This just won’t do.
I cannot marry him without kissing him at least once, right?
“Trevor?”
He turns, his eyes widening when he sees me following. I stop right in front of him, cup his cheeks, and press my mouth to his. Our kiss is soft and sweet, and while he doesn’t use his tongue, when I pull back, I feel as giddy as I did after the prince kissed me.
Nia was right. I have been missing out. “I will see you tomorrow.”
He blinks, his eyes hazy and unfocused. “Right. Yes. Um. Right. Tomorrow. Good day, Kerris.”
“Goodbye, Trevor.” Two kisses in two days. Who am I? I press my fingers to my lips as I slip back into the overgrown garden, my smile so wide, my cheeks hurt.
Whom shall I kiss next?
11
“One should never arrive to someone’s cottage empty handed.”
Celeste Hanson Dawn, An Observation
Ishouldn’t do it.
But that’s my head talking, and when it comes to the war between my head and my heart, the latter tends to win.
My heart is telling me to open the gate and step into the field of swaying grass. To run far and fast until I reach the town square.
I’ve officially been in Rosehill for over a week, and after nights out with Nia and two more dates with both Ronan and Trevor, I’m no closer to choosing a husband.
Both of my suitors are wonderful, but neither have done much to sway me either way. My stomach flutters when I’m with them, especially when I let them kiss me.
But it feels as if something is…
I don’t know. Missing?
There are flutters but no sparks.
Nia says I’ve lost my mind, that sparks belong in the hearth, not in the heart, and maybe she’s right. Every day brings me one step closer to the biggest decision of my life, and I probably shouldn’t let what’s lacking matter more than what’s there.
Ronan has proven charming and bold and shown that he is willing to do anything to receive my proposal.
While Trevor has proven attentive and cautious, his presence has been calming and solid.
In front of me are two very different lives, spread out like separate paths, yet here I am, stuck at a fork in the road without a bloomin’ map.
Which brings me to today: Wednesday.
Nia is suffering from cramps, so she’s spending the day in bed with a hot water bottle on her stomach, leaving me in front of a gate with a decision to make: Stay here where it’s safe and secluded or venture to the well.
The thought of staying makes me feel as if I’m being locked away in a cage.
The thought of going makes me feel as if I’m being swept away in a rushing river.
When you look at it like that, there really is no other choice to make.
I reach for the latch, push open the gate, and spring across the field, my hair flying behind me and the pack on my back bobbing. Tonight, my hair will be full of impossible tangles, but I cannot bring myself to care.
Without Nia around to caution me, I choose an alley even closer to the well so that I can get a better look. A loud gong chimes through the empty streets, the clock in the clocktower ringing in the noon hour. As if summoned by the deep, reverberating sound, unicorns and riders emerge like smudges of black across the horizon, accompanied by the steady thump of heavy hooves, rising and falling with every strike of the bell. Part of me expected to see different men from last week, but as far as I can tell, they’re all the same.