I shake my head, tug the brim of my hat lower, and tell myself to shut up about it. I'm here for Laurel. I'm here for food, drinks, fun, and bad decisions in any order. I am not here to getpensiveabout the landscape.
The smithy sits a little bit apart from the main working buildings, off to the side of the stables. It has its own squat weathered structure with a tin roof and the big double doors rolled open on both sides so the air can move through.
The smell I caught earlier hits me again—hot metal, coal, oil, sweat, and something sharp and clean underneath it all like struck flint. I love it. I have always loved it. My uncle had a forge in his garage when I was a kid and I used to sit on an overturned bucket and watch him beat a hinge out of a piece of scrap until my mom came and dragged me home for dinner.
I slow down twenty feet out since I can hear it now…the ring of a hammer on steel, measured and steady.Tink. Tink. Tink-tink.It’s a working rhythm.
I stop in the doorway, leaning my shoulder into the frame, and look inside.
Oh,wow.
He's bent over the anvil with his back half to me, wearing a black leather apron over a gray T-shirt that has gone dark with sweat between his shoulder blades. The short sleeves are rolled up to his shoulders and those arms—I need a moment for his arms.
They are doing things to me. They are corded and veined and bulky, and his forearms are powdered with dark hair. There are multiple smears of soot along them and every time he brings the hammer down his massive biceps jump.
My entire body heats up.
He's big. Broad through the shoulders, brawny through the chest, and thick through the middle, the kind of body you get from twenty years of hard work and eating like a grown man.
He’s really tall, too…even hunched over the anvil I can tell he's a giant, well over six feet. When he straightens up and turns his head to set the piece back in the forge I see the side of his face: endless scruff, a few grays coming in along his jaw, dark hair curling damp at his temple under a black bandana, and a heavy brow.
I'm gonna guess he’s about forty, give or take. And built like a brick house, sweating in a leather apron. I realize with a kind of delighted horror, I haven’t exhaled in ten full seconds.
Jesus.
I give my hat a tug and push off the doorframe. I clear my throat. "Hi."
He doesn't look up. He taps the piece once more, and slides it back into the coals.
"Yeah?" Pretty gruff. Not unfriendly exactly, but preoccupied. He’s a man who doesn't stop working for small talk and has built a life around that.
"Maybe." I step inside. The heat slams into me like a wall and it’s exhilarating. I trail a finger along the edge of a workbench, eyeing a row of tongs. I nod at a piece hanging on the far wall. "You made that?" It’s a twisting iron bracket, resembling a climbing vine, leaves fanning off it in a way that makes it seem almost alive. A lamp hangs from the end of it.
He glances up at the bracket, then—briefly—at me. There are dark blue eyes under the edge of the bandana. They skim me once, fast, and flick back to the coals. His jaw works. "I did."
"Scroll work is clean."
He pauses. “Thanks.”
"How'd you get the leaves to taper like that? Hot cut and then hammer?"
He actually looks up this time, for a proper look. His eyebrows pull together as if he's trying to figure me out, or like he's mildly annoyed at having to do so. I give him my most innocent face, which I’m told isn’t as innocent as I think.
"Hot cut, then a cross peen to draw 'em out," he says slowly. "Then back in the fire and dress 'em with a ball peen."
"Mmhm." I nod, filing it away. "That's why they look so thin at the ends, I was gonna say."
His eyes narrow just a hair. I can see him recalibrating. A second ago I was a chick in a cute hat. Now I'm someone who saidhot cutwithout having to think about it. Watching his face is possibly the most satisfying thing I've felt in a while.
"You smith?" he asks.
"Nope. My uncle did. And I worked a ranch with a guy who did, a couple summers back. I'd hang around and annoy him." I smile. "I'm real good at hangin’ around and annoying people."
"Imagine so."
I chuckle. Okay, grumpy. You've got a sense of humor.
He sets the hammer down and wipes his forearm across his brow, which is asight, and finally turns to face me full-on.