Page 71 of Runaway Bride and Prejudice

“They’d like you,” I admit. The words sound far more vulnerable than I want them to.

“Your sisters? I thought you didn’t talk to them about women,” she teases.

I’ve backed myself into a corner here. I can say that we’re not dating, which feels harsh. Even if we’re not. We’re … I don’t know what.

But I don’t know what Amelia would think if I tell her I planned to tell them about her.

Would she read too much significance into that? Would it put too much pressure on me?

I know with certainty, all three of my sisters would have a few choice words to say if they were here now. They would recognize in half a second how I feel about Amelia, and I would never hear the end of it. No doubt they’d love her.

But at least one if not all of them would slap me in the back of the head and tell me this is not the time in Amelia’s life to have some chump falling all over her. They’d tell me to give this space. Not to put too much significance into anything. Definitely not to think about kissing her when her feelings are likely all over the map. They’d tell me not to add any pressure to Amelia.

They would be right.

I glance at Amelia, like her face will somehow give me the right response. Instead, I lose myself in the warmth of her cool blue eyes, the spray of freckles on her cheeks, the way sunlight spins her hair into gold.

One side of her mouth lifts in the smallest of smiles. “What?”

I can’t stop myself from reaching over, sliding a strand of her silky hair between my fingertips. “I’d like to tell them about you. If … that’s something you’d like.”

So much for not adding pressure.

From a hidden speaker above our heads, a booming voice announces the gator feeding in five minutes. We both jump. Amelia almost drops her cone.

I’m both relieved and disappointed by the way it ripped away the mounting tension of the moment. I drop Amelia’s hair. She giggles and bites her lip.

“Let me guess—you want to go to the gator feeding?”

“Can we?” Amelia asks, eyes so bright there’s no way I could say no to her.

“As long as they’re not feedingusto the gators.”

“I think it’s raw chicken,” she says.

Gross. But for her,fine.

We get up, and maybe I shouldn’t, but I toss my empty cup in the trash and take her hand, sliding my fingers between hers. They’re sticky from the ice cream, and I don’t even mind.

“You are the slowest ice cream eater I’ve ever seen,” I say.

“It’s a gift. You and your sisters are close,” Amelia says. “What about your parents?”

Now there’s a conversational land mine. I try not to stiffen. Because I might have siblings where Amelia has none and I might have two living parents, but she has something I don’t. A parent whocares.

Shrugging, I watch a family walk past, their littlest child in a plastic alligator stroller. “There’s not much to say. They got divorced when we were young. Got remarried and divorced again and again to other people in a steady rotation. Bounced the four of us between houses in a constant battle of one-upmanship.”

“Wow.” Her voice and her eyes soften. “So they had joint custody?”

“At first, we split time between them—literally alternating every day—and we mostly fended for ourselves at both houses. Later on my dad got a new job in another state and we all moved in permanently with my mom. He’d fly us out sometimes at holidays, taking us on extravagant trips with his woman of the moment, all as a way of getting back at my mom. Totally toxic.”

“I’m sorry.” Amelia squeezes my fingers and rests her head on my arm. Her touch smooths over the years of stockpiled hurt. Not like a touch could fix it or anything, but she makes me feel somehow less sad about the whole situation.

But while she’s looking at me, not what’s left of her cone, a big drip runs right down the cone and halfway down her wrist.

“Shoot,” she says, dropping my hand.

Before I’ve given any thought to it—clearly—I grasp her arm. “I got it.”

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