Chapter 27

Arush of heat flooded Callie, and the tame blush she'd been experiencing since the moment she'd locked eyes with Nylander across the crowd went wild with sudden abandon, crawling across her décolletage, up her neck, all the way to the tips of her ears.

Of all the reactions he could have had to her blush, he chuckled. "With all those high-necked shirts you wear, I've never had the privilege of witnessing the full glory of a Callie blush in the daylight."

The blush heated up another degree. He liked her red splotches? She might love that about him. A change of subject was in order. "Shall we follow the children's parade to Stickling's Green for the games?"

"The games?"

"Have you never experienced an English village festival?"

"Never."

"Well, you're in for a treat."

And she was the one to provide it to him. She rather loved that, too.

On they strolled in a silence that wasn't strained, but not without a specific sort of tension either. A heightened sense of being. A charge, floaty, electric, vibrating. They passed booths selling fairing cakes, gingerbread, and cream tea. Free cider for all at every other stall. Her nose caught the scent of cinnamon and apple. Enticed, she pulled him toward it.

"Mmm, apple turnovers." Her stomach growled.

Nylander produced coin and, before she could blink, she had one of the warm, crisp treats in hand. It was only after she'd consumed the entire pastry in four bites that it occurred to her she'd been rude. Sheepish, she glanced up. "I didn't offer you any."

His lopsided smile appeared. "I might love that you didn't."

Her heart flipped inside her chest every time he used that word, love, in connection with her. She loved it.

She held up her hands. "And now my fingers are all sticky."

His smile fell. He took her hand and lifted it, turning it, caramelized sugar glistening in the sunlight. His eyes narrowed, and he brought it to his face, to his lips… Was he about to?—?

In popped her middle finger into his mouth.

He sucked. She gasped.

His tongue circled once, twice. Her knees threatened to buckle.

"The town," she rasped. "Everyone will?—"

"Know?" he finished for her.

She nodded, and his smile turned devilish. Intently, he moved from finger to finger, and she stood there, permitting him. A female passerby might have emitted a breathless, "Oh, my," but Callie couldn't be sure through the cloud of cotton in her ears.

Oh, the feel of his tongue on her skin. Pure decadence in the middle of town. She was powerless against its pull. He gave her pinky one last lick, and she thought she might collapse into a puddle of jelly.

"I think that takes care of your little problem."

Her mouth gaped open and instantly snapped shut. Little problem? There wasn't anything little about the problem this man excited inside her.

"Shall we proceed?"

She swallowed and rubbed her fingers together. They tingled and nerve endings thrilled along her skin, but not a sticky bit remained. "Umm, yes." Eloquent.

He held out his arm in formal invite, and she slid her thoroughly cleaned hand through. On a delicious cloud, they made their way to Stickling's Green, its air of excitement and festivity infectious as the town's buildings fell behind and the field opened before them.

"See anything you would like to try your hand at?" She gestured to their left. "Perhaps the grinning contest?"

Two men sat perched on opposite stools, not two feet separated from one another, each pulling one face more grotesque than the last, trying to get his opponent to break and smile.

"It's a most serious business, as you can see."

Nylander shook his head. "Not a chance."

Callie gestured to their right. "Or how about the whistling match?"

"I'll content myself with watching."

More than a dozen contestants stood gathered round in a large circle, silent lips puckered in anticipation, an officious man at the center. His arm lifted high above his head, and the participants' mouths pursed tighter, ready. The official's arm slashed down, and the whistling commenced.

Nylander smiled. "‘Drunken Sailor.' Slower than I've ever whistled it, though."

"I take it you've never seen a whistling match?"

"Nay."

"Well, the song starts off slow. Then the tempo increases with each new verse."

"That doesn't seem too difficult."

"Another layer of difficulty is added when Merry Andrew enters the fray."

"Merry Andrew?"

"He's the—" She stopped and clapped her hands when a bright figure danced into view. "There he is!"

A masked jester, dressed in pink, yellow, and green, slinked, step by exaggerated step, into the center of the circle, arms extended wide, and began whirling like a dervish. Callie knew that jester. He was?—

"Kip," Nylander finished her thought aloud.

She couldn't contain a squeal of delight. She'd never squealed in delight in her life. She rather loved it, too. "It seems the boy has found his place."

"And what, pray tell, is that?"

"Chief mischief maker, of course. He's our very own Norse god, our Loki."

"Can't think of a lad better suited to the role."

Kip came to a stop and swept off his mask, his cape dramatically swishing about him. He sniffed the air and lowered his head, singling out a most intent whistler.

Callie's hands clasped before her. "The real fun is about to begin."

Kip rushed forward and began pulling faces at the whistler, who for his part bravely stayed the course and soldiered on in his song.

"It's the Merry Andrew's job to get the whistlers to break and laugh. The last whistler whistling will be crowned winner of the contest."

Disgruntled by his inability to "break" the whistler, Kip moved on and began weaving in and out of the circle, poking a finger into the odd rib here and there, blowing air into whistlers' ears, and making a general monkey of himself. As the song's tempo sped up, so did Kip, his antics reaching a more frantic and fevered pitch, his unpredictability rising with every note, his faces and tickles doing their job and eliminating contestants until only two remained, both focused and seemingly immune to Kip's capers.

He swung to a sudden stop and heaved a huge, theatrical sigh as he looked from one contestant to the other, finally lifting both hands into the air and dropping them in exaggerated defeat. The next moment, his face dramatically brightened, and he pointed a finger to the sky. Of a sudden, he bent over and lifted his robes over his back, the twin white mounds of his buttocks shining bright as the moon on a clear night.

Shocked silence broke into guffaws, hoots, and skirls, as one, then the other, whistler lost his composure. Like that, a winner was crowned. Kip swept his cape around his slight form and scampered off.

"He's a boy of many talents." Nylander's words emerged dry as dust. "That lad needs someone to keep an eye on him."

"Indeed." Callie couldn't contain the laughter that bubbled up.

"Shall we see what further frivolities await us?"

Callie hiccupped on a laugh—hiccupped!—and nodded. She wasn't sure what had happened to her usual self today, but that Callie was nowhere to be found. In her place was a woman who felt free and light as the air she breathed. The man beside you might have something to do with it. Nay, not merely something.

Everything.

They approached a rather nasty mud puddle, and Nylander deftly steered her around it, but not before filmy dreck caught and clung to the hem of her skirts, seeping up emerald silk, forming a brown ring around the circumference. "Your dress," he began, worry in his tone. "It's ruined."

Callie flicked a dismissive wrist. "It's not the worst treatment this dress will receive today."

His eyebrows crinkled together. "Why does everyone keep speaking that way?"

"What way?"

"Like a possibly catastrophic event will be occurring later."

She gave him a saucy smirk. "You'll see." Was it possible she was becoming a flirt? She flung one arm wide. "Now that you've seen our humble festival's offerings, what competition will it be for you, my captain?"

His arm reactively squeezed, and a frisson of excitement raced through her. She hadn't intended to say it, but he'd heard it. My captain. And she wasn't about to take it back. Reckless, but she couldn't seem to help herself.

Recklessness felt safe with him.

She gestured to her left. "A game of quoits?" Her hand flicked to the right. "Or how about skittles?"

His eye snagged on a game farther afield, and he pointed at the thirty-foot-high pole in the center of the green. "What is that?"

"See the large lump at the top of the pole?"

He squinted. "Aye."

"That's a joint of mutton. The first man to scale the pole and grab the meat, gets to keep it."

"Is that all?" he scoffed. "I've climbed masts higher than that."

"There's just one small obstacle." She couldn't quite contain the smile building. Smiles were tending to accumulate at a high rate around this man. "The pole is greased."

As if to illustrate the difficulty of successfully snatching a joint of mutton off the top of a greased pole, a man stripped off his shirt, cracked his knuckles, and attacked the pole, clawing his way up, barely making it six feet before sliding to land on his generous rump with a solid thud. Small snickers and outright jeers rippled through the crowd.

Nylander shrugged off his overcoat and handed it to Callie. "That's the one for me."

She accepted the garment and folded it over her forearm. "You must enjoy a challenge."

His eye, keen and serious, met hers. "Never could resist one."

His words stole all the breath from her body. All she could do was stand there, hold his coat, and watch him stride determinedly away toward a greased-up pole and a mutton trophy with his name surely writ upon it. He pushed into the fray and made quick conversation with the man who looked to be in charge. Before she could blink, Nylander had pulled his shirt over his head.

It was as if a lightning bolt had struck earth. The crowd went electric at the sight of him, the corded muscles of arms, chest, and back rippling beneath exposed flesh. But that wasn't all that had the town struck dumb. It was his tattoos, littered across his skin, harkening to places unknown, to a life lived beyond the confines of the north Devon coast.

Slowly, Callie approached, her gaze never once leaving him. In the full, midday sun, the man was nothing less than magnificent. That was the truth, and everyone understood it.

He surveyed the pole and ran a finger down its length.

"Pig lard," one man piped up, "in case yer wonderin'."

"That would explain the smell," Nylander responded, eliciting a few chuckles.

He reached around the pole, hugging white pine tight to his chest, pig lard making a squishing sound that elicited a few sickened groans. Then he did the same with his legs. Instantly, he slid to the ground, landing flat on his bottom with a solid thunk. While the crowd roared with laughter—mayhap buoyed by a relief that he wasn't quite the god he appeared—he pushed to his feet and dusted himself off. With a wry smile, he snatched his discarded shirt off the ground.

"What?" a rough man's voice shouted. "Givin' up already?"

Again, the crowd howled. Even so, Nylander began to reassess the pole, and silence descended. He flapped his shirt open and began rubbing it up and down the pole as high as he could reach, sloughing off layers of pig lard with each pass.

Unwittingly, he was also offering quite a view of his torso. The play of muscle beneath tan skin was very much appreciated by the female contingent of the crowd, if their collective held breath was any indicator.

Clutching the shirt in one hand, he wrapped his arms and legs around the pole, locking one foot around the other ankle. This time he found purchase and didn't slide. He began shimmying up, increment by increment, wiping at the pole along the way. Every few feet he lost a bit of ground and slid an inch or two. Then his powerful thighs squeezed together and stopped any momentum that wanted to land him flat on his bum again.

Hands clenched into fists at her sides, Callie willed him up that pole with every last cell in her body. Buoyed by the crowd's increasing good will and his own determination, there was no way that joint of mutton wouldn't be his. Was it strange that she might envy a slab of meat?

The higher he climbed, the more wound up the crowd became until, at last, he reached the top and grabbed the joint of mutton. Triumphant, he waved it over his head, inciting the crowd into a frenzy. Meat firm in hand, he released his thighs and began sliding. His feet struck earth with a heavy thump to a hail of hearty congratulations and jocular slaps on the back.

He set the meat onto the ground long enough to shake the pig lard out of his shirt and slip it over his head. His gaze cast about until it found her. He stalked forward, and her heart gave a little skip. The champion of the fall festival was moving toward her.

The crowd intuited his intent as they parted, opening a clear path. A fiery blush blazed across her skin, but she cared not. How could she? Not when the glorious Captain John Nylander held her in his sights with that hot glint in his eye.

He drew within a few feet of her and stopped. Silently, he held out his trophy. "For you, my lady."

He could've been holding an armful of diamonds, and his gift couldn't have meant more to her.

It meant everything.