Page 23 of Stolen Hours

She rose on her tiptoes, and his head bent in perfect timing, two dancers knowing all the steps despite it being their first waltz. His tusks fit perfectly around her slender chin, and their lips met, green to rose.

He let her walk to the water, watching her, his pain growing with every step she took. Every step was a step too far from him.

With a heave, he jerked himself around and made his way back to the circle of wood and stone bungalows where his parents were proudly watching Dougie skin a deer.

“Where’ve you been? And where’s your catch?” his father asked, graying, tufted eyebrows raising.

“She’s back at the beach, Da.” Ian swallowed and thought of how his parents would react—and found his doubts stamped out by the memory of Farrah’s kiss. “I’ve met my bride.”

Part Three

“She’s old Mrs. Falkirk’s granddaughter. A witch. She lived in Pine Ridge, and she might go back there.”

Ian waited for his parents to question him more after they ate their evening meal. His brothers and sisters were out, off with their friends, off courting, or off in their own homes with their own mates. He was the last one at home who could’ve been away, married, with his own career, and his own bairns.

His own bride.

“She must be something to look at for you to say she’s your bride,” his mother said quietly, her voice always patient.

“Pine Ridge? You know, we have no steward there at the moment. The clan ought to have a steward on the ground there, in the hills. In case.”

“In case.” It was said as a chorus, and everyone was silent for a second.

“I’ll go, Da’, if she’ll go with me. I have to court her.”

“Aye, and you’re running out of time. Orcs marry in summer.”

“I know.”

“And there has to be a house for her, and all the goods she’d need.”

“I know, Ma. I know, but... In Pine Ridge, there’s land for the steward to build a house.”

“There is a house, old and broken-down. Needs new timbers, I’m sure, new roof, new floors. Wouldn’t have been touched in... Fifty years?”

Ian nodded, stomach unsettled. He pushed away the guga he’d caught, never his favorite anyway, and rose from the table. Would Farrah Falkirk want to live in such a place? With an Orc, not a man, even in a place like Pine Ridge? “I want to go walk along the water.”

“The water’s miles away.”

“Aye, I know, but it’s a nice, soft night.” He shrugged and looked out at the purple-blue sky. Ten degrees cooler than down in the cities, at least, and maybe a fine mist in the air, carried up from the sea or down from the clouds. “If I ask, and she says yes, can she come to tea tomorrow?”

“Ask her to marry you?” his mother yelped.

“Ask her to tea!” Ian laughed, kissing her cheek.