She continued on and parked Zach’s truck in his garage, then came back over and met Jesse and the dogs in front of his house. She sat down on one of the large rocks by his front door and arched her back.
“Ugh, I need to stop wearing flats. My back is freaking killing me.”
“You’re getting old, kid.”
She rolled her eyes as she reset her shoulders. “Okay, what do you need to talk to me about? Did Lily-Grace get her car?”
“Yeah, nice Tahoe. She’s very happy.”
“Good. What’s up?”
Jesse considered his words and then just spit it out. “How do you know when you like someone?”
Lilah grew very still, her eyes wide. “Jess,” she said slowly. She turned toward him, then covered her mouth for a second before she dropped her hands to her lap.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Great. Thanks. I’m gonna go start prepping dinner.” Jesse felt his jaw clench. He guessed he’d have to discuss his complicated feelings about Lily-Grace and women in general with his therapist. It would be embarrassing as hell, but it looked like he had no choice, if he wanted answers.
“No wait! I’m serious. I really don’t know.”
This was news to Jesse. They didn’t talk about his personal life a lot, but Zach and Sam had gone to Lilah for advice about their own love lives. “I figured you’d have some pearls of wisdom for me in that huge brain of yours.”
“I mean, my brain is huge. But I haven’t liked a guy—well, a boy—since freshman year in college, and he sucked so bad I just gave up. I’ve been so busy with work and avoiding my dad, it just hasn’t come up again.”
Jesse knew what she meant, but that didn’t stop him from giving his bestYou sure?eyebrow.
“What?”
“Li, every single human at the ranch is into you.”
“I have a few admirers. I can admit that, butIhaven’t felt those feelings in a long time. Wow.” She looked off into the distance for a moment before her gaze snapped back to his. A big smile spread across her lips.
“So you like Lily-Grace, huh?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“Lilah. Please keep up.”
“Right. If you knew, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Okay, well what do you feel so far? There’s gotta be something there, ’cause you left the office early on a Monday to go do something with her.”
Jesse considered what parts he was comfortable sharing with his baby cousin. “Yeah, I guess that could have waited until the weekend, but I wanted to see her again. I, uh—I think about her all the time. We did kiss yesterday, though it was more in an educational context.”
“Corie mentioned that, but not that educational part. What’s going on there?”
“Nothing.”
“Alright, so you kissed and you’ve been thinking about her a lot. Hmmm ... do you have any idea how she feels? She did pay a lot of money for you at the auction, and then you literally saved her life.”
“That’s part of the problem. She said today that she’s starting to like me, but—”
“But what?”
“Nothing.” The last few weeks had been filled with heightened emotions, and after what Lily-Grace had told him about her ex and her harasser, he thought maybe her feelings for him were a pendulum swing away from her own stress. And now, he wondered if he was rushing to protect her and keep her close like he did with the women in his family, just now on a whole different level. He wasn’t trying to deny her own agency, but his train of thought was heading dangerously in that direction, and that wasn’t fair or right. “I was about to do a deep dive into some assuming.”
