Gwendoline’s breath catches, but she shrugs one shoulder, so casual. “I wouldn’t know.”

Shit. I knew that, knew she has a rough time at home, but hearing it plain as day makes my hands ball into fists. What are her parents thinking, trampling her spirit the way they do? Even though she’s a grown young woman, it clearly bothers her. So why doesn’t she leave?

Maybe she’s too loyal. Or maybe Gwendoline thinks she has nowhere to go, but that’s not true. Not at all. Though we’ve barely exchanged ten sentences in the last two years, though I’m nothing but the gruff, surly blacksmith to her, she could come here. She could run to me.

She could always run to me. She certainly does often enough in my dreams.

“Lie there a little while longer.” Gwendoline blinks up at me from my workbench, hot-cheeked and shy, and I tell myself sternly not to get used to it. I’ll drive her home in a few hours, and then I’ll barely see her again. As it should be. “You took a real tumble back there. Warm up while I brew us some tea.”

Three

Gwen

Of all the daydreams I’ve cooked up about the blacksmith, riding in his flatbed truck through the valley late at night was not one of them. But the joke’s on me, because the stars are glimmering overhead in newly cleared skies, and the bumpy dirt road keeps jostling me against his hard shoulder, and every word spoken between us in the dark sounds like a confession.

“Your father won’t be happy with me.” Rhys states it as a fact, frowning straight ahead with a grim expression as the truck engine rumbles beneath us. And what’s that supposed to mean? All the blacksmith has done is look out for me; he’s saved me from my own foolishness, and now he’s bringing me home safe and sound.

“He should thank you.” I swallow, throat tight. “I should thank you. I had no business poking around your forge, and now I’ve caused you nothing but trouble.”

Rhys is silent. I stare at him in the shadows, watching the muscle flex in his bearded jaw. His gray eyes are light against his olive skin, glued to the road ahead, and heavy lines crease the corners of his eyes.

I mean, is he really so much older than me? Less than twice my age, definitely. Is that truly so messed up?

“Thank you, Rhys Evans,” I press.

“Don’t.” His big hands grip the steering wheel, knuckles pale beneath their constant layer of soot. “Don’t thank me, Gwendoline. I have no honor when it comes to you.”

Now if that were true, I wouldn’t be the most restless girl in the valley, but here I am dying of happiness every time the truck throws me against the blacksmith’s arm. He’s so big and burly, a tower of rocks in the driver’s seat, and every brush of contact makes my heart pound like crazy.