Page 37 of Forbidden to Fall

He didn’t respond. His gaze was fixed on me. It dropped to my dress.

I looked down and let out a laugh. “Have I transported you to the ‘90s? I didn’t have time to get a dress, so this is my mom’s.” When I looked up again, James’s eyes weren’t on my dress. They were on my face.

For a split second, I forgot about the maple glaze and the potential career catastrophe I was trying to prevent. I just looked at James looking at me.

“You look…” The sentence remained unfinished.

“You need help?”

I turned as Ethan walked up slowly, his eyes shifting between James and me.

“No,” I said quickly. I hadn’t meant for anyone to come out. For James’s sake. And definitely not right when James was about to say how I looked.

Realizing how rudely the word had come out and how much I wanted Ethan gone, I tried again. “I mean…sure. You can take in the butter and help Zoey get it melting. Slowly. Low heat.” The last thing we needed was scorched butter.

James opened the door to the cab of his truck and pulled out a carton of butter cubes. He handed them to me, and I passed them on to Ethan like we were a mini assembly line.

Ethan’s eyes flicked once more between James and me, his mouth lifting slightly at one edge. “I’ll get out of your hair.” He winked, then left.

Cheeks warm, I turned back to James, and he pulled out a bag—the same burlap one May had sent me home with. It looked heavy. It definitely had more than two syrup bottles in it.

“I wasn’t sure what kind you’d want,” he said.

Because I hadn’t told him. I’d been too distracted by the situation to even think about it.

“You’re a saint,” I said, taking the heavy bag from him. “I owe you so majorly.”

He shook his head.

“James,” I said, reasoning with him.

“Sadie”—he echoed my tone—“you’re doing plenty for me already.”

“Maple pickle cookies?”

He chuckled. It was a deep, resonant sound, and over too soon. “That bag’s really heavy. I can take it inside.” His focus flicked to my hair—something I’d entirely forgotten about for the past hour. He reached toward me, making my breath catch. “You’ve got a…pin.”

My hand instinctively stole to it, tangling with his as my fingers found the dangling bobby pin that had somehow escaped. It wasn’t a surprise, really. With seven hundred of them, at least one was bound to betray me.

“Get away from my sister, Carver!”

We both whirled around and found Ryan stalking towards us, his face dark.

Ryan had taken three more steps before I was able to snap out of my surprise.

“Don’t touch her.” I’d never seen Ryan’s friendly eyes so fiery as he strode toward James.

I shifted between the two of them and put my hands up. “Whoa, Ry. Hold on.”

He tried to go around me.

I stopped him with a hand on his arm. I was not about to let James get knocked out for helping me. Not that I was convinced he would be. He could certainly hold his own against Ryan. Two decades of wrestling each other had kept them on the same level, but the last eight years had given James a noticeable physical advantage.

“Ryan,” I said, loud and firm.

His focus finally shifted to me.

“He’s helping me,” I said.