Page 6 of Some Like 'Em Burly
It doesn’t matter. She didn’t want to come home with me, so she’s none of my business.
I worry for her, though. In that farmhouse; in this valley. Under these people’s thumbs. Will it be any better for her with the Thomas boy?
If Gwen were mine, I’d never speak down to her. I’d never make her cower in a doorway or wrench on her arm. I’d lift her up; I’d treasure her; I’d craft her rings and trinkets in my furnace. And I’d compete with myself for how many smiles I can coax out of her each day.
Smiles… and other things.
Fuck, if she knew the things I want from her, a man nearly twice her age, she’d be horrified. She’d run from me screaming.
Now everywhere I look in my forge, there are reminders of her. I wander around the workspace, aimless and hollow, nudging at the things she left behind. The crumpled wicker basket, stained with blackberry juice and left abandoned on one side. My workbench, with my tools pushed to the ends so she could lay down. The mug she drank from; the tartan blanket I wrapped around her shoulders; the half-eaten chocolate bar I brought to get her blood sugar up.
I’m no doctor, but I took care of her. I did the best I could. I shouldn’t have put my hands on her like that, though—not even to check for broken bones, and not even when she woke up and let me do it.
So I deserve this. The whispers and turned backs; being shunned in the valley streets. If it weren’t for Gwen, I’d cut my losses and leave. Plenty of places need blacksmiths, and starting over is as easy as breathing.
But the thought of moving away from the farmer’s daughter—it guts me. Scrapes out my insides. Because without Gwen around… well. What’s it all for?
* * *
The knock on my door jolts me from yet another daydream. This one, I’ve been playing over and over in my head for the last few days: Gwen Roberts stretched out on my workbench, firelight flickering over her bare skin, my sooty hand prints leaving trails up and down her creamy curves—
Thump. Thump.
I push to my feet with a sigh, palms pressed into my kitchen table. I’ll probably never know how it ends.
Late afternoon sunshine spills through the windows as I cross my kitchen, and birds twitter faintly through the glass. But my heart is heavy as I stride to my front door, and I swear to god, if one more villager has come to warn me away from his wife and daughters, I don’t knowwhatI’ll say. I’m not fucking interested in any of them, and even if I were, I’m no predator.
“Yes?” I jerk the door open then freeze. Gwen stands waiting, twisting her dark skirt between her hands, and tearing my eyes away from the flashes of bare knee is the hardest thing I’ve done in days.
Bright blue eyes wait for me, warm and worried. “Rhys Evans. Um. Hi.”
I raise an eyebrow, chest thumping. This can’t be good.
“Yes?” I repeat.
I don’t mean to be unkind but this girl is terrible for my self control, and the last thing I need right now is more rumors. Especially when she walked here dressed likethat, her skirt whipping around her legs in the breeze and her gray sweater clinging to her hourglass curves. Bare, smooth calves showing above her cracked leather boots. Her cheeks are flushed, and freckles spread over her nose from the sun.
“I, um. I’m sorry to bother you, Mr Evans.” Gwen cringes, tripping over her words, and I hate that I make her so nervous. She never needs to be afraid of me.
My palm lifts. “Slow down, cariad. Tell me slowly what you need.”
I shouldn’t call her that, shouldn’t pretend that she’s mine, but now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. And every time I say it, a pink tinge spreads over her cheeks.
“I…” As her words stall, Gwen’s eyes roam down my chest. Lingering on the buttons of my faded black shirt like she could flick them open by gaze alone. Fucking hell.
“Gwen.”
She flinches. “Sorry. I, um, wanted to ask for your advice. I know you moved here all alone, started over just like that, and I’m trying to find my own place to rent in the valley. And to get a job. Except it’s kind of confusing if you’ve never done it before, and I can’t exactly ask my family for help, and so…”
She trails off, gazing up at me with so much hope. I press my front door wider, heart squeezing. “Come in.”
She’s moving out. Gwen tells me all about it over a mug of steaming tea, dunking the biscuits I give her into the milky fluid. She chatters so brightly, spilling over with enthusiasm, and I’m beginning to think she talks so freely like this with me, a near stranger, because no one else will listen.
I fucking hate that. Those people don’t know what a treasure they have.
“And if I stay, they’ll definitely keep nagging me to marry the Thomas boy, and even if I refuse I just know I’ll grow old and die on that farm without ever living my own life. And I’m twenty one, you know? I shoulddothings. I should go places. I should…”
“Be respected in your home.”
