There was a pause, then, “No, Mom, I don’t— Look, it’s okay. I don’t know people here very well yet. I didn’t expect anyone to invite me over for the holiday. It’s…” Her voice grew slightly more muffled, as if she was walking away from the door. Her words were momentarily lost before she apparently walked closer again. “…People don’t like me very much here, I think, and that’s— I mean, it’s okay. I’m okay. But I’d rather spend the holiday by myself than around strangers who don’t really want me there, you know?”
Don’t like her?Clark’s arm slowly lowered. A pang of sadness made his chest ache.Who doesn’t like her? I don’t believe that’s possible.
Sure, she was different. Not orcish, for one. She dressed different. Spoke different. But everything he’d heard around town was that she was a nice, if unsociable woman who treated folks with respect when she visited their homesteads to listen to concerns or assess things.
There might have been some grumbling about an outsider taking over for Bob at first and definitely some loud speculation about her ability to live rural, but as far as he knew no onedislikedher.
The knowledge that she thought so made him want to scoop her up and whisk her off to the ranch. No one ought to feel so alone any time of the year, let alone during Burden’s Moon, when they were supposed to be celebrating community.
That was part of the reason he planned to invite her over — not just because he didn’t wantherto be alone, but because he didn’t want to be either.
His brothers had homes of their own, spread out over hundreds of miles, and his parents and sister had taken advantage of the ranch’s legally obligated fallow years by setting off in a caravan across the Orclind. Last he heard, they were joining the raucous festivities in Boulder, where the biggest Moon Festival took place every year.
Of course, he had standing invitations to join just about any table for the final, most important night of the month-long holiday, but Clark didn’t want to be with just anyone.
He wanted to be with the mysterious neighbor who’d be just as alone as him.
It broke his heart to hear her reassure her parents that she’d be all right when she so clearly wasn’t. She didn’t need to feel that way because it wasn’t true.Heliked her.Hewanted to spend the holiday with her.
His instinct said that he should knock on the door and tell her she was wrong, then insist on dinner. While he was almost certain he wanted the chance to court her, he would be just fine if she needed a friend.
Well, I’d be fine. My cock, on the other hand…
Even now, he felt a twinge below the belt at the sound of her voice and the faintest trace of her scent. Awareness skittered down his spine as a deep pressure built in his gut with every second that passed.
It was an anticipation he’d never experienced before — a bone-deep certainty that something was going to happen. He’d felt inklings of it for months, but standing there with only a wooden door between them, he wascertain.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, jackass.He scrubbed his gloved palm over his chilled face. It was a damn rookie mistake to start speculating about whether someone might be your mate or not. It was the surest way to build yourself up for a shitty fall. For all he knew, he was just really,reallyattracted to her.
He also happened to be a sucker for lost causes and broken things. His ancient truck. Animals no one else wanted. Friendless folks. Seamus, his surly older brother, called him a bleeding heart. That same bleeding heart had gotten him into trouble more than once.
Regardless, he wouldn’t know anything until he met her face to face.Which won’t be happening today, I think.
Clark let out a long, disappointed sigh. As much as he wanted to barge in and fix things for the colorful witch, he knew better than to encroach on a woman’s nest when she was feeling down. He wasn’t all that knowledgeable about witches, but an orcish woman was more likely to bite the nose off of your face than invite you in for tea when they were feeling raw.
Well, hopefully this will make her feel a little better,he thought as he dug her gift out of the inside of his coat. The paper crinkled under his work toughened hands.
Crouching to carefully lean it against the door, he tried to cheer himself up by imagining her face when she found it. Maybe she’d like it so much that when he came back around to invite her over, she’d say yes.
Weather allowing, I’ll swing back tomorrow,he silently promised her. Giving the door one last longing look, Clark zipped up his coat and hopped off of the porch into the howling storm.Stay warm, Nelly.
ChapterThree
It waswarm and dry and sparkling inside of her tiny cottage. She’d covered every available surface with electric candles, strung lights through the roof beams, draped her little fireplace in evergreen garlands netted with strings of faceted crystals, and put a pot of festive herbs to simmer on the stove. Every bit of visible wood was polished to a shine and all the soft, colorful things she loved were assembled in the living room portion of the cottage.
It should have made her feel better. It didn’t.
Nelly scrubbed her raw nose with a tissue before dropping her arm to dangle between her knees. She was sitting on her lemon yellow couch slightly slumped over, elbows braced on her knees, a tiny pile of presents she couldn’t bear to open beside her. Her phone sat where she’d dropped it on the arm of the couch.
“I don’t even reallycareabout the holiday,” she said to no one — or perhaps to the sister who was thirteen hundred miles away.
When they decided it was time for them to forge their own paths in the world, Nelly had been so sure that she would handle their separation better. She’d been the one to initiate the move, so very eager to discover her own place, her own sense of identity, after all. Clementine was the one who struggled the most, and she’d felt guilty about leaving her sister to fend for herself, but they had to do it sometime, didn’t they?
Big talker. Look at you! You made all this fuss and now you’re crying about it. Ridiculous.
Nelly gave her nose one last vicious scrub before she forced herself up onto her feet, clad in fuzzy slippers, to dispose of the tissue in her kitchen’s trash can. She stood in the tiny corner of the cottage dedicated to the kitchen for a moment, her gaze despondently sweeping over the beginnings of a grand, multi-day feast for one.
She’d been stalwartly refusing to wallow in any loneliness when she made her plans to decorate and cook for the holiday, but after the perhaps too-honest call with her parents, she couldn’t summon even an ounce of enthusiasm to cook.
