He doesn’t show any amusement at my clearly addled brain. He simply regards my words and my face with such a calm intensity that any rational thoughts I had left fall out of my ears.
“Yes. I’m hoping you will tell me what it is,” he says. His words rumble out from between full lips that I imagine kissing their way down my body. Enjoying every inch on the journey where they end planted smack between my legs.
That thought alone has my heart skipping beats. I’ve never thought anything like that before. And I’ve certainly never done that before. I’m shocked at my own crudeness, my own base sexual craving.
He drops his fingers from my chin.
“Maybe this will help you remember,” he whispers as his lips come down and press into mine.
Everything stops. For a moment, there is nothing. No sound, no time, no universe.
And then something new starts.
The kiss is soft but demanding, needy. His warm lips hold on to mine for a long moment. Not taking more than he should. His tongue sweeps out of his mouth, glancing along my lower lip, going no further.
It’s as though he’s not just tasting me, but savoring me. When he’s done, he stands back even taller. His shoulders hitch up then back, and I watch in awe as every muscle and tendon seems to turn to solid iron. Each one stands taut and stretched under his skin, as though they are spring-loaded and ready to go off.
Our eyes are locked. His hand comes to graze down the front of my neck and rest there at the base, without hesitation, as if it belongs right there. His fingers tighten, ever so slightly, in a way that is possessive and yet not threatening.
The sunshine that covered us evaporates. A cloud of gray pushes in front of the yellow fireball and turns all the hues around us soft and desaturated.
My lips open. I’ve remembered my name. I’m ready to give it to him, to let him take it and hold it, but somehow the spell breaks, the magic dissipates, and the sound of horns and shouts of merriment break through the hypnotic draw of those eyes.
“I’m—” I start.
I dare to look into his eyes. His face is that of a man who needs nothing from anyone else. He is as rugged as he is refined. His left eye droops, just a bit, along with the eyebrow above. Crooked, yet perfectly so. Somehow, he is the sexiest specimen of maleness Mother Nature ever created.
I take a breath, calm my nerves and try to continue. “I’m Le—”
An arm loops around my waist and jerks me backward, nearly pulling me right off my feet.
Just then, a resounding bang comes from the demonstration area. I glance forward to see several drunken fairgoers have ignored the rope barriers and are grabbing up hammers and forged knives from the display, banging them on the hot furnace and laughing. Another miscreant grabs a sword and holds it in mock triumph over his head. The derelict crew is swinging them around, hitting the furnace and coming dangerously close to each other.
I stumble back into whoever has grabbed me, unable to regain my footing, while keeping my sight on the action in the front of the dissipating crowd. The forger’s assistant struggles to control the escalating situation, but the four men are clearly substance-impaired.
The blacksmith flips his head around to regard the commotion, then back to me. Then back to the forge again. Distress clouds his dark eyes as I find my feet and turn to see my dad’s smiling face over my shoulder.
“Come on, you,” he says, and I smell the hint of Guinness on his breath. “Time for one last parade before we have to leave. Our last one, sweetheart. Let’s enjoy it.” His voice is a strange mix of joy and melancholy.
He’s too lost in his excitement to even notice what I was doing. He clearly missed the kiss in the chaos of the parade. I want to stay, but how can I deny him? I’ll be back. I’ll come back after the parade. I will.
I nod, feeling myself being sucked into the Royal Parade with him. I can’t, I wish for just one more moment. “Just one sec,” I nearly beg, turning back to find the forger stepping forward, following me, but the chaos behind the ropes is heading for disaster. “It’s my dad,” I tell him. “I have to—”
An angry shout from his assistant rises over the other noise, and he turns from me. The parade shifts behind me, bodies pressing in all around, and the wave of humanity carries me forward with my dad beside me, a smile on his face, unaware of what he just interrupted. His hand comes down to grip mine, and his voice rises in excitement. “I’m going to miss you so much, Lela. Thank you for today. This is the perfect send-off for my little girl.”
I twist my head around, but I’m surrounded by bodies. My five feet two inches has me lost in a sea of taller fairgoers, and the forger is gone. Panic grips me.
I will never be back here. Doesn’t anyone realize? I’m going away. The letter from Dan Sullivan in my pocket says it all. My little training video impressed him. I’ve been hired. An actual job of my own, training dogs for a living. For a famous The Animal Channel celebrity. Doing the thing I love most in the world.
And all I can think is, I’m never going to see the forger again.
“Wait, Dad!” I gain my footing and strain my neck, trying to peek over the crowd.
Another earsplitting boom from the direction of the forge, and the flashes of polished silver spark above the crowd. Swords are raised into the air like some sort of medieval declaration of war. Voices from the demonstration area turn angry.
I give in, allowing my dad to pull me away and let go of the few moments of fantasy that still lay in my chest like a flower frozen in mid-bloom.
“Lela,” I whisper toward the ground, to no one in particular, as I let the momentum of the parade and my dad’s joy carry me away. “My name is Lela.”