Page 112 of Bittersweet & Strange

The commotion begins drawing attention. Doors open along the road as villagers emerge from their homes and businesses to see what is happening, first cautiously and then in greater numbers when they recognize Lucien sitting astride the horse. A woman steps out of the bakery and remains under the awning with both hands pressed against her apron. Two men appear outside the blacksmith’s shop, and farther down the road someone calls into a house before another man joins him on the porch.

Within moments, more than a dozen people are watching us, their attention moving between Lucien, Boone, and the stranger who has apparently ridden directly out of every frightening story they have ever been told about the mountain.

Good.

Let them see him for themselves.

“Lucien, please,” Boone’s father says behind me. “Let my son go.”

“He is not your concern anymore,” Lucien snaps without looking at him.

“He’s my son.”

“He’s going to be my husband.”

Boone’s father goes rigid behind me.

I keep my attention on Lucien because the slightest change in his expression seems to translate directly into the hand holding that pistol. Boone’s wrists remain bound to the saddle horn, the skin under the leather already reddened from the ropes days ago. It’s his face I watch most closely, those familiar eyes enormous and fixed on mine as he tries desperately to remain still despite the weapon against his head.

I have never been more frightened in my life.

Fear has always belonged to other people. I recognize it easily enough because I’ve watched it in their faces, caused it often enough, and used it when necessary. But I’ve never understood what it means to have another person holding the one thing you cannot afford to lose.

Now I do.

“Lucien,” I say calmly, refusing to let any of that fear reach my voice.

His attention shifts toward me, and his mouth twists the moment our eyes meet. “You’re who took him.”

I don’t feel the need to validate the obvious.

“This is your fault.”

“Perhaps.”

Boone looks at me sharply, but I don’t allow my attention to leave Lucien for more than a second. The pistol moves whenever his emotions do, and every twitch of his fingers makes me want to tear him from that horse.

“He was with you,” Lucien says, accusation sharpening every word.

“He was.”

“You kept him for months.”

“Yes.”

“And you think you can simply ride into my village and take him again?”

There is no point correcting his understanding of ownership with a pistol pressed against Boone’s temple, particularly when parts of that understanding sound uncomfortably similar to things I once believed myself.

“No,” I say quietly, keeping my hands visible on the reins. “I think Boone decides where Boone goes.”

Lucien laughs, but there is nothing remotely amused about it. His arm tightens around Boone’s middle. The possibility of Boone choosing for himself clearly something he finds absurd.

“Boone doesn’t know what he wants.”

“I know exactly what I want,” Boone says.

“Quiet.”