Choose words wisely

Shayn flinched. Simone looked angry, and he'd prepared another barb, but a faint sheen of tears in her eyes took the wind out of his sails. He was way out of line, he suddenly realized. He'd wounded her.

The initial joke he'd made slipped out, but his pride wouldn't let him back down. He'd brushed it off with a half-hearted, sarcastic apology and calling her a name. Why had he let it go so far downhill?

Because he'd done something nice for her, he realized. Every time he did, he felt a juvenile urge to balance it out with something mean. It was an absurd impulse, like pulling a girl's pigtails at school. 

He'd feel a little better if she hit him for his comments, but she didn't. She turned away and looked at the trees. 

That's what he should have been doing this whole time, keeping his concentration elsewhere. But the dappled light on her fancy hairstyle drew his gaze against his will. He frowned. 

She'd called him prideful. She was definitely right about that, though he didn't want to admit it out loud. He'd determined not to like her since the moment she plowed into his injured brother, and he couldn't let go of the desire to make her like him as little as he'd initially liked her.

The cooking lessons with Victoria had amused him to no end. To see her poorly attempting something was highly satisfying. At first he'd only laughed at her, but after days of her unwavering efforts, a slow respect built in him. 

He would have given up after the first failed attempt, determining that it wasn't something he was meant to do. Except, on the prior journey, it was his cooking or Kyler's. The men had to eat, and so they both had to learn. 

Victoria was a more than adequate cook, and so Simone had no real need to learn the skill, and yet she labored at it. The way her forehead creased as she concentrated reminded him of their time in the library together as she pored over maps. 

He'd initially found the look irritating, as if she were implying his handwriting or maps were difficult to decipher. His handwriting was flawless! Now he realized it was just the look she had when she was thinking hard about something. 

Shayn almost chuckled thinking about how making oatmeal required the same amount of her brainpower as looking at complicated topographical drawings. Then he remembered the state of their conversation. 

"I didn't mean that," He said. "I'm sorry." 

"Are you sorry?" She turned on him. "Are you, really? Because it seemed like something you've been wanting to say for a while. 'Priggish'. That's not a word someone usually comes up with in the moment, now is it?" 

He swallowed. No, it wasn't. He'd been searching for various words to describe how much she irked him. That particular one had occurred to him the second day they were working together in the library when she'd stopped to tell a younger apprentice not to run inside.

"I was unkind, and I apologize," He said again. 

"The Treasurer used to say to the youngest apprentices that apologizing is an implied promise to try to never make the same mistake again," She tilted her head. "I rather think you don't intend to keep that promise." 

Shayn grimaced. "I deserve that. I went too far."

"Why do you have to go at all? Why these verbal jabs?" She straightened her shoulders. "This isn't war. We're not against each other, and yet you are determined to treat me as an enemy because you're too selfish to see beyond your own satisfaction! Taking me down a peg makes you feel better about your own lack of self-worth, doesn't it?" 

"That's not entirely true," He felt anger kindling in him, but reminded himself that he'd provoked her intensely just a short while before. 

"Then what IS true?" The moisture in her eyes was gone. "Why call me names? Why criticize me and make fun of me?" 

"I'm not sure, actually," He realized. "I'll have to think about it." 

"Go right ahead. You've plenty of time for even your slow mind to work out the particulars of your irrational dislike of me." She turned back to the trees. 

"Slow? Irrational?" Shayn questioned her, pushing back the building anger.

"Slow means that your brain takes longer than others to figure something out," She still faced away, but one corner of her mouth tipped up as she mocked him. "Irrational means that there is no logical reason for you to dislike me. Everyone else likes me well enough." 

He seethed silently, but bit his tongue for once. She was an intensely aggravating woman. 

"Stand up," He said finally.

"What??" She cried in surprise. "I'll fall!" 

"I want my bedroll back. Get your own." He childishly pouted at her. 

"Oh," She blinked at him for a moment, and then covered her mouth. "That's all right, I guess. Can you tell me where mine is stowed?" 

She stood just enough to slide the padding out from under herself. He didn't expect that, thinking she would stubbornly try to remain in place like any of his siblings would have. 

Getting up on her knees on the wooden bench, she leaned into the back of the wagon and began searching around. The bedroll now lay partly across his lap, and partly underneath him. 

"In the box directly behind me," He provided. "All the bedrolls are there." 

She leaned in that direction, closer to him than he thought she realized. Closer than she'd been since riding the horse with him. 

His chest tightened slightly at the memory. He resented it. Just because he'd never been that close to a woman he wasn't related to before didn't mean he needed to feel so strongly about it. Simone meant nothing to him. 

Well, not nothing. He'd saved her life, after all. But very little. He would have done the same for anybody, he was sure. There was no reason for him to remember the particulars of how her hands had tentatively held onto him, or the warmth that had run through him when she'd finally relaxed against his back a little bit. 

He'd avoided touching her since, afraid of feeling a similar warmth. She apparently felt the same, having even rejected his offer to help her down from the horse that day. Perhaps his touch disgusted her. 

Simone was high up on her knees, her head and shoulders in the wagon digging to figure out which of the bedrolls was hers. He frowned, his mind wandering. Suddenly, the wagon hit an unexpected bump. 

Crying out, Simone wobbled and fell. Directly into his lap. Well, onto her half of the bedroll which was currently across his legs.

She would have tumbled off the front of the wagon, but reflexively, he caught her before she could slip forward. Her arms clung to his neck in response, a gasp escaping her lips. 

They were almost nose to nose for half a second, their eyes locked together. 

He stared into her eyes, as clear as a shallow blue pond. He inhaled the scent of her closeness. She must have gotten some honey on herself while making breakfast, for the soft smell mingled with something more floral. 

She looked like a startled fawn, frozen and unable to move, so shocked was she to find herself in his lap, in his arms. 

He opened his mouth to speak. To say anything, to break the spell of the moment. Before he lost himself in her eyes. But he didn't want to. 

"Oh!" She cried, coming suddenly to herself. She scrambled away from him, and almost fell again in the process. He caught her wrist to steady her, and she allowed the touch barely long enough to retake her seat on the wooden bench. 

An awkward silence reigned between them for an interminable amount of time before he couldn't stand it any longer. 

"I take it you didn't find your bedroll?" He asked as if inquiring about something as mundane as the color of a tree. 

"No." She snipped, and it encouraged him rather than deterred his teasing. 

"Well, you did find a much more comfortable place to sit, so I must congratulate you there." He continued, glancing over at her. Her face was absolutely red, and he began to laugh. 

"You–!" She cut off, clearly dying of embarrassment, which only increased his mirth. 

"I'd apologize, but it's too funny. I can't," He wiped a tear from his eye. 

"It's not that funny," She mumbled. 

"You're right, you're right. My terrible driving of this cart is at fault. It's not funny at all." The admission was halfhearted, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. 

"Just keep your eyes on the road." Simone sniffed daintily, appearing to regain some of her composure. 

"Of course… here, why don't you take back your half of the bedroll? I didn't know you were quite so intent on sitting on it or I never would have taken it away in the first place." He smirked. 

She pierced him with a sharp look, but remained silent as she accepted the cushioning again.