Gretchen and the Bear by Carrie Anne Noble

Author:Carrie Anne Noble [Noble, Carrie Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WordCrafts Press
Published: 2020-06-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Six

The door clicked shut. Gretchen set the breakfast tray aside. Her usual appetite wasn’t there this morning. A funny fluttering had taken over her stomach instead. And it seemed to be Arthur’s fault.

The way he’d been looking at her just before he’d left the room. It had done something to her, sparked something. There had been a moment when she’d thought he was going to kiss her, and she’d kind of wanted him to.

A sweet and awful pang of longing squeezed her heart. She’d had a crush on the guy who sat in front of her in chemistry lab last fall—but this was a hundred times more intense. This was serious trouble.

Or it could have been, if Arthur had been human and she’d been staying in Britannia. Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—neither of those things was going to happen.

Agitated and a little annoyed at her unruly emotions, she got up and changed into Arthur’s old clothes. Great. They smelled like him. Just what she didn’t need.

She took a comb from the dresser and attacked her hair. She braided it tightly into one plait. She’d lost her hair bands, so she opened a drawer to look for something to secure the braid. Among mismatched loose buttons and straight pins, she found a scrap of ribbon. And a small sketch of a bear, childish and smudged, and signed with the letter A.

Feeling just a little guilty, she slipped the picture into her pocket.

Convivial, manly laughter drifted upstairs. The Bearfolk men seemed to be having a great time. Arthur had mentioned some betrothal thing they did, and the elder had brought a girl to the cottage, so… Yeah, she needed to get out of the way if marriage-arranging was going on. Promise or no promise.

It would be better this way. No awkward parting scene. No silly farewell speeches. A clean break and a new beginning for them all.

She eyed the window. It would be a squeeze, but she could fit through. When she opened the casement, she was glad to see thick vines clinging to the stone wall below. They’d do for a ladder, she hoped.

“Goodbye, Bearfolk,” she said as she swung her legs over the windowsill.

***

Elder Bern was a stout, neatly dressed Bear-fellow with an impressive chest-length brownish-black beard. The deep crinkles around his eyes hinted that he was at least two hundred years old. His acorn brown eyes appraised Arthur as he held out his hand in greeting.

“Good day to you, Arthur,” Bern said. He stepped to the side and made a sweeping gesture toward a pretty, brown-haired girl in a yellow dress. “You remember my niece, Birna Cloverfield, from a few youth outings, no doubt?”

“Yes,” Arthur said. “Welcome.”

Birna looked him up and down just as her uncle had, but with a sweeter smile. He remembered her all right, and not only because she had kind eyes and plump pink cheeks. He remembered her because she’d knocked his front tooth out when they were six and put an earthworm in his pie when they were ten.

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