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That pulled Margaret up short. “Now you listen up, Rafe Gallagher. I am a weatherwitch, and as such I was asked to help keep things running smoothly, but I do not have to put up with being insulted.” She yanked the bowl out from in front of him. “I made your breakfast out of kindness, but you can cook your own darn food if you’re going to be that way.”
She set his bowl on the wooden counter with a dull thump. “Vincent, I’ll speak with you later, and you, Rafe Gallagher, will apologize to me before the day is through.”
On her way out of the kitchen, Margaret muttered about men who’d been alone too long and how they couldn’t make friends. For my part, I directed my attention to my oatmeal.
I resumed my seat and picked up my spoon. Last night seemed a very distant dream. Rafe remained standing, looking over his shoulder in the direction Margaret had gone.
“She’s not…?” he said finally. “You’re not…?
Part of me wanted to torture him further, but in the interest of preserving the peace, I did not. “If you’re asking whether Margaret and I are involved in some kind of illicit love affair, or hell, a licit one, for that matter, I’ve already told you we are not.”
“But you’re always together.”
I pinched my lips together to stifle a laugh. “There are only four of us on a patch of land smaller than a city block. You seem to spend most of your time in the forest, but I’m naturally gregarious, you might say, and it would look quite odd for me to spend extended periods of time with your mother.”
I took his grunt as a sign of agreement. “I don’t like to be alone.” Now, if I stared up at him through my lashes in a most flirtatious way, at least I didn’t flutter them.
Not that he could see me if I had, but somehow he seemed to take my message.
“Now,” I said, keeping my tone light. “Have you had enough to eat?”
The mention of food broke the tension between us. Rafe didn’t relax, exactly, but he resumed his seat. I brought him his oatmeal and after a moment, he began picking at it. I sat, too, and began to chatter about nothing at all. I asked him if he knew his grandparents, the Barons.No. I asked if he’d ever traveled as far as Portland, Oregon.No. I asked his favorite book, his favorite music, and whether he liked to dance.
“Dance?” His snort came gratifyingly close to a laugh. “I do not dance.”
“We should correct that as soon as possible.”
He set his spoon down carefully. “What sort of man are you, Vincent Fairchild?”
“A man like any other.”Almost. “I like good food, the occasional pipe, and a glass of beer every now and again.”
“I’m not so sure.” He fell silent and to cover my awkwardness, I cleared the table. I felt as if I’d been given a test and come up with the wrong answer.
Whether due to my charm or a latent sense of guilt for having insulted Margaret by calling her a tart, Rafe announced that he would take me to the place his father was buried. “That’s where my wards are strongest,” he said. “Even you should be able to sense them.”
Ignoring the dig, I greeted his declaration with enthusiasm.“I’ll meet you in the front room in five minutes.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
With that, I left him. I confess that before I put on my hat, I made sure my hair was properly groomed, and I knotted a plaid scarf around my neck. All that, to spend a morning with a blind man. A very handsome blind man, who – I made a point of reminding myself – was entirely capable of setting that nightmare curse that had so distressed Margaret.
And if he was capable of that, what else was he capable of?
I made a promise to myself that I’d find out.
For our excursion, Rafe wore his tattered cloak. His boots already had mud on them and his hair was better combed than it had been at breakfast. That little vanity had me stifling a grin.
He wasted no time, however, in setting off toward the forest. If Rafe was following a path, it wasn’t one I could easily see. He moved quickly between the trees, his cane making small arcs in front of his feet. The confidence with which he moved through this uneven landscape was markedly different than when we’d been in town. He managed to avoid the clumps of shrubs that claimed land wherever the tree canopy thinned, though we trod right over patches of leathery-leaved groundcover. Living for so many years on this isolated bit of land must have allowed him to commit the landscape to memory.
Our route took us gradually – and sometimes not-so-gradually – uphill in a series of sharp turns. Before long I promised myself I wouldn’t say anything to make Rafe angry, because if he lost me out here in the wilderness, I might never find civilization again.
My upbringing had many benefits, but bushwhacking wasn’t one of them.
We’d walked nearly an hour when he came to a dead stop. “What is it,” I asked, only to have him shush me with a sharp wave of his hand.
I kept quiet, except for the sound of my heavy breathing, which I could not muffle. If Rafe was taxed by our hike, he gave no sign. As my breathing slowed, I picked up other sounds; the soft rattle of small creatures in the leaf mould and the murmur of a stream channeling the steady rainfall.
