Page 44 of The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells
Cora hobbles out of the cottage slowly, closing the door with a quiet click, like a visiting ghost. She came to speak to Carrie about Howard, but instead of being able to ease her mind by having that conversation, her worries have doubled. She mutters to herself, frustrated with her own mind, how it wanders back and forth far more than it ever used to. First Howard, now memories of that last fight with Ivy, now Carrie, her Carrie, and the curse that seems to have settled over her.
“Where are you, my girl?” she asks the air, the frost. “Where have you gone with him?”
Chapter 35
Carrie
“Are you sure you want it all...” Matthieu holds up the tin of paint... “timeless?”
“Sure,” I say, tipping a glob of off-white paint into the tray. I move the roller up and down in the tray to coat it with the paint, then move to the nearest wall in the kitchen. I glance at the place where I left the to-do list on the counter and smile at the note Matthieu scrawled along the bottom. “I’d rather it was a blank canvas.”
“For you, or for a purchaser?”
I pause, resting the roller on the wall, and turn to him. “I guess... well.”
He smiles, eyes glinting. “You’re considering keeping it.”
“I...” I swallow, staring around at the lounge.
“You don’t have to make a decision straightaway.” Matthieu shrugs, grabbing the edging brush. He’s doing the cutting in for the first two walls, and I’ll do the final two.
“All right, well, you know I told you last week when we were ice-skating how I feel... rooted here?” I hesitate, but decide to tell him. “It’s partly the cottage. I’ve fallen in love with it. But it’s also you.”
“Me?” he says, eyes darting to mine.
“You.”
He looks away, but I catch his grin. “That’s not a terrible thing, I guess.”
“What about you?” I ask way too casually. “Are you going to stay for a while? When spring comes, I mean.”
His grin dissolves into a frown as his gaze drops to the paintbrush in his hand. “I don’t know yet, Carrie.”
“Is it work elsewhere, or—”
“I’m torn. Let’s put it like that,” he says. Then he leans toward me, those inky eyes glittering and brilliant. “I think you’ve got a little something there...”
“Oh,” I say, wiping my hand down my cheek. It comes away with a streak of white paint and I laugh. “How does this stuff get everywhere?”
I only just catch his grin before he flicks his paintbrush, splattering my arm and hip. “Looks like you’ve got some there too.”
I chuckle, checking out the flecks on my old denim dungarees and long-sleeve top, then raise my eyebrows at him. Reaching out with the roller, I paint down his chest. “Oops.”
His grin cracks wide as he drops the paintbrush and closes the distance between us. My heart stutters, heat flooding me as his hands rest on my hips, pulling me closer. “I think you did that on purpose.”
The roller hangs limp in my left hand as his mouth comes down to mine. His kisses are soft at first, lips fluttering against mine, but I want more. More of him, more of this winter, and I drop the roller to the floor, move my fingers to his jawline, his hair, and deepen the kiss between us. His hands move around my waist, circling the small of my back, the length of his body pressing into mine. I groan, and his mouth moves to my throat as I arch my back, electricity crackling between us.
Then he pulls away. His hands leave my body, and he steps back, putting too much space between us. He’s breathing heavily, eyes dark with desire as they lock with mine. “This can’t bethe first time, Carrie. Not like this. Not”—he casts around—“covered in paint in this cold room.”
I nod, pushing back my hair, my whole body still pulsing. I place my head in my hands and groan loudly. “You’re right. You’re right—”
“When it happens...” he says, taking a step back toward me to thread his fingers through mine, that intense gaze never leaving my face, “I want to take my time.”
I swallow, look up at him, and feel the ground shift beneath me. “You know I have at least a three-date rule.”
He chuckles, eyes glittering as he brushes one final kiss over my mouth. “I think we both know this has gone far beyond dating, and I promise you, I’m thinking about staying. I really am.”
I spend the rest of the afternoon highly aware of him. Of myself. Of the air between us, crackling and heavy as we move around each other, painting the kitchen and then the lounge. And I realize that you can belong with a person as much as you belong to a place. Matthieu is the one I want to belong with.
