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As if in answer to my thoughts, she sighs and mumbles. She’s talking in her sleep again. Wondering about her dreams and if stress and uncertainty cause her soft nighttime words, I nearly miss when she whispers, “Hayden”.

My name. The one I’ve never liked, seldom used. Like the rest of the world, she calls me Knight. To hear Hayden in her soft, sexy voice… fuck, I need that every day, every night for the rest of our lives. I know she’s mine. Her subconscious knows, too. A giant step toward our future together.

Tomorrow, shit, who knows what tomorrow will bring.

I replace the concerns with possibilities and find my own dreams.

I’m up before her in the morning and have coffee already poured into a thermos by the time she exits the bathroom. I hold up the coffee and a small box. “On days when I have a lot to get done, I usually just take food and coffee out to the forge. I’ve got hard cooked eggs, the last of the cinnamon biscuits with butter, and some applesauce. Not much, but enough to get us started on a busy day.”

She blinks a few times then frowns. “I think we need to talk.”

“I know, darlin’. And we will. While we’re working.”

“Don’t you think it would be better to sit and talk without anything else going on?”

“To be honest, I think better, clearer when I’m doing something with my hands. Can we try it my way first? I do have a long list for today. But don’t worry. If we need to stop and just talk, I will do that. For you.”

I wait while she works through what I’ve said. Finally she gives a slow nod. “It’s been a couple days, those biscuits are probably pretty dry.”

“You know I have a microwave out there. For days like this when I don’t have time to stop and fix meals. Nuke ‘em a few seconds and they should be fine. With some extra butter. We’ll take out some honey, too. I eat a lot of leftovers and have learned to make them palatable.”

“Okay, I’ll trust you.”

Once I’ve got the forge fired up and she’s finished preparing our simple meal, I pull a stool close to hers. “About last night’s phone call⁠—”

“You don’t have to tell me anything if it’s private. I know something made you angry. It wasn’t me, was it?”

I take her hand. “No, of course not. You’ve done nothing for me to be angry about. That call, however, set me off. My ex⁠—”

Clover tugs her hand from mine. “Ex? What did she want?”

Dare I hope that a little jealousy is behind her reaction? “Let me give you a little background. Eat your biscuit before it goes really hard from the microwave.” After a fortifying sip of my coffee, I begin my explanation.

“I met Andreyah in college. In hindsight I realize that for some reason she picked me as her conquest. Even before graduation she pretty much controlled the path she wanted my career to take. I’m not sure exactly why she chose me. Artists, especially early in their careers, don’t make much money.

“Somehow she convinced me that moving to New York would further my career because all the best galleries and showrooms were there. We rented a tiny apartment because most of my money went toward rent on what she called my creative space. That forge set up was about the same size as the cabin’s bathroom.”

“That must have been difficult.”

“I made it work. My creations started getting noticed. Andreyah was in her element. Fancy parties, expensive clothes, rubbing elbows with the upper class. All those things she loved made me uncomfortable. I wanted to leave the city. Come home to Oregon. But she insisted I stay, that the connections she was making were important and vital to our future.”

“I can imagine how unhappy you must have been. You… well, you just seem to fit here. Like you’re part of the mountain. This is where you draw your inspiration from.”

“Thank you. She could never understand that. For her everything was fast, sparkling, and all about connections. But I stuck it out until I walked in on her uh… bent over a glass topped desk … connecting… with a gallery owner.”

Clover’s eyes are wide and she covers her mouth with her fingers. “Oh my stars, that must have been terrible.”

I shrug. “Yes and no. I realized that if I had ever really loved her, that emotion had disappeared. We’d never even talked about marriage, so leaving her was actually easy. Especially when I learned at that time she was juggling more than one… connection. Escaping the city allowed me to breathe again. However, it also meant I basically had to start over building my reputation.”

“Looks like you’ve done pretty well in that respect.”

“I lucked out. This property came up for sale shortly after I moved back. Despite how easily Andreyah blew through money, I’d been able to save enough for a down payment. My original forge was just a shed behind the cabin. A director in Hollywood came across a couple of my swords and soon I had enough commissions from fantasy film makers to pay off the debt and build this workspace.”

She hesitates before asking, “Then what did your ex want?”

“First off, let me say that I haven’t had any contact with her in a couple years. Second, she’s never had this phone number and had to convince my mother to give it to her. I never expected to hear from her. She claims to have some new, wonderful opportunity to showcase my smaller pieces. She focused on the jewelry. Says the commissions could bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars for us.”

“Us? She said us?”