"No."
"No?" she whispered. "Why?" She looked at me so seriously, her look as confounded as if I'd just admitted I'd never tried breathing air before.
Without answering, I turned to Virgil who was shifting back and forth on his feet. "You should go on back to your bunk, Virgil."
"Yes, sir," he muttered. He turned to Kira, his face lighting up as if she were the sun and he had just been looking into the darkness. Me being the darkness in this particular circumstance. He gave her the most openly enamored smile I'd ever seen on a grown man and said shyly, "Goodnight, Miss Kira."
Kira grinned back at him and I startled slightly. There it was. That dimple I'd seen in the online photograph. Virgil got the dimple. I'd never gotten the dimple—not even once. And I probably never would, especially after tonight.
"Mrs. Kira," she corrected, winking.
Virgil shot me a look that I swore was suspicious and then nodded at Kira, smiling again as he turned and walked away. I gritted my teeth and turned back to the little witch.
We stared at each other for a few moments. "My father never would have allowed it," I said. "Climbing trees."
She furrowed her brow as if trying to remember what we'd been talking about. Her eyes met mine, and although she was clearly inebriated, I could see gentleness in her expression. "My father didn't allow it either. "
"I take it you didn't listen?" I raised an eyebrow.
She laughed softly and shook her head, looking suddenly sad in a way that made me want to reach out to her. But then she smiled and nodded her head up to the tree. "Clearly not. I've never been very good at obedience. Or meekness. Or curbing my sharp tongue for that matter. I'd make a terrible wife." She swayed again very slightly and took a step toward me on a small laugh.
I couldn't help smiling back at her joke as I caught her by her upper arms.
Something suddenly seemed to occur to her. "Speaking of my father, I told you to be discreet about your personal life. Discreet," she dragged out the word, leaning toward me. "It's very important."
I cleared my throat. "I thought you said you weren't overly worried about your father."
She chewed on her lip. "I'm always worried about my father," she whispered, looking somewhere off in the distance. Her eyes focused on me again and she stood up straighter. "I just don't want to invite trouble."
"Noted," was all I gave her as she swayed again. "Okay, little witch, let's get you back to your cottage in the woods." I almost offered one of the guest rooms in the house again, but she had turned me down before, and frankly, I thought it better that there was distance between us—for a whole slew of reasons I didn't much want to contemplate anymore than I already had.
When we made it to the door of her cottage, she turned to me, her eyes bleary, her cheeks flushed. She tilted her head and as the leaves of the trees overhead blew in the wind, a shaft of moonbeam hit her face, lighting it just enough that her green eyes shone like emeralds. Her hair, perhaps put up in a twist earlier tonight, had slipped almost completely loose and as usual, silky tendrils framed her face. She smiled a small smile at me, her lips curving up just the slightest bit, and I felt momentarily stunned silent. Had I thought this girl was merely pretty? I was the stupidest man alive.
A blind fool.
A complete moron.
She was beautiful.
Irrationally, I felt duped, as if the little witch had put some kind of spell on me. Maybe it wasn't so irrational—she probably had. Bewitching little troublemaker.
I clenched my jaw, turning on my heel. "Goodnight," I called over my shoulder, not even bothering to wait until she'd slipped through the door of her cottage. I went back to my house and took a very cold shower.