Page 50 of Bound

He tilted his head slightly. “They would not?”

Wren shook her head slowly, relatively sure of herself. Hating that she wasn’t.

Her mother had been her friend. Her best friend. And there would not have been questions about oiling fences or any other of the menial tasks that made up their life here.

They would have been tackled together. Just as they always had been.

It was different when the friend wasn’t a relation, wasn’t it? When the work did nothing to benefit anyone but... her.

She thought of Firen. They were friends, weren’t they? From Firen’s tenacity alone, perhaps, but it counted. And she could not imagine Firen doing anything with her fence, let alone spend the day in the hot suns oiling it.

“I would not ask it of them,” she clarified.

His brow pulled upward. “Even if they wanted to? You would deny them?”

She was growing exasperated, and the urge to disappear back into the house was strong. “This is ridiculous,” she groused. “If you would like me to hire you as a labourer, I would say no thank you. I haven’t the coin.” He opened his mouth, and she held up her hand to stop him. “I do not need your pity. I am merely being truthful.” She wanted to close her eyes, to hide away and not finish the rest, but that was because of her pride. And what did she have left of that, anyway? “And if I had any friends,” she continued, her voice quiet even as she tried to keep it firm. “I would not squander their efforts on something like that. Not when I’m certain they have plenty to attend to in their own homes.”

He turned around, and for a moment, she thought he meant to leave. Her stomach gave an uncomfortable twist, but she stood firm because that was better, wasn’t it? They would never agree on this. And she simply did not trust his motivations.

But he stalled. Raised his head upward and said nothing. While she waited with a furrowed brow and a hint of concern that perhaps she should apologise. No, she believed everything she’d said. But... smooth things over in some way.

“I do not understand,” he said at last. He did not turn. Did not acknowledge her in any way, and she almost wondered if she was meant to hear it at all. “Why this must be so difficult.”

She did not mean to bristle, yet she did. “Pardon?”

He turned then. Grim-faced, jaw tight. “I am sorry,” he began again. “I am sorry that you cannot recognise help when it is offered freely. I am sorry that the idea of friendship is so foreign to you. That you find it so incredible that I should like to be here. To share your company and your labours and enjoy fresh bread that I did not have to haggle for at the market or nick from my sister.”

The last she could understand. It had nothing to do with capability or coin, just... the simple pleasure of not having to do it for oneself.

Her shoulders slumped just a little. And she found herself a little steadier, even as his words and his tone stung. He was annoyed with her, that much was evident. And perhaps it wasn’t for her to decide if he had a right to it.

She smoothed her hands down her skirt, feeling chastened. “You’re right,” she murmured softly. Repeated at his look of surprise. “I... I don’t know how this works. Perhaps you have a whole host of friends that would think nothing of felling one of your groves simply because you needed it done.”

His hand came to the back of his neck and rubbed at it lightly. “I would not go so far,” he amended. “And I do not want to speak for others. Just... myself. And I would like to do this for you.”

She could not hide her befuddlement. Wanted to ask him why, wanted to make sense of this in some other way than a lifetime of experience supplied.

He was using her in some manner. Perhaps a law she did not know. That the land would be hers no longer if he worked a percentage. That he would take it, would turn on her, that his guise of friendship was simply that and she would regret this, regret all this again and...

“You’ll hurt yourself,” Braum commented, a little chagrined, his eyes full of worry. “If you keep tugging like that.”

She glanced down, only to find her hand tightly curled about her braid, and she released it at once. How many times had her mother chided her for the same action? She could not possibly put a number to it.

She turned, hand on the latch to go back inside. She did not need his chastisement, just as she did not need his sweet talk of friendship that was doubtlessly all lies.

Yet she hesitated. Because he had been good to her thus far. Had done as he’d said, even as now he pushed for more. “I’m glad,” Wren tried gently, her throat tight and her heart racing. “That you’ve had friends. I’m glad that you’ve known people that would make an offer like that and you’d accept it. That you can just... decide that you like a person and their home and want to visit.”

She went inside. Sat at her kitchen table and knew her mother would be disappointed in her. That she’d been rude to shut the door without things settled between them.

But she’d done it, anyway.

She felt strangely chilled, despite the warm day. Felt numb in ways that felt like when she’d discovered Mama’s body.

When she’d gone to the market for the first time, alone.

When the gossip swirled even as she’d made the first terrible confirmation that it would just be her from then on.

Or later still. When she’d thought she would go mad from the loneliness, the weighty depths of her grief and the prospect of it never changing, never relenting, just going on and on until she...

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