His warm palms on my hips, he pressed his forehead against mine. “Be careful, pretty mate.”
“You too, cowboy.”
With a final lingering look, he headed toward the back, Tressa watching him go before settling herself near my feet with a soft huff.
I patted her head. “Let’s start making this place look like a pottery barn again, shall we?”
She’d been my constant shadow since we met, and now her presence was a comfort I was grateful to have nearby. No one and nothing would get past this wolf.
I began sorting through the boxes, separating salvageable pieces from those beyond repair. To my surprise and relief, many pieces had survived the destruction intact.
“Look at this one, Tressa.” I lifted a small bowl glazed in deep forest green with gold speckles. “Not even a chip.”
The wolf padded over, sniffing the piece before looking up at me with what seemed like approval.
I set the bowl on a shelf, then bent to retrieve a set of matching mugs, their handles miraculously intact. Hail told me he’d made these last month, the clay mixed with fine sand to create a speckled texture beneath the glaze that caught the light when turned. Each had a slightly different pattern of blues and greens swirling together like miniature oceans captured in clay.
“The tourists are going to love these.” I carefully arranged them on a high shelf, though we didn’t have much intact shelving left. “Vacation souvenirs that’ll hold their favorite tea or morning coffee.”
Tressa’s paws thudded on the wooden floor as she followed me around the room, sometimes coming so close that I nearly tripped over her. She’d pause to investigate a particular pile of debris, sniffing before moving on, her tail swishing behind her.
“Personal space, Tressa,” I said, stepping around her to reach a fallen display. “I know you’re protecting me, but I can’t clean if I can’t move.”
She gave me a look that clearly said protection took precedence over tidiness but shifted slightly to give me more room to work.
I continued my cleanup, feeling a small thrill of victory with each unbroken piece I found. A tall, slender vase with a delicate neck that Hail had decorated with flowing abstract patterns in copper and turquoise. A set of small plates with leaf impressions pressed into their centers before being glazed in warm amber.A whimsical tea set with spouts shaped like dragon heads, their glazed scales shimmering in shades of purple and silver.
The pottery represented months of work, hours of careful crafting and firing and glazing. Each piece held a bit of Hail’s soul, his patience and creativity captured in clay and fire. Seeing so many survive the destruction felt like a small victory against Will and his thugs.
I moved to a corner where a display case had fallen, carefully lifting it upright again. Beneath it lay an intact collection of miniature animal figurines, Hail’s special project for children who visited the barn. Tiny sorhoxes and chumbles, wolves and rabbits, each small enough to fit in a child’s palm but detailed enough to capture the essence of the animal.
“Look, Tressa, your little clay cousin survived.” I held up a wolf figurine, its pose alert and watchful, remarkably similar to my furry companion’s current stance.
Tressa sniffed at it, then gave my hand a lick.
I carefully wrapped and placed the collection in a box to be put out later, remembering how Hail’s face lit up when young visitors marveled at his creations. For all his size and strength, he had the gentlest touch with both clay and children.
The floor gradually emerged from beneath the debris as I worked, the scattered destruction transforming back into something resembling order. The familiar scents of clay and glazes mingled with the sharper smell of broken pottery dust, creating an atmosphere that was both comforting and slightly off-kilter.
Sunlight shifted through the windows as the morning progressed, painting golden paths across the wooden floor. The barn creaked and settled around us, the timbers warming in the day’s heat.
Tressa’s bed in the corner had somehow escaped the destruction, the thick blanket still neatly folded where she likedto curl up during pottery lessons. I straightened it out of habit, though I knew she’d rearrange it to her liking before settling.
For a moment, the normalcy of the task made me forget why we were really here, that this peaceful scene was bait in a trap, that somewhere outside these walls, Will’s people were watching, waiting to try to grab me.
I stepped back to assess my progress, brushing pottery dust from my hands. The main floor was mostly clear now, the salvageable pieces arranged on shelves and tables. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
“Hey, Hail?” I called toward the back door. “I think I’ve got the main area decent now. Want to see how it looks?”
No answer came from the kiln room.
“Hail?” I called again, a little louder. “You back there?”
Silence.
Worry pricked along my spine. He’d said he’d check in every fifteen minutes, and it had been at least twenty since I’d last heard from him.
“Come on, Tressa. Let’s go see what he’s up to.” His head was probably buried inside the kiln, and he couldn’t hear me.
