Page 14 of Crazy Rich Cajuns

“But if you take her to Savannah with you, you can’t leave her there and you can’t send her home early and you can’t pawn her off on someone else,” Leo said.

Bennett shook his head.“I’d never do any of those.”

“Ha,” Leo said.“You can’t actually say that.You’ve only spent a few hours at a time with her.Most of your talkin’ has been on the phone.”

“And you’ve already asked how high when she said jump,” Ellie pointed out.

Bennett frowned.“How so?”

“She called you today, told you she was being arrested, she clearly wasn’t, but you still backed her up.”

“You wanted me tonottake her call?Not help her out?”Bennett asked.

Ellie shook her head.“I want you to help her, if she needs it.I want her to be able to call you, if she needs to.But I want you to also know when she needs it and when she’s just messing with you.”

“She was messing with me today.”Of course she was.

Why had she called him?Suddenly Bennett realized that there’d been no reason for that.Between her, Tori, Leo, and Owen, the plan to completely confuse and overwhelm Bailey—probably while someone else in the family was hiding the wolf and her pups and cleaning up any evidence they’d ever been there at all—had been right on track.Bennett hadn’t done a thing.That was right up there with telling him about the stuffed alligators.

“She was messing with you today,” Ellie confirmed.“I mean, she used you as a distraction with Bailey, too, I suppose.But mostly she wanted to see what you’d do.”

“And what you did was try to fix something she didn’t need fixed and then jump in the car and head down here to ask her to a big fancy, weekend-long party,” Leo said.

“Trying to help her out and then ask her out was the wrong thing to do?”Bennett asked slowly, trying to process it all.His head was starting to hurt.

“Listen, I like you,” Leo said.“So I’m gonna let you in on some insider information.”

“That would be…great.”Bennett was ninety percent sure that Leo’s insider information would be useful.

Unless Leo was messing with him, too.

Okay, he was seventy percent sure that Leo’s insider information would be useful.

“The guy she settles down with…” Leo trailed off and narrowed his eyes at Bennett.“Youarethinking about the settling down part, right?”

These people definitely got right to the point.Bennett knew he shouldn’t have been surprised.“I am,” he admitted.“You’re the first ones I’ve told though.”

“We’re often the first ones people tell stuff,” Ellie said with a wink.

“We’re very good listeners,” Leo agreed.

“And we’re very wise,” Ellie said.

They both nodded.Then burst out laughing.

“You’re not actually wise?”Bennett asked, with a shake of his head.He grinned at them.“Damn, I’ve been bamboozled.”

“Let’s put it this way,” Ellie said.“We pay attention and we love everyone who hangs out around here.You put those together and you notice a lot.When you notice a lot, you can come off as pretty insightful.”

“Fair enough,” Bennett said.

“So here’s what you need to know about the guys in Kennedy’s life,” Leo said.

Bennett actually felt anticipation tighten his spine.He wanted to know this.He wanted to know what it would take to be a part of Kennedy’s life.He wanted to know how to win her over.

Damn, that had happened fast.

But again, that was the Landrys.He’d sat around a couple of crawfish boils now, drank some beer and moonshine with them, gone out fishing.That meant he’d heard the stories.The big, over-the-top, love-at-first-sight, burn-the-world-down-for-the-one-they-loved stories that made up the history of this family.They laughed and fought and worked and loved hard.Big.Loud.

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