie cut made her cheekbones even more pronounced. She was the entire package: beauty, brains and just enough sass to drive him wild.

His aunt Lydia would say this was his just due for making a sexist assumption that he would be working with a male, but in all fairness, most people would have done the same. Construction, especially on this level, was still a pretty male-dominated arena. It hadn’t even occurred to him to ask the full name of the project manager listed at the top of most of the documents simply as P. Jones.

Sawyer wondered, just for a moment, what he would have done if he had known that the P stood for Paxton. Would he have tried to come up with an excuse when his supervisor at the Army Corps assigned him to this project last week?

No, he wouldn’t have made excuses. He had never been the type to run.

She had been the one who ran away.

Sawyer tipped his head back and closed his eyes against the hurt that still pierced his chest whenever he thought about that morning when he’d woken to find her gone.

It had been three years since that night the two of them had ended up in bed together, turning one of the most harrowing days of his life into one of the most memorable. Sawyer could still recall to the minute detail how it felt when he held her in his arms, contemplating the start of something new and wonderful with the girl he’d had a thing for since their days together at Gauthier High School.

Unfortunately, Paxton hadn’t felt the same way. She’d slipped out of his bed in the wee hours of the morning, and when Sawyer had finally caught up to her days later, she’d apologized to him.

Apologized, for goodness’ sake.

He could still see the regret in her eyes as she told him that they shouldn’t have slept together. She then avoided him like he was something filthy on the bottom of her shoe.

And now, three years later, she didn’t even want to discuss it.

Bullshit.

Oh, they were going to discuss that night, along with her disappearing act that followed the morning after. Sawyer would give her a day, maybe two, but there was no way in hell he could work this closely with her for the next month with all these questions still lingering between them. He deserved some answers, and he planned to get them sooner rather than later.

They worked in their separate corners for most of the morning, staying out of each other’s way. Sawyer was encouraged by the fact that once he made the concerted effort to focus, he was able to put thoughts of her out of his head and actually pay attention to the work in front of him.

His stomach’s low growl reminded him that they had yet to stop for lunch. He looked down at his watch, surprised to see that it was nearly one o’clock. Just as he turned to ask Paxton what she planned to do for lunch, there was a knock at the door. Carmen poked her head in.

“Hey, guys, not sure if you ate already, but Matt’s meeting with the parish council just ended and there are leftover sandwiches, potato salad and sweet tea from Catering by Kiera if you want any.”

“That sounds perfect,” Paxton said. “I didn’t have time to pack a lunch this morning.” She turned to him and pointed a finger. “No comments from you.”

Sawyer held his hands up. “I didn’t say anything, Queen Tardy.”

“Queen of the Tardy Slip,” Carmen said with a laugh. “I remember that!”

Paxton rolled her eyes at them both. Who knew it would be so much fun to tease her?

Carmen returned a minute later with a small platter of sandwiches on croissants, a pint of potato salad, two bags of chips and a half-gallon jug of tea, along with paper plates, forks and plastic cups. She set it all in the center of the still-empty conference table and backed out of the room.

Paxton took a seat at the table. “Do you mind this being a working lunch?” she asked him. “Jeffery Melber, the lead engineer on the project, just sent me an updated material’s list. We can go over it while we eat.”

“That’s fine,” Sawyer said. “I’d made some changes of my own to the old one. Let me print you out a copy, and we can get to work.”

Ten minutes later, Sawyer was positive that she was going to demand a new engineer be put on this job.

“You cannot be serious about this line item,” Paxton said, pointing to the titanium valves he’d added to the list, replacing the fortified aluminum valves that had been suggested by Bolt-Myer.

“The titanium valves are of much better quality.”

“They’re thirty thousand dollars each,” she said. Her arched eyebrows formed perfect peaks over her wide eyes. “That’s four times as much as we budgeted.”

“But they’ll last much longer than the aluminum valves. It may be more money up front, but we can make the case to get the better valves because of what it will save in the long run. You’ll have to replace all of those aluminum valves in thirty years. The titanium can last for twice as long with proper maintenance.”

“It’s not going to happen, Sawyer. The fortified aluminum has been through rigorous testing. They exceed the state regulations.”

“These are better.” He stabbed the materials list with his finger. He refused to budge on this. “Look, Paxton, I’ve seen what happens when corners are cut to save a few dollars here and there. It turns out costing more in the long run. Why not just build it with the best now and avoid headaches down the road? Not just headaches, but it could prevent something catastrophic from happening.”

“Now you’re just fearmongering,” she said. “The budget does not have room to spend over a million dollars just on valves.” She dusted the flaky crumbs of her croissant from her fingers and pressed a napkin to the sides of her mouth. “I understand that someone like you isn’t used to worrying about pesky little things like staying within budget, but for those of us in the real world it is a necessity.”

That was a cheap shot, and it hit its mark.

Sawyer tossed the pen on the table and sat back in his seat. He folded his hands over his chest and studied her. “So you’re going to go there? Really?”

“The truth isn’t always comfortable to hear, but it doesn’t make it any less true.” Paxton said. She straightened her slim shoulders, lifting her chin slightly as she stared him down. “There is no blank check for this project. I was given a specific budget, and I intend to adhere to it, which means you will have to work within it, too, as hard as that may be for someone like you.”

Sawyer had not imagined the sneer in her voice when she said “someone like you.”

It didn’t take a degree in rocket science to uncover the true meaning behind her words or the tone in which she’d spoken. Paxton Jones resented that he had been a rich kid; she always had. As if it was his fault that his father owned the lumber mill that employed a good number of the laborers in town.

The fact that she grew up in Landreaux, one of the poorest areas of Gauthier, did not help the situation. Differences in status or class had never been a huge issue in this town, mainly because other than his family and the Gauthiers themselves, most of its residents were hardworking, lower-middle-class folks. There were those who fell below the poverty line, but instead of deriding them, the people here quietly did what they could to help.

Paxton, however, had never accepted help easily. Neither had her mother, even though Belinda Jones had swallowed her pride a time or two when things had become too much for her to handle. Sawyer was positive that Ms. Jones had never told her daughter about the instances when she had availed herself of the financial assistance the Cheryl Ann Robertson Foundation, which his father had set up in his mother’s memory years ago, supplied to needy families in Gauthier. Belinda Jones was too proud.

Like mother, like daughter.

As far as Sawyer was concerned, when it came to this project, Paxton could choke on her resentment. Her hang-ups about his money didn’t make a lick of difference to him. Making sure this flood protection system was the very best it could be was more important than worrying about the chip on her shoulder.

“I’ve worked in this field for a long time,” Sawyer said, trying like hell to keep the resentment out of his voice. “I understand budgets. I also understand what happens when people allow budgets to compromise good design.”

“Forget the titanium valves,” Paxton said, slicing the tip of her red pen through the line item. “I’ll give you these,” she said, pointing to the alternative barrier reinforcement he’d suggested. “But keep in mind if we choose to stick with this design, we’re going to have to cut corners somewhere else.”

“Stop taking such a hard line,” Sawyer said. “Budgets get blown all the time. The last three projects I worked on for the state all were over budget by at least 30 percent. The extra money is already figured into the state’s budget, because they know the projects will go over.”

“Not on my projects,” she said. “I don’t know how you state boys operate, but one of the things that makes me a good project manager with Bolt-Myer is my accuracy for hitting my budgets and my completion date targets. This project in Gauthier will be no different.”

“You’re determined to make this difficult, aren’t you? Are you doing this just to spite me?”

She turned her chair toward him, her face full of haughty indignation. “How much weight does that giant ego add when you step on your bathroom scale in the mornings?”

Sawyer ran both hands down his face. It was a conceited thing to say. It was also unfair. Within the first hour of working with her Sawyer had already determined that she was, above all else, a professional.

He held his hands out to her. “I just don’t want everything to turn into a fight, Paxton. I want you to be open to hearing my side of things.”

“I am open to hearing your side. This isn’t a dictatorship,” she said. “As long as you understand that when it comes down to the final decision, it’s my ass that’s on the line. You get to return to your safe government job, but my job security is tied to my performance.

“I have more riding on this project than you can possibly know, Sawyer, and I will not allow anything to interfere with it. Are we clear on that?”

The intensity in her stare matched the seriousness in her voice. He wanted to refute her words, but they were true. He didn’t have as much at stake when it came to his job. He would be fine no matter what.

But this wasn’t his typical project. His concern superseded his personal well-being. This was about Gauthier.

“We’re clear,” Sawyer answered. “This isn’t just a job to you. I get that. But it isn’t just a job to me, either. I don’t go into work every day just to collect a paycheck. As I’m sure you know, I don’t need to,” he said before she had the chance to throw it in his face. “However, when it comes to this particular project, I am just as invested as you are. The people of Gauthier deserve the best flood protection system we can provide, and as long as I’m the engineer on this project they’re going to get it. You need to keep that in mind when you think about your budgets. Now, are you clear about that?”

She held her jaw so rigid Sawyer was certain it would shatter. Several long, intense moments passed between them, sending the tension in the small conference room into the stratosphere.

Paxton was the first to break. If she’d waited two seconds longer, he would have beaten her to it.

Dammit. He could not take an entire month of these showdowns. He would go crazy.

“I’m willing to compromise on some issues,” she said. “If you can prove that they will make a significant difference to the overall effectiveness of the system. You don’t get to just throw something out there because it’s this cool new technology that you’ve been dying to use.”

It irritated the hell out of him that she would assume that he could be so frivolous, but Sawyer wasn’t up for yet another face-off so soon. He was still catching his breath from the last one.

“Fine,” he said. “So, are we going with the titanium valves?”

She popped a potato chip in her mouth, dusted off her fingers and said, “No. Next item.”

Chapter 3

Paxton pulled into a slanted parking slot two spaces down from the entrance to the Gauthier Law Firm. She grabbed her briefcase from the passenger seat and exited the car. As she rounded her front bumper, she looked up and down Main Street, and stopped short. The cashmere-silver BMW 750i that she secretly coveted—yeah, she’d looked up the base price; it was way out of her budget even before she’d bought Belinda the bar—was not it its usual parking spot.

Had she actually made it here before Sawyer?

Yes!

She was going to switch those desks. She was getting her window seat today, dammit.

Paxton raced into the law office, waving a quick hello to Carmen before heading down the hallway. She opened the conference room door and halted.

Sawyer, who sat at his desk sipping from a paper cup with the Jazzy Bean’s logo, was scribbling on a notepad. He looked up at her.

“What are you doing here?” Paxton asked, her shoulders falling in defeat as she shuffled over to her desk with much less enthusiasm.

“Good morning to you, too,” he said with a chuckle. “Why are you out of breath? Have you been running?”

“Only from my car to here,” she answered. She set her briefcase on her desk, then walked over to his.

He had on his reading glasses, the bronze wire-rimmed ones that looked so good on him it made her want to scream.

“You’re early,” he said.

It was ten minutes after eight, which meant she was technically late, but since she’d spent the past week coming in after eight-thirty, she was early today.

“Where’s your car?” Paxton asked.

He handed her a cup of coffee. “The mechanic’s shop.”

She hadn’t noticed the second coffee cup on his desk. Her heart performed a ridiculous flip-flop at his sweet gesture.

“Thank you. And good morning,” she added. She took a sip of the slightly cooled coffee. It had just the right amount of cream and sugar, which meant Shayla Kirkland, the owner of the Jazzy Bean, had likely made it herself. Her best friend knew how Paxton preferred her coffee.

“Did you walk here?” she asked him. Paxton made a habit of not listening to gossip—hard to do in this small town, which fed off gossip the way mosquitoes fed off blood—but she’d heard that Sawyer had bought a house on Willow Street, which was less than ten minutes away on foot.

“I could have, but as muggy as it is this morning I was afraid I’d need a shower after I got here. I’m driving my dad’s old Buick for the next few days.” He grimaced.

“The burgundy one?” She couldn’t stop the sharp laugh that escaped. “I don’t know how I missed seeing it parked out there.”

“Yeah, the burgundy one,” Sawyer said. “I hate that car.”

“I can’t believe it’s still running. It has to be over twenty years old.”

Paxton could remember Sawyer driving his dad’s car during their senior year of high school, which was twenty years ago this year. She’d missed the reunion this past summer, purposely filling in for a coworker on a job in Memphis so she’d have an excuse. If given the choice to revisit her high school years or frolic through a minefield, she would choose the minefield.

“It’s twenty-two years old,” Sawyer said. “My dad loved that damn thing. He went through four cars after it, but he refused to get rid of the Buick.”

“You didn’t have a problem with it back in high school,” Paxton pointed out.

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” he said with a laugh.

Sawyer had driven the Buick up until the week following the big state championship game, when his father had surprised him with a brand-new pickup truck as a reward for leading the Lions to victory and being named MVP for the season.

The shiny black truck had been parked in front of the school with a big red bow on the hood. They had all later learned that the truck also counted as Sawyer’s birthday, Christmas and graduation presents that year, but it was still a huge deal. There were not many families in Gauthier who could afford to buy their teens brand-new cars. The lucky ones got their parents’ hand-me-downs, and were more than grateful for it.

Paxton could still feel the envy flowing through her veins as she boarded the school bus while at least a dozen of her classmates piled into the cab and truck bed of Sawyer’s gleaming new ride. She wasn’t jealous of his truck. Belinda didn’t have a car of her own at the time; Paxton knew there was no way on earth she would get a car while still in high school.

No, it was witnessing the camaraderie between the group of friends who had joined Sawyer to celebrate his new truck that got to her that day. She was so envious of the bond they all shared, including Shayla, who, even though she had been Paxton’s best friend, had also been part of the popular crowd.

Until this day Paxton truly believed her greatest feat was convincing everyone that it had not bothered her in the least that she wasn’t included in their number. She’d perfected the unaffected loner facade, the girl who was above the hype of belonging to high school cliques or attending dances or being noticed by the most popular boy in school.

She’d pretended she didn’t care, but if anyone had bothered to look just a little closer, Paxton knew they would have spotted the longing in her eyes.

She shook off those thoughts. She was no longer that girl, the one who pined for Sawyer to notice her. She’d proven three years ago that she’d grown into the kind of woman who could hold his attention for hours on end, until he collapsed in a heap of pleasure-filled exhaustion.

Paxton breathed her way through the full-body shudder that coursed through her, silently cursing herself for even allowing her mind to go there.

She went back to her desk to start on today’s work, welcoming the distraction of pouring over the field inspection notes collected during the Bolt-Myer team’s previous visit to the proposed construction site. She soon settled into what had become a familiar routine over the past week.

She’d been both surprised and relieved at how easily she and Sawyer had fallen into their own little bubbles while working together. He’d spent most of the past week catching up on the project, while she’d focused on the hundreds—literally hundreds—of line items on her master to-do list.

The most important bullet on her list was the preparation for the stakeholders’ information session. Paxton had taken to calling it a town hall meeting when discussing it with residents, hoping that the less formal title would encourage more people to attend. As with every major project, Bolt-Myer was required to inform the members of the community what would take place over the eight months while the first stage of the three-stage flood protection system was being constructed and to answer any questions residents may have.

Paxton had facilitated a number of meetings like this in the past, but she knew this one would be different. It wasn’t as if she had anything to prove to the people in Gauthier, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to show them just what the girl who had been raised by a single mother from the wrong side of the creek had made of herself.

She put in her headphones and turned the volume up on the classical music she preferred to listen to while she worked. She’d become so immersed in reviewing the request for proposals from local subcontractors vying for the various jobs that would have to be filled once construction was under way that she nearly jumped out of her seat when Sawyer tapped her on the shoulder.

“Goodness!” she yelped, clutching a hand to her chest. Paxton jerked the headphones off. “What?”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I tried calling out to you, but you have that music so loud that I can hear it even with the speakers over your ears.”

“You should have said something sooner if it was bothering you,” Paxton said.

“It isn’t. That’s not what I wanted to speak to you about.”

Her brow rose.

“I need you to come over to the table,” Sawyer said. “I want to show you something.”

She didn’t like the forbidding she heard in his voice or the frown lines creasing the corners of his mouth. Trepidation skirted along her spine as she rose from her chair and followed him to the other side of the conference room, closer to his desk.

Over the past week the conference table had slowly acquired more and more items. It was now covered with stacks of papers, file folders and blueprints. Several topography maps of the east side of Gauthier, not too far from the elementary and middle school, were stretched across the table, their ends held down with a stapler, the polished rock that usually sat on Sawyer’s desk and two empty coffee mugs.

Sawyer pointed to an area not too far from Mount Zion Baptist Church.

“I hope I’m wrong about this,” he said. “But if I’m right, it can stop this entire project dead in its tracks.”

* * *

Standing at the conference table, Sawyer’s eyes slid shut for a moment as he soaked in the sensation of his body being so close to Paxton’s. Mere inches separated them as they hunched over the topography maps he’d spread across the space. She’d taken off her jacket; the belt cinched at her waist accentuating her small frame. His fingers itched to wrap themselves around her. His gaze traveled up to her delicately curved chin, past her full mouth and those hazel eyes, which were narrowed with determination as she focused on the maps.

Sawyer caught a whiff of the coconut-and-mango lotion she kept on her desk, along with something else he couldn’t identify. That intoxicating scent had tortured him in the most pleasurable way this past week. He smelled her in his sleep, invading his dreams.

It had become a test of his will to fight the urge to call out her name as he lay in bed at night, manually relieving himself of the pent-up sexual tension that flooded his body. He failed each and every night. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop himself from uttering her name in that moment when he found his release.

It didn’t matter that they’d spent only one night together, or that he’d had a wife and two additional casual love affairs since that one explosive evening he and Paxton had shared. When it was time to conjure a fantasy, she was always the star.

Sawyer studied the column of her neck, his eyes moving hungrily up the delicate expanse of skin. His tongue darted out on its own accord, the need for just a quick taste of her nearly overcoming his common sense.

“So, what’s the issue?” she asked, catapulting him out of his fantasy.

Sawyer cleared his throat and took a step back. “What was that?” he asked. Standing this close to her would only lead to trouble.

As if she’d tracked the route his train of thought had taken, she, too, took a step back, putting a bit more distance between them.

“I asked about the issue you’re having with this. I don’t see anything that can put a kink in the project.”

Remembering that he was here to do a job, Sawyer returned his attention to the map. Using a capped pen, he pointed to a spot just left of Landreaux Creek that connected to a bigger tributary of the Pearl River.

“According to this elevation map, this area should be out of the restricted flood zone.” He slid several color printouts out from underneath the binder he’d set there earlier. “However, based on these stats from the aftermath of Tropical Storm Lucy, it saw over two feet of water.”

Paxton’s forehead wrinkled. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, and the urge to run his tongue along the glistening seam made a comeback. Sawyer started running linear equations in his head, hoping it would distract him. It didn’t.

“Maybe it was just overwhelmed,” Paxton said. “I was already in Little Rock by the time Lucy hit, but, according to everything I’ve heard, it dumped a lot of rain in a very short amount of time. Shayla said she was afraid the Jazzy Bean would get some water, and this part of town never floods.”

“Any area can see heavier standing water than usual if enough rain falls on it in a short time,” Sawyer said. “But Lucy was moving at twelve miles an hour. That’s not fast, but still a reasonably steady clip. This area shouldn’t be vulnerable to that kind of flash flooding, especially with it being this high up.” He shook his head. “Something isn’t right here. I think these maps may be off.”

“These are the maps Bolt-Myer’s project engineers used when developing the initial concept package. Trust me, Sawyer—they’re accurate.”

“How sure are you?”

Her back went ramrod straight. “Excuse me?”

“Look, Paxton, I know as project manager you’ve had your hands in every aspect of this project, but I also know that there are a lot of things you have to pay attention to with a project of this size. You trust your engineers to take care of certain things. Now, I want to know how sure you are that these maps are accurate, because based on these flood totals, something isn’t adding up.”

“I think you’re jumping to conclusions.”

Sawyer crossed his arms over his chest. “How do you explain two feet of water in an area that should see no more than a couple of inches at the most?”

“It’s not just the speed of the storm that you have to take into account,” she argued. “The river was also still high from all the snow that melted from that previous winter and traveled down from the north. Gauthier doesn’t have robust pumping stations like the ones in New Orleans and other big cities, so they’re going to get this type of flooding during the perfect storm, even in places that are not flood prone.”

“That’s the thing,” Sawyer said. “This wasn’t the perfect storm. Not even close.” He rounded the table and moved to a map he’d hung on the wall. He pointed the pen cap at the center of the Gulf of Mexico. “Lucy formed here and lingered over the Gulf for several days before moving north. The eye of the storm followed the Louisiana–Mississippi state line, which means Gauthier wasn’t even on the so-called bad side of the storm. In fact, for the most part, it remained in the lower-left quadrant, which is the best-case scenario.”

“But Lucy was a slow mover,” Paxton countered.

Sawyer shook his head. “That shouldn’t matter. If I’m to believe that the elevation in this area is as high as it is on this map, then Lucy could have lingered for another three days without this part of Gauthier seeing even close to the amount of flooding that it saw.”

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