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“It’ll take a while. Eat that apple in your bag while you wait. And wrap up in those blankets.”
I give a wobbly salute. “Aye, cap’n.”
One bruised apple and the promise of hot water, and I’m more blissed out than I’ve ever been. Maybe cave life isn’t so bad after all. Maybe the Wild Man of Starlight Ridge is on to something out here.
Four
Rowan
It’s never bothered me before how long it takes to heat water over a fire, but tonight is different. Now that Evie is here, her teeth chattering as she burrows into my blankets, impatience gnaws on my bones.
“Come on,” I mutter, stoking the burning logs. It’s a bigger fire than I normally bother with, the charred logs popping and spitting, but I want to heat this damn cave before Evie turns blue.
The first tendrils of steam curl off the surface of the water, flames licking at the base of the giant pot. When I dip my knuckles, it’s lukewarm.
Not good enough.
“How’s it going?” Evie calls, her voice echoing strangely in the cave. Candlelight flickers on the stone walls, and she’s kicked off both boots to huddle on the cot. “Can I help with anything?”
“No,” I say, way too quick and loud. “You stay there. Just… stay where I put you.”
It’s bad enough having a stranger in my cave, let alone this unsettling woman with her clever eyes. Better that she stay in one place and not touch anything.
I keep an old fashioned metal bathtub in the back of the cave for those rare nights when I can be bothered to heat water. Mostly, I scrub myself clean under the waterfall or go dunk myself in the river—or hike a few miles to the nearest hot springs. Tonight, though, I’m pulling out all the stops, and I shake my head at myself as I drag the bathtub into the center of the cave. It judders over the stone floor, metal scraping.
“Huh,” Evie says, the cot creaking beneath her as she leans forward for a better look. “How old-timey. I’ve never seen a tub with a high back like that. Not in real life, anyway.”
I grunt and swivel it around so the front faces the fire.
“This is decadent as hell.” Evie grins when I glance over at her, and I swear she’s not even being sarcastic right now. She really is thrilled to have an old fashioned bath in this cave.
Better file that piece of information with everything else I know about her so far, because it doesn’t jibe with the spoiled city girl image I had of her earlier. Never thought of myself as the judgmental type, but here I am being proved more wrong about her with each passing minute.
“What do you do to get clean when you’re in there? Rub yourself all over with moss?”
It’s a few steps to the supply shelves, then I hold up a pale bar. “Soap.”
Evie almost looks disappointed. “Yeah, that’ll do it.”
She’s swaddled in blankets, but she still catches the soap bar when I toss it to her. When she lifts it to her nose and sniffs, my cheeks go hot.
Doesn’t mean anything. Nope. She doesn’t mean anything by that; she’s not trying to smell me. Christ, I’d have to be the most deluded man alive to think I could attract a girl like Evie when I’m… this.
Dirty and matted. Barefoot and feral. If she’d met me before, if she’d seen the man I used to be, maybe then things could have been different. I could’ve taken her to dinner; could’ve brought her flowers and kissed her under the moonlight. Tried my luck and seen where things went.
But I’m not that man anymore. He’s long dead.
The matted ropes of my hair itch the back of my neck. How long has it been since I cut it? How long since I shaved my long, shaggy beard? How bad do I look, exactly? I’m surprised this girl let me near her at all.
“It’s getting warmer,” Evie says, nodding at the pot of water on the fire. Steam billows off the surface now in tiny clouds, and the heat from the flames is spreading through the cave. “Shall I, um… undress?”
Yeah.
Shit.
Baths mean nudity. She’s going to take her clothes off in my cave, and I’m gonna see—I might—
“Wait! Wait a second. I’ll fill the tub first.” Then I’ll make myself scarce while Evie bathes, and go bang my head against a tree. Maybe I’ll sprint up to the mountain peak a few times too and burn off some of this restless energy.
