Page 13 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

Will

“Oh my God.” Juliet tumbles off her swing and rushes over to me where I’m sprawled on the ground. I’m gaping like a fish, the wind knocked clean out of me.

I knew that swing set was too flimsy for me. If anyone else had asked me to swing with them on something built for people half my size, I would have flatly said,Hell no.

But there’s something about this woman every time I’m around her that makes me want to sayyes.

So I did. And now here I am, knocked on my ass because of it.

“Will, are you hurt?” Her hands dance across my chest, up my neck to my face. “I mean, obviously, you’re hurt, but like, seriously injured hurt? Should I call an ambulance? I’m calling an ambulance—”

“Juliet,” I croak, clasping her hand as her fingers press into my neck, like they’re checking for a pulse. Saying her name required air I don’t have yet. I try again to suck in a breath.

She bites her lip, her face drawn tight with worry as I try to get my bearings. But it’s damn near impossible when sunshine spills from the sky behind her. It casts another bronze halo around her head, just like it did when I first saw her this morning, like she’s an angel the light can’t help but love.

“Will,” she whispers, her eyes darting between mine frantically. “Are you okay?”

Her hand’s trembling. I clasp it tighter and finally find myself able to draw in a big lungful of air. “Juliet.” I squeeze her hand as her fingers dance along my pulse. “Baby, it’s okay. I have a heartbeat. I’m okay.”

Her fingers ease up on my throat; her eyebrows lift. “Baby?”

I have no idea where that came from, why the word rolled right off my tongue, when almost nothing does. Stroking my thumb along the inside of her palm, I stare up at her and pray I can, for once in my life, talk my way out of something. “Hit my head. Might be concussed. Can’t be held responsible for what I say.”

A smile lifts her mouth for a moment, but then it falls, concern returning. “You’re not going to die on me, are you?”

I squeeze her hand again gently. “Nah.”

But if I was, I think,this would be a damn fine way to go.

She doesn’t look convinced, so to show her, I plant both palms on the grass and sit up. My head aches as I get myself upright. I reach for where it feels tender, finding a small bump already.

Juliet claps her hands over her mouth. “Oh no. My swing setdidconcuss you.”

“I’m not concussed.” Groaning, I stand slowly, rolling my shoulders to work out the knot in my back from landing on it hard. “It’s just a little bump.”

“But it’s my fault.” She groans, too, as she stands, clasping the side of the swing set and easing herself up. “I’m the one who said we should sit on the swings.”

I peer down at her, in her tiny flower shorts and soft pink top, clinging to all those beautiful curves. I want to throw her over my shoulder and toss her onto my bed, crawl up her body, push her thighs wide, and—

I shake my head to snap myself out of those depraved thoughts. This is Juliet, the woman who’s like a sister to Petruchio. I have no business thinking about her this way. Since seeing her in what shetold me was her family’s greenhouse, putting two and two together, I’ve been telling myself that even if I wasn’t hopeless at romance, there’d still be no way I could pursue her.

The Wilmots are a surrogate family to Petruchio; they took him under their wing after his parents died in his teens. Their daughters are like sisters to him, with the exception of the youngest daughter, Kate, the only one whose name I could remember because of how often I used to hear Petruchio gripe about her. Turns out he was actually in love with her, and now they’re happily dating and living together, at least when Kate’s not traveling for work.

The point is, I’ve got no chance with Juliet. She is both off-limits and entirely out of my league. Rationally, I understand this. But my body, as I peer down at her, at the line of worry etched in her brow that I feel this ache to smooth out with my thumb, is struggling to get the memo.

“You’re being really quiet, Will.” She steps close, clasping my shoulders.

“I’m always quiet,” I grumble.

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, I’ve gotten that. I meant, more than it seems you normally are. Are you really okay?” Her eyes search mine, that furrow in her brow deepening. “How do youknowyou aren’t concussed?”

“Juliet.” I gently grasp each of her hands and bring them from my shoulders. I pin them inside my palms. “I’m all right. I promise, I just got the wind knocked out of me, and, well…I get tongue-tied sometimes, but especially when I’m around very beautiful women.”

Especially you.

Her cheeks turn pink. “You think…I’m beautiful?”

My cheeks turn even pinker. “I, uh…” I clear my throat as I release her hands and step back. “I shouldn’t have said that. I mean,yes, I do—think you’re beautiful, that is—but that was a thinking thought. Shouldn’t have become a talking thought.”

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