Page 39 of The Worst Possible Plan

This was going to hurt.

The world tilted and then—stopped.

Strong hands caught me around the waist before I hit the ground, lifting me so effortlessly that I barely noticed my feet finding the ground again.

For one suspended heartbeat, everything else disappeared.

I looked up, and Sheriff Walker was standing impossibly close, one arm still around my waist with the other steadying my shoulder. He smelled ridiculously good. Clean, woodsy, and entirely too distracting for someone who’d just saved me from face-planting into the grass. His eyes searched my face, serious now, all traces of teasing gone.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I…” Brilliant. An excellent start. “Yes.”

He didn’t let go. His gaze flicked down to the lights still wrapped around my ankle before meeting my eyes again. “I think,” he said, “the festival decorations are becoming possessive.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “I was winning.” But then my brain went Please don’t fart. Please don’t fart.

After a beat, he loosened his grip just enough to make sure I could stand on my own, and a selfish, hormonal part of me wished he hadn’t.

My knees, traitorous things that they were, briefly considered forgetting how to function. I decided right then and there that falling for Sheriff Walker was probably every bit as dangerous as falling off ladders.

Possibly more.

“You’re safe now, no breaks.” His eyes met mine, and a smile materialized on his face.

For just a second, neither of us moved.

He was still standing close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off him. One hand lingered lightly at my waist as though he wanted to make absolutely sure I wasn’t about to topple over again. His gaze stayed on mine, steady and impossibly calm, before drifting—just briefly—to my mouth and then returning to my eyes.

It couldn’t have lasted more than a heartbeat. I might’ve imagined it. Probably imagined it. Hopefully imagined it.

Because the alternative was far more dangerous.

Heat crept across my cheeks before I could stop it, and I suddenly became painfully aware of everything. The way my pulse had mistaken itself for a jackhammer. The fact that he was still holding me. The fact that I could smell cedar and clean soap. The fact that his eyes weren’t just brown. They had little flecks of amber in them that caught the last of the evening sunlight.

Why was I noticing eye flecks? Nobody should ever notice eye flecks. That was how these things started.

First it was eye flecks. Then it was wondering what someone looked like when they laughed. Next thing you knew, you were picking out curtains together.

My brain was sprinting toward a future I’d never authorized.

I opened my mouth. Closed it again.

Was… was that flirting? No. Probably not. Maybe. Possibly. Or maybe he looked at everyone’s lips after catching them from falling off ladders. That seemed unlikely. Although I admittedly didn’t have enough experience falling into attractive sheriffs to say for certain.

My brain called an emergency meeting. Unfortunately, nobody attending appeared qualified.

I cleared my throat. “Well…” Brilliant contribution, Sophie. Very articulate. I’d always dreamed that when I met an attractive man I’d leave him breathless with my wit.

The sheriff rescued me before I could make things worse. “You’ve done a lot today.”

I nodded. “I’ve mostly survived today.”

“That’s usually the first step.” I didn’t hear a hint of teasing in his voice. Just quiet certainty. Like surviving counted. Like maybe I’d been measuring success all wrong. For some ridiculous reason, that landed somewhere right behind my ribs.

Nobody had said anything like that to me in a very long time.

Long enough that it caught me completely off guard.