Tasia waited outside the door for quite a bit after knocking. When the hag did condescend to open the door, she snagged the basket and disappeared again for several minutes. During the wait, Tasia seemed to notice the various bits of forest she was wearing. Her employer’s dawdling allowed Tasia to remove all the debris, then finger-comb and re-braid her radiant hair.
The crone eventually returned with the presumably empty basket. Tasia made her farewell. It looked cute and bouncy, even from a distance. Mitch probably imagined it, but good ol’ Granny seemed to have a malicious twinkle in her eye as she watched her delivery girl waltz back to the safe embrace of the trees. It was highly improbable that he was visible, but Mitch held absolutelystill until the door to the cottage was shut with the old woman on the inside.
“I remembered to get the empty basket this time,” Tasia chirped in triumph. She held the basket aloft as though he would understand her victory.
Disregarding her incomprehensible words, he turned to lead her back toward Boschivo. Not five steps onto the path, her stomach rumbled loudly.
“Now would be a good time to eat your lunch,” he felt prompted to say after a second growl. “I won’t think you’re being rude.”
Silence, then a third belly groan, were his only answer. He turned around to find Tasia holding her stomach with one hand while wearing a sheepish grin.
“I . . . sort of forgot to pack a lunch,” she admitted.
Mitch was flummoxed. “It’s at least a four-hour journey for you.”
She cleared her throat delicately. Everything about this woman was soft and vulnerable. How had she survived to adulthood?
“Last week, I was too concerned with memorizing my guide’s directions on the way there to worry about my stomach.” She flushed, then looked down to mutter, “And too creeped out by the other guy.”
A surge of protectiveness flared in Mitch. Unsure what to do with the foreign feeling, he dismissed it.
“Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Tasia asked. She displayed an alarming amount of trust by following him without hesitation.
“Town.”
“Boschivo?”
“No.”
Tasia seemed to accept that he had no more to say on the subject and held her tongue. He led them in a wide loop around Granny’s place. No sense letting her know their whereabouts. Which reminded him.
“Did you tell Grandmother that I’m with you?” Mitch looked her in the eye as he asked.
She shook her head with wide, solemn eyes. He gave a grunt of approval. Maybe she had a few instincts after all.
Their roundabout trek soon landed them at the outskirts of a town much bigger than Tasia’s village. Attached to a main caravan route, it saw plenty of strangers. Mitch instructed the naive woman to stay in the woods until he got back. She smiled when he promised that it wouldn’t take long.
Mitch hurried through his errand, unhappy with himself for worrying about the person who was blackmailing him. The band around his gut loosened when he found her exactly where he left her.
“Here.” He held out a packet of food.
Tasia took it and opened the wrapping. She looked up at him in surprise. “You don’t need to spend money on me. It was my own silly mistake.”
“If you pass out, I’m not carrying you.”
A tinkling laugh cascaded from her pretty lips. Mitch found it pleasant, then frowned because he was not going to let her imprint on him like a duckling.
“Thank you, Mitch.”
The sound of his name spoken kindly produced a contrary response. He grabbed the basket she was struggling to hold while eating and stomped back in the direction they needed to go. Mitch thought he heard a faint snicker, but without the benefit of his wolf hearing, he couldn’t be sure.
The basket was also heavier than it should have been, so he stole a peek under the cloth. He almost let out a whistle ofapproval. Whatever Granny was playing at, she definitely paid well. With a different delivery person, he was pretty sure the unspoken request for silence would be honored. He doubted Tasia understood that she was being bribed.
The rest of the trip went much like the first leg. Tasia remained silent only for as long as it took to eat her lunch. Then she chatted about whatever came to mind. Now and then, she asked him a question in a transparent effort to engage him in conversation. Mitch didn’t mind as much as he would have expected because she respected his decision not to play along and didn’t pout or whine. That was a vast improvement from his interactions with the young ladies in the village.
Mitch deposited her within sight of Boschivo. When she assured him that she could find her way from there, he melted back into the woods after refusing her offer of payment. Taking money from his blackmailer would make the whole situation messier.
