“You’re fine.” I go bug-eyed at the slip. “I meanI’mfine. It’s all fine. Everything’s fine.”
I never realized I had a pulsein my face. I must be the color of a tomato.
“Are you thirsty?”
Thirsty.
I chuckle like a middle-schooler at the modern innuendo. Callum doesn’t know how close to the truth he is. I rub my temples, trying not to cringe at myself. I need to be planning how to get home, not getting awkward with my one ally.
I shake my head. “Not thirsty.”
He looks a little confused but shrugs it off. “You’ve only to say the word. ’Tis hot as Hades here by the forge. When I’ve smithying to do, I try to do it first thing, when it’s coolest.”
That’s when I register the scene. He’s gripping a giant set of steel tongs in one hand and a hammer in the other. Beside him, an anvil. On top, a horseshoe glows orange, still smoldering.
“Oh, right,” I say, stating the obvious. “Smithy. You’re a blacksmith.”
“I’m many things.” He sets down his hammer and uses the tongs to pick up the horseshoe and slide it into a wide cauldron. Flames burst along the surface of the liquid.
“Wait, what’s in there?” I brave a step closer, momentarily forgetting the slick, sooty male bicep in my line of sight. “Is that water?”
“Och, no.” He tilts his body to give me a better look, turning the horseshoe left and right before pulling it out again. “Water would splinter the metal. Weaken it. You quench metal with oil.”
He twirls his hammer and offers it to me, handle out. “Fancy a go?”
“Uh, no thanks.”
“You certain?” A grin tugs the corner of his mouth. “No offense, Rosie, but you look like you might enjoy giving something a good wallop.”
A laugh bursts from me.
His comment, my laugh—it’s all such a strange surprise.
“So, Callum.” I say his name just to bring his eyes to me. It feels unexpectedly good on my tongue. “You’re not angry at me?”
“Angry?”
“Well, you didn’t stay at the cottage this morning. You didn’t even eat.”
“Ah, that.” He looks away, but there’s a smile in his eyes. “I knew if I left, Donag would pack me a wee sack and send you to deliver it. This is better, is it not?”
What is happening?
Is this…flirting?
With a seventeenth-century blacksmith?
Maybe this is just his normal self. I barely know him. Maybe this is just Callum being Callum, trying to put me at ease.
I thought he’d be mad at me. Mad is so much less complicated.
I try again. “I thought you hated me.”
“Only a fool would think that. And I didnae take you for a fool.”
I can’t help it. I push. “But I’m trapped here because of you two.”
Some essential light in his expression shutters. “Because of Donag,” he says slowly. He pauses. “And she meant to summon Janet.” Then, softer, “As for me, I’m not what you think.”
