Chapter 9 #2
Ginger got up, stretched, and made her way over to Conrad, who scooped her up onto his lap and began petting her absentmindedly with his free hand.
Thea smiled at the sight. Ginger would be happy today.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” she called out to him as she went out to the compost pile with her container of scraps. She didn’t have her own chickens, so the compost pile got the bulk of it.
Someday, perhaps, she would get chickens. It might be nice to have the fresh eggs…but for now, she was happy with her compost pile. It took care of her food scraps and didn’t require her to take care of it daily.
She paused at the doorway and took in a deep breath, the warmth of the day having barely begun.
She sometimes missed the hustle and bustle of the city, but nothing could compare to the quiet of a summer morning—when the sun was just barely beginning to rise and there were only a few folks out and about.
Just her and the sunrise, and Conrad occasionally coming in early to prepare for the school day.
She hurried back inside as the neighbor’s rooster crowed. The blacksmith would be stopping by shortly, and she ought to be there when he did, and then she had to start the pot of soup for tonight’s dinner.
While she had fewer visitors for dinner now than she had in the early years, there were still people who preferred her establishment to the tavern. And she liked to have something delicious prepared for them—and for herself.
Chicken soup sounded good.
Thea smiled in satisfaction as she gazed at the collection of people gracing her table. This was everything she wanted—her, a table full of delicious food, and all the people she loved. Well, maybe not all of them, but most of them.
Eugenia and Gertrude sat next to her, talking to each other about whatever gossip Eugenia was sharing at the moment. Conrad sat further down, talking to the blacksmith and his daughter. She knew they went to the tavern for dinner at times, but tonight they were here, and that made her happy.
Guinevere had also stopped by for dinner, which was unusual, but always welcome.
There were a few others at different tables, but Thea’s table was full of the people that made her happy.
And then the door opened and Nat walked in, a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Thea’s heart skipped a beat as he made his way toward her with a smile on his face.
It wasn’t fair of him to bring her flowers knowing that she’d read his letters.
“Hello,” he said as he set the flowers down on a neighboring table. “I brought some flowers for the café and thought I might stay for dinner tonight. Is there an extra seat here?”
Thea looked down at her table, which did not have an extra seat. Of course it didn’t, now that she would be willing to have him sit at it.
Eugenia got to her feet. “We can get one,” she said with determination, reaching over to the table next to hers and pulling a chair forward, inserting it between her seat and Thea’s.
Thea bit back a chuckle. It wouldn’t do to encourage her, but it didn’t surprise her in the slightest that Eugenia chose to intervene.
If she and Nat ever decided to be together, Eugenia would be the first to start cheering, she had no doubt.
Drawn by the lure of all her favorite people in one spot, Ginger stretched by the fire and joined them, settling under the table at Nat’s feet.
Thea sat down, glancing over at Nathaniel, who was staring at her with a slight smile and warmth in his eyes.
It was dinner time. Then they would talk.
They didn’t get to talk.
Eugenia asked Nat to walk her home to the library, and Thea waited as late as she dared before she was forced to go to bed or be unable to function the following day.
Even so, she couldn’t help reading another letter, and she cried herself to sleep. They’d both been so hurt…could they really come back from that?
The next morning, she descended the stairs, wondering if he’d be by.
But before she started the day, she had to prep. Muffins, more berry tarts, bagels, and sticky buns for the morning, followed by bread, hand pies, and oatcakes for later.
She’d start with the muffins so she could eat one before she opened.
There was a quiet knock on the door before a key turned in the latch, and her heart beat faster than it ever had before.
He was the only other person with a key.
She waited while he opened the door, the dark circles under his eyes highlighted by candlelight.
Apparently he’d also had a restless night.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
The tray of muffins threatened to slip from her hands, and she quickly put it down. Better to not drop it.
Thea’s eyes followed the muffins rather than meeting Nathaniel’s gaze. She didn’t know what to say to him. It was safer not to look at him. How could she, when she had read all his letters and knew he had been hurting just as much as she had?
“Thea,” he said, “it helps if you look at me.”
Thea let out an uncomfortable laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“I’ve never done it before, either,” he reminded her, “but I think we’re worth figuring it out, don’t you?”
She looked up at Nat, and her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, Nat,” she said quietly, before she closed the distance between them and threw her arms around him. “I’m so sorry,” she said, the words broken.
“I’m sorry, too.” His arms wrapped around her and pulled her tight. “I’m just as much to blame as you are, if not more, because my brother is the one who got between us.”
“It all seems so silly now,” she admitted. “I should’ve just asked you when I first arrived.”
“You didn’t know,” he said with a shrug—as much as he could shrug with her arms wrapped around him. “Neither of us did. I’m sorry for hurting you, even if I didn’t mean to or know that I was,” he added. “You know I would never want to do that.”
“I know,” she admitted, her voice cracking. “And I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I know you didn’t. I think we can both agree that hurting each other was not the intention,” he said with a chuckle.
“The question is, what are we going to do about it now? And what do you think we should change going forward? I’ve previously stayed far away, since that’s what I thought you wanted me to do, but I would hope that’s changed. ”
He added, with a mischievous grin, “If it hasn’t, I might just murder my brother instead.”
“It’s changed,” she reassured him. “I don’t know exactly what I want things to look like going forward, but I do know that I hope we can figure things out between us. And I would be interested in spending more time with you as we try to figure it out.”
“I like the sound of that,” Nathaniel said, his head slowly leaning toward hers.
She was faced with a choice: allow him to rest his forehead on hers or meet him with a kiss instead. And while her head said that she shouldn’t allow him to kiss her yet, every fiber of her being yearned to kiss Nathaniel Alder.
She was about to close her eyes when she noticed his nose twitching.
“Are you okay?” she asked, pulling back a little to look at him.
Nathaniel’s eyes widened in alarm. “No, no, no, no, no,” he began saying.
And before Thea could ask what was wrong, there was a popping sound, and the man in her arms disappeared—replaced by an orange cat on the floor.
Thea stared down at Baker, her eyes so wide it almost hurt.
“Did you just turn into a cat?” she asked. “Unbelievable.”
She threw her arms into the air. “I’m finally gonna get to kiss you for the first time in far too many years, and you turn into a freaking cat.”
She glared down at him. “You’ve been a cat this whole time and you didn’t think to tell me? Wow. I’m assuming that was you—the cat—when you first showed up the other day? Was that when it first happened?”
And then the thought occurred to her. “You didn’t use your key the other morning, did you? You were already in the building because I locked you in when you were a cat, and you didn’t tell me!”
He started meowing, and a moment later, Ginger appeared around the corner and joined the cacophony.
“I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” she told them both, throwing her hands in the air again. “You’re going to have to tell me later, when you turn back into a human. If you turn back into a human.”
She looked down at the cat, glaring at him. “You do turn back into a human, right?”
The cat waited a moment, then nodded his head up and down once.
“I can’t wait for you to turn back so I can yell at you some more,” Thea muttered, still glaring at him. “And we have to figure this out, because I can’t have you turning into a cat in the middle of my café without warning.”
Thea stomped over to the door and opened the café. It was a few minutes early, but this way she didn’t have to deal with the fact that Nathaniel had turned into a cat in front of her.
She’d heard rumors of magic being real, but she’d always assumed they were nothing more than a childhood story. Surely dragons, fairies, sorcerers, and the like couldn’t be real.
But Nat had turned into a cat in front of her very eyes…so there just might be some truth to the fables.
If only he could tell her what had happened.
She made her way through her morning pretending that she didn’t notice him constantly underfoot and in her way, as if he were trying to help.
“You can’t help me. You’re a cat.”
Nathaniel looked up at her, and if a cat could look annoyed, he did.
She kept glancing down at him as the morning rush slowed down. At least if he had to turn into a cat, he was a cute one.
Though he looked far better as a human.
Her human.