“Do ye like Erica?” she asked and drew the blanket higher over Katie’s shoulder.
“Aye,” Bettie said at once.
“Aye,” Katie answered, just as quick. “She listens.”
Bettie nodded earnestly. “She laughs with us. She doesnae talk like we are wee.”
“She smells like flowers,” Katie said, then looked embarrassed. “Just a bit.”
“She doesnae yell,” Bettie added.
Sheena hummed. “That is good.”
Bettie started over on the braid. Katie watched her hands and tried not to sigh.
Sheena let the small talk sit for a beat, then asked as if the thought had just come,“Do ye think she will stay?”
Silence, small and real, ensued. The girls looked at each other. Bettie’s mouth tilted. Katie’s shoulders rose and fell.
“I daenae think so,” Bettie said.
Katie shook her head. “Nay.”
“Why?” Sheena asked, her words devoid of any kind of trap.
Bettie tugged the braid loose again and stared at the ribbons on the blanket. “She looks like someone who might leave,” she said.
Katie picked up a ribbon and smoothed it. “She is careful,” she said.
Sheena nodded once. Alex was not doing a good job of hiding this arrangement if he thought no one else could see through it. She knew her grandson. He wouldn’t bring a woman home from the festival without a good reason.
Now, even her great-grandchildren had picked up on it.
“Do ye think their betrothal is real?”
Both heads moved the same way. A side-to-side that saidno,andI am sorry.
“We want it to be,” Bettie said, voice small.
“Aye,” Katie said. “We like her.”
Sheena reached for the loose braid and helped Bettie set three even strands.“Sometimes grown-ups are afraid of happiness,” she said.
She felt the room shift to her. Two pairs of eyes landed on her face.
“They think wanting a thing makes it thin. They hold it far away because they have lost it before.”
The girls were very still.
“It doesnae always make sense,” Sheena said gently. “Fear of the unknown rarely does. Yer da thinks of keeping our house safe. He forgets to let our house be happy. We need to help them realize they want each other.”
Bettie swallowed. “If we help, will it hurt?”
“Helping doesnae mean pushing,” Sheena said. “It never means being unkind. Ye daenae trick. Ye onlymakeroom.”
“How?” Katie asked.
A gentle smile curved Sheena’s lips. “Oh, me dear little darlings, I thought ye would never ask.”
