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But what if she was in a horror movie?

Or what if he just doesn’t want you?

So Rory did what she did best. She turned, and she ran.

And she didn’t look back.

WHENSHEFINALLYgot from her spot in the woods to the farm store, she got out of her car and looked into the back of her sister’s truck, which was parked out front. There were baskets full of vegetables in the back, and she knew that Fia must just be stocking up for the day.

She grabbed a basket of zucchini. She pushed open the door to the store and sighed. Her heart was still thundering like a spooked horse.

Nothing happened. You didn’t do anything.

He probably thinks you’re a weirdo, but so does everybody. You’re Rory Sullivan, the Pimento Toothpick. Scrawny, gangly, obsessed with whatever book you’re reading and writer of cringe poetry. So he thinks you’re weird? Big deal.

It felt like a big deal. Because he’d been beautiful.

The single most compelling thing she’d ever seen in her life.

Why had she been such a coward? Maybe kissing him would’ve been stupid, but she could have at least talked to him. Instead, the minute he moved she had scampered off like a frightened deer.

She wanted to do something. She started stacking the zucchinis in their rightful place, which was doingsomething, but not quite how she meant it.

“Hi, Rory,” came the sound of her sister’s voice.

Rory jumped, still skittish. “Oh. Hi.”

“Yeah, hi.”

She stopped for a moment. “Fia?”

“Yes?”

“Do you ever date?”

She was quite certain her sister didn’t. The great implosion between her and Landry King was the stuff of Four Corners legend, and she seemed to do her best to stay clear of men. Or if not clear of them entirely, then at least she kept it on the down-low. Because after all that, she hadn’t really wanted everybody in on her business anymore. Which Rory could understand. In theory.

“Why?” Fia asked, her eyes narrow.

“I just feel like I need to shake things up.”

“You’re moving to Boston.”

“I know that. But I... I’m tired of living life through books. And pictures of beautiful places online. It’s not the same.”

“No, it isn’t. But it’s safer.”

“I just... In a romance novel, if you saw a gorgeous man standing in the middle of the woods, you would kiss him,” Rory said.

“Wouldyou?” She sounded skeptical.

“You don’t read romance novels, how would you even know?”

“I don’t read romance novels because I don’t get caught up in all that kind of stuff. I have my own dreams. It’s better not to depend on someone else.”

“In general I agree, but...” She thought of him again.

She didn’t want to live like this anymore. She didn’t want to live with regrets. She wished she would’ve just done the bold thing. Except, that was very impractical, because if you went up kissing dangerous-looking men like that, they were probably going to assume you wanted sex.