Chapter 8 #2
Her lips quirked. She was feeling particularly saucy today.
“Yes, I can see you’re not a child, but even so, you don’t seem to have enough sense to rest and heal properly.
That is probably because you are a man”, she couldn’t help but add.
He must be feeling better if he was being so grumpy, well, compared to his usual grumpiness, anyway.
“I swear that without women to beat sense into them, men would have all died off years ago. You’re just lucky I’m here to save you from yourself.
” She turned back towards the door. “Are you coming for a walk with me or no?”
Just when she was wondering if he was going to lie there and sulk to spite her, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then stood as if he was completely hale and hearty. Only the way his lips pressed into a thin white line of pain gave him away. She almost winced in sympathy.
Knowing better than to offer help, Willa walked into the kitchen, then outside. Drust followed, and she could not help telling him to be careful of his stitches. She thought he might have actually growled at her.
Together they walked slowly down the little path that meandered down to the river.
Willa led him to a bench she had made by putting a board between two of the larger rocks that lined the river bank.
She sat down and gestured to the place beside her.
Drust looked less than certain, but slowly lowered himself to sit beside her, the pain and stiffness of his injury impossible for him to hide completely.
She looked over at her warrior. She had come to think of him as hers, even though in reality, he was anything but.
He seemed to belong only to himself, or maybe to whatever was on his mind when he looked as if he were a million miles away.
To his sword-arm? A lover back home? Perhaps his honor? His face gave away nothing.
The thick, silky waves of his hair fell haphazardly around his shoulders.
She wondered if he usually tied it back.
Yes, she remembered it was tied with a strip of leather when she found him.
The tie had been as bloody as the rest of him and she had discarded it when she washed his hair.
Perhaps she should offer to comb it and tie it back for him later…
He leaned forward stiffly, wincing slightly as he rested his elbows on his knees.
They watched the water rushing by, and she couldn’t help but glance lower at his long, muscular calves revealed by the knee-length breeches he wore, before her gaze returned to his darkly brooding face.
A face as darkly handsome and beautiful as any fallen angel, she thought.
As if it was made to lure unsuspecting women to their ruin because they simply could not look away.
But she should not waste this opportunity to learn more about him.
“Drust?”
He didn’t look away from the water. “Hmm?”
She grasped for something to talk about, anything to break the awkward silence that seemed to need filling.
Anything to make him open up to her just a little.
Not an easy task when she couldn’t give up her own cover, nor would he be likely to give up his.
No, she was pretty sure he would never give up his.
“What do you like to do, in your spare time? I mean… when you’re at home.”
He glanced over at her, as if puzzled by her question. “I dinna have much spare time”, he said evenly, returning his gaze to the river.
“But what do you like to do?”
He shifted on the bench, clearly uncomfortable with her questions. “I train, mostly.”
“You train for what?” she persisted.
He looked over at her as if she’d gone daft.
“For battle.”
“For battle”, she echoed. “Of course.” She gave a frustrated sigh. “You are impossible to get to know.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe ye ar’na meant to ken me, then.”
Drust returned his grim gaze once more to the ever-changing surface of the water.
She wouldn’t want to know him, anyway. He was nothing, nobody, really.
A warrior and a second son, and a damaged one at that.
Emotionally anyway. He had never been good at relationships with women, so he tended not to have them.
Physically he had always been strong. Fighting was the only thing he was good at.
He was not even particularly good at magic, and he had always preferred his training with a sword over practicing the Druid arts.
Likely he could be better with more effort.
Aye, the lass probably thought him to be a different sort of man. One who would make a good husband, a good father. If she knew all that he was, and all that he was not, she would likely lose interest in him. Perhaps she would not have even bothered to save him in the first place. Likely not.
Willa nearly stamped her foot on the ground at the Drust’s terse non-answers.
Oh, but she would give anything to know what was going on inside his head!
She knew there was much more to him than he let on.
Maddening man! Gorgeous, delectable, heart-stopping, maddening man!
Did he truly feel none of the attraction she felt for him?
Did he not feel the same tingling, heated force which seemed to fill the air between them, making her ache with wanting to touch him?
She had a mind to make him just as crazy as he was making her!
She leaned closer, letting her arm brush his. He jumped and pulled away.
She sighed. “And still a man of mystery. What will you do, warrior, when you return home? Train and fight?”
He looked over at her, and she caught his gaze, held it, and he could imagine he saw so much more there than was possible.
“I’ll carry on with my life, I suppose.”
“Carry on with your life. Will you marry?” Willa nearly slapped her hand to her mouth to keep that question from bursting forth, but it was too late now, and besides, she had to know.
“No”, he shook his head with conviction.
Relief flooded through her, though why, she couldn’t say. He wasn’t marrying her either.
“Why not? Don’t you want a family some day?”
“No”. Drust stared off at the horizon, but his jaw tightened. “I prefer to be alone. It’s much simpler that way. I have no need of a woman. And stop asking so many bloody questions!”
He stood carefully and started back to the cottage, leaving Willa staring after him.
She narrowed her eyes and clenched her jaw.
The blasted man! Stubborn as hell. No need of a woman?
We’ll just see about that! There was needing, and then there was wanting.
Sometimes, they were nearly the same thing.
She was sure that, given enough time, she could break down his defenses.
For the first time in her life, fate had given her a man that she truly desired, that she could not seem to keep herself away from, that she felt a connection to…
Everything she had been looking for, and everything she hadn’t found with Colm (well, that and he turned out to be an evil bastard).
No other man she had ever met had made her feel like this.
Without even trying, Drust had made her feel so alive, so hungry for that life…
and for him. There was something about him that made her stomach flip when she saw him, made her heart race when she caught his scent.
And he felt it too… at least he felt something.
She had seen his pupils go dark when she touched him, saw the need in his eyes before he could hide it.
She was so afraid she might never find this connection again with anyone else, that she was not about to let him slip away from her.
She had to know if there could be something deeper between them.
If she had to fight dirty, she would. Win or lose, at least she would not know the regret of never having tried.