Beau liked to think that she, at a whole 22 years old, was about as cynical and jaded as you could get. But with Karolina smiling up at her like that, her heart kind of melted a little bit, and she was starting to think that maybe she might be in trouble here.

Well, depending on how you looked at it, that wouldn't be anything new.

"Nah," she said, perfectly content to run her thumb lightly back and forth across Karolina's hand instead of letting go. "You're pretty good at surprising me."

That was also true, even if for no other reason than that Beau was continually surprised that Karolina seemed to like her as much as she did.