I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.
Hell, I didn’t evenhearit the way it sounded until the look on her face took my knees out from under me.
I couldn’t find a room anywhere else in town.As if her lodge wasn’t good enough, or I only stayed to get lucky. It went from bad to worse.
Like I’d wandered reluctantly into the Honey Leaf Lodge instead of practically obsessing over it for weeks.
Good job, Jensen.Truly poetic.
I paced along the outer edge of the festival lawn, trying to shake it off, but my chest felt tight and was coated in that awful aftertaste of screwing something up that actually mattered.
And the worst part?
Ilovedthis lodge and her family.
I loved the creaky porch swing and the way the floors creaked, as if they were whispering secrets. I loved the crooked spice rack in the kitchen and the lavender-scented towels that Fifi pretended weren’t her doing, even though they absolutely were.
I hadn’t wanted to book somewhere else because I didn’t want to be anywhere but here.
I’d looked at other places because I was panicked about how hard I was falling for Fifi…and that was even before the kiss.
And before I knew it.
And it terrified me.
“Wow,” a voice said behind me. “You look like you just ate one of our rescue chickens and you’re waiting to see if someone noticed.”
I turned to find Sienna standing there, sunglasses on her head, holding a tote bag filled with what appeared to be kale and possibly licorice. She looked like she had just judged me, and the verdict was already in.
“I said something dumb,” I admitted.
“Yeah,” she said immediately. “You’ve got that look of someone who stepped on an emotional landmine.”
I huffed a breath. “I made it sound like I only stayed at the Honey Leaf because I had no other options.”
Sienna grimaced. “Oof. Yeah. That’ll do it.”
“She asked me straight up if I meant to book here, or if it was just... circumstance. I tried to explain, but she looked like I smacked her with a stack of eviction notices.”
“She would take that personally,” Sienna said, not unkindly. “That lodge is like her firstborn.”
“I didn’t mean it. I—”
“Foot in mouth. I get it.” She adjusted the strap of her bag and started walking. “Well… good luck with that.”
I blinked. “That’s it?”
She waved a hand over her shoulder. “I’ve seen her mad before. That wasn’t mad. That was wounded. And Fifi only getswounded when she cares. So, you know, don’t be a jackass twice.”
And just like that, she was gone.
Leaving me standing in the middle of a sea of berry vendors and bubble wands and polka music, wondering how the hell I’d find a way to undo the damage of thirteen careless words.
Because I didn’t want to lose her.
Not over this.
Not when I was finally starting to believe that maybe this could be more than a vacation heartbeat.
