He raises the hammer back in the air, only to cross it over his body to wipe his forearm across his eyes and then hang it back down at his side. It’s as though he’s completely alone. In a bubble of silence without any awareness of the tense, frothing crowd around him.
I observe him assess and dismiss each member of the crowd in turn, watching each muscle flex and tighten. But when his dark eyes focus on me, they stall. I twist my head to the side. Pulling a shoulder to my ear, trying to hide, but his gaze fixes solidly upon me.
The intensity in his eyes lightens. His eyebrows loosen, and he cocks his head slightly to the left as his eyes trace up and down, such a quick movement most people would have missed it. I notice it more as a feeling than anything tangible, as every inch of my body tightens as it falls under his line of sight.
Just when my heart feels ready to seize, he drops his eyes from me and turns to the silent, fair-haired man standing behind him, raising his chin in a jerking motion. The man steps forward and takes the hammer and the half-forged sword from the hands of the eye candy, then shifts sideways and back before raising the hammer in the air, silencing the murmur moving through the crowd. “Just a minute. We just need a minute.”
To my horror and delight, the forger steps forward, and his eyes once again fix on me, like a predator on its prey. I turn my head to glance over one shoulder then the other, convinced I must be letting my imagination get the better of me again.
Surely there must be a tall, beer wench with breast flesh spilling out of her corset behind me, right?
When he steps from behind the ropes, the crowd parts like Moses is holding his staff above the Red Sea. Half of them are hawk-watching, eager, as the sweat-covered forger strides around the edge of the crowd. But his eyes are pinned on me, even as I try to shrink back and find myself entangled in the round belly of a bearded fairgoer with crumbs in his facial hair and a glazed look in his eye.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, turning one way then the other, looking for a means of escape, but my boots are frozen to the soggy grass.
“That’s okay, little lady.” Dirty beard grins and bobs his eyebrows, and my first instinct is to look down.
What is going on today?
I’m caught between the advancing forger and this beard man with lust in his eyes. I don’t understand what is happening. I’m not the kind of girl men usually notice. I’m the kind of girl who wears the same pair of Timberlands until the leather starts to crack. Normal girls have closets full of high heels and flats and shoes for every purpose, but one pair of hiking boots is it for me. Life in an Airstream teaches you to live simply.
But right now, I’d do anything to have just one decent pseudo feminine outfit put aside. Because he is here. I say a silent prayer, staring down at my worn boots as the growing dark wetness covers the toe from the mushy footing.
I feel him near me before I hear him. I notice the way the beer-belly man is pushed back by some unseen force, notice the prickling over the left side of my body, like a low current has been spread over the skin. Then, as much as I can’t believe it, he lights up the rest of my senses—the sound of his breathing. The mix of smoky, salty and sweaty, somehow more of an aphrodisiac than I could imagine.
I’ve been around sweaty men before, obviously. Trust me, living on the rig sites with my dad, those men out in the middle of nowhere with no women around do not cotton to hygiene.
But this is different. The forger has a scent. Not a smell and it’s got my mouth watering and ears ringing.
If someone’s scent can make your ears ring, you know you are in deep guano.
“Name.” His single word hits me like blunt force trauma to the head, knocking me senseless and rendering me unable to respond.
Instead, my eyes stick toward the ground, fixed on his black boots, my hands digging down into the front pockets of my shorts, fingering the dog-eared letter from Dan Sullivan. The letter that spells the end of my nomad life. The ringing in my ears turns to an eerie, low hum. The same sound you hear when you hold a huge conch shell to your ear.
The next thing I know, my senses are all focused on a single point of contact, as a rough fingertip applies pressure beneath my chin. An unsteady chirp escapes my throat.
Gentle yet firm motion shifts my gaze from the black boots. Moving my eyes upward, taking in every inch
of the view as they go. I focus on the dark chest hair that peeks out from the top of the soot covered suede apron.
The pressure from his single finger turns to a pinch of two as he adds his thumb to the front of my chin, lifting, raising my gaze further. Any other stranger, at any other time, touching me like this would be on the receiving end of an uppercut or a knee to the groin. Valuable lessons I learned from the many pseudo fathers and brothers I’ve had over the years.
“Name.” That word again, and just as it hits my ears, my eyes take the leap and look into his face.
A tremor starts at the crown of my head, slamming down my body until my knees threaten to buckle.
His eyes are near black. I’ve seen brown eyes, even very dark brown eyes, the kind that look like midnight on a dirt track, but his are the color of Guinness. They have a hint of golden flecks around the edge of his iris, drawing me in. I’ve never seen or dreamed of eyes like that, but on him, there could be no other. They are perfect.
He is perfect.
And I am barely touching the ground.
Name, dummy. He asked for your name. An admonishing voice in my head breaks the trance.
Okay, so what is it?
“My name?” My half-wit reply turns my cheeks fifty shades of embarrassed.