Page 32 of Wild Thorns

When he focuses on me, I feel like I'm being understood for the first time in my life

He notices things about me that I haven't told him

He listens like every word I say is worth remembering

He carries secrets, and some of them weigh on him heavily

His eyes change color, gray to silver to something brighter, depending on the light or his mood

He works with symbols and territorial markers and speaks about his family's history like it spans centuries, not generations

I put the list away.

I did not examine why I'd made it. Did not examine why my handwriting had gotten shakier as the lists went on, or why my heart was beating faster by the time I finished, or why I felt the sudden urge to go downstairs and find all three of them and just... be near them.

That wasn't normal. None of this was normal.

So I stopped trying.

Lila noticed.

We were at the studio, the afternoon light slanting through the tall windows, dust motes dancing in the air. The old building smelled like coffee, paper and the particular mustiness of places that had been standing since before air conditioning. Jazz played softly from Lila's ancient speakers, something with a lot of saxophone that she claimed helped her think.

"You've got that look again," she said, not looking up from her screen.

"What look?"

"The one where you're pretending to work but actually thinking." She paused for effect. "About a certain tall, dark and handsome, I suspect."

"I'm not—"

"You've been staring at the same paragraph for ten minutes." She finally glanced at me, her expression somewhere between amused and concerned. "And you smiled at your coffee three times. Your coffee isn't that funny."

I felt heat rise to my cheeks. "I was thinking about a design problem."

"Sure you were." She swiveled her chair to face me fully, her dark hair swinging. "Serena. Can I give you some advice?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really." She leaned forward, her voice dropping even though we were alone in the studio. Through the windows, I could see Main Street going about its business, tourists wandering past the antique shops, locals nodding to each other with that particular small-town recognition. "The Voss family is... complicated. Old money, old history, old everything. They're good people, I've known them my whole life, but they play by different rules than the rest of us."

"What does that mean?"

"It means be careful." She held my gaze, and her eyes were sharp, missing nothing. "Not because they'll hurt you. They won't. But because once you're in with that family, you're in. There's no halfway. There's no backing out once you've crossed certain thresholds. And some people aren't ready for that kind of... intensity."

The pull was real. The way my whole body seemed to know when they were nearby, even before I saw them. The lists I'd made, cataloguing every detail like I was studying for an exam I didn't know I'd signed up for.

"What if I like the intensity?"

Lila's eyebrows rose. "Then I'd say you're either very brave or very foolish." A pause, weighted. "Possibly both."

"That's not reassuring."

"It's not meant to be." But she was smiling now, a real smile that softened her sharp features. "For what it's worth, I think they like you too. All of them. And that's rare."

"What do you mean, rare?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Shook her head, some internal debate concluding. "I mean they don't usually... Never mind. It's not my place."