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She breathed hard through her nose.

“My thumbs distinguish me from beasts of the field.”

“I know. You stuck a thumb in my eye once.”

“There was a bug.”

“That’s what you said at the time. But I’d just bested you in a footrace.”

“During which you’d run through a cloud of midges.”

“A flimsy excuse for an act of rancorous aggression.”

She misbuttoned again and nearly bit her tongue in frustration. Her thumbs weren’t doing her a world of good at present.

“I wasn’t comparing you to a mule physically,” he continued. “On the contrary. You’re a young woman, and instead of living in a shed, you deserve⁠—”

She cut him off. “To think, when you first brought up my cottage, I expected an apology.” She forced a laugh. “More reasonable to expect a dragon.”

“This is an apology. I’m apologizing.”

“Oh? In that case, we’ve discovered something you navigate more poorly than balloons and boats.”

He turned all the way around, caught himself, and turned halfway back.

“You can look,” she muttered, flushing. “I’m decent.”

He turned again, and he did look, eyes raking her up and down.

Decent, yes. But disheveled. She fought the urge to tug at her garments, to straighten and smooth.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and came toward her. He’d pushed up his sleeves, and her eyes locked on his forearm, the veins snaking beneath the tanned skin. “I’ll pay for a proper cottage, with windows. Windowsills. For flowers.”

“My father would prefer if you paid for a new barn.”

“The money is for you.”

Her breath caught. “I won’t take your money. You can replace the books that burned. I’d borrowed them from the minister.”

“I’m replacing everything. You’d made a home. I made it charcoal.” He was watching her closely. “Let me make amends.”

Whatever he read in her face made him frown.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said. “I want⁠—”

He broke off with a suddenness that sent a ripple through her body. How could his broken phrase, his sudden inhalation, create this quake inside her?

She met his gaze. He stood very near. She could see the faint lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes. He laughed more than she knew. Or he’d flown too close to the sun too often in his balloon. Twenty thousand feet closer than her.

She felt as though she were standing in the center of the sun right now. No, she felt as though she were the sun, white-hot and hungry and big enough to burn the world.

He looked dazed, his pupils pinpricks.

I want . . .

He wanted to kiss her.

Kissing—it was an inevitability. They were two leaping flames destined to merge, here, now.