Page 7 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

Those thoughts belong to someone I’m not anymore. Someone who always imagined romantic possibilities—meet-cutes and kismetand love at first sight—who saw the world through rose-colored glasses. I haven’t done that since I broke up with my fiancé, quit my PR consultancy work, and hid away in a Scottish cottage, licking my wounds, before I came home and started to get my shit together.

The past seven months, I’ve dealt with the nagging health issues I’d been ignoring and couldn’t afford to ignore anymore. I’ve taken on less stressful work, built a new routine that has me in a better place: I take care of my body and take my meds; I write freelance on a flexible work schedule; I don’t date. In that time, I’ve pieced my life back together. My connective tissue disease isn’t magically cured, but it’s better managed. My work doesn’t pay what I’d like, but it’s enough to get by, which is no small feat, now that I’m the only one left living in and paying rent for the sister apartment we used to share. And I haven’t missed romance while I protect my heart, because I get plenty from the novels I’ve been reading since I found Mom’s bodice rippers as a teen in the family library.

Well, I haven’t missed romancetoomuch.

Except, right now, maybe I miss it just a little. Because this is a moment the old Juliet would have thoroughly enjoyed. The old Juliet would have tossed her hair over her shoulder and said something witty right now, offered this guy a hand up and flirted her way out of the awkward.

What’s stopping you?a daring, reckless voice whispers in my head.

I don’t know what’s stopping me. I don’t know what I’m brave enough to do next.

My horoscope’s words echo in my head.Now you wade into new waters, not knowing what’s on the horizon but trusting the course.

Will stands, pulling me from my racing thoughts. I try to stand, too, but between my stiff body and my waterlogged dress, it doesn’t go so well. He’s there in an instant, gripping my elbowwhen I teeter sideways, lifting me gently, firmly, until I’m standing upright.

He drops my elbow the second I’m steady and tugs at the brim of his ball cap, lowering it so the shadows over his eyes deepen as he stares down at the ground. “I’m sorry,” he says, “for scaring you.”

I tip my head, peering up at him, and smile. “I mean, I more than paid you back, with the whole garden-tool attack.”

He glances up from beneath his ball cap and catches me smiling at him. His mouth is mostly hidden by the thick beard, but I think it tugs down in a frown. He clears his throat as he shoves his hands in his pockets. “That didn’t scare me.”

I lift my eyebrows. “Oh, really?”

Now he’s definitely frowning. And I’m enjoying it. I have no business enjoying it, but I am. “Nope,” he says.

I bite my lip so I won’t laugh. “You seemed pretty scared. I mean, understandably so. I was very intimidating…” My voice dies off as Will takes a slow, careful step toward me.

He reaches toward my head. “You have a leaf in your hair.” Gently, he plucks it from the crown of my head, pinned between two fingers. It catches in the wet strands as he starts to pull away, and he stops, steps a little closer as he peers down at me, brow furrowed in concentration. Tenderly, slowly, he lifts each strand of hair from the leaf so it doesn’t tug or snag. And then he brushes each strand back off my temple, his fingertips grazing my skin.

I swallow as my heart takes off in my chest. “Thanks.”

He nods.

The rain stops abruptly, leaving us in silence and soft nighttime darkness closing in around the dim lights that brighten the greenhouse. In that silence, I feel the weight of our nearness, standing as close as we stood at the pub, right before we started to dance. I like it as much as I did then. Maybe even more.

On a chirpymeowPuck shows himself, twining around notmylegs, but Will’s. Will crouches and scratches Puck’s chin. Puck purrs loudly.

Meow.Puck sets his front paws on Will’s thigh and reaches for more. Will gently picks him up and holds Puck like they’re old friends.

I stare at him, stunned. Puck hates strangers. Especially strange men.

“And who are you?” Will asks my cat.

Puck purrs loudly as Will scratches under his chin.

“That’s Puck,” I tell him, a waver in my voice. Watching this big, gruff guy cuddle with my cat has butterflies racing in my stomach. “He ran for cover here during the storm,” I add.

“You picked a nice spot,” Will tells Puck, scratching his cheeks. Puck’s eyes drop shut. His purr is as loud as a motorboat.

“What, um—” I clear my throat. “What madeyoucome into the greenhouse? Were you waiting out the storm?”

Will glances my way, his gaze fleeting, then dancing over to the flowers. “I stepped out for some quiet, and this place caught my eye. The door was cracked open and it looked…” His eyes drift up to mine. “Peaceful and…pretty. So I came in.”

That’s why I come to the greenhouse, too, when I need calm and a bit of beauty—the perfume of my mother’s master-gardener magic, rows of pillowy blossoms and stubborn green seedlings wrestling their way up from the dirt into the light, stretching toward possibility, the promise of growing into something better.

“It was warm and quiet,” he says after a beat. “Sort of lulled me, I guess. So I sat down, shut my eyes, and then…” He shrugs. “You know the rest.”

I bite my lip against a smile. “And then you woke up to a woman swinging a short-handled shovel at your head, before she impressively wrestled you to the ground and held you helpless at trowel point.”

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