Scarlet’s delighted smile grew smoky with secrets. “I have something to show you,” she said mysteriously.
Mal stopped thinking about the school. “I love your surprises,” he said honestly. The only secrets they kept from each other now were purely for the joy of it.
“Portal to my tree?” Scarlet invited, and she vanished playfully.
Mal traced a doorway in the air and murmured the words as he gestured, then stepped through to Scarlet’s familiar clearing.
; Scarlet wasn’t by her tree. Mal looked around curiously to find her at the far edge of the clearing, kneeling in the flowers.
He could feel her pride and eagerness through their mate-bond, shimmering bright with anticipation, and her smile as she lifted her head to watch him approach was nearly as brilliant.
She stood at the last moment and took his hand.
Wordlessly, overflowing with excitement, she led him to where three saplings with feathery, fern-like leaves were growing in a little clear space together. They were knee-high and swaying in the slight breezy.
Mal had to glance back at Scarlet’s scarred tree. It had the same distinctive leaves as the little sprouts.
“Are these...?”
“I don’t know if they will be dryads,” Scarlet confessed. “But I have never had saplings before, and they feel... more aware than other trees. Different. I don’t know!”
She was looking at him with what might have been anxiousness in someone lesser and Mal realized that he was still staring in shock. He gave a great whoop of laughter and pulled Scarlet into his arms so he could twirl her around until he was dizzy and laughing. A soft bed of moss met them as he pulled her over, laughing and kissing and rolling with her.
When he could catch his breath, he took her hand and kissed the simple gold ring he’d put there. “This may be the best surprise yet,” he said.
“I never knew you wanted children,” Scarlet said, caressing his cheek with her other hand.
“I never did either,” Mal confessed. “And to be honest, I wasn’t sure how that would work. But it seems like a marvelous idea.”
Scarlet pulled his mouth to hers. “I have other marvelous ideas,” she said suggestively. “Did I ever warn you about that lusty nature of dryads?”
“What about the children?” Mal asked teasingly.
“They’re still asleep...”
Implications of the future suddenly occurred to Mal and he sat up. “I am going to have three girls like you,” he groaned. “If they have your lusty nature, I’m going to have to steal Graham’s machete to scare off boys and beat back interested trees.”
Scarlet laughed and sat up. “Or we could raise them to understand who they are, have sensible boundaries, and deal with their own boys. Maybe one of them will be a boy.”
Mal paused. “Are there boy dryads?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Scarlet confessed.
“What does all of this mean?” Mal felt pleased and proud and more than a little panicked.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Scarlet repeated, a slow smile blossoming on her face.
“I’m going to have to do some research,” Mal said. “Start a college trust. Pick names!”
Scarlet wrapped her arms around his neck. “We have time,” she said sweetly, kissing his ear.
It was still a strange feeling, not having a destination for his life. Mal still hadn’t gotten used to the idea that there was nothing looming in his future that had to be done, a destiny that he had to be ready for, a task of such weight and importance that it overshadowed anything else that he did.
He got to choose now, how to spend his time—and who to be with—without constantly thinking about how it impacted his final objective.
He put a wondering hand to Scarlet’s face and she closed her eyes and leaned into it.