He Ignored My Pain, So I Left Him in Regret novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: The Ford

A broken wheel brings Joss Merrin, who lifts Ivy down without touching her back, and who asks what Clara did in Greyhaven.

The stranger swung down from his saddle and bowed to the circle of fires.

"Joss Merrin, trade warden of Greyhaven," he said. "My mare went lame on the pass, and I'm told the Hollin caravan never leaves a traveler in the snow."

"Who told you that?" Rafe asked from Clara's wagon step.

"A woman at the toll house. She also said you'd charge me for it."

A few wolves laughed, and Rafe did not.

"Where are you going?"

"Moonwell Hall, same as you. I carry a sealed letter for the keeper. Greyhaven would like it to arrive before the winter moon."

Rafe looked at the cloak, the lame mare, and the sealed oilcloth tube at his belt.

"You can ride at the back," he said. "Keep your hands off the stores."

"That's the third wagon," Nessa said brightly, before anyone could stop her. "We have a spare bench."

Joss turned and found me by the wheel.

His eyes went over my face, once, without stopping on the mark at my neck, and I liked him for it.

"Then I'm in good company," he said.

The next morning at the river ford, the back wheel of our wagon broke off its axle.

The crate of ledgers slid into the water, and Nessa shrieked and went in after it to her knees.

"Not the ledgers!" she yelled. "Ivy, grab the winter stores before they float!"

"They're ledgers, Nessa. They don't float."

"Then they'll sink with a great deal of dignity!"

Joss was already off his mare and in the river to his thighs.

He got the crate by one handle and slung it onto the bank, and then he put his shoulder under the axle and heaved.

"Two of you on the pin," he called. "Quickly, it's cold."

Two of the drivers came running.

In a quarter of an hour the wheel was back on and wedged with a split post.

He stood on the bank wringing out his cuffs, grease up to the wrist.

"It will hold to the Hall," he said. "Not a day longer. Whoever built this wagon was optimistic."

"My father built it," Nessa said. "He was."

I was still on the high board, because the wagon sat tilted and the drop to the water was steep.

Joss came around and held up his arms.

"I can take you down."

"I can jump."

"I'm sure you can. Your shoulder is bothering you, though, and the jump is long."

I had not said a word about my shoulder.

I set my hands on his forearms, and he took my weight at the waist and lowered me to the stones.

His hands stayed at my ribs and my hips.

They never touched my back.

He did not look at it either, as he let me go.

"You've done that before," I said.

"Lifted someone? Many times. Never into a river."

"I meant you didn't touch my back."

"Ah." He bent to pick his hat out of the mud. "That seemed the polite thing."

I stood there with my wet boots, and something in my chest eased a little.

In four years of wearing a mark, nobody had ever been careful with me on purpose.

On the far bank, the lead wagons had stopped to wait.

Rafe was sitting his grey, one hand on the reins, and he was watching us.

He had watched the whole lift.

He looked at Joss's hands on my ribs, and his jaw worked, and then he turned his horse and said something to a captain that I could not hear.

Nessa elbowed me.

"There he is. Noticing things."

"It's the first time he's looked over here without Clara in the way."

"Funny that it took a stranger with a tool belt."

Joss came back with his hat and slapped the water out of it.

He had stopped smiling.

"Ivy," he said quietly, when the drivers had gone back to the oxen. "May I ask you something and not have you ask why?"

"You may ask."

"Do you know what Clara Dunn was doing in Greyhaven these two years?"

"She was visiting family."

"She was not," he said.

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