Page 69 of The Worst Possible Plan

Now standing here with the sheriff, surrounded by music and lights and an entire town laughing because today had actually worked, for one ridiculous, impossible, wonderful moment, I felt awesome. And brave.

And before my brain could object, before common sense reeled me back in, I rose onto my toes, cupped his face gently between my hands...

And kissed him.

His lips were warm and soft and perfect. But the second mine touched his, my brain finally caught up.

Oh… shit…

I was kissing the sheriff.

16

SOPHIE

Yup. I was kissing Captain Competent.

And I liked it.

Correction.

I liked it far, far more than seemed remotely sensible for a woman who’d known him all of… what? Two days? Two and a half if you counted all the time I’d spent accidentally thinking about him, which unfortunately, my brain insisted qualified as a meaningful relationship.

His hand slid around my waist, warm and steady, drawing me a fraction closer like it was the most natural thing in the world. Then he kissed me back.

Really kissed me back. Not the polite sort of kiss that said, Well, this seems socially acceptable. The sort that said he’d wanted to do it too.

Or maybe that was just me.

When my lips parted and his brushed against mine again, every coherent thought abandoned ship without so much as a polite goodbye. My brain didn’t explode, exactly. It simply packed a suitcase, wished me luck, left a forwarding address, and wandered off into the sunset while my common sense stood on the platform waving a tiny white handkerchief.

Heat rushed from my face all the way to my toes, and I felt the tiniest, completely involuntary sound escape my throat.

Yikes.

That was embarrassing.

His kiss wasn’t rushed or careless. It was slow, confident, and patient enough to make me forget an entire festival was happening only a few yards away. He kissed me like a man who’d thought about doing it before and had finally stopped talking himself out of it. I leaned into him before I even realized I was doing it, breathing him in and losing myself in the clean scent of soap, cedar, and whatever impossible ingredient made Sheriff Walker smell unfairly good. One of his hands tightened ever so slightly at my waist, and a delicious little shiver raced straight through me. Somewhere nearby the band kept playing, children laughed, and a dog barked, but they all sounded impossibly far away. The entire town could’ve packed up and relocated to another county, and I genuinely don’t think I would’ve noticed.

Damn. I’d been kissed before. Technically.

This, however, felt like discovering I’d previously been eating instant mashed potatoes and only now realized actual potatoes existed.

Or believing frozen pizza was perfectly acceptable until someone handed you a slice from a tiny family-run pizzeria in Italy.

There was simply no going back after this.

I pulled back first. Mostly because another five seconds and I was genuinely going to forget we were standing in the middle of a festival with half the town nearby. Also because there was an extremely real possibility I’d do something completely unreasonable.

Like kiss him again. Or worse. Start planning our wedding because he’d complimented my leadership skills.

I could already picture it. Our first dance. Bandit somehow eating the wedding cake. Theo serving as ring bearer because he’d already decided we were family. Lola crying dramatically in the front row while flirting with my uncle. Dottie insisting she’d bake gluten-free goat cookies for the reception.

Damn. We hadn’t even gone on one date. “Well…” I said a little breathlessly. “That escalated.” I gave a tiny, disbelieving laugh.

He looked at me, his eyes still warm. One corner of his mouth lifted. “Yeah.”

The music continued drifting across the square. People laughed. The festival carried on as though my entire universe hadn’t just rearranged itself.