Raising a Hero

Chapter 24

That evening, I went into my room to grab my nightgown and check on Derrick to find a huge, shirtless, bandaged stranger sitting where I had left him. It took me several blinks and the man's awkward shifting for it to click.

"Wow, so you do have a face underneath all that fur?"

He gave me a soft grin and I instantly recognize Derrick in the crinkle around his dark eyes. Probably with Hal's help, the blacksmith had shaved off his half-burnt beard and cut his hair short till it was only an inch or so longer than Gus's silver fluff. He'd even trimmed his eyebrows, probably to make the burnt half of the right one look less stark.

I cocked my head to the side as I observed the face that had previously been hidden until Derrick broke eye contact to scratch the back of his head.

"Your face isn't half bad," I said. "Well, it's at least better now. Disclaimer, I say that platonically."

"Um, platonically?"

"I'm not trying to woo you. Seriously, I didn't think you'd be this young. With all that hair you just become an ageless mountain of fuzz. Why didn't you ever bother to shave?"

He shrugged, fidgeting to scratch at the bandages of his arm. "I, just...never had much reason too..."

I gave him a flat look. "You were lazy? Dude, you could've had a girl by now." He didn't look any older than me and Milly. Thirty at the very most.

"I don't think it was just about my looks," he said, and his skin, darkened by days before a hot forge, darkened yet. "I'm not...I've never been all that...good with women. They didn't seem to like me all that much when I was a teenager, so I didn't think much I did could...would make much of a difference."

"...So you were lazy."

"...Well, I also got busy with work and...yeah."

"Kay. Helps me feel less sorry for your lonely ass." I went over to the very chest at the end of my bed and pulled out my night gown. Gus would just sleep in the cleanest undershirt he could find, which was probably out on the line, since we were struggling to keep clean clothes on hand with the heat wave.

"I can sleep somewhere else," he said.

"What are you talking about? It's Gus's turn for the bed tonight."

Derrick's face did a flustered little dance I found incredibly amusing. I wondered how much I had missed beneath all that hair.

Because his face really wasn't all that bad. He wasn't debonair, but he was by far not ugly. He had a strong, square jaw, sturdy features, and a flat brow, the very definition of 'masculine.' Nothing about his face could be said to be out of place or malformed in any stretch of the imagination.

But if he and Milly had children, they better hope for all boys. They'd be the finest line of sturdy, manly men. But I was loathe to see what their traits would do to a girl.

"Where...where do you sleep then?"

"On the floor," I said.

He looked around himself with his eyebrows flying high in panic.

I chuckled. Lordie, his expressions were so exaggerated.

"I can sleep with Hall and Milly, calm down. What, do you think I'd rape you in your sleep or something?"

Okay, I'm a little sadistic. I'd only said that last part so I could see what his entertaining face would do.

And I wasn't disappointed. Derrick's look of horror, and on such solid, mature features, was comical.