Page 43 of Wild Thorns

It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t careful. It was, frankly, the opposite of everything I’d learned to do to survive.

This place made me feel safe: the magnolia tree, the main house below, the three men who lived there in a way I couldn’t explain.

And the brothers...

I couldn't pretend anymore that what I felt for them was normal. That the pull toward them was just loneliness, or chemistry, or small-town hospitality; it was something else. Something that terrified me even as it drew me in.

I’d tried to analyze it. Made lists, of course I’d made lists, bullet-pointing every interaction, every glance, every moment that had felt significant. But the lists didn’t help. The data points didn’t add up to anything rational.

How do you explain knowing someone’s mood before they speak? How do you explain the way your body relaxes the moment you hear their footsteps, before you even see their face? How do you explain wanting three different men equally, impossibly, without any sense of who or how to choose?

I couldn’t. So I’d stopped trying.

Instead, I let myself feel it. The warmth when Jasper smiled at me. The steadiness when Callum was nearby. The understanding when Eli asked his careful questions. Three different energies, three different friendships, all of them real.

Tara thought I was losing my mind. “You’re describing a love triangle,” she’d said on our last call, “except with extra corners. That’s not a triangle. That’s a… love rectangle? Love square?”

“It’s not love,” I’d said, too quickly.

“Sure it isn’t.” I could hear her smirk through the phone. “That’s why you talk about them for forty-five minutes every time we call.”

“I don’t—”

“Callum said this, Jasper did that, Eli looked at me like—”

“Okay, fine. Maybe I talk about them a lot.”

“Maybe.”

“But that doesn’t mean…”

“Serena.” Her voice had gone gentle, the way it did when she was about to say something I didn’t want to hear. “It’s okay to fall for someone, even if it’s complicated. Even if it’s scary. Even if it’s three someones, which, by the way, I am deeply jealous of and also need way more details about.”

“There’s nothing to tell. We haven’t… nothing’s happened.”

“Yet.”

“Tara.”

“I’m just saying. The way you describe these guys, something’s going to happen, at some point. And when it does, I expect a full report. With diagrams, if necessary.”

I’d laughed, but she wasn’t wrong. I could feel it; the tension ratcheting tighter with every shared glance, every almost-touch, every conversation that danced around the edges of something more.

The question was whether I was brave enough to let it happen.

The Founder's Festival was tomorrow. Jasper had promised chaos, good food and a chance to see the town at its most charming. “It’s like a county fair, except with better music and worse parking,” he’d said, grinning. “And you’re coming as my date. Non-negotiable.”

“Your date?”

“My plus-one. My arm candy. My companion for the day.” He’d waggled his eyebrows. “Unless you’d prefer to go with someone else?”

The look he’d given me had made it clear he knew exactly what he was asking. And that he was testing something, testing whether I’d choose him, or admit that the choice was more complicated than that.

“I’ll go with you,” I’d said, and watched his grin widen. “But I reserve the right to wander off if you’re insufferable.”

“That’s fair. I’m frequently insufferable. It’s part of my charm.”

Eli had offered quiet spots if I needed them. “The festival can be overwhelming for newcomers,” he’d said, in that careful way of his. “Too many people, too much noise. If you need to step away, there’s a bench behind the historical society building. No one ever goes there. I can show you where it is.”