Beauty and the Blacksmith (Spindle Cove #3.5)(17)
Author: Tessa Dare

Her grudging approval made him smile. It was what he’d come for, after all.

“Billy’s a good boy. He has a good mum.” He gave his sister a fond rub on the top of the head, just as he’d done when she was a girl. “I’ll stock up your woodpile before I go.”

An hour later, Diana thanked her kind—but notably wary—hostess for the tea and biscuits and expressed a wish to have a wander in the garden.

She rounded the side of the house, only to narrowly miss a collision—

With Aaron.

He had shorter hair. And three children clinging to him—a giggling niece attached to either leg, and Billy hanging from his neck. She’d obviously caught them in the middle of a favorite game.

Aaron froze, a helpless expression on his face.

“You . . .” Diana cleared her throat and said in a low, solemn voice, “Mr. Dawes, you have a little something.” She motioned discreetly toward her body, indicating the position of Billy’s stranglehold on his neck. “Just here.”

“Oh. Do I really?”

She nodded.

“Hm.” He shook his whole body, as if he were a dog just come out of a lake. All three children clung tight and laughed.

“Did that take care of it?” he asked.

“I’m afraid not.”

He shook again, and the children laughed harder.

“How about now?”

“Still there.”

“Well, then.” He frowned in exaggerated concentration. “Perhaps I need a good dousing in the stream.”

At that, the children squealed, released him, and ran away shrieking. Diana laughed, too.

He stood tall and straightened his clothing. “Sorry to have taken so long.”

“Not at all. Please don’t apologize.”

“Jemma’s husband is at sea for months at a time. I try to come by every so often to keep the woodpile stocked, fix the leaks and sticking doors . . .”

“Chase the children around the garden,” she finished for him.

His wide mouth tipped in a lazy, devastating smile. “That, too.”

Diana could have sworn she felt her womb shiver. What an excellent husband and father he’d make. Protective, affectionate, devoted.

And here, so far from Spindle Cove and her ambitious mother, almost anything seemed possible.

But then he looked at the sky. “We’d best be on our way home.”

On the way home, Charlotte declared herself exhausted. She made a bed for herself in the back of the wagon.

Diana sat on the driver’s box beside Aaron. They talked of nothings for the first hour or so, while the sun sank lower in the sky.

Finally, Diana chanced a quick look over her shoulder at the wagon bed. “I think she’s asleep.”

“Thank God.” Aaron transferred the reins to one hand, then used his free arm to draw her close. He tucked her head against his shoulder. “You can rest, too, if you like.”

“And waste this precious time with you? Never.” She looked up at him. “I liked your sister very much.”

“She liked you.”

Diana laughed a little. “No, she didn’t. She was kind and hospitable, but terribly suspicious of me.”

He shook his head in denial.

“Yes, she was. She was suspicious of me because she cares about you. And that’s why I liked her.” She reached up and touched his newly cropped hair. “I’m glad you have someone looking out for you.”

His hand stroked up and down her arm.

“I hope you weren’t offended that I didn’t tell my own sister the truth.”

His hand stopped stroking. “No, I understood it.”

“Did you? Perhaps you can explain it to me, then.”

She felt him shrug. “No reason to have your family in a lather until you’re sure about a thing.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“There’s no rush. We’re just getting to know one another.”

Were they, really? Diana was so confused. This was more than a casual acquaintance. She was coming to care for him. In truth, she’d begun to care for him some time ago, but every hour they spent together strengthened the attraction.

He wasn’t just a well-built body, a handsome face, and a talented kisser. He was a good man, and he deserved to be with someone who could love him unreservedly. He was offering her patience, but she knew she owed it to him to make up her mind. Either accept him for the man he was, or let him find someone else.

It was as though he heard her thoughts.

He glanced at her. “I won’t think less of you.”

“I’d think less of me.”

He put space between them, and his voice grew stern. “Don’t do this to prove something about yourself, Diana. Not to me, or to your mother, or to anyone. There’s no shame in honesty. And there’s no romance in glossing over the realities. We could both cite several reasons to let this go.”

“You mean realities such as . . . you need a wife who can cook?”

“Or that you need a husband who can move in society.”

“Your sister might never accept me,” she said.

He nodded and said, in a perfectly serious tone, “Your mother might implode.”

She laughed, then laid her head on his shoulder. “Honestly, it’s Charlotte. The effect on Charlotte is my greatest concern.”

“And that’s not something to be brushed aside. If my own sister’s future were at risk, I’d be thinking long and hard about it, too.”

As they crested another of Sussex’s rolling hills, she wondered if she’d ever meet another man who made her feel so free to be honest. And she had the awful, sinking feeling that with all their honesty, they’d just talked themselves out of a future together.

“Aaron, I know it’s unrealistic to say the differences won’t matter. To say ‘Love conquers all.’ But if you—”

He shushed her.

Oh, drat. She’d used the word love. She’d broken the cardinal rule of female subtleties, as her mother described them. She’d spoken That Word aloud, and he wasn’t ready for it.

And now it truly was over.

CHAPTER 8

Aaron had never been more reluctant to interrupt a lady, but in this instance, he had no choice.

He slowed the horses to a walk and explained, “There’s someone in the road ahead. Stay calm, and let me do the talking.”

To the side of the road, a donkey cart appeared to have lost its wheel. The driver of the cart stood in the center of the lane, wearing a patched coat and waving his hat in a plea for assistance.