Page 19 of Horned to be Wild
He immediately tensed. “We?”
“Yes, we! My paintings with your wood carvings.” She pulled out her sketchbook to show him her ideas. “Look—each mural would have one of your carved frames, like a doorway into the story world. Can you imagine how the children would react? It would be magical.”
His expression darkened, the softness she’d glimpsed vanishing behind a familiar wall. “No.”
“No?” She stared up at him. “But you could?—”
“No. You don’t need my carvings,” he said gruffly, turning away and starting to stack the split logs. “You can paint murals without my ‘whittling.’”
The bitterness in his voice when he said “whittling” made her heart ache. “This isn’t whittling. This is art. Your art.”
“I’m just a lumberjack,” he muttered. “That’s all they see.”
“Because that’s all you’ve let them see!” She put her hand on his arm, and he tensed but didn’t push her away. “Your carvings are extraordinary. They tell stories, capture emotion—they’re magic, Torin.”
He shook his head, but she could see the flicker of longing in his eyes.
“Please,” she said softly. “Just take a look at my ideas.”
Reluctantly, he took her sketchbook and flipped through her drawings—Narnia’s lamppost in a snowy wood, the round door to the Hobbit Hole, the vines curling around the handle of The Secret Garden, and the roses for The Little Prince.
“These are…” he paused, his finger tracing the outline of a doorway. “These are good.”
“And you could bring them to life. Your art deserves to be seen.” She could see the longing on his face as he stared down at the drawings. “What if… what if no one knows it’s yours?”
His head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t have to sign them. You don’t even have to be there for the installation. Nobody needs to know who made them except me and you.” She would much rather have announced his genius to the world, but if this was what it took to make him comfortable… “Your work will speak for itself, even if your name isn’t on it. The children will love it.”
“You really think they’ll like it?”
“I know they will.”
He was silent for a long moment, his internal struggle visible in the tension of his shoulders and the nervous flick of his tail. His resolve was weakening; she could see it in the softening around his eyes. But still he hesitated.
“No one needs to know it’s you,” she repeated gently. “But your art deserves to breathe, to live in the world. Not just in your workshop.”
He looked down at her, then, with a sigh that seemed to come from deep in his soul, he nodded.
“All right,” he said roughly. “But with conditions.”
“Name them.”
“We work on them here in my workshop. I don’t… I don’t want the town watching.”
“Of course,” she agreed immediately, understanding his need for privacy. “Whatever makes you comfortable.”
“I don’t want to go to the school, and my name stays off them.”
Her heart ached but she nodded. “If that’s what you want.” She smiled, then, and reached for his hand. “Thank you.”
He shrugged, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “You’re hard to say no to.”
“Then don’t say no again,” she said, rising up on tiptoes to kiss him.
“I won’t,” he whispered, and then his mouth was on hers and he was kissing her with the same hunger as before, his huge arms lifting her off her feet.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and he groaned, one hand slipping beneath her shirt to caress the smooth skin of her back, his touch sending shivers of delight racing across her skin. When his hand slipped under the waistband of her shorts to cup her ass, she gasped into his mouth.
