Page 11 of Crazy Rich Cajuns

“We’re leaving in the morning.Bright and early.Be ready.”

Oh, she was ready.They were going to Savannah for the weekend.To his father’s retirement party.Her family was so going to tease her about this.And she so didn’t care.

Bennett shookhis head as he headed up the path toward Ellie’s, the bar that sat across the dirt road from the Boys of the Bayou docks.

He was never sure who had actually won the battle of the wills between him and Kennedy.

But he was feeling pretty confident this time, to be honest.Her nipples had been hard and she’d been breathing fast when he’d pulled back.Not that he hadn’t seen physical reactions from her in the past, but this time had been…more.Bennett shoved a hand through his hair.Damn.He’d said the word pussy to Kennedy today.He’d said “lick your pussy until you scream,” to be specific.He wasn’t worried about shocking or embarrassing her.Shocking and embarrassing Kennedy Landry was nearly impossible.He was just surprised thathisself-control had snapped so easily.He’d been bottling up similar things for a while now.Today, it had taken just a little needling and a whiff of her shampoo, and his control had crumbled.

Taking her to Savannah might be a really big mistake.

It also might be the best thing he’d ever done.

He needed his family to see he was serious about the bayou.About his new life.About Kennedy.

Marie and Preston Baxter were not going to come to the bayou.No matter how much he loved it, no matter how many times he told them that this was his new life plan.So he was going to take some of the bayou to them.The most hard-to-ignore, impossible-to-resist part.

Kennedy was going to make his point.

Ostentatiously.

Grinning, he pulled the door to Ellie’s open and stepped inside the gathering place for the entire Landry family and most of the town of Autre.Sure, it looked like a shed on the outside—and on the inside—but on the inside, at least the walls were covered with New Orleans Saints posters, a slow pitch soft ball tournament champions banner, a mishmash of photos, and a variety of drawings done in crayons of alligators, turtles, and airboats.It was also full of amazing smells, awesome people, and strong alcohol.

Talk about ostentatious.He wondered if Kennedy realized that the word applied to her own family and their lifestyle and get-togethers as well.It didn’t always mean lavish.It also meant brazen and flamboyant.Two words that definitely described the Landrys.

Then he grinned.Yeah, she knew.

“Bennett!”

He was greeted by a friendly voice that immediately made him smile.Ellie Landry, Kennedy’s grandmother, owned the place and manned the bar, greeting regulars and tourists alike.

“Hey, Ellie.”

“Leo said you were headin’ our direction today,” she said.

Leo was perched on “his” stool in the middle of the bar.The stool had a bright yellow seat and each leg was painted a different color.It was where he could always be found if he wasn’t driving a Boys of the Bayou bus to and from New Orleans, gathering and delivering tourists.He gave Bennett a wave in greeting.

It was midafternoon, so there weren’t nearly as many people as would be filling the place after work.Even so, half of the barstools were occupied.As Bennett approached the bar, a stool next to Leo was suddenly empty.Bennett settled in across the scarred wooden top from the smiling face of the Landry family matriarch.

“Hello, darlin’,” Ellie greeted, sliding him a sweet tea.“So happy to see you.”

He leaned over for the kiss on the cheek she always gave him, then settled onto his stool with a familiar warmth in his chest.He loved these people so much.They’d welcomed him—as they did everyone—with open arms, even though he’d come in as a stranger, an outsider, to buy into the company that had been in the Landry family since Ellie’s husband, Leo, had started it with his best friend Kenny.

The current owners—Leo’s grandsons, Sawyer, Owen and Josh—hadn’t been as sure of Bennett.But Maddie, who had inherited her share of the business after her brother, Tommy, had died, had brought Bennett in to help them turn the business around.

“Why were you so quick to be my friend?”Bennett asked Ellie.“You were never suspicious of me?”

She wiped up a wet spot on the bar then leaned for Cora, her business partner and best friend, to set a basket of fried pickles in front of him.One of his favorite things.He’d never had them until he’d come to Autre, and now his mouth would sometimes water even when he was in Savannah just thinking about them.He gave Cora a smile and she gave him a wink.

“Well, honey,” Ellie said.“Every single person who’s important to me started out as a stranger.Figure I might as well start off nice with new people.There’s always time to think they’re assholes later.”

Bennett smiled at that and dipped a pickle into the Cajun sauce on the side.Ellie always had something like that to say.

“How am I doing so far in the asshole department?”he asked.

Kennedy wasn’t exactly the kind of woman who needed her family’s blessing to date a guy.Or to go to Savannah with him for the weekend.Bennett wasn’t exactly the kind of guy to worry about things like other people’s blessings when it came to getting what he wanted, either.But the Landry family was a family that you wanted to be blessed by.

That was the only way he could describe it.He wanted them to want him and Kennedy together.

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