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“Alright, hold still. You're gonna go arse over tit.” He slowly adjusts my body in his arms and lowers me. The front of my body slides down the length of his— inch by painful inch. The hem of my shirt lifts, and I feel the rolling slab of his muscles rub against the softest parts of me. The speed at which he lowers me is agonizingly slow, but when I drop down to eye level, he holds me just a little tighter for a brief moment. My breath hitches, and I get lost in his golden eyes. They’re the same golden color that drifts through your windows on a late autumn afternoon. As the tips of my shoes finally connect with the ground, I somehow don’t feel anything concrete beneath me. The cobblestone is there, but I’m too busy floating.

I haven’t let go of his gaze, and he hasn’t let go of me.

“You flirtin’ with me, Browning?”

“You know arse over tit means to fall, right?” His head dips and my heart beats faster.

“So, yes?” I smile. He pulls his bottom lip in between his teeth and the simple movement has the space between my legs throbbing. I slip out of his hold, already regretting the loss of his touch and I lead the rest of our walk. “Just checking.”

“Knox Browning!I heard a rumor you were back, but I couldn’t believe it. Good to see ya, lad.”

“It’s nice to see you too, Alfie. How’s Maeve?” Knox replies.

“Oh, just as fiery as ever. She’s going to be real bummed she missed ya though.” A kind, older-looking man hangs out the window of some kind of food truck.

“I’ll stop by sometime this week then and say hi,” Knox replies with a charming smile.

“You do that,” the man says, pointing at him. “And who do we have here?”

His attention turns to me.

“Alfie, this is Taylor. She’s staying with us for a few weeks.”

“Nice to meet you, Taylor,” he says, reaching his hand through the window. “Ooo, strong grip.”

I shrug, not bothering to act like that’s the first time I’ve heard that. My handshakes and hugs have both been described asbone-crushingbefore. I can’t help it, I don’t often want to touch people but when I do, I want them to feel my intention.

“Nice to meet you too, Alfie.”

“What can I get you two?”

“Two meat pies,” Knox says, holding up his index and middle finger.

“Wait—are they lamb?” I ask.

Alfie’s nose scrunches and he waves a weathered hand in front of him.

“Beef.”

“Oh. Then I’ll take two please.”

“My kind of girl!” He slaps his hands together before heading to the back.

“Oh my god,”I moan around a bite of food. “This—” I blow a breath around the steamy, buttery-crusted stuffed pie. “This might be the best thing I’ve ever had in my mouth. And I’m a foodie, so that’s saying something.”

Knox smiles, taking another bite of his own as we hikeback up to the inn. “Alright, what else do you have planned for your trip? I mean, besides the cliffs.”

I playfully lean into him, giving him a little shove but he doesn’t budge. I take another big bite, large enough to give me some time to chew and think. We pass a fenced-in pasture, where I can just make out a man riding a horse in the distance.

“Horseback riding,” I say. Knox stops where he is walking next to me, forcing me to pause. I look back at him. “What?”

“Horseback. You flew all the way across your country and the Atlantic Ocean… to ride a horse?”

No, but it sounds better than saying I have no fucking clue what I want to do here other than escape the shell of myself that I was becoming back home.

I let the idea—which, now looking back at it, might have been the fear of being alone, mixed with my slight abandonment issues, consume me until one night, I was watching a movie set in Ireland. The next thing I knew, I had a flight booked, and a few days later, I found myself in a cab in the middle of the night, driving down the road toEmerald Browning Cottage.

I smile at Knox with a simple shrug of my shoulder. “You really need to stop asking why and start asking why not?”