Page 48 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

She snorts. “Nope. And neither would the entire town of Illyria. People aretalking.”

“Shit.” I scrub my face. “Do I want to know what they’re saying?”

“The theories are wide, varied, and some, downright disturbing.” Miranda plants a kiss on Hector’s head before she scratches his ears and tells my dog, “I’m telling you what, there are people in this place who need to get out more. They’re losing it. I think my favorite rumor I heard is—”

“Nope, never mind, don’t want to know.” I scoop up my ball cap and storm toward the front door.

“Where are you going?” Miranda says.

“Back to work!” I call over my shoulder.

Not a minute after I’ve walked out of my house, I hear her jogging behind me, her long legs quickly catching up.

“You lock the door behind you?” I ask.

Hector will go wandering around the farm looking for me if I don’t make sure to lock up. I’m not worried that he’ll do anything he shouldn’t if he gets loose—he really will just sniff his way around until he finds me—I’m worried about other people. My family loves Hector, and so do our full-time employees and core staff on the farm and at the distillery, but we also have seasonal workers and other random people on the property all the time who don’t know him, and with pit bulls’ bad rap (a deeply unfair and unfounded bad rap, I’ll add), I’m protective of him. I don’t want him bumping into people who’d see him as a threat.

“Of course I locked up,” Miranda says, falling into step beside me. “Hector was already snoring when I left.”

I grunt in acknowledgment. “Thanks.”

Miranda tries a grunt of her own, but it comes out more like a pig snuffle, then she gruffs, “You’re welcome,” her best version of grumpy me.

I narrow my eyes down at her and try to glare, but it doesn’t stick. I’ve always had a soft spot for my baby sister, twelve years younger than me, someone I kept a close eye on and took care of lots when she was little. “C’mere, you pain in my ass,” I tell her, hooking an arm around her neck and drawing her close.

“Ew, you stinky man! Get off!”

I tug her closer, making her squeal with laughter and plant her hands against my ribs. “Stop body-odor-shaming me,” I tell her. “That’s the smell of a hard morning’s work. Also, the AC is broken in my office.”

“I don’t care what’s making you sweat; I just want some serious distance from your armpits.” She shoves at me. “Let go!”

I give her bun a good tweak, then finally release her. “Why’d you come by, besides to tell me everyone’s gossiping about why I’m grumpy?”

She grabs a piece of tall grass and snaps it off, eyes down as she drags the blade through her fingers. “Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

I’m quiet for a minute, weighing what I want to say. I don’t like keeping secrets from my family, but I also need…well, I need my privacy. I need to figure out this part of my life on my own, and if I tell Miranda, I might as well stand on the table at our next family dinner and shout it, because it will not stay with her. That’s just how things work among my sisters.

A sigh leaves me as I lift up my ball cap, scrape a hand through my hair, then tug my ball cap back down. “I’m just…struggling a bit with…some aspects of work.”

Miranda’s quiet as she peers up at me, listening. “Is the distillery okay? The farm?”

“Yeah, business is fine. It’s just…me.” I wrack my brain for how to explain myself without giving too much away, but all I can come up with is, “It’s complicated.”

It’s complicated, all right.I’vecomplicated it. I wasn’t supposed to take things where I did with Juliet. And goddammit, she wasn’t supposed to be right there with me. We were just going to help each other out, be a couple of friends in each other’s corner. We had—wehave—no future beyond that. She’s looking for the kind of love that I stopped hoping for a long time ago, that I’m still not sure I hold out hope for in my future. And even in those moments when hope sneaks in, Juliet is the last person I should hold that hope for, when she’s turned to me to be someone safe, someone who’ll help her get ready to find someone who’ll love her the way she deserves and wants to be loved. She told me herself she’s been hurt badly by someone who clearly didn’t love her the way she deserved. If I did act on my attraction, if I did pursue her, what if I did the same thing? What if I hurt her? I’d never forgive myself.

And neither would Petruchio. I wouldn’t blame him.

I have very sensible reasons for why we’d never work, and I could have sworn they would be enough to keep me from turning to putty every time she touched me, to stop me from acting on my desire.

But those kisses after game night are all the evidence I need that I was very,verywrong. And now I’m torn. Because all I want is to see her again, to spend more time with her. But the more time I spend with her, the harder it’s going to become to resist her. And I have to.

“What…makes it complicated?” my sister asks.

Blowing out a breath, I rip up a blade of grass, too. “Maybecomplicatedisn’t the right word. It’s…frustrating. Because sometimes you do everything you can, you try so hard to make thingsgo right, and they still go sideways. It pisses me off when that happens.” I whip the grass through the air. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”

Miranda pokes me with the tall grass in her hand. “You’re not rambling. You said like three sentences.” She’s quiet as we take our next few steps, then says, “I’m sorry that it’s hard, that it’s frustrating.”

I glance her way. “Thanks, Mimi.”

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