Page 43 of The Blacksmith’s Wish

A corner of Gowan’s mouth twitched. “Ye’ve become quite wise since becoming a healer.”

“Nay.” Camden smiled. “Only accustomed to stubborn patients.”

Gowan huffed a quiet laugh. “I’ve no ailment.”

“I didna say ye had one.” Camden turned to face him. “But whatever troubles ye is deeper than that poorly made pot.”

Gowan lowered the tongs onto the anvil. His gaze drifted toward the road leading out of the village. Toward the mill. “I’ve been wondering about someone.”

Camden’s expression softened almost immediately. “A woman.”

It wasn’t a question. Gowan nodded once. “I’ve not seen Effie these past three days.”

Camden studied him for a long moment before replying. “Nay. She has nae come to collect herbs or visit Anne either.”

He hesitated. “She… and I…” The words refused to come. His friend waited patiently. “We shared a moment.”

Camden’s eyebrows lifted ever so slightly, though to his credit he showed little surprise. “I see.”

“I allowed myself to believe…” Gowan stared into the forge, shame creeping into his voice. “…that perhaps she could look beyond this.” His soot-blackened fingers brushed unconsciously over the scars hidden beneath his shirt. “But she saw.”

Understanding filled Camden’s face. “And now ye believe she’s avoiding ye.”

“What else am I to think?” Three days. Not once had she appeared. It was rare that Effie did not visit the village most days.

Camden rested a hand upon the edge of the workbench. “Gowan, ye’re asking a question only Effie can answer.”

“I’ve answered it already.”

“Nay.” His friend’s voice remained calm but firm. “Ye’ve answered it for her.”

“So what do I do? Confront her and have her tell me what I fear is true, that she doesn’t wish to be with me ever again.”

Camden was quiet for a moment. “Or ye might hear something altogether different.”

Hope. The dangerous emotion stirred despite Gowan’s best efforts to bury it. He crushed it just as quickly. “I’ve spent years making peace with being alone.”

Camden smiled sadly. “No, my friend.” He looked around the smithy, at the empty cottage beyond, then back at Gowan. “I think ye’ve merely grown accustomed to it.”

*

Despite Camden’s encouragement, Gowan could not bring himself to seek Effie out. Every time he imagined standing before her, he saw only the flicker of pity in her beautiful green eyes or worse, the revulsion she had tried so hard to hide. He had survived fire, pain, and years of whispered remarks about the ruined flesh that marred his body. He could survive this too.

To keep his negative thoughts at bay, he buried himself in work. At first light the following morning, he saddled his horse and rode beyond Tokavaig, accepting every commission that carried him farther from the village. He visited isolated crofts, repaired broken plows, measured gates that needed new hinges, and bargained with ironmongers in distant settlements for bars of iron, charcoal, rivets, and tools he ordinarily would have waited for passing merchants to deliver.

The farther the miles stretched behind him, the quieter his thoughts became. The endless roll of the Highlands, the salt carried inland from the sea, and the steady rhythm of Rook’s hooves dulled the sharp edge of his heartache.

There was no mystery left to solve. Effie had not come. She’d stayed away for days. What other explanation could there be? The truth settled heavily inside him like a stone dropped into deep water. She regretted what had happened between them.

His chest tightened until drawing breath became difficult. It was a wound no healer could bind, one that hurt far more fiercely than the burns stretching across his scarred side ever had.

Perhaps distance was precisely what he needed. By the time he returned to Tokavaig, he would have accepted what had passed between them for what it truly was. A fleeting moment of comfort. Two lonely souls seeking warmth in one another’s arms before returning to the lives they were meant to lead.

Nothing more. Nothing less. At least…not for her. His own feelings were another matter entirely.

He tried convincing himself that he was merely a man who had gone far too long without the touch of a woman. That any woman who had shown him such tenderness would have awakened the same fierce longing. Surely he had mistaken gratitude, desire, and loneliness for something deeper. Yet no matter how often he repeated the lie, it rang hollow.

It had never been simply desire. It had been Effie. Her laughter. Her fiery disposition and stubbornness. The sparkle in her eyes whenever she challenged him. The gentle way she looked at people. The gentle way she looked at him.