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Something flickered behind her eyes. Her tongue snaked out and licked her lips, and Thomas felt knotting in his stomach. He had an urge to pull her close and kiss her. He wanted to taste those lips right now.
How he managed not to do it, he had no idea. But Thomas found he couldn’t stop staring at her mouth.
“Mister Ford?”
“Hmm?”
“Can you let go of me now? You’re starting to hurt my arms.”
“What? Oh!” Thomas let go abruptly. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean …”
“There’s no harm done.” Sophia cleared her throat and tightened her shawl around her shoulders. “You don’t need to be concerned about me, Mister Ford. I can handle things on my own. And Mister Shore isn’t that bad.”
“You don’t know what he’s truly like, Miss Sophia.”
“I think I do. I might have seen a side to him that nobody else has seen before.” Sophia shrugged. “He tends to try a bit too hard, but I can see underneath his charm that he simply wants to be liked, and he’s scared that if he shows his true self, nobody will care for him.”
Thomas frowned.
“I’m his friend. I know the real person.”
“You may do, but I think this is about everyone else. Pierce just wants to be accepted.”
“If he wanted to be accepted, he shouldn’t be taking women to bed all the time,” Thomas grunted.
Sophia arched an eyebrow.
“You say he’s your friend, but you don’t speak very highly of him. Are you even friends?”
“Of course we are. And he knows how much we dislike his antics. But we see who he really is underneath, and we know what he’s really like. Which is why we spend time with him.” Thomas peered at her. “The fact he’s showing that to you is surprising. He hasn’t done that with a woman before.”
“I don’t think it was intentional. But he was trying a little too hard to be flirtatious, and it soon became obvious.” Sophia shrugged and turned away. “I simply told him that being himself and not trying too hard was more likely to make me like him. It seemed to work because that’s when he stopped attempting to woo me.”
Thomas couldn’t remember the last time Pierce listened to any woman who wasn’t his mother. And, even then, it was rare. Sophia must have affected Pierce more than Thomas thought.
And he didn’t like it. The jealousy building in his belly was really frustrating.
Pushing that aside, Thomas followed Sophia down the hill. She fared better than he did, her footfalls more sure of themselves, whereas Thomas began to struggle. The grass felt slippier than he remembered a moment ago. Then his foot slipped, and Thomas began to slide. Sophia turned and grabbed his arm as he nearly took her out. The two of them wobbled, but they stayed upright, and Sophia gave him a wry smile.
“You and I seem to fall over or bump into each other whenever we’re around, Mister Ford. Is that a sign of something?”
“I … maybe.” Thomas coughed and straightened up. “Thank you. I thought I was going to end up on the ground.”
“Taking me with you.” Sophia folded her arms around the shawl. “I will say what I am annoyed about, Mister Ford. You telling Mister Shore about us meeting alone. It was an innocent thing and should have been kept quiet.”
“Did you tell anyone about it?”
“That’s not the point!”
The quick response told Thomas enough. He folded his arms, matching her stance.
“If you told someone about what we did, then why can’t I? Pierce wouldn’t tell anyone, so there wouldn’t be any harm done.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know Pierce. If I ask him to keep a secret, he does. You can trust him over it.” Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Just like I can trust whoever you told about us?”
“You can.” Sophia sighed. “I suppose you have a point. We can’t expect the other to be quiet when we haven’t.”
