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“You won’t,” I assured him with a gentle squeeze of my fingers. “Tell me about your family. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“One brother three years-of-age,” Bryant said. “Robbie. A half-brother only though. My father Rufus remarried after the death of my mother some years back. Robbie’s second after me in the line for our people’s leadership.”
“You’re the heir to the Bryant clan then,” I remarked.
He lifted a shoulder. “For what the Bryant clan is worth. We’re a very small group of misfits. Outcasts, if you will.”
“Sounds impressive to me. You don’t sound very enthused about it though.”
His calloused thumb absently drew circles inside my palm, giving it a tickling, scratchy sensation as he considered what to share.
“I’m not, to be truthful about it,” he finally admitted. “Running our pa...people has never been my desire. I’ll rise to the responsibility, of course. I’m the eldest son of Rufus Bryant, so I will take up my father’s position when the time comes.”
“Would you, if you could?” I asked quietly.
He let go of another long breath, then answered, “It’s not for me to decide. I was born first, so I will take up the mantle when called. I won’t shirk my duty.”
So sad, and unfair. In the short time I’ve known him, I learned that Michael Bryant was a solitary man, a lone wolf, but one whose birth order pushed him to give up his quiet, peaceful life for a leadership position he didn’t want.
“I do understand, Bryant. I’m sorry that I disrupted your quiet life, no matter how temporary. It wasn’t fair or kind of me.”
He frowned down at me, his fingers wrapping around mine. “No, Callista. That is the one good thing of late for me. It’s strange. I should be very angry that you’re here with me, like you said. The disruption would have bothered me before. But you being here, talking with me, sharing my world...”
“What?” I prodded at his long pause.
He shook his head. “Nothin’.”
“Tell me, Bryant. Please.”
He showed me instead when reaching up to lightly stroke my cheek with his fingertips, all the while staring hungrily in question at my lips.
“Callista.”
I needed no other prodding and circled my arms around his neck and drew him down to kiss me.
He startled for only a second before his own hands gripped my lower back and drew me against him hard, his lips coming down onto mine possessively.
* * *
That intimate moment at our impromptu picnic wasn’t repeated that night, or the next day.
In fact, the subject was ignored as the days progressed and we awkwardly danced and skidded around any accidental physical contact.
The overly stiff and polite deference between us grew unbearable though, and I found myself purposely irritating the man just to get any kind of response from him, even if an angry one.
He began to retaliate in the same way.
“I’m going to the village,” Bryant announced one afternoon after laying two rabbits from his snares onto the kitchen counter.
“Great, I need to talk to—”
“Alone,” he added with a look that brooked no argument.
I glared at him from the across the room. “I didn’t plan to tag along with you and your darling hunting and drinking buds. Do what you want to do, but I’m going with you.”
“Stay here, Callista. Bar the door tonight. I’ve seen a few bears about lately.”
My mouth dropped. “You’re staying at the villageallnight?”
