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Probably a guardian angel because we all know I’m incapable of keeping myself safe.

I try to sit again, and this time, I manage. Archer pulls my boot off then slides my pant leg up to my knee. His warm hands trail up and down the arch of my foot and halfway up my leg.

Goosebumps prickle my skin, and warmth swirls from his touch to my chest. Now I’m winded for a completely different reason.

“Any of that tender?” he asks, still moving his hand up and down.

I’m so glad I shaved this morning, but I could really do with a less-sweaty foot. “Just the ankle.”

He nods, as if expecting my answer. I can’t see his face, the brim of his hat covering most of it. “I think it’s just a sprain, but better to be safe than sorry. I’m gonna take you to the hospital in Burlington. They’re better than the family practice here.”

“What? That’s ridiculous. I’m sure it’s fine. I’ll just wrap it up myself.”

But when a tickle slips down my right arm, and I swipe at it, I feel moisture instead of the dirt I expected. I pull my hand back and see blood on my fingertips. Alarm rings through my body like I’m being pulled apart, and I twist my arm to see just below the elbow, a slice the length of a penny pouring blood down my skin.

I wince, only now feeling the stinging pain.

Archer’s at my side now instead of my feet, kneeling down as he holds my arm and examines the wound. “That’ll need stitches.”

“A butterfly bandage will be fine.”

Finally he looks at me, his lips stretched in a grim line and a deep crease marring his forehead.

“Are you mad?” I ask, pulling back.

“You should’ve waited for me to help you down,” he says in a gruff tone. “I needed to tie up your horse before you tried to dismount. You both could’ve been seriously injured.”

My cheeks overheat. I don’t like how his words make me feel, so I look away. My cowgirl hat lies upside down in the dirt. the once-pristine felt now spotted with dirt. Rapunzel stamps her hoof a few feet away, untied but lingering nearby, and I grimace.

This is a classic case of acting before thinking. Again. “Sorry,” I mumble. “I just wanted to dismount to prove I’m not the same immature teenager as before.”

Archer doesn’t meet my gaze for a minute. He shakes his head, and I catch little glimpses of his frowning features beneath his hat as he pulls the red handkerchief from his back pocket and begins to wipe the blood trailing down my arm.

“Unless I’m blind, your dad is the only one who still might see you as young, but that’s because you’re his little girl, which will never change. But I—and I’m pretty sure the rest of Autumn Ridge—see you for who you are. Mature, sophisticated, and yes, twenty-two. That makes you an official adult of four years. You don’t have anything to prove, Juliet.”

The pressure of having to impress him slips away, and I breathe deeply for the first time. Falling off the horse made me feel like an elephant fighting against gravity. Now, I’m floating lighter than a leaf.

“For what it’s worth,” Archer continues, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten mad. I just...didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Because of my dad and what he’ll do.”

Hurt reflects in his eyes. “No. Because I don’t want you getting hurt,” he repeats.

With a sigh, he takes his hat off and runs his hands through his hair. The way he kneels next to me, shoulders slumped and features down, he looks tormented.

“This is why I don’t know if we should see each other after this,” he says. “It ain’t fair for you because you will get hurt again.”

“How am I going to get hurt if neither of you want to hurt me?”

He replaces his hat. “By you being in the middle. At surface level, what’s going on between your dad and me may seem childish, but beneath it all, there’s a lot of old grievances that just can’t be erased. I don’t want either of you to think I’d use you to get back at him. As much as I disagree with your dad, I’d never be able to live with myself if I did anything to jeopardize your relationship with him. You don’t deserve to be caught in the crossfire.”

He looks at me with his soft, brown eyes from under the brim of his tan cowboy hat—the cowboy hat that made me first notice him.

I told him my crush had been laid to rest. I really didn’t want to be with a guy who couldn’t hold his own next to Dad. But knowing that Archer can—that he stands up for himself and stands by who he is now—my heart swells.

Old feelings begin to resurface. I try to let them out the side door, desperate to be rid of them, but they float above me like wisps of clouds, seeable, untouchable, and completely real.

“I hope that makes sense,” he finishes, “and I hope I don’t hurt you now because of it.”