Page 40 of The Swindler’s Daughter

I could tell he was trying to understand but couldn’t. “I don’t think it’s the same.”

“I do,” I insisted.

He sighed through his nose. “There’s a big difference between picking anyone’s pocket you have access to and picking the pocket of a corrupt lawman who is stealing from the people he’s sworn to protect.” His face was so earnest.

He believed so deeply in the work he was doing that he was willing to risk it all—not for himself, but for others.

I don’t know what made me do it—maybe it was the goodness I felt from him, maybe it was a natural consequence of the steady pull I’d been pushing away for weeks. Whatever it was, I reached out a hand and let my fingertips run over his cheek, feeling the stubble of his beard. “I admire you, you know.”

His pupils went big and he swallowed. “You do?” he asked, a bit breathless as his eyes skated over my face.

With everything inside me, I wanted to bring myself just a little bit closer, to answer his words with my lips pressed to his. The feeling was so foreign and so powerful that it stole my breath. I wanted…but I couldn’t. I couldn’t fall into that trap. I couldn’t fall into him. I’d spent the last seven years trying to be everything that was noble and good—trying to prove I was worthy of the life I had now. I could not entangle myself with a boy who admitted to being a thief, no matter how much I might wish to.

So I answered his question with nothing but a nod, and then I let my fingers drop.

He caught my hand. “Then why are you going away?”

I searched his eyes, wondering what he meant.

“Is admiration all you feel?” he asked.

I blanched at the question. It wasn’t fair for him to ask me that. I pulled my hand away and stepped back. “I don’t know what you mean.”

His head tilted and there was a longing in his eyes that I’d never seen before. “Don’t you?”

I shook my head. It was a refusal to myself as much as to him. I wouldn’t try to answer that question. Not only because the answer was too big and confusing to put into words but also because he hadn’t earned it.

The moments stretched and he finally seemed to realize I wouldn’t be answering. “We are at least friends, aren’t we?” he asked.

At least friends? “Yes,” I answered. “I suppose we are.”

He swallowed and slipped just a little closer to me. “Do you suppose we could ever be more?”

His words stole the air from my lungs. What was he suggesting? That he wanted more? A mass of hope welled up inside me and I wanted nothing more than to take hold of what he seemed to be offering. I wanted to cling to the idea that Rowan could feel for me even a portion of what I felt for him. Then my reason and logic took over and I pulled my gaze away from his, focusing on the trees around me as I stuffed my thoughts into order.

I took a breath, fixing my reasons in my mind before turning back to him again. “No,” I breathed out, hating the word even as it left my lips.

He blinked and let out a little puff of air. “Why?” he asked.

“Because I picked the pocket of a lawman earlier today.”

Confusion clouded his face. “What does that have to do with me?”

“Everything!” I lifted my empty hands, desperate to have him understand. “Everything inside of me is so mixed up. What I knew yesterday—what I believed about right and wrong—is so muddied that I cannot make sense of it. And it’s because of you. If I let myself feel more, I’m afraid I will become something I despise.”

My last words seemed to hit him like a slap to the face.

This time, he was the one to step back.

My heart sank at the hurt that twisted his features.

He turned away from me.

“Rowan,” I called after him. “That is not what I meant.”

He spun back around. “Then what did you mean?” he demanded in harsh tones. “How can I have misunderstood when you stated in plainness that feeling anything for me beyond friendship would make you despise yourself?” He held his hands out to his sides. “If that is the case, then I can only conclude that you must despise me as well.”

“Not you, just—”