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I don’t know what to do with that. Praise I can handle. Gratitude, too. This—this feels like something else entirely.
“Thank you,” I manage, though my voice feels thinner than I’d like. “That… means more than you ken.”
“I suspect it means exactly what it ought to,” she replies. “You deserve to have people in yer life that praise even the smallest of yer achievements.” She squeezes my arm once, firm and warm.
“Enjoy the day, love,” she adds gently. “Ye’ve earned that much, and more.”
Then she turns back to her basket and moves away, leaving the air altered behind her, as if a few quiet sentences have nudged some careful part of me out of place and left me no way to set it right again.
I make myself useful because usefulness is familiar, and familiarity keeps me steady. I can surely keep myself busy enough not to think about anything else.
Not about James Sinclair and his mouth.
Not about the way my body has betrayed me since that moment on the ridge.
I turn my mind elsewhere.
I count bundles of birch until the numbers blur together. I retie ribbons that are already secure because they don’t please me. I correct a girl hanging rowan upside down more sharply than she deserves. I carry baskets of oatcakes out to the yard and back again, because if my hands are full, my thoughts have less room to wander where they ought not.
By the time the first shouts rise for the games, my shoulders ache and my feet throb dully inside my boots, and I welcome the pain for the way it anchors me in my body.
The men have that restless spark they always get when there’s an audience and an excuse to show off. Children weave through the crowd underfoot like pups, shrieking and laughing, impossible to catch. Women gather in bright shawls and practical skirts, calling to one another over the noise, trading gossip far too easily.
There’s already ale being served, despite the fact it isn’t yet evening.
I’m surprised to find James’s father, Taskill, setting the cask down himself. For once, he isn’t counting cups or minding who pours too freely. He’s letting it flow.
He spots me before I can slip away and comes toward me with his arms spread wide, laughing under his breath like he’s already halfway into the spirit of the day. There’s a flush high on his cheeks that tells on him at once, and I can’t help the small chuckle that slips out.
Taskill Sinclair has had a bit to drink. Early, too. That alone is something worth noticing.
He stops in front of me, solid as ever, and tips his head toward the house as if it’s the centre of the world.
“Ye’ve been a great help to my wife,” he says, nodding toward the house. “She doesnae move as easy as she once did. But I’ve no’ seen her this pleased in months.”
His gaze lingers a moment in that direction, softening in a way that makes it clear he’s thinking of her, not the work. Then he looks back at me. “Ye’ve done us good, bein’ here.”
A protest rises in me, but he lifts a hand, not unkindly. “It takes a certain sort of woman to steady a room the way you do.” His eyes flick briefly toward James across the yard, then back to me. “My son’d count himself a fortunate man to find a wife half as capable as you.”
His words send heat straight to my face, less from the compliment, and more from the image it conjures. I lower my eyes, wishing I could receive kindness without wearing the whole of it across my cheeks.
Taskill grunts, as though he’s flustered by his own sincerity, then steps in and pulls me into a hug that’s solid and quick, smelling faintly of wood smoke and ale.
It’s firm and brief, a father’s sort of embrace, and he gives me a solid pat between the shoulders before letting go.
He pulls back with a broad, almost boyish grin. “Make him fight damn hard for it,” he says, eyes bright with mischief.
A scoffing laugh slips out of me.
He jerks his chin toward James across the yard, pride plain as day. “But be warned… Once that lad sets his sights on somethin’, he doesnae let go easy. I didnae raise him to do so.”
There’s a challenge in his eyes, but warmth too, as if he’s both daring me and welcoming me all at once.
I shake my head at him, folding my arms, though I can feel my smile betraying me. “You and missus are an awful pair for meddlin’, d’ye ken that?”
He winks, then turns on his heel and strides off toward the cask, already calling for someone to fetch another cup as if he and his wife haven’t turned me half inside out in the space of an afternoon.
Bealtaine has a way of making too much of everything. Too much noise. Too much heat. Too much feeling pressed into one night, as though fire and tradition could make holy what men have already soured by the way they live the rest of the year.
