Rhys
Farmer Roberts has plans to protect, plans that involve marrying his daughter off to rescue his farm. So what does he do? He publicly shames me. He puts out the word through the valley that I pursued Gwen, that I harassed and threatened her, and that any rumors to the contrary are nothing but lies.
It’s unnecessary. Nobody saw my hand prints on her except him, but I suppose he doesn’t know that. He’s covering his back. And who wouldn’t believe him, when I’m a newcomer to this tight-knit community, and I’ve kept to myself for these past two years?
No one has ever bothered with me except Gwen. What does she think about her father’s propaganda campaign?
It doesn’t matter. She didn’t want to come home with me, so she’s none of my business.
I worry for her, though. In that farmhouse; in this valley. Under these people’s thumbs. Will it be any better for her with the Thomas boy?
If Gwen were mine, I’d never speak down to her. I’d never make her cower in a doorway or wrench on her arm. I’d lift her up; I’d treasure her; I’d craft her rings and trinkets in my furnace. And I’d compete with myself for how many smiles I can coax out of her each day.
Smiles… and other things.
Fuck, if she knew the things I want from her, a man nearly twice her age, she’d be horrified. She’d run from me screaming.
Now everywhere I look in my forge, there are reminders of her.
I wander around the workspace, aimless and hollow, nudging at the things she left behind.
The crumpled wicker basket, stained with blackberry juice and left abandoned on one side.
My workbench, with my tools pushed to the ends so she could lay down.
The mug she drank from; the tartan blanket I wrapped around her shoulders; the half-eaten chocolate bar I brought to get her blood sugar up.
I’m no doctor, but I took care of her. I did the best I could. I shouldn’t have put my hands on her like that, though—not even to check for broken bones, and not even when she woke up and let me do it.
So I deserve this. The whispers and turned backs; being shunned in the valley streets. If it weren’t for Gwen, I’d cut my losses and leave. Plenty of places need blacksmiths, and starting over is as easy as breathing.
But the thought of moving away from the farmer’s daughter—it guts me. Scrapes out my insides. Because without Gwen around… well. What’s it all for?
* * *
The knock on my door jolts me from yet another daydream. This one, I’ve been playing over and over in my head for the last few days: Gwen Roberts stretched out on my workbench, firelight flickering over her bare skin, my sooty hand prints leaving trails up and down her creamy curves—
Thump. Thump.
I push to my feet with a sigh, palms pressed into my kitchen table. I’ll probably never know how it ends.
Late afternoon sunshine spills through the windows as I cross my kitchen, and birds twitter faintly through the glass.
But my heart is heavy as I stride to my front door, and I swear to god, if one more villager has come to warn me away from his wife and daughters, I don’t know what I’ll say.
I’m not fucking interested in any of them, and even if I were, I’m no predator.
“Yes?” I jerk the door open then freeze. Gwen stands waiting, twisting her dark skirt between her hands, and tearing my eyes away from the flashes of bare knee is the hardest thing I’ve done in days.
Bright blue eyes wait for me, warm and worried. “Rhys Evans. Um. Hi.”
I raise an eyebrow, chest thumping. This can’t be good.
“Yes?” I repeat.
I don’t mean to be unkind but this girl is terrible for my self control, and the last thing I need right now is more rumors.
Especially when she walked here dressed like that, her skirt whipping around her legs in the breeze and her gray sweater clinging to her hourglass curves.
Bare, smooth calves showing above her cracked leather boots.
Her cheeks are flushed, and freckles spread over her nose from the sun.
“I, um. I’m sorry to bother you, Mr Evans.” Gwen cringes, tripping over her words, and I hate that I make her so nervous. She never needs to be afraid of me.
My palm lifts. “Slow down, cariad. Tell me slowly what you need.”
I shouldn’t call her that, shouldn’t pretend that she’s mine, but now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. And every time I say it, a pink tinge spreads over her cheeks.
“I…” As her words stall, Gwen’s eyes roam down my chest. Lingering on the buttons of my faded black shirt like she could flick them open by gaze alone. Fucking hell.
“Gwen.”
She flinches. “Sorry. I, um, wanted to ask for your advice. I know you moved here all alone, started over just like that, and I’m trying to find my own place to rent in the valley.
And to get a job. Except it’s kind of confusing if you’ve never done it before, and I can’t exactly ask my family for help, and so… ”
She trails off, gazing up at me with so much hope. I press my front door wider, heart squeezing. “Come in.”
She’s moving out. Gwen tells me all about it over a mug of steaming tea, dunking the biscuits I give her into the milky fluid. She chatters so brightly, spilling over with enthusiasm, and I’m beginning to think she talks so freely like this with me, a near stranger, because no one else will listen.
I fucking hate that. Those people don’t know what a treasure they have.
“And if I stay, they’ll definitely keep nagging me to marry the Thomas boy, and even if I refuse I just know I’ll grow old and die on that farm without ever living my own life. And I’m twenty one, you know? I should do things. I should go places. I should…”
“Be respected in your home.”
Gwen flushes, dunking another biscuit. It softens as she steals glances at me, the crumb darkening, then drops into her tea with a plop. “Yes. Oh.”
“I’ll make you another.”
I start to rise but Gwen grabs my sleeve, keeping me at the kitchen table. Every nerve ending in my body zeroes in on the brush of her knuckles against my forearm.
“No, don’t worry. I do it all the time. I don’t mind drinking tea with bits in.”
My huffed laugh makes her beam, and lord, I don’t see that expression enough. No one does. Life should be kinder to a sweet girl like Gwen. With her wild blonde curls and her rosy apple cheeks, I don’t know how anyone can stand to put her down.
“I’ll help however you need. With finding a place and getting a job. But you’ll have more choice with both if you look further than this valley.”
Gwen’s gaze suddenly drops. She scratches at the wooden table, avoiding my eye. “Okay. Well, I can’t look too far. There are—there are important things here. You know. Things I don’t want to leave.”
What things?
Is there a man? A lover she won’t let go?
I cross to put the kettle on again, suddenly sick. It’s none of my business. And it won’t stop me helping her, but lord, I wish she hadn’t told me that.
“Whatever you need,” I repeat, and her relieved sigh is a balm.
I mean that: whatever she needs. Starting with a fresh mug of tea.
* * *
“Resourceful? Team player? Do all resumes sound like complete bullshit?”
Three hours, two sandwiches and a word doc later, my laptop glows on the kitchen table and Gwen lounges in my lap, one arm slung around my neck.
She settled onto my thighs an hour ago like it was the most natural thing in the world, saying it would help us read the screen together, and I’ve been in hell ever since.
“They do when you’re starting out. Sorry.” I wince as Gwen wriggles on my legs, trying to get comfortable, her ass moving dangerously close to the proof of her effect on me. My cock’s been so hard for the last hour that I’m surprised I’ve had enough blood in my brain to think straight at all.
My hands clamp on her waist, holding her still. Then, because I’m a bastard, they linger, my thumbs rubbing over the swell of her hips. Her clothes are soft, slipping and sliding under my calloused palms.
“It’s no use,” Gwen says, completely unfazed from the way I’m pawing at her. “Everyone in the valley already knows me. They know I’ve only ever done farm work, and more than that, they know exactly what I’m like.”
I grunt, losing the battle with myself and pressing my face against the back of her head. My lungs fill with her daisy meadow scent. “That’s a good thing, cariad.”
Gwen scoffs. “No, it’s not. Anyone who’s ever listened to my Dad for five seconds will never give me a job.”
Well, that’s probably true, because Farmer Roberts holds sway in this community. He won’t take well to Gwen discovering her independence. And I bite my tongue against the same advice I’ve wanted to give twenty times already this afternoon. Leave this valley. Look elsewhere.
It would crack me open of course, but who knows? Maybe in time I could follow. Maybe she’d let me, and she wouldn’t be disturbed by how deeply I need her nearby.
She wouldn’t have to be in my bed. Lord knows I could never be so lucky. But I need to catch glimpses of her walking down the lane; need to hear snatches of her giddy laughter. Without those things my world will turn gray.
“Does he know you’re here? Should I expect an angry mob circling my forge with pitchforks?”
Gwen slumps in my lap, resting her head on my shoulder. “Wow, I really hope not. Just in case, though, I’m sorry.” Her head tilts to the side, the tip of her nose brushing my bristly jaw. “He shouldn’t have spread those rumors about you, Rhys Evans. He knows it’s all bullshit.”
I squeeze her waist, my heart slamming into my ribs. “Not all of it.”
Gwen’s silent for a long moment, and all I can hear is my blood rushing in my ears. Our shared breaths, getting quicker and more ragged.
“Listen, Gwen—”
She moves quickly. One moment she’s still, and the next, she’s a flurry of frizzy hair and sharp elbows. My air leaves me in a rush as she jabs me in the gut, and my eyes are watering when she finally settles in my lap again, facing me this time.
“Gwen,” I wheeze.
Her mouth twists. “Sorry.” A fingertip traces over my cheekbone, and fuck, I can’t think straight. Can’t do anything except stare at her pursed lips, chest heaving. “I’m so clumsy, I swear to god. I never mean any harm, but I still wreak havoc.”
Not with me. I can handle a stray elbow or two, no problem. I’m more than built for it. I’d tell her, too, but she’s still talking, leaning so close that her breath mists warm against my cheeks.
“I can’t tell if you’re flirting with me, Rhys Evans. You’re like this big granite boulder of a man, so stoic and unreadable, and the last time I tried to flirt with you, you shut me down so hard.”
What? I did not. I wouldn’t. She was flirting with me? When?
“Gwen—”
She keeps talking, speaking over me, and it’s messed up, but I’m proud.
I love seeing her assert herself like this, her newfound confidence growing by the hour.
“No, wait a minute. I need to say this. Because you’re touching my waist and smelling my hair and letting me sit in your lap.
And if you’re just humoring me you need to cut it out, please, because my heart couldn’t stand that again. It really couldn’t.”
Fuck that. I plunge one hand into her wild hair, remembering too late that I’ll leave sooty marks on her again. Does it matter? She’s never going back to that farm, not if I get my way.
And Gwen is still talking, though her expression is glazed. “I know you’re older than me and I’ve caused you a lot of trouble, but those things don’t need to stop us, Rhys. Not if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t.” After her little speech, my two words are paltry, but she lights up like the first stars glittering outside as night falls. Two arms snake around my neck.
“Well, then.”
When she sways toward me, the soft swells of her breasts crush against my chest. And fuck, I’ve thought of this so many times. Wondered what sounds she’d make; how warm she’d feel; how she’d taste.
My lips part.
Her eyes flutter shut.
I lean in closer. Closer. Closer.
So close that her warmth scorches my front, like standing over the flames in my furnace, and I’m coiled so tight that my teeth ache. Her hair is soft between my fingers, and her weight is perfect against my thighs, and I can’t help the rough groan from crawling up my throat.
It’s happening. I’m going to kiss her.
“Fuck. Gwen—”
A fist hammers on my front door, shaking the wood in its frame. Gwen leaps back with a squeak, her eyes shocked wide, and only my hold keeps her from toppling onto the floor.
“It’s him,” she whispers, as though I don’t know. “My father’s here.”
“Lucky me,” I say flatly. She scrambles off my lap and my cock aches as I push to my feet.
My steps thud against the kitchen tiles, and I square my shoulders before reaching for the door.
I was so close. So close to tasting his daughter.
And I won’t deny it any more.