Page 79 of Escape from the Green

"Well, she simply didn't know what she was missing out on, I wager. There is nothing like being able to fill the bellies of your loved ones, knowing they were happier for your toiling. Come, let me show you. I hear Drake has plans to build you a home of your own. As much as I would be sorry to lose you, I am happy to teach you how to cook for yourself. And maybe others some day. A mate and offspring. That is the curse of a mother, you know," she went on, the kind of person who could carry on a conversation all by herself, something I found immeasurably charming. "You spend so much time teaching your girls to cook, sew, clean, keep house. Only to lose them to their own. But," she added, tone cheering right up, "then they come back with their offspring, and you get to start the process all over again. Here, hand me the carrots, angel," she demanded, waving to the jars on a shelf lining a wall to the side of the hearth.

There were dozens of them, everything from herbs and dried flowers to fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and grains.

Finding the carrots, I brought them over to where she was filling a pot over the hearth.

"We will teach you all this too, of course. Gardening, drying your own stores for the winter. You will be running your own household in no time. So tell me," she went on as casually as could be. "Are you and Drake sweet on each other?"

And that was the afternoon I was exposed to three different kinds of mothers.

The doting one who showed her love through caring for you.

The practical one who knew she needed to hand you the tools that life would require of you away from home.

And, well, the meddling mother who wanted to know when she was going to get more grandbabies.

Luckily, I was saved from answering when one of Nesta's children came barging in demanding a snack.

"Is everything okay with Kieran?" I asked when Drake and I were momentarily alone later that evening after dinner, after he had spent some time with old friends while I helped Aya clean and launder, two very new tasks to me. Sure, I had needed to clean my clothing in the human realm, but there were machines that did all the work. There were no machines in The Green. And certainly none here on Draca land. Just a bunch of women gathered around, scrubbing homemade soaps into fabrics while talking about what they would plant for spring, who was expecting, what young couples had found sweethearts.

Even then, taking a walk through the mostly-empty path leading away from town, my fingertips felt achy and overly sensitive from all the scrubbing.

"Yeah. Kieran is just... angry with the other elders now that he knows he was right in trying to find me, wanting to send people out to look for me. He hasn't had anyone to talk to about it for all this time. He needed to vent, purge it out so it stopped eating at him."

"Did you two... go out and fly together?" I asked, feeling a twinge of jealousy at the idea. Not because I wanted to fly with him per se, seeing as that wouldn't be possible, but because I held this deep-rooted desire to see him Change, to see him freed of that last shackle he still wore.

Almost seeming to read through me, his gaze went down, a small smile on his lips. "No. We just took a walk. Talked. Speaking of, how did your afternoon go? I heard my mother put you to work."

"I asked to help. Then she decided it was her mission to teach me how to tend house for myself. And for a mate and offspring one day."

A low groan escaped Drake. "She didn't use that term, did she?"

I smiled at that, at his embarrassment, finding it sweet. "She did. She also wanted to know," I started, having to take a deep breath to get the words out, and even then they were barely more than a whisper, "if we were sweet on each other."

There.

It was out there.

For better, worse, and my eternal humiliation.

At the words, Drake stopped, turning, waiting for me to do the same.

"She asked that?"

"She did," I told him, nodding, not sure how to read the odd look in his eyes.

"What did you say?"

"Your niece interrupted."

"What would you have said?" he pressed.

I was suddenly very aware of our aloneness, of the three-quarter moon above us, of the blanket of stars, of the way all the light was reflecting off the white snow, making everything dreamy and idyllic.

And, above all else, the nearness of us, the way the warmth always emanated off his body, calling me closer, the way his eyes had a sweet edge, the way everything within me was begging me to tell him the truth, to be open, vulnerable, honest. Even if it was scary, new, uncomfortable.

My eyes skittered around, not quite able to keep contact. "I would have said that maybe someday we could be sweet on each other."

"Maybe?" he asked, head ducking, trying to make eye contact, but my gaze was stubbornly downward. "Someday?" he added, fingers snagging my chin waiting for my eyes to find his. "Is there something wrong with today?" he asked, lips curving up ever-so-slightly, eyes intense. "To be sweet on me," he clarified, thumb moving out to trace up my cheek.