The Stepmother: an Everland Ever After tale by Lee Caroline

Author:Lee, Caroline [Lee, Caroline]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2016-07-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

To Jack’s surprise, a month passed, and then another. He didn’t kiss her again, but it was a struggle, every day. Meri had made herself at home in his home, and now…well, now he couldn’t imagine daily life without her there, fixing breakfast, making Zelle laugh with her silly songs, or teaching him how to tackle new tasks. Osbourne had been patient with him while he was learning to read, all those years ago, but Meri…he was learning things from her that his crotchety old mentor couldn’t have imagined.

One day he came back in from chopping wood—about the only thing he was good at, besides setting bones and simple fixes—to find Zelle standing on the table, giggling, while Meri measured her. Turned out that she was fixing to make a new dress for his princess, and when she saw how interested Jack was, she showed him what to do. He even helped piece it together, and she praised his stitching. It probably had something to do with all the practice he’d had on men’s flesh, but he didn’t bring that up.

Yeah, he was learning from her, alright, but it was more than that; she wasn’t just his teacher, she was…she was his friend. She was family now, somehow. Those were her curtains that she’d put up in March, and her books sat beside his on the shelf, and once Zelle had gotten used to her, he let the ladies take the bedroom, so those were her dresses on the hooks in there. And those were Zelle’s new mittens and his new scarf—things Meri had knitted—hanging by the front door. And it was her skills at the stove that made mealtimes his favorite parts of the day. And her scent that made him dread lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about her in the next room.

They’d settled into a comfortable routine, but he wasn’t at all comfortable with it. He shouldn’t have kissed her, that day in Everland. This torture would be easier to bear, if he didn’t already know how she tasted, how she felt pressed against him. He’d known that she was everything he’d longed for, during nine years’ worth of cold nights in his cell…but it had been a mistake to confirm it.

For two months, he’d had to see her warm smile and her cheerful tone, and sometimes—Lord help him—sometimes, her touch. She’d brush dirt or flour from his cheek, or place her hand on his arm, or once, grab his hand in excitement. And then there was the time when he’d stood too close behind her, watching her add spices—spices she’d chosen at Pedlars’ Dry Goods—to a stew, and he remembered the way she felt in his arms. He’d fought the almost-overwhelming urge to press himself against her back, letting her feel how much he wanted her… But then, she’d leaned back against him, and in one moment his dream and nightmare had come true. He’d groaned, to feel her in his arms

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