Bikram’s chin jutted out. Ah yes. There was the stubborn kid he’d half raised. “I’m not mad at her.”
“You were very short-tempered when you met her.”
“She screamed at me.”
“It wasn’t at you. Anyway, you screamed, too.” If he’d known Katrina was awake, he wouldn’t have told Bikram to leave the bags around back.
“Hmph.” Bikram rocked back on his heels. “Why did the princess leave her tower anyway?”
Jas automatically glanced in the direction of the house and tugged his brother away, until they were closer to thebarn. He switched to Punjabi to be extra careful. “Don’t call her that. Like I said, she needed to get away. Did you tell anyone she’s here?”
Bikram didn’t switch languages, since he wasn’t as fluent. He could understand their parents and Jas in Punjabi, but tended to respond in English. “No. Only Mom.”
Jas groaned. He should have been more specific. “That’ssomeone, Bikram.” A meddling someone. How had he not gotten ten calls from his mother during the day?
“Why did you need to get away?”
“It’s a long story.”
“It’s October. No peaches to pick. I got time.”
He debated how much to tell Bikram. His brother deserved to know some of what was going on on his farm. “She went viral, and we feared someone might figure out her identity.”
“Viral? Like on the internet?”
“Yeah.”
“For what? She doesn’t seem like the type to, like, have a pet lobster that can play the piano or something.”
“Not important.”
Bikram shrugged. “I’m not really plugged in like that anyway. Does she have assassins after her? Did you bring a killer to our peach farm, Jas? Are we all gonna be onDateline?”
No, this wasn’t one of those suspense novels Katrina liked to read. “She’s had some tough breaks. She wanted to go someplace where no one would know her, where she could feel safe. Think of it as a vacation.”Not to mention, I wantedto run away, too.He leaned against the barn. The wood was rough, the paint peeling, and he’d leaned against this exact spot a million times growing up.
Home.
Twin bolts of pleasure and pain shot through him again at the thought. They’d been sparking all day, every time he came across something that he remembered or something that had changed—in effect, everything. He was kind of getting used to ignoring the pain, that happiness was so seductive.
Bikram studied his feet, then looked up at him. “Wouldn’t think you consider this place safe.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Guilt coursed through him. He knew what it meant. It meant he’d stayed distant, had abandoned the property he loved and owned.
“Nothing. She must be pretty special, to bring you back here for an extended stay.”
He reacted to the part of Bikram’s sentence that ratcheted up Jas’s defensiveness. “She’s a client. This is my job.”
Bikram snorted. “You sure are devoted to her, for being her hired help. Are you certain your feelings aren’t all tangled up in Hardeep’s widow?”
“It’s a job,” Jas repeated through gritted teeth. “I have no interest in Katrina beyond that.”
“Sure.” Bikram glared, which made his next question highly unwelcoming. “How long are you staying?”
“For as long as it takes for this to disappear, or until we decide to return.” Or until his grandfather came back from Mexico, but he didn’t say that. Hard enough to keep theirpresence secret from any employees on the farm, much harder to keep this secret from his eagle-eyed granddad.
“Until the parade?”
“No.” Difficult to say that now, when he was standing in his hometown. He had so many fond memories of that parade. “Not that long.”
