Page 12 of The Witch's Cottage
I wish she’d stop using my name like that. It does things to my chest that I really wish it wouldn’t.
“Fine.” I clear my throat and turn to look up at her.
She’s standing on the first landing, where the stairs make a hard turn, and her long skirt is just brushing the tops of her boots. She’s got dirt on the toes, but she doesn’t seem to care. And her face is... Is thathurt? Why would she care about meor anything I’m doing? Her bottom lip is pushed out just a bit, her freckled forehead furrowed in concern.
And I decide I don’t like seeing that look on her face—even if it’s so delicate and vulnerable that it makes me want to wrap my arms around her. Or maybe that’s exactlywhyI don’t like seeing it. I don’t want to touch her. Idon’t.
“Just need to get started. The kitchen floorboards and veranda will take me most of the day.”
“Oh. Okay.” She reaches out to touch the banister, her long fingers just brushing the glossy wood.
Something about that subtle movement makes me picture her fingers wrapping around something else, and the thought is so shocking to me that it makes my face hot. I whirl around and storm from the cottage.
After replacing the few floorboards in the kitchen, I work on the veranda for the better part of the day. It’s a bigger job than fixing the holes in the roof. Some of the wooden beams are rotted through, and I have to carefully replace each section and post one at a time, checking and leveling the porch as I go.
Just like two days ago, Aurora offers me tea and lunch and what look like honey biscuits, but I turn them down. Everything smells delicious, but I don’t want her thinking this is more than it is.Idon’t want to let myself think this is more than it is. I’m just a neighbor doing her a favor, and once I’m done, we’ll both go on our way.
I have to keep reminding myself of that fact as she works outside throughout the day.
The weather is warm and beautiful, and she hums to herself as she works on weeding the garden, a big floppy hat shielding her freckled face from the sun. It gets so warm that I peel my tunic off and use it to mop the sweat from my brow, and I pretend not to notice when Aurora looks my way. I wish she’d sing again—I want to hear the rest of her song—but she doesn’t grace me with her voice, only the quiet humming as she toils away.
At the end of the day, as I’m packing up my tools to head home, she appears at my side with a bundle wrapped in a sunrise-orange fabric.
“I made too many biscuits,” she says, shoving the bundle into my hands before I can say no. Her fingers brush mine, delicate and warm and soft, and her cheeks flame pink at the touch. Hopefully my face isn’t doing the same thing. “I won’t let you refuse.” She hides her hands behind her and takes two big steps away. “It’s the least I can do after all you’ve done for me.”
I hold the bundle in my hands, already noting the subtle smell of cinnamon and honey drifting up from the biscuits. And I can’t bring myself to tell her no.
“Thank you.” I slip the biscuits into my cart where they won’t get smooshed and crumble, and Aurora’s resulting smile makes heat spread through my chest. I quickly shift my gaze away from her face and to her veranda. “I got that leveled and repaired. Shouldn’t have any trouble with it now. I’ll be back tomorrow to finish up the framing that needs replaced.”
“Okay.” She glances down at her boots, and I swear her cheeks turn a deeper shade of pink. “I look forward to it.”
Before I can do something stupid, like tell her I’m looking forward to it too, I grab my cart and start hauling it back down the road, leaving Aurora standing behind me in the rapidly vanishing light.
I spot that cat again as I’m leaving. It’s sitting on a stump in the trees, watching me through narrowed green eyes. I swear it’s judging me.
And I don’t need the cat to tell me what I already know: I’m a damned fool.
Chapter 8
Aurora
SUN STREAMS THROUGH MY LITTLE kitchen window, casting shades of yellow and gold across the bread I’m kneading on the table. Ostara will be here before I know it, and I’m still trying to decide what types of bread to bake for the festival. So far, I’m thinking I’ll bake a fruit bread—depending on what Lydia has available at the mercantile—an herb bread with rosemary and thyme, and a good old-fashioned sourdough. I fed my sourdough yesterday in preparation for my baking today, and it smells delicious in the warm, cozy kitchen.
I’mreallytrying not to think about Alden, but it’s not going very well. After he walked away from me yesterday, leaving me standing in the early-evening light, I felt a distinct chill of rejection in my chest. I’ve tried to be friendly, have tried to smile and talk with him, but he’s so closed off, so stoic and frigid, that I’m not so sure I’ve even seen him smile yet.
Thinking about the look on his face right before he turned away from me, his eyes narrowed and his browfurrowed, I knead the bread dough a bit too hard, pressing the heel of my palm through the floury outer surface and into the sticky heart of the bread. With a sigh, I dust the loaf with a bit more wheat flour, then resume kneading, being more mindful this time.
I can’t let him get to me like this.
A short while later, my baking pot has heated up in the warm coals and my bread has had a chance to rise. After scoring the top of the dough, I slip the loaf into the pot, cover it with the lid, and place the dish back into the coals, using tongs to place smoldering coals across the top of the lid of the pot so the bread will get a nice even bake.
I’ve just removed my apron when a knock sounds at the door.
“That man is here,” Harrison calls out from the parlor, where he’s sitting in the windowsill, like he does every day around this time.
“Thatmanhas a name,” I whisper. Though I know it’s silly, I reach up to run a hand over my hair, trying to tame the flyaways that always puff up when I’m working with fire and coals in the kitchen.
“I know,” Harrison says.
