Sealed With A Kiss: Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild, page 1
Sealed With A Kiss
Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild
Erin Nicholas
Copyright © 2021 by Erin Nicholas
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
2nd ed.
ISBN: 978-1-952280-17-7
Editor: Lindsey Faber
Cover photo: Wander Aguiar
Cover design: Najla Qamber, Qamber Designs
The Series
Boys of the Bayou-Gone Wild
Things are going to get wild when the next batch of bayou boys falls in love!
* * *
Otterly Irresistible
Heavy Petting
Flipping Love You
Sealed With A Kiss
Head Over Hooves
Say It Like You Mane It
* * *
Connected series…
* * *
Boys of the Bayou
Small town, big family, hot-country-boys-with-Louisiana-drawls, crazy-falling-in-love fun!
* * *
My Best Friend’s Mardi Gras Wedding
Sweet Home Louisiana
Beauty and the Bayou
Crazy Rich Cajuns
Must Love Alligators
Four Weddings and a Swamp Boat Tour
* * *
Boys of the Big Easy
Hot single dads in the sexy city of New Orleans
* * *
Easy Going (prequel)
Going Down Easy
Taking It Easy
Eggnog Makes Her Easy
Nice and Easy
Getting Off Easy
Main and recurring characters
Andre LeClaire: Naomi’s nephew, Michael’s son.
* * *
Armand LeClaire: Naomi and Michael’s grandfather. One of Leo’s best friends.
* * *
Bennett Baxter: partner in Boys of the Bayou, married to Kennedy, millionaire/philanthropist/politician. (Crazy Rich Cajuns)
* * *
Charlotte (Charlie) Landry: granddaughter of Ellie and Leo, cousin to Josh, Sawyer, Owen, Kennedy, Fletcher, Zeke and Zander. In love with Griffin Foster. (Otterly Irresistible)
* * *
Cora Allain: Ellie’s best friend and business partner, Maddie’s grandmother.
* * *
Dax Marshall: friend from Iowa, engaged to Jane, part-owner in Fluke, Inc/ Warriors of Easton. (Forking Around, the Hot Cakes series)
* * *
Didi Lancaster: grandmother to their friends from Iowa. (the Hot Cakes series)
* * *
Donovan Foster: Hero. Griffin’s brother. Wildlife rehabilitation expert. Former reality TV star and current internet sensation.
* * *
Ella Landry: Josh and Tori’s baby daughter, Ellie and Leo’s great-granddaughter.
* * *
Ellie Landry: owner of Ellie’s Bar, matriarch of Landry family, married to Leo.
* * *
Fiona Grady: Griffin’s friend, met him while they were both working in Africa, runs an animal park in Florida, exotic animal supplier for the Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild.
* * *
Fletcher Landry: Married to Jordan. Zeke and Zander’s older brother. (Heavy Petting)
* * *
Griffin Foster: wildlife veterinarian, Donovan’s brother, in love with Charlie Landry. (Otterly Irresistible)
* * *
Henry McCaffery: little brother of friends from Iowa. (the Hot Cakes series)
* * *
Jane Kemper: friend from Iowa, engaged to Dax. (Forking Around, the Hot Cakes series)
* * *
Jillian (Jill) Morris: wildlife veterinarian, specializing in penguins, in love with Zeke. (Flipping Love You)
* * *
Jordan Benoit: Fletcher’s wife, educational director for Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild. (Heavy Petting)
* * *
Josh Landry: Sawyer and Kennedy’s brother, cousin to Charlie, Owen, Zeke, etc., partner in Boys of the Bayou, married to Tori. (My Best Friend’s Mardi Gras Wedding)
* * *
Juliet Dawson Landry: married to Sawyer, lawyer. (Beauty and the Bayou)
* * *
Kenney Landry-Baxter: Josh and Sawyer’s sister, married to Bennett, Mayor of Autre. (Crazy Rich Cajuns)
* * *
Knox: city manager, friends with Fletcher, Mitch, Zeke and Zander, etc., works with Kennedy.
* * *
Leo Landry: Grandfather of Landry clan, married to Ellie, founded Boys of the Bayou, ran it with his best friend, Danny Allain (deceased), until he sold it to his grandsons
* * *
Louis LeClaire: Naomi and Michael’s dad.
* * *
Maddie Allain Landry: married to Owen, partner in Boys of the Bayou, Cora’s granddaughter. (Sweet Home Louisiana).
* * *
Michael LeClaire: Naomi’s brother, family friend. Town fire chief and paramedic.
* * *
Mitch Landry: cousin to Charlie, Fletcher, Zeke, Owen, Sawyer, etc., works for Boys of the Bayou, handyman, dating Paige Asher. (Four Weddings and a Swamp Boat Tour)
* * *
Monique LeClaire: Naomi and Michael’s mother. Andre’s grandmother. Landry family friend.
* * *
Naomi LeClaire: friend of the family, grew up in Autre, high school friend of Charlie and Jordan.
* * *
Oliver Caprinelli: friend from Iowa, married to Piper, part-owner in Fluke, Inc/ Warriors of Easton. Writer of the video game and several bestselling children’s books and paranormal romances. (from the Hot Cakes series)
* * *
Owen Landry: Cousin to Sawyer, Charlie, Zeke, etc., partner in Boys of the Bayou, married to Maddie. (Sweet Home Louisiana)
* * *
Paige Asher: dating Mitch, from Appleby, Iowa. (Four Weddings and a Swamp Boat Tour)
* * *
Piper Caprinelli: Friend from Iowa, married to Oliver. (from the Hot Cakes series)
* * *
Sawyer Landry: Josh and Kennedy’s brother, cousin to Owen, Charlie, Zeke, etc., majority partner in Boys of the Bayou, married to Juliet. (Beauty and the Bayou)
* * *
Tori Kramer Landry: married to Josh, veterinarian, Griffin’s friend and business partner. (My Best Friend’s Mardi Gras Wedding)
* * *
Zander (Alexander) Landry: town cop, Brothers Fletcher and Zeke (twin), cousin to rest.
* * *
Zeke (Ezekiel) Landry: Brothers Fletcher and Zander (twin), cousin to the rest. Owns local construction company (also works as family accountant). Engaged to and father of Jill’s baby. (Flipping Love You)
Special acknowledgement goes to two winners of the ‘I want to be in Sealed With A Kiss’ contest! Laminta Bradford who named the baby bears in this book, and to Sara Niestser who had the visiting tourists named after her and her three best friends!
Contents
About the book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
If you love Autre and the Landrys…
About the Author
About the book
What’s a girl to do when faced with a hurricane, her celebrity crush, and a power outage in their shelter?
* * *
Keep her damned feelings to herself. And her panties on…
* * *
Naomi LeClaire is just a small-town girl who loves her quiet, simple life.
* * *
Donovan Foster is a sexy, charming, wildlife rescuing internet sensation who loves the spotlight.
* * *
What do these opposites have in common?
* * *
Only an impossible-to-resist chemistry that, when they’re stuck together in a storm becomes, well, impossible to resist.
* * *
But the aftermath of the storm gives them something else in common—a rescue mission to help victims.
Oh, and a heat-of-the-moment kiss caught on camera by the local paparazzi. Not to mention an offer for a reality TV show documenting them falling in love while saving animals from crazy, dangerous situations.
* * *
Wow, that escalated quickly.
* * *
This should be the last thing Naomi is willing to do. But he’s leaving in two months for his next job, so what’s the worst that could happen?
* * *
He’s either going to be her greatest adventure. Or this wild whirlwind romance will blow over faster than a Gulf Coast hurricane.
* * *
All she can really do is hold on tight . . . and hope her heart isn’t left in shambles.
1
She really shouldn’t fall for a guy with a death wish.
Naomi LeClaire sighed as she stopped her truck in the middle of the road. She didn’t dare pull over to the side. The rain pounding down could wash away the ground on either side of the road in minutes. But it wasn’t like there was any other traffic out here in this storm so taking up the center of the road wasn’t really a problem.
Thank God this road was paved at least. It wasn’t unusual for Donovan to go out on dirt roads and even on not-really-roads-at-all when he was doing rescue and recovery missions for injured wildlife.
She peered through the rain that was pelting her windshield so hard her wipers could barely keep up.
He was lying on the road in front of her truck. Next to the body of a dead bear.
She shook her head.
A few months ago she would have been alarmed to pull up and find a man lying in the road next to a dead animal.
Today…she’d been expecting this. Or something like it at least.
Of course, a few months ago—i.e., before Donovan Foster had showed up in her tiny hometown of Autre, Louisiana—she wouldn’t have been out driving around while a hurricane was making landfall two hundred miles east of them.
She really shouldn’t fall for a guy who loved action and adventure and chaos and who either thought he was invincible or didn’t really care if today was his last one on earth.
But Donovan was out here because there were three orphaned black bear cubs that needed rescuing and he would, of course, not go anywhere until they were all found and taken back to his rehabilitation center.
Or until someone convinced him that his well-being was just as important as theirs.
Naomi shut the truck off and reached up to pull her hair back. She wore her hair in cornrows mostly lately, keeping it back off her face and from getting tangled being outside in the wind and weather, doing God-knew-what-might-come-up with Donovan. Now she gathered the long, black braids that fell to her shoulder blades into a bunch and tied them together. Then she got out of the truck.
She was drenched within seconds.
Dammit.
She really shouldn’t fall for a guy who was the reason that over the past few months she’d ended up with a favorite outfit stained with something-she-didn’t-want-to-talk-about, an infected cut on her hand, and a lost shoe. Not lost in the sense that it was ruined and couldn’t be cleaned or repaired. It was just lost. Never to be found.
All things considered, she really shouldn’t fall for Donovan Foster.
The fact that he was outgoing, and charming, and that the crazy risks he took were to save wounded and threatened wildlife didn’t help though.
The hard muscles, contagious smile, deep green eyes, quick sense of humor, and hard, rippling, bunching, often-naked muscles—had she mentioned those?—also didn’t help.
Needless to say, she was now wearing much more practical clothes and footwear when she hung out with him. And gloves. Tough, no-way-am-I-bleeding-after-this work gloves.
But right now she wanted those hard, sun-bronzed muscles intact and inside where they’d be safe. Along with the rest of him, of course.
She marched across the thirty feet that separated them. Though the effect was definitely less impressive because she had to lean into the wind.
She stopped beside where he was lying. He was completely still, his eyes shut, but she knew he wasn’t dead. Or she was pretty sure. He’d apparently texted Zander, the town cop, just twenty minutes ago with his location.
Naomi planted her hands on her hips. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”
He opened one eye, then lifted a hand to block the rain.
“Get off the ground, Donovan.”
She had to raise her voice to be heard over the rain and wind. But that was okay. She was mad and more than a little concerned. This man needed to get his fine ass in his truck and head back to town now. He wasn’t stupid or crazy, but he definitely didn’t take care of himself and he took far too many risks and that bothered her. A lot.
Because, whether she should or not, she had fallen for him.
She didn’t want him to lose any fingers wrestling alligators—especially before he’d even had a chance to use those fingers on her in any fun, dirty ways. She didn’t want him cracking his head open jumping on and off moving airboats. And she really didn’t want him getting washed away by the rain bands of a hurricane. They weren’t on the dirty side of Hurricane Clare but that didn’t mean it was a nice, pleasant, no-problem day on the bayou.
“Have I drowned? Did something hit me in the head?” he asked, squinting up at her.
“It better have, because if I drove out here to find you lying in the middle of the road in a hurricane on purpose, I’m going to hit you in the head.”
She didn’t mean it. Well, she didn’t mean it completely. She had expected to find him doing something to make her heart rate kick up and her grit her teeth. But right after she smacked him, she’d want to hug him.
Put simply, Donovan Foster drove her crazy.
She wanted him to leave. Not just the rain-soaked roadway, but the town. The county. The state of Louisiana.
Well, that or she wanted him to stay forever. But if he did that, he needed to get a normal, boring job.
Oh, and fall in love with her too.
Maybe he could be an accountant. Or maybe he could teach science at the high school. He had both a biology and an ecology degree. Or, if he really had to work with animals, maybe he could just help feed the alpacas at the local petting zoo. Or keep helping with the penguins their friend Jill cared for.
There were options. Safe, normal options. That didn’t involve him potentially dying every few weeks.
Donovan blew out a breath and sat up. “I’m doing it on purpose.” He held up a hand. “For a very good reason,” he added quickly.
“Yeah, bear cubs,” she said. “I heard. You need to get your ass in the truck and get back to town.”
Donovan had been in Autre for seven months now. Naomi knew that was longer than he’d stayed in one place in years and she kept expecting him to get antsy to move on. He’d traveled the world as a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation expert who’d eventually landed a show on the Go Wild network and then another show that had streamed online for the past couple of years. She found him exciting and educational and yeah, okay, hot. Very, very hot.
