Page 121 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

The thought came sharp enough to kill every other feeling, and I stepped away quickly.

Beau dropped his hand immediately. “Are you okay?”

There it was. The question I hated most. Except his voice didn’t sound worried, it didn’t hold judgement like I wasn’t capable.

I cleared my throat a couple of times. “I’m fine.”

He looked at me, navy eyes narrowing in disbelief. “Are you sure?”

I frowned, “Why do you keep asking?”

“Because you’ve been limping for at least twenty minutes.”

Everything inside me froze. The ranch disappeared around us.

“You noticed?”

Beau’s expression changed as his eyes scanned my face. “You favor your right side when you’re tired.”

I couldn’t breathe correctly as I voiced the truth I tried so hard to hide.

Five years of physical therapy.

Socket adjustments.

Learning how to place my foot naturally.

Learning how to stop watching the ground.

Learning how to move through a grocery store without wondering whether someone behind me could tell.

Nobody had ever noticed… Nobody until now. Beau Jones had been the one and only exception. The mechanic who noticed everything.

I forced my grip around the clipboard to loosen, thinking of a way to change the subject. “Occupational hazard I guess?” The joke came out thinner than I intended.

He didn’t take it. “You’ve been doing it more since lunch.” His eyes stayed on my face, they didn’t waver, no scanning my body for injuries, no curiosity, just concern.

Still, my body responded like he’d uncovered every secret I had spent five years protecting. I swallowed my wince. “I said I’m fine.”

“I heard you.” He stepped back, no longer close enough that I could smell him. Enough space that I could breathe again. Then he looked toward the pasture. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Carson.”

The sentence landed hard beneath my ribs.

Anger came first, and my response wasn’t exactly kind.

“What exactly do you think I’m proving?”

“I don’t know. But you’ve been standing on one leg every time you stop moving.” He looked back at me. “And every time someone asks if you need something, you suddenly find another job.”

My throat tightened. He had been watching me this whole time. I licked my lips, “Do you always study people this hard?”

“No.” The answer came simply. That was somehow worse, because despite the fear, my heart skipped a beat at the thought of him focusing all his attention on me. Only me.

There were a hundred things I could have done with that moment. Instead, fear slipped beneath everything. Because if Beau noticed a limp, eventually he might notice why.

And for the first time since meeting him, I cared what happened after.

Rosie shouted my name again.