Part of me still gets scared, but we’ve come too far together and achieved so much that it would make me both a bastard and an idiot if I pulled out now. I don’t want to be another person in her life who disappoints her.
“No. I’m not going to do that.”
She smiles at me tentatively. “Then that’s just as beautiful as this necklace. Thank you, Cale. I love it.”
I wonder if she’s going to put it on, but she just wipes her tears and heads for the stables, holding tightly to the box. I watch her go, knowing without a doubt that she’s gone to show Dandelion.
It’s probably the best Christmas I’ve had in years, and the best New Year’s as well. I don’t know why. Things just feel happier and more exciting than usual. More snow falls, and we all muck about in it, having snowball fights and building snowmen. The evenings are filled with laughter as we’re huddled around the fire. Ryah’s always smiling, and I can’t help but smile too when I see how content she is.
Two days before we’re due to get back on the road, I’m helping Mum in the kitchen. She’s insisted on sending us off with loads of baked goods, and I’m wrapping batches of oatmeal cookies and peanut brittle in waxed paper.
Ryah comes in with a basket of chard she’s gathered from the greenhouse. She’s wearing a sweater, but I can see the glint of silver chain around her neck and it makes me smile to myself. She’s wearing the necklace.
Mum sends her on her way with a couple of cookies, and I’m still looking at Ryah as she heads out of the room. Mum catches the direction of my gaze, and I quickly look down at the baking trays.
Real smooth, Cale. Way to show your too-shrewd mother that something’s up.
We go about our work in silence, and I begin to hope I got away with it. Then Mum says in a fond voice, “Ryah’s such a lovely girl.”
“Is she?” I say vaguely. I concentrate on folding the paper around the cookies just so.
Mum is rubbing butter into flour with the tips of her fingers, making yet another batch. “Oh, yes. Such a fresh, wholesome air about her. You can’t help but like her or notice that she’s pretty. But that’s not what you think of her, of course.”
My shoulders relax. We’re out of the danger zone. “No.”
“You think she’s beautiful.”
The piece of wax paper I’m trying to wrestle off the roll suddenly rips in two. “What?”
Mum pauses, her floury fingers over the bowl, gazing at me like I’ve just asked her something extremely obvious. “Ryah. You have feelings for her.”
“No, I don’t.”
She gives a pitying shake of her head. My mouth works and I hold out my arm, gesturing at the doorway Ryah’s just disappeared through, and—and what? The complete obviousness of what my mother has just said to me?
“I need some more string,” I mutter, turning away from her.
“On the chimneypiece. There’s no point in denying it. I know my son. You’re different this Christmas, and I’ve heard something in your voice since the summer. Something hopeful. I like it.”
I measure out lengths of string and begin tying up the paper packages. I consider telling my mother the truth. I have feelings for Ryah. I want to take her in my arms and kiss her. I want to do so much more than that. She’s had a special spot in my heart since I met her, but lately that spot’s been growing and growing until it feels larger than my whole chest. Larger than my whole body.
Or I could lie.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to Ryah about it, actually,” Mum goes on, as if I haven’t said anything. “But I thought I’d say something to you first.”
Panic sweeps through me. “Mum, don’t you dare talk to Ryah.”
“But I have to if you won’t admit it. Someone has to get the truth out of you.”
I take a deep breath and let it out gustily. “Alright. I have a—” I step back to check no one’s listening at the door and lower my voice to a whisper “—soft spot for Ryah, but that’s all. She’s very sweet, but she’s also very young. Naïve, really. If she was going to be romantically involved with anyone it should be a seventeen-year-old boy.” Even as I say it I can feel my whole body revolting at the notion.
No one gets to touch Ryah. No. One.
But me. And I won’t allow that, either.
“She is young,” Mum agrees. “But she’s resilient and clever, and she’s growing into a beautiful young woman. Do you want someone else to snatch her up first?”
No, I fucking don’t. “That’s not the way the world works. You don’t place dibs on people.”
She’s mine.
“If you keep clenching your teeth that hard, they’ll break.”
“I’m not,” I growl through my clenched teeth. I sound like a petulant teenager. A jealous, petulant teenager. I keep wrapping cookies, trying to ignore the whole goddamn conversation.
But what if Mum’s noticed something about the way Ryah looks at me. That would be interesting to know about. For purely educational reasons. “Do you think she…feels anything for me?”
Mum makes a mystified face. “How should I know, darling? Why don’t you ask her?”
Yeah, right. “Do you think she knows how I feel?”
Mum muses for a moment. “I don’t think so. She probably thinks you feel about her the same as you feel about everyone in the troupe. Unless someone tells her.” She cracks an egg into her mixing bowl.
My eyes widen. “Mum. Don’t you dare.”
“Then you do it.”
“She’s seventeen!”
Mum waves that away like a gnat on a summer’s night. “You’re not going to propose her. You’re not going to do anything. You’re a good man. But she’s not going to be seventeen forever, and soon, maybe next week, maybe even tomorrow, she’s going to notice that there’s something different about the way you look at her. She’ll realize you don’t look that way at anyone else. Because that’s how I knew.” Mum sniffs. “You’ve told her about Mirrie?”
Guilt slices through me, like Mum’s caught me out doing something shameful.
She gives me a pained look. “Cale. You don’t have to feel bad about confiding in Ryah. She’s your friend. I think it’s wonderful that you talk to her. Wouldn’t you rather tell her yourself that you’re falling in love with her?”
“Look, stop that. I’m not telling her anything, and you’re not going to say a word, either. I forbid it.”
Mum’s eyebrows raise. “Is that how you address your performers, ringmaster?”
“No. Only meddling mothers.” I’ll just have to be more guarded with Ryah. If I tell her how I feel about her and she thinks she feels the same way, if she smiles at me, wants to be near me…
I close my eyes briefly. If she kisses me again, I won’t be able to stop myself from getting as close to her as I possibly can. Every inch of her body, and her heart.
“Cale—”
“Thank you for you input, mother,” I say tightly. “Now let’s change the subject.”