"Nothing interesting is going to happen, but I will. Enjoy my camping, I mean." Briana bumped her shoulder against Doll's in farewell, then went down to the smithy to change clothes and let Damien know she was leaving early. He waved and Bree slipped away through the crowds who were reluctantly starting to head out themselves. The departing traffic was a little slow, but the sun wouldn't go down for a while yet, and she was safely up on her inaccessible ridge long before dark fell.
There was nothing as good as being the only one on the mountain. She sat on her ridge, legs dangling over the rock face, listening to the wind and what birdsong it carried as the eastern sky change colors with sunset. The stars came out by their handsful, bright points against dusky blue that slowly faded to black, until the trees below were shadows within shadows, and the mountain face itself began to cool with the night. Briana finally climbed into her tent and dropped into sleep within a few minutes, briefly and completely content with the world.
The dawn light woke her considerably before the sun actually broke the horizon. That was the only problem with sleeping on an eastward rock face. On the other hand, it gave her time to wake up and go for a climbupbefore she had to go down and drive back to the fairgrounds. Renaissance was already about eight thousand feet above sea level, and Inaccessible Ridge was a few thousand feet higher, so when she went up, Bree always felt like she could basically see the entire world.
Well, at least when she found a place to sit, instead of concentrating on where to put her fingers and toes. Most of the time she kept moving, though, not stopping for the views, but instead falling into the almost-meditative state that came on with a long climb. Heavy clouds were rolling north along themountain range, although the sun on her back was still warm. With a glance toward the advancing clouds and another one upward to the peak she’d half-hoped to reach, Briana sighed and began the climb down.
Once she reached the base, she stopped at the base of a tiny waterfall for anextremelycold shower—her goat loved it, even if Briana was pretty sure her fingers and lips were turning blue—and got back to the fairgrounds just as most of the other vendors were arriving.
Including, to her dismay, Laurie Torben.
He and his brother Jon were at the gates as she drove up, their brewery-branded delivery truck waiting in the line with half a dozen other vehicles to pull into the fairgrounds themselves. The number of cars allowed on site was incredibly limited, but nobody expected the tavern workers to hand-carry beer kegs through the grounds up to the tavern itself. Damien also had a daily exception for vehicular travel on the grounds, for similar reasons: the iron they carted in weighed alot, never mind the forge itself.
A lot of the other vendors restocked daily, but used the golf carts provided by the Faire for their smaller wares. Bree, more trying to go unnoticed by the Torbens than needing a lift, tried to sneak into the off side of one of those carts, hiding behind a huge stack of corsets and skirts. The shop owner barked good-naturedly at her—not literally, they weren’t a shifter—and made her move so they could dump an armload of boots and belts into the seat she’d tried to take.
Briana had barely gotten her feet back on the ground when Jon Torben, leaning out their truck’s window, gave her a wave. “Want a lift?”
Well,hedefinitely knew Laurie was her mate, then. Briana groaned, but it would be both weird and rude to refuse, so shewent and climbed onto the back bumper of the truck, then inside its wood-crate-walled bed. “Thanks.”
“That’s a terrible location,” Jon called back at her. “If anything slips you’ll be crushed.”
If anything slipped, she would shift to goat form and bounce over the tumbling kegs, but she couldn’t say that out loud. “Are you telling me you’ve done a crappy job securing them?”
“What? No!”
“Then I’ll be fine.” And more importantly, she would be avoiding getting into the cab with Laurie. Right about then the truck was ushered through, and Briana had to admit she didn’thatethe quicker journey up to the forge. Laurie, who was driving, slowed down, but before he stopped she hopped out, yelling, “Thanks!”
She caught a glimpse of his slack-jawed surprise as they left, and her goat harrumphed.We’re very agile. Why is he so shocked?
Most people don’t jump out of moving vehicles no matter how agile they are. It’s possible we missed an opportunity to be a stuntman.
Her goat eyed her with one horizontal pupil.We’re female.
Briana chucked and went to get the heat started for the forge. At least the clouds rolling in were cooling things off a little, even if it wasn’t any less muggy.Stuntperson, sorry. And it’s possible Madeline will go that route anyway.Her youngest sister, who was tiny, cute, and utterly fearless, was still in high school, but clearly had a daredevil streak that would probably suit a stuntman job well. Stuntperson,Bree corrected herself with a smile.
It started raining at about noon, thick fat drops that did nothing to reduce the humidity but practically guaranteed a quiet afternoon at the Faire. By about four, it was sheeting down, the air almost solid with the kind of rain that left people standingaround saying, “Will you look at that rain!” and “Boy, it’s really coming down,” and other inanities.
There was nobody left at the smithy by then except Briana and Damien, so they stood around periodically saying, “Will you look at that rain,” and, “Jeez, it’s really coming down,” to each other, and then laughing as they realized what they were doing. After about the fourth iteration of that, Damien added, “So. Laurie Torben,” and Briana groaned.
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
“So heisyour fated mate. He’s not that bad, you know.”
“See, if you have to tell me that…”
Damien laughed. “He’s not, though. You know he’s a musician?”
Briana made a face. “Yeah, he plays the tin whistle for the minstrel group. And I guess he shows up on time for the rehearsals, so that’s something.”
“I thought cats were hard to please,” Damien said, still amused. “Go up to the tavern and give him a chance. Have a nice talk. It’s not like there’ll be anybody around to bother you. I haven’t seen a customer in fifteen minutes.”
“See, you’re not getting the part where I don’twantto talk to him. He’s got his thing, I’ve got mine.”
“Your very solitary mountain goat thing, yes, I know. We all know. God, it’s really raining.” Damien frowned at the downpour. “This is going to be a really bad week if it keeps up.”
Briana, with unshakable confidence, promised, “It can’t keep upallweek,” and hunkered down, having no plans to go see Laurie now or any time at all.
Chapter 8
