“You’re going to bring Old Lady Cowen running in, making noises like that,” he teased.
Greer cupped his cheek, pleased with how his beard prickled, and snorted as she pictured the widowed seamstress bursting in, brandishing a pair of scissors, ready to snip the inflamed couple apart. “Do you ever feel like the entire town still thinks us children?”
He pressed a kiss to the center of her palm and shrugged. “I suppose, till after the Hunt, we are.”
“If we had just run in the last one”—her hand fell as a wave of bitter melancholy washed over her—“we’d be married. We’d have children of our own already. But instead….” She waggled a crooked, admonishing finger at him, approximating the widowed Cowen. She bit the inside of her cheek. “It’s my fault—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Ellis kissed her, silencing her worries.
“None of that,” he said. “You were in no shape to be thinking of anything but Ailie.”
“But you were,” she countered, sinking into a pool of guilt so deepshe wanted to cry. “You were ready. You could have run and found some other, a girl who doesn’t hear things she shouldn’t, a girl who isn’t strange—”
“Greer.” Her name on his lips was enough to stop the anxious spiral. He tilted her face to his so that their eyes met. “Why would I ever settle for some girl when I have you? I would wait a thousand years if I had to. Happily. Joyfully. It was never a hardship. Never,” he emphasized, squeezing her hands.
She could only stare, caught in a strong current of too many emotions. Shame and gratitude, guilt and wonder, and so many shades of love. Each demanded to be acknowledged and felt in equal measure, all fighting to come to the forefront of her inner storm.
Ground yourself.
The memory of Ailie’s voice cut through the turmoil.
When things are overwhelming, ground yourself in truths.
Greer took a deep, centering breath. With Ellis, there was only ever one truth that mattered.
“I love you.” She stood on her tiptoes, feeling strangely shy as she pressed a quick kiss to the cheek of the man she’d loved for more than a decade. “Always.”
“Always,” he agreed and a light flickered in his eyes. “I forgot to tell you: something special came in today.”
He crossed behind the counter, and Greer followed, watching him take a loaf of bread from the case and set it on a length of brown paper.
“Is that cinnamon chip?” Greer asked with surprise. It had been an age since the bakery had had the spice in stock.
“Tywynn was able to talk that merchant captain out of an entire case of sticks.” He wiped his hands on the apron. “I baked a batch this afternoon. I know Hessel is partial to it.”
“His favorite.”
Ellis hesitated. “With all the trouble at the mill earlier, I thought he’d appreciate a slice or two.”
“Trouble?” Greer echoed as a bolt of alarm spiked through her.
Though Greer was kept away from the mill’s chaos, she knew the work was hard and dangerous. The yard was cluttered with stacks of enormous felled trees and jaggedly toothed saws. The waterwheelchurned constantly, never stopping, even on feast days. Great cogs and stampers whirred, and the gristmill sometimes spat out wayward shards of wood. Accidents happened—crushed legs, sliced hands, punctured sides. Hessel himself could only boast of nine fingers and seven toes, but Greer knew he considered himself lucky. Other men—men like Ellis’s father, John—lost far more than that.
“Is everyone all right?”
“Everyone’s fine, physically, I’m sure.” Ellis tied off the wrapped loaf with a bow of striped twine. “Only…the schooner.”
Greer remembered the empty Narrows. “They didn’t stay long.”
Ellis shook his head. “From what I heard, the captain offered far too low a price for the lumber.” He stopped, letting the words he didn’t say fill in the story’s gaps.
Greer pictured how it must have played out. Ayaan’s stony silence. Hessel’s face red with insult, then rage. “Father wouldn’t have taken that well.”
Wordlessly, Ellis handed her the bread.
Greer clutched it to her chest; it was still warm from the oven. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate your kindness.”
Doubt darkened Ellis’s eyes.
