Guillaume hung his shirts in the wardrobe. Hung his trousers, smoothing the legs with care. Lined up his spare shoes, so that the heels were even. Draped his scarves from a hanger, pulled them off and folded them for the top shelf, then put them back on the hanger.
He shouldn’t be nervous. If anything, he should be exhausted. In the past forty-eight hours, he’d packed for a journey of indeterminate length, flown over an ocean against the sun, and then driven a rental car for seven hours to this small seaside village in the far west of Bretagne.
But the packing hadn’t fully occupied his mind, he’d slept only fitfully on the airplane, and had nothing to do on the drive but wonder what the next—days? weeks?—might bring. The wolf in him badly wanted to shift. He shook it off as a product of fatigue and the change of time zones. Perhaps tonight, after the village had gone to sleep.
It was a nice cottage, he had to admit. He’d let himself in using the code Sørensen had texted. It had a single open room on the ground level that managed to be both spacious and cozy. Two bedrooms upstairs, across the corridor from each other, and a bathroom. Sørensen had given him the room with the sea view. He opened the window and drew a deep breath of cool, salty air.
Right. No time like the present.
Following the rest of the directions, he walked toward one end of the village, where Sørensen had rented time at a blacksmith’s workshop. He’d felt some relief at that revelation. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to spend every waking hour in the man’s presence, after all. He could find his own way of passing their off-hours constructively. Doing what, he didn’t know. There was a bounty in the windows of the pâtisserie. A man could make an entire study of the pastries here.
By the time he passed the last house on the road, he wished he’d insisted they meet on more neutral ground. But he was a professional. Sørensen had so far met him in spaces of Guillaume’s choosing, so it was only fair. At any rate, he was here, smoke curling from the small structure’s chimney, the intriguing ring of a hammer barely muted by the weather-worn door. He knocked, then felt silly and let himself in.
Sørensen looked up and watched him enter, one side of his face brighter for the coals he was firing. “Smooth journey?”
“Smooth enough.”
“Settled in?”
Anything but. “It’s a nice cottage. Thank you for the sea view.”
Sørensen nodded, his eyes creased briefly with pleasure. Then, with a silent focus that surprised Guillaume, he turned back to his work.
There was more preparation than Guillaume expected. Some was logical: stirring up the coals, breathing great gusts of air into their midst with a set of bellows that creaked as Sørensen worked them. But other things were surprises, like the way he laid out his tools on the bench as a chef set out his mis-en-place.
Then there was the apron Sørensen wore. There was no obvious reason to appreciate it; it was only a thick leather thing, scorched and scarred by previous work. It fit the man too well to have been borrowed along with this workshop. Guillaume found himself drawn to the places where the leather bore a shining patina that denoted frequent contact with something else. On the loops that held various tools, on the strings at the back that tied the apron shut. His fingers itched to pluck those apart. He shoved his hands into his pockets.
When Sørensen deemed the coals ready, he took up a large set of blackened iron tongs and used them to slide a piece of metal into the coals. He pulled it out a couple of times to look at it before pushing it back into the heat.
“How do you know when it’s ready?”
Sørensen waved him closer and pulled the metal from the coals again. “See how it glows?”
Guillaume leaned in. “Yes.”
“It’s not ready.” He shoved it back into the coals. After a few moments, he drew it out again. “See the difference?”
No?
“Now we begin.”
Sørensen placed it on the anvil. Holding it steady with the tongs, he drew one of the two hammers at his belt, hefted it in his hand until he settled on a grip, then struck the metal. It was barely a tap, almost exploratory, but the impact still sent bits arcing into the heated air, some dark, some sparking. Sørensen turned the piece and struck again. They were careful, deliberate strikes in complete contrast with the size of the man, the strength in his shoulders and arms. In Guillaume’s imaginings, Sørensen stood at a beast of an anvil, swinging a heavy hammer in a great arc over his head, beating a blade into submission with pure brute force. Some petulant part of him protested that the reality was a waste of the man’s power. A waste of his potential to fulfill Guillaume’s fantasies, he thought with a wry smile, feeling foolish. Because when he reconsidered, this sight before him was even more attractive. This thoughtful, intentional crafting of something useful from raw iron, this reliance on a skill developed over years of practice, hundreds of small, sequential decisions made consciously until they became second nature…
Christ, he needed to get laid.
Sørensen’s hammer paused, and it took Guillaume a moment to realize the man was watching him. Sten smiled. “You want to try it?”
“Oh. Uh, no, that’s fine.”
“Come, try.”
“No, no, I’m fine observing. I don’t know the first thing about smithing.”
“A good place to start.” Sørensen tipped his head, his mouth curling with mischief. “Come,” he said again, as if they were conspirators in some secret game.
They were, he supposed.
Sørensen showed him how to manage the tongs, which were heavy but well-balanced, and warm from Sørensen’s hand. He helped Guillaume find his balance point with the hammer, too. By the time he was ready, though, the metal had cooled. He slid it into the coals where Sørensen pointed and tried not to fidget while they waited. He, who prided himself on his control, was struggling not to shuffle from foot to foot, to brush the anvil surface clean of soot. Meanwhile, Sten Sørensen stood next to him, watching the fire pan, still and silent. The only movement about him was a slight flaring of his nostrils as he breathed, his great chest rising and falling gently. He caught Guillaume staring and looked down at himself.
“Ah, ja. The apron. Here.”
Guillaume protested when he pulled the strings free of their knots, but his words died a weak death as Sørensen slipped the apron over his head. It was warm from Sørensen’s body, just as the tongs had been, and so big it had to be wrapped around him and tied in front. He probably should have wanted to set down his tools and tie the strings himself, but something in Sørensen’s demeanor stopped him. He held his breath as the man’s large hands made a deft knot at his waist.
“There, better. The piece should be ready now.”
He drew it out and held it on the anvil. The metal glowed a bright pale yellow, almost white.
“Give it a little tap to feel how it resists. Right in the center.”
Guillaume did. The hammer bounced, leaving no mark at all.
“Again, a bit harder, until you see an impression.”
It took a few strikes before he saw any effect. When he did, though, a surprising sense of accomplishment swept over him.
“That’s it. Work from the middle outward. We want to make it wider.”
We. Something about the word fixed itself in his mind as he made his clumsy strikes. It wasn’t until he’d slid the metal back into the fire pan to reheat it that he realized he rarely heard the word back in the lab. He led a team but preferred to do his own work alone. Or thought he preferred that. When Sørensen said we, it settled around Guillaume’s shoulders like a cozy blanket.
More foolishness. The heat of the workshop was making his brain soft.
It melted completely when he next placed the piece on the anvil and Sørensen stepped up behind him, laying his hands over Guillaume’s to guide his movements.
“What…”
“Like so.” He lifted Guillaume’s hand, bringing the hammer down in a short arc. It bounced, but when he tried to still it, Sørensen said, “Not so tight.”
“I’m going to drop it.”
“Not when it’s balanced. Loosen your fist. Use its movement. Its… momentum, ja?”
“Strike when it’s falling?”
“Exactly.”
He did—they did, together—and that time he felt the difference. “Oh. Yes, I see.”
“Don’t see it. Feel it.”
“That’s what I meant.”
Sørensen chuckled in his ear, sending a shiver down his spine. “Keep going. Make a line of impressions.”
It would be generous to call what he made a line, but Sørensen exclaimed over it all the same.
“Look at that! You could be a smith!”
He could scarcely focus on the piece, let alone the evidence of his own clumsy strikes. Not with the man’s voice rumbling through him, his heat at Guillaume’s back as fierce as the pan of forge-fed coals. He tugged his hands from the tools and Sørensen’s grip. His fingers felt panicked as he plucked at the apron strings. He held it out to Sørensen, hoping his hands weren’t shaking.
Sørensen’s brows rose. “Finished already?”
“We’ll be here forever if I continue.”
“Persistence is the only way to learn.”
As if he didn’t know that. As if he needed life advice from Sten fucking Sørensen. He bit back his irritation. “I’d rather watch. Thank you for letting me try it.”
Sørensen shrugged. “Anytime.” He donned the apron again, took up the tools, and finished shaping the piece within minutes. When he plunged it into the quenching barrel, steam hissed and spit. Guillaume grimaced, thinking he could use just such a dunking. Cool his head, and other wayward parts. But the last thing he needed to consider was taking a dip with Sørensen. The man would probably want to do so in the ocean. And naked.
Which would not be happening.
Sørensen pulled the piece from the soot-skimmed water and studied the metal’s surface, his eyes narrowed, looking for who knew what. Guillaume should probably be more curious, but the longer he remained here, the more stifling the heat felt. Finally, Sørensen nodded and set the piece and tools on the workbench. “I’ll finish the edges tomorrow.” After banking the coals, he hung the apron on a hook next to the bench, then stepped over to the workshop’s deep sink. There he scrubbed his hands and forearms, and splashed water on his face. His posture afforded an unfortunately excellent view of his arse, rounded and muscular under his wool trousers. He dried his hands, but when he turned to Guillaume, water still dripped from his beard. He grinned, and good God, the man looked like a marauder.
“Shall we?”
“Shall we what?” Every possibility flashing through Guillaume’s mind was more inappropriate than the one before.
“Get started. I’ll show you the area.”
“Oh, of course.” Guillaume fumbled in his pocket for the key. “Let me just fetch the car.”
To which Sørensen snorted softly. “Leave it, St. George.” He walked to the door, stopping to look at a calendar hanging next to it. With a stub of a pencil lying nearby, he crossed out the day’s date. Then he opened the door and waved Guillaume through. “We have a new moon and where we’re headed, plenty of trees. We won’t be needing a car.”
