Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes)

‘It was incredible,’ I say sincerely.

He turns to her and translates.

And in the small smile of satisfaction that she permits herself, I realize that Shane is right. She does have a soft spot for him. It was there all along in the big portions, the care with which she served him, the details she lavished on the food.

‘Bon,’ she says with a dignified nod, and withdraws, her black clothes swallowed by the shadows that have lengthened around and inside Saumur.

Shane picks up his wine glass and turns to me, his eyes glittering. ‘Are you ready to go into the forest with the big, bad wolf, Snow?’

‘You’ve got your fairy tales mixed up, but yeah, I’m ready.’

Fifteen

SNOW

The air is fragrant with the smell of flowers. Carrying torchlights we set off for the dark forest. It feels cooler under the canopy of leaves.

‘It will rain later tonight,’ Shane says.

‘How do you know?’

He glances at me. ‘The weather forecast.’

‘Right,’ I say embarrassed. I got caught up in the idea that we were in a magical place far away from civilization. Besides, there are, after all, people who can tell it is going to rain by the ‘feel’ of the air or by looking at animal behavior or observing the sky.

We take a path that is so narrow it will only accept one person at a time. I follow Shane’s broad back until we come upon a clearing with a spooky log cabin. It’s exactly how I had imagined the witch’s hut that Hansel and Gretel found in the forest would look.

Shane opens the wooden door and we are standing in a rectangular room roughly about fourteen feet by ten with a wooden board floor. The planks make a creaking sound as Shane walks on them. A large blackened stone fireplace is set into the back wall. A fire is lit, but it is low with bits of charred wood and plenty of ashes.

‘What’s up with that?’ I ask shining my torch towards a huge black cauldron hanging to one side of the fireplace.

He grins. ‘Authenticity. You can’t have a witches hut and no cauldron.’

‘Right,’ I say with a smile and shine my torch all around the room. There is a single bed with a blue and yellow bedspread at one end, and a small wooden table and four chairs in the middle. The wooden shelves have stuff on them, an axe, nets, knives, tin boxes, bowls, worn books, mortar and pestle, wooden spikes, dark gunny sacks. I guess they are a hunter’s utensils.

Shane opens a box of candles and lights some. There are windows, but their shutters are closed. Strands of mushrooms are drying from a string hung across the firewood. There is the smell of earth and burning wood. In another corner there are bunches of herbs hanging from the ceiling. There is a large rocking chair next to the fireplace. It has an old cushion on it.

‘Monsieur Chevalier uses this cabin a lot during the truffle hunting season,’ he explains with a smile. ‘I thi

nk it gives him a break from Madam.’

I chuckle quietly.

He takes a brown bottle from a shelf and hands it to me. ‘Mosquito repellent made of herbs.’

I rub it on my hands and legs and it smells pleasantly of lavender.

He snatches a couple of blankets and a basket and we set off again. We reach another clearing where there is a round flat surface with a green plastic covering. Shane flicks the covering off it and reveals a round bench with a flat round mattress and lots of cushions on it.

‘Go on. Climb aboard,’ he urges.

I get on the mattress and lie back. The sky is alive with stars. He switches off the torches and lies next to me. I can hear sounds in the forest, foraging animals, insects, and I can hear him breathing next to me. My whole body tingles with hyper awareness. He turns his head and looks at me. His eyes are gleaming in the dark. I inhale suddenly.

We’re going to have sex in the forest.

And then it happens. A tiny light comes on close to my head. Startled, I gasp and jerk my head around. Why, it is a firefly. The little creature flashes and then goes dark. And then flashes again. Magical.

‘Look Shane,’ I whisper in wonder.