Keira's Fire

Chapter 15

After a few weeks, my brothers were noticeably more relaxed. They mostly stopped watching my every move when Owen was near and they didn't give him quite as many threatening looks. I'm not exactly sure what they thought I was going to do, but now they seemed to realize that things weren't very different from the way they'd always been. I wouldn't lie and say I didn't enjoy kissing Owen, or that his touch didn't send a jolt of electricity through me, but I was not a cuddly person. I rarely welcomed any kind of open affection. Public or otherwise.

Having kissed Owen in front of everyone seemed to spoil the fun of teasing me, so I no longer had that headache to deal with, and without having to worry about my brothers hovering every time I turned around, I was able to actually focus on what I was feeling. It was all so new and unfamiliar, and it still scared me, but I was no longer unsure about what I felt for Owen. I hesitated to call whatever it was love. Mainly it felt much too soon for that and I was still pretty hesitant. But I couldn't deny, at least to myself, that it was headed in that direction.

I started allowing myself to believe that, one day, I might be able to have those things I never dared to dream of before. A house, a family, and a normal life.

I was no sentimental fool. It was still a distant dream and I might not live long enough to fulfill it. I wasn't sure that I imagined that kind of life with Owen just yet either, but it was a possibility. More than that, now I knew that men like Owen were out there. Men who possessed qualities that my father would have appreciated. For that reason alone, Owen made me hopeful and happy for more than just the pleasant dipping feeling his smile evoked in my belly. Because now I felt like I might have a real future outside of all this.

Before long I started missing my mother. It wasn't a completely foreign feeling for me, however wanting to talk to her about my feelings for a boy, and wanting to introduce her to that boy, were completely new aspirations. I suppose part of me was still that little girl who couldn't help feeling that she disappointed her mother for not being the perfectly feminine daughter she probably expected when she got stuck with me.

My mother fiercely loved all her children. I couldn't doubt that. But it wasn't hard to tell that she wished that I'd been more like Cecily in certain ways.

And so, Owen and I acted as James' and Michael's escorts on their periodic visit home.

The visits had been our mother's condition to allow the boys to come stay with us. They were always relatively short as it was no longer safe for any of us to be in public very much. Usually either Jeremy or Stephen, unwilling to let the boys out of their sight for very long, accompanied them on the trip. That, I think, was part of the reason our mother was finally persuaded to let the younger boys go. She almost never saw her older sons anymore, so reluctant were they to leave the woods. But this way she was guaranteed to see them sometimes.

Jeremy and Stephen hadn't been thrilled when I announced my plans to take their place for this visit. Even though they were exponentially better, they were still reluctant to allow Owen and me even a minute of actual privacy. They didn't have much of an argument though since we weren't technically going to be alone. At least not until I sent the boys ahead on the return trip. Of course, I wasn't going to clue them in to that part of the plan. And with an hour and a half walk between my mother's house and camp, they wouldn't be able to do a thing about it except bluster and complain when Owen and I returned.

Before I reached the edge of the forest, Michael and James ran ahead, only pausing briefly to survey the scene to make sure it was free of soldiers. They were both trying hard to be mature, especially James, but I knew how homesick they became after a few weeks in the woods. Perhaps the transition was easier for the rest of us because we could all vividly remember the demonstrations of what it truly meant to be deemed the king's enemy. Or in my case, property to be taken and used for whatever they wanted.