The Wood Wife by Terri Windling (the false prince TXT) 📕

“Are you kidding? I can’t do much of anything at all except write—and I’m not always so sure about that. I can’t paint, or speak Spanish, or balance my checkbook…”

Fox grinned. “You can do a mean Cajun two-step.”

“That’s because I have a good teacher.” She took another bite of pasta, then she said, “Now Nigel, he was Mr. Perfect. For years I felt like a bumbling incompetent—it didn’t matter what it was, Nigel did it all well.”

“Not everything,” said Fox. “He lost you, didn’t he? I can’t think of a stupider move than that.”

Fox held Maggie’s eyes for a long moment, and she felt her cheeks burn. She looked away. She looked into the flames instead. She hadn’t felt this way in a long, long time—not even with Crow, for that had been madness. She hadn’t felt this way with anyone in all the years since she’d left Nigel. And she wondered if she was really ready to feel this way again.

Fox broke the silence. “You know, Maggie, there’s one thing you still haven’t told me.”

She glanced at him warily.

He said, “How is it you can charm coyotes into your lap? I want your secret. I’ve been trying to make friends with them all my life, and only Cody lets me near.”

Maggie bit her lip. She hadn’t told him about Pepe, or her thoughts about his own sisters. Now she took a deep breath and she told him about One-Eye, and the poacher, and Lillian’s comments about Cody. She watched as his face flushed with anger over the poacher, and then as it paled when he drew the same conclusions. He was silent when she finished. Then Fox rose and went outside; he closed the door behind him. He stayed out there for a long while. When he came back in, he brought more firewood. He put a thick log onto the flames, then he sat back down, his arms around his knees.

“Of course,” she said, tentatively, “this is only speculation.”

“Is it?” He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. “I don’t know what to say. I wish I could tell you that you’re out of your mind. But I can’t. I can’t pretend that I’ve never thought there was something … unusual… about my sisters. I’m going to need more time to think about this.” He looked up at Maggie suddenly. “Does that mean you think I’m one of them too?”

“I thought about it. But no, I don’t.”

He attempted a smile. “Because if I am … well, hell, it’s news to me.”

“You want to know what I think?”

He nodded cautiously.

“I think your mother told you the truth: your father was some sweet-talking Tucson cowboy who probably split when she got pregnant. She had the twins ten years later, right? Maybe that’s when she met Crow.”

He nodded slowly. “Could be. It makes sense,” he admitted. “At least, as much as any of this does.”

“Maybe we could talk to your sisters tomorrow?”

He groaned. “They’re as bad as Mama.”

“Then maybe I should try to talk to Crow again. He still owes me an answer or two.”

Fox looked at her sharply. “I don’t trust this Crow. I think you should stay away from him.”

“Cooper didn’t trust him either,” Maggie said. “He had something to do with what happened to Anna.”

Fox frowned. “Then promise me you’ll stay away from him.”

Maggie shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

“All right, stubborn woman—how about promising that you’ll please be careful if you see him again?”

“I think I can manage that,” she said. “I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

Fox rose and took the plates away. She heard dishes clattering in the sink. “Do you want another cup of tea?” he asked.

“Sure,” Maggie said. Then she got up herself, and followed him over to the small kitchen. He was up to his elbows in soapy water, and it made an endearingly domestic picture. When he reached for the kettle, there were suds dripping from the glint of silver on his wrist.

“Do you want herb tea or black? Or coffee?”

Maggie picked up a towel and began to dry a plate. “Actually,” she said, not looking at him, “I don’t really want any tea at all. I just wanted an excuse not to go home yet.”

“Then don’t go home. Spend the night with me.”

She swallowed. The room was warm, and something was melting inside of her—it felt like her bones. She looked at him and he turned from the stove and gave her an apologetic smile. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. The sofa folds out into another bed if you don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Maggie looked down, embarrassed, and overwhelmed by the weight of her own disappointment. If her mind had decided she wasn’t ready to fall in love, her body had clearly decided something different. “Thanks,” she said, her voice husky, “but I think I should go on home after all. It’s getting late—and I don’t think there’s really anything out there to be frightened of.”

“Except the poacher,” Fox pointed out. “And whoever, or whatever, killed old man Cooper. At least let me walk you home, Maggie. Completely unnecessary I’m sure—but humor me anyway, okay?”

Fox turned off the flame under the kettle, screened the fire in the hearth, and loaned her his denim jacket against the cold. The wind had risen. Clouds blocked the stars, and the temperature had dropped several more degrees. Coyotes were hunting farther up the canyon, quite a few of them by the sound of their cries. Crossing the yard to the mesquite wood, Maggie wondered where One-Eye had gone to now. Back to Angela and Isabella? Or perhaps into the midnight hills where coyotes who were only coyotes roamed and nothing more alarming than that.

Maggie and Fox were silent as they followed the path through the mesquite trees. Hag-stones rattled by the wind made a dry, lonely sound overhead. Her earlier ease with Fox was gone and Maggie felt a certain sadness