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That makes me trust him just a little bit. What if he did come looking for me when I left? Maybe we were friends, maybe more, maybe he has missed me.
I could have been angry when I left. Must’ve hated the village and he didn’t want to leave with me. He could regret that now.
I’ll find out when I do get to his home. Surely a memory will return.
We ride for an hour, long enough for the sun to grow warm, and then he pulls us into an area with a lake.
I wish I had other clothes to wear, but I’ll have to make do with washing my leathers, not using much water and hoping the clothing isn’t too wet when we head out. It will make for an uncomfortable ride between us if my back and bum is getting him damp. He rides with me in front of him, and I guess I don’t blame him. He probably thinks I’d choke him from behind—but I secretly enjoy riding in front. It makes me feel special for some reason I can’t place.
He takes the traveling gear off Tobias, then slaps him to let him know he’s free.
“Help yourself to my bath-pack. The smaller toothbrush was yours. I grabbed it from home. You didn’t travel with it because Rosemary kept another at her house for you.”
I brush my teeth, hunched over the edge of the lake, and he jumps in with a huge splash. God’s fire, that male is magnificent. Shoulders so broad, waist so narrow, a bubble-butt I could bite. Strong, towering thighs with a knife strapped to the left side because no orc is ever without a weapon.
But those muscles alone are a weapon.
“The soap is yours,” he calls out.
I eye the bar left in his pack. ‘Tis a glycerin bar, embedded with purple lilac buds, sweetly feminine and unlike me.
But I love it.
“Doesn’t look familiar,” I call out, suspiciously.
“Because I made it,” he calls back. “You wouldn’t have seen it.”
I pick it up and sniff. It smells wonderful.
“’Tis my favorite flower. You smelled of it as a babe. As a brat, I’d weave it into your hair, which is probably why you and my sister decided to take up braiding. When you became a teen, I started making the soap. Your Aunt Rosemary showed me how. Not that the females in the village didn’t know how to make soap, our Aunt Abigail does it, along with Ulga. But Rosemary showed me how to make it pretty by using buds, which are a darker purple, and with a clear glycerin base.”
I busy myself by dropping the soap into a netting and wrapping the string around my wrist so it won’t fall to the bottom of the lake. “Aww, that’s sweet.”
He shrugs. “Anything to get you to bathe more often. You were a smelly teen.”
Chapter Ten
