Girl Gone Viral (Modern Love #2)(37)

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’s someone, 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 on Dateline?”

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 wanted to 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 their presence 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.”

“Hasan will be there.”

He’d met his brother’s fiancé many times over the years. Hasan was due to start med school next fall, at a university a couple hours away. Jas liked the cheerful young man.

Jas’s parents considered them far too young to get married. Privately, Jas agreed. They were babies, the two of them.

Jas bit back his concern now. It wasn’t his place to tell his brother what to do with his personal life. “I’ll see him some other time.”

Bikram pressed his lips tight together. “Fine. See ya.”

“Hey. One more thing. Can you get me newspapers?”

“Newspapers?”

“Yes.”

“Like . . .” Bikram mimed opening a paper. “Print newspapers?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what year it is? They’re all online now, believe me.”

“Can you get them or not?”

Bikram shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do. I might have to time-travel.”

Jas watched his brother ride off, his body strong and tall in the saddle. He pulled his phone out with the intention of sending Samson an update about Lorne’s phone call. That was when he heard it, the noise from inside the barn behind him. A half whimper, half whine.

What on earth?

He pulled the barn door open and peered into the dim interior. Light from the setting sun seeped in through cracks in the wood. As expected, it was empty, cleaned out long ago.

There it was again, the noise. An animal. A sick animal?

Dr. Dolittle he wasn’t, but he couldn’t ignore a sick creature. He flicked on the flashlight on his phone and shined it into the barn.





Chapter Eleven


KATRINA STARED AT the cookbook open in front of her on the kitchen counter. She’d found the vintage book in the living room and had been pretty excited. She stroked the glossy sepia-tinted photo, though she wasn’t really processing what she was looking at.

Katrina had had her first panic attack at seventeen during a photo shoot. She’d thought she was dying. They’d rushed her to the hospital, only for the doctors to throw their hands up after running a battery of tests and tell her nothing physical was wrong with her.