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lifted heavy logs, usually with René's assistance but occasionally without, and used a hammer to nail in the wooden pegs that held the fence together. She wanted to offer to help, too, but since he avoided her, she was sure her overture would be unwelcome. |
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He still shot her glances now and then, sometimes fiery and sometimes sad, when he seemed to think she was too busy with a chore to notice. But he went out of his way to keep from speaking with her, let alone touching her. |
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So, she'd continue to admire Thorn from afar. Watch him, as though he were the Thorn in the script after it had been shot. On the movie screen. Equally unreal and remote. A gorgeous, sexy phantom on whom only fictional heroines dared to rely. |
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In the meantime, she was learning a lot about survival in this era. She now knew how to tend the fire, to light a new one when necessary. To cook a variety of dishes, and clean using the available tools and soap of the day. |
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Strangely, after all her questing for a home in her own bustling time, she found the peaceful, primitive life here appealing. A life she was becoming comfortable within a place she felt she actually could belong. One where she wouldn't always be picking herself up to go to a new location. |
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She was even learning to sew, by hand, using small, even stitches instead of the mechanically perfect ones from machines that had yet to be invented. |
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She was proud when she'd completed her first skirt, a long one of the plaid material she'd selected. The afternoon it was finished, she put it on, wearing it when she helped serve supper. |
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Thorn, sitting with their only guest of the day, said nothing. She put a glass of ale in front of him and whirled away, swinging the skirt so it billowed about her legs, showing her ankles. She hazarded a glance back toward him. His stare rose from her feet up toward her face, and she felt herself flushing, particularly when he glanced at their guest, who also watched her legs. |
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