Crazy Rich Cajuns

by Erin Nicholas

  “You think so?”

  “I’m going to pull out all the stops.”

  “I can’t wait.” She loved playful, sexy Bennett. This was definitely a win-win.

  “Goodnight, everyone. It’s been a very nice evening,” Bennett told the group.

  Everyone gave him their goodnights as well along with a promise for lunch from Mayor Elbert and an invitation for him and Kennedy to join Governor Ray and his wife sailing sometime soon.

  Yeah, Kennedy wasn’t going sailing. She knew about boats, and the only ones she liked were airboats and pontoons.

  She watched Bennett walk away, feeling that warm blanket of contentment settle around her again.

  Okay, maybe she’d go sailing. For him. Once.

  She sighed. Or as many times as he asked.

  This weekend was proof that she would do just about anything for him. And that maybe it wouldn’t all totally suck.

  Bennett Baxter was something. He had a lot of important things ahead of him. He needed a Leo. Someone who would be there, behind him, encouraging him, loving him, no matter what.

  Kennedy felt a streak of oh crap go through her.

  Loving him?

  But yeah. She was in love with him. And other than his uncle Teddy, he didn’t really have someone there telling him that he was doing the right thing and was amazing and should keep going and that they were there no matter what.

  Yeah, he needed a Leo. He needed her.

  She was definitely stuck.

  But she wasn’t sure she minded the idea so much anymore.

  12

  Bennett rolled over and reached out.

  The other side of the bed was empty. As it had been last night when he’d fallen asleep.

  But he could smell her. Kennedy’s scent filled the air.

  He rolled to his back and opened his eyes, blinking. The sun was up, but it wasn’t very bright through the east windows yet. What the hell time was it?

  He heard footsteps and looked toward the bathroom door.

  Kennedy was crossing the room, pulling a brush through her long hair. She was clearly showered and was wearing a dress he’d never seen and that was definitely not hers. No way. It was red. He’d never seen Kennedy wear red before. No, they hadn’t known each other long enough that he’d seen her entire wardrobe. Probably. But the black tops, dresses, shorts, and pants were all…black. Red didn’t fit. It was too bright. Plus, the dress was very brunch-with-his-mother rather than bayou-badass. Though her tattoos did show with the capped sleeves and the skirt that hit her midthigh.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice still rough from sleep.

  She turned with a smile. “Hey.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Breakfast.”

  “Oh.”

  She came toward the bed and climbed up onto the bottom, sitting on her heels. “Just a few of us. Charles wants to go over some plans that we talked about last night in more detail.”

  “What’s with the dress?”

  She looked down. “Oh, it’s your mom’s.” Kennedy grinned at him. “She loaned it to me.”

  “For breakfast.”

  “Yes.”

  “With Charles.”

  “Right.”

  “In my mother’s kitchen.”

  “No.”

  Bennett frowned. “No?”

  Kennedy smiled and ran her hands over the skirt. “We’re going downtown somewhere. Michael is coming, too, and is having a couple of people from his office join us to help fill me in.”

  Bennett pushed himself up to sitting. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m going downtown to breakfast to talk with Charles and Michael more about getting involved in Charles’ reelection campaign. Michael is having some of his people join us so I can ask them questions since Charles’ people are in Baton Rouge. But I’ll meet them when we get back.”

  Bennett just blinked at her.

  Kennedy tipped her head. “Oh, I guess you had already come upstairs when we started talking about that.”

  “Um. Yeah. I guess I had.” Bennett shifted. “You’re going to get involved with Charles’ reelection campaign?”

  She smiled again, brightly. She looked excited.

  Dammit.

  “They think that’s a good way to get me started learning the ropes. And, obviously, he needs people all over the state. I can help talk to people in our parish in the small towns about his plans and stuff. There’s nothing like having one of your neighbors or someone you can really relate to telling you about his ideas and plans and listening to what they’re concerned about.”

  Bennett sighed. “Sounds like they gave you the full spiel.”

  She frowned. “It’s not a spiel. We were talking about how I should get involved and that’s what I realized.”

  “How you should get involved helping Charles connect to the small-town bayou people that he needs to get reelected,” Bennett said, not even trying to hide his disgust. He pushed the blanket back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “You’ve been here for less than forty-eight hours and he’s already got you working for him.” He looked back at her as he stood. “Or, I should say, volunteering, right? You’re working for free?”

  Kennedy scrambled off the bed, too, also frowning. “I’m helping him. No, it’s not paid. But it’s like an internship. I need to learn how this all works, and being in the field will teach me a lot.”

  “Why do you need to learn how this all works?” Bennett asked. He pulled a T-shirt out of his suitcase and yanked it over his head.

  “So I know what to do when it’s my turn to do it.”

  Bennett pulled his jeans on and turned to face her. “I told you I don’t want to run for office. Not here. Not in Louisiana. I want the bayou. I want Autre. I want my foundation.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “I want you. I love that you believe in me.” He took a step closer to her. “I love that you were able to fit in here and learned more about my life and what all is involved in my past. And now. But I don’t want to run for office. I don’t need a campaign manager or whatever you’re looking to learn.” He stopped right in front of her. “I was hoping, actually, that you’d work with the foundation with me.”

  Kennedy folded her arms, keeping a space between them. She lifted a brow. “And what would I be doing with the foundation? I’m not a scientist or an engineer.”

  “You’d help with…phone calls and the mailing list. Setting up functions where we show people what we’re doing. We could take them out on tours and show them the bayou and the islands and what we’re working on.”

  “So…I could be your secretary.”

  Bennett winced. “That’s not what I’d call it.”

  “Your assistant then?”

  “Um…” He really thought that yes was the wrong answer here.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t be asking me to send you files?” she asked.

  “I would…not do that,” he decided right then and there.

  “Because, as my past emails to you have said, I’m not your fucking secretary.”

  “Right. I know.”

  She dropped her hands but moved to the dresser and stepped into a pair of red heels that he’d just noticed. Those had to be his mother’s, too.

  “Well, then I guess it’s all a good thing I wasn’t talking about you running for office and that I’m not going to breakfast to learn how to be your campaign manager.” She turned to face him.

  “Then what are you going to learn?”

  “What it takes to be a candidate.”

  Bennett stared at her. “A…candidate? For office?”

  She lifted her chin. “Yes.”

  “You?” he asked. Then dialed back the disbelief in his tone. He still felt it, but he was a smart guy and the tightening of her lips meant she wasn’t loving his reaction. “You want to run for office?”

  “I’m going to start off on Charles’ task force for tourism. I’m going to help with his reel
ection. But yes, I’m thinking about it. Being a state representative from our parish could be really fun and rewarding.”

  Bennett took all of that in, holding back his initial reaction. He was sure that showing his shock was not appropriate. But Kennedy Landry? The sassy, tough, bayou girl was going to run for public office? He had not seen that coming.

  “I had no idea that you would be into all of this,” he finally said. “I’m just a little surprised.”

  And worried. Because public office would take her away from Autre.

  Baton Rouge was only a couple of hours away, and state representatives, of course, spent a lot time back home, but they also spent a lot of time in the state capitol. She wouldn’t be at the Boys of the Bayou. Even when she was home, she wouldn’t be in the office answering phones and scheduling tours. She wouldn’t be hanging out at Ellie’s bar or relaxing on Ellie’s front porch swing or lounging around a bonfire at a crawfish boil. She’d do some of that here and there probably, but it would be part of her bigger role as a representative, not just the girl he was in love with and wanted to drink beer and flirt and dance with before taking her home to make love all night.

  Fuck.

  He’d wanted her here this weekend to show his family that he was serious about giving all of this up and going down to the bayou to lead a simpler, happier, quieter life.

  Now Kennedy was all wrapped up and talking about a lifestyle opposite of all of that.

  “Why are you surprised?” she asked.

  Her arms were crossed again, and Bennett knew that was a sign that he’d best tread lightly. “Because you’re…”

  “What?” she pressed when he trailed off. “I’m what?”

  He let out a breath. “Bayou.” He had to be honest with her.

  “And what does that mean?” she asked, her spine straightening. “Simple? Poor? Uneducated? Because I’m kind of all of that. I like things straightforward. I like when people say what they mean and mean what they say. I didn’t go to college. I don’t have yachts and diamonds.”

  Bennett straightened, too. The thing he loved best about Kennedy, and the Landrys in general, was their honesty. It was the fact that he knew if he asked them a question, they’d tell him the truth. If they made him a promise, they’d follow through. If he was screwing something up, they’d let him know. He owed that to Kennedy, too.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, that’s what I mean. But in every possible good way, Kennedy. You aren’t like the politicians and businessmen and women. You’re not trying to always make a buck, to make a deal, to make yourself more important. When you meet people, you want to know them and listen to them because you’re sincerely interested.”

  He took a deep breath. “You’re not trying to figure out what they can do for you, how they can help you, how you can sell them something, or talk them into something. When you go to work in the morning, it’s with the goal of making the people you encounter happy and comfortable and helping your family be successful, but you’re never thinking about pushing or selling or manipulating.”

  He shook his head, amazed by her all over again as he said these things out loud. “You know that what you have is enough. When you go home at the end of the day, it’s to enjoy your family and to help take care of them. They all know that you’re there for whatever they need and you take care of a bunch of stuff they don’t even know they need.”

  Kennedy just looked at him for a long moment. Then she took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. You’re absolutely right.”

  Thank God, she understood.

  She grabbed her purse off the dresser. “And all of that is why I would be a great state representative.”

  Then she turned and headed out the door.

  “You could only handle her for three days?”

  Bennett sighed as Sawyer, Owen, and Josh Landry pulled out chairs at his table at Ellie’s and sat. He’d been expecting this.

  “You cost me twenty bucks,” Owen said. “I really thought you’d be able to handle Ken for four days.”

  “No one handles Kennedy,” Bennett said.

  “Just so you know, I really thought you’d make it all five days,” Sawyer said.

  Bennett looked at Josh. “You were the big winner then?”

  Josh nodded. “I’m forty bucks richer because you came home early.”

  Bennett rolled his eyes.

  “Hey, Leo had you coming home Saturday.”

  Bennett sighed.

  “Okay, look, Baxter, we need to talk,” Owen said. “We can’t take it anymore. You have to fix this.”

  “I’ve tried.” Kennedy Landry was as stubborn as she was sexy and sassy. She’d decided she was angry with him for not believing that she should run for office.

  And she was making him pay.

  Not by yelling at him. Not by crying. Not by dumping gumbo on his head.

  It was way worse than that.

  For one, she wasn’t speaking to him. She wasn’t even making eye contact with him when he came into the room. He was tempted to grab her and back her up against a wall and make her look at and talk to him, but he was quite sure that his nuts would be feeling it for a week if he did.

  But worse than pretending that she couldn’t see or hear him, was that she was making her family miserable. And making sure they knew it was because she was pissed off. And that she was pissed off because of Bennett.

  The Landrys did crazy, over-the-top, make-sure-everyone-knows stuff when they fell in love. They also, apparently, did that when someone had wronged them.

  “The coffee sucks,” Owen said. “I mean it sucks.”

  “I think she put dirt in it. Literally,” Josh said.

  “You all drink it with chicory in it,” Bennett pointed out.

  “Don’t you ever fucking insinuate that chicory and dirt are similar,” Owen told him crossly.

  Bennett felt his brows rise. He would have expected Owen to defend the local specialty coffee, but his annoyance was clearly turned up a notch. And likely because he was lacking caffeine.

  Making her family take sides was one thing. Making them actually miserable and pissy and no fun to be around was something else.

  Kennedy was clever.

  “And when I made a point of getting to the office before she did the other day to make the coffee,” Owen went on. “She came in, saw it, marched right over to the pot, and dumped it out.”

  “You can’t get coffee in here from Ellie?” Bennett asked.

  He knew all of this was designed to make him miserable. If the Landrys were unhappy, he was unhappy. If they knew that their unhappiness was because of him—worse, if they knew their coffee was bad because of him—he was going to have no allies.

  “We can’t be traipsing up and down from Ellie’s all fucking morning,” Owen said, again more irritable than usual.

  “Well, especially when she’s working our asses off,” Josh added with a frown. “She’s booking us tours back-to-back and completely filling our boats. I barely have time to breathe.”

  “And I’m sleeping like shit on top of it,” Owen said. “She called me at three a.m. to get a possum out of the pantry.”

  “There was a possum in Ellie’s pantry?” Bennett asked, already knowing the answer.

  Owen glowered at him. “No.”

  “Same here, except that she came over banging on our door,” Josh said. “Claimed that some guy was sneaking around their backyard.”

  “Didn’t that wake Tori up, too?” Bennett asked.

  Josh gave him a look that said, Man, are you stupid. “Of course it did. So then she was sleep deprived and a little crabby the next day. And guess who gets the brunt of that? The guy living with her.”

  “What did she do to you?” Bennett asked Sawyer.

  The big man gave a disgusted snort. “She got Leo drunk and sent him over to my house to sleep it off.”

  Bennett blinked. “She got Leo drunk?”

  “She did. She’s about the only one who can.”

&n
bsp; “Leo is a difficult drunk?” Bennett asked.

  “Leo is a chatty drunk,” Sawyer said. “And nostalgic. He’ll go on and on about old stories. Loudly. For hours.” Sawyer frowned at him.

  Bennett knew chuckling was not the right response, but he had to fight it.

  “I guess I’m learning just what a handful she can really be,” he said.

  “You think she’s a pain in the ass when she’s just her usual, smart-mouthed self?” Josh asked. “She is the worst pissed-off female in the family.”

  “You’ve been back from Savannah for four days,” Owen said. “Four days. We’re dying here.”

  “I haven’t had good grits, gumbo, or catfish since you fucked up,” Josh told him.

  Bennett had initially thought it was just his food Kennedy was ruining. Leo had quickly informed him otherwise. She was spending more time in the kitchen with Ellie and Cora for the specific purpose of making her family’s food terrible and then claiming that she was too emotionally distraught to focus on the cooking. Because of him. That part was unspoken, even when they begged her to give up the cooking.

  “You can’t make your own food? At all?” Bennett asked them.

  They all just blinked at him as if they didn’t understand the question.

  “And your mother and grandmother would just let you starve?” he pressed.

  “I mean, I can make peanut butter and jelly,” Owen said. “But man, that’s bullshit when there’s perfectly good sausage and catfish right over here.”

  “Maddie doesn’t cook?” Bennett asked of Owen’s girlfriend.

  Owen leaned in. “When there’s perfectly good sausage and catfish right over here?”

  Right. Well, he couldn’t argue with that. Ellie and Cora’s food—especially Cora’s food—was amazing. Almost as good as Kennedy’s. When she wasn’t trying to torture everyone.

  “This is all very immature,” Bennett said.

  “Oh yeah,” Josh said. “Super petty. She prides herself on that.”

  “You have to fix this,” Owen said as Cora set plates of fried shrimp and fries in front of them.

  They all eyed it suspiciously.