Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 320

Chapter 320: Man to man
Mia fretted as she made it back to camp, waking Grandpa and sending him to investigate the conversation between Ford and her father.

The old man yawned and scratched his ribs, seemingly unhurried despite Mia’s visible worry over the situation.

“Please hurry,” She urged as he pulled on his boots one after the other at a leisurely pace.

“You can’t hurry old men, Mia,” Grandpa told her. “It never winds up well.”

“Grandpa,” She said tightly. “Please.”

“They’re fine,” He waved one hand dismissively, “but I’ll go check on them just because you’re worried about Ford.”

He had the audacity to wink at her, and her face flamed.

“Remember that time Grandma threatened to burn your breakfast if you didn’t get the henhouse cleaned out?” She frowned at him. “Maybe I’ll learn something from that.”

Grandpa fixed her with an even stare. “Don’t ever hold my food hostage, Mia. It won’t turn out for any of us.”

“I won’t have to if you’ll just please go make sure Papa doesn’t hurt Ford!” She exclaimed, nearly beside herself.

“I’m on my way, but you’d better think long and hard while I’m gone about respecting your elders,” He scratched his scruffy face and raised one eyebrow at her, looking significantly at the cookfire where breakfast would shortly be prepared.

Mia turned away with a huff, willing her grandfather to move more quickly than the leisurely saunter with which he was headed across the way.

Anxiety oozed from every pore. Anaisa and Daniel were tending to the horses, seemingly oblivious to Mia’s turmoil.

Even if Seth didn’t hurt Ford, he might threaten him. Or Ford might be so upset by the harsh treatment that he would hate Mia simply by virtue of her relation to an insufferable man.

He might not have ever liked her at all!

The waiting and distraction almost did make her burn breakfast, contrary to her implicit promise to Grandpa. Noticing her agitation, Anaisa approached to take over.

“Are they having the conversation?” Mia’s aunt asked knowingly.

“How much do you know?” Mia’s eyes widened.

“What do you mean?” Anaisa tilted her head. “Has something more happened? Did Ford express intentions?”

Mia cringed. “He expressed something. I… don’t know how much to explain. I sent Grandpa to try and make sure Papa doesn’t kill Ford.”

Anaisa turned and took Mia’s hand.

“Seth won’t harm that young man. Both of them care about you, so they’ll find common ground, even if Seth doesn’t like the idea of his little girl growing up and getting married, he’ll come around.”

“Married?” Mia lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t think they’re discussing that at all.”

“Well, no, you wouldn’t be able to until we got back home, of course, and spoke with your mother,” Anaisa conceded. “But Ford wouldn’t be following us all this way if he didn’t care about you quite a lot, Mia. You seem shocked that the rest of us noticed, but even your father was bound to catch on eventually.”

“It’s not like that at all–” The younger woman assured her.

“Is it not?” Anaisa quirked an eyebrow. “Why else would your father be wearing that expression?”

Mia’s head spun towards the secondary pull, which had yet to disappear. Ford hadn’t chosen to turn invisible, so things couldn’t have gone too badly… or they had gone very badly indeed.

The three men walked back into the camp. Grandpa’s serene expression gave nothing at all away as he served himself a plate of breakfast.

Seth and Ford… both looked unhappy. Mia’s father seemed to have a storm in his eyes, warring between righteous anger and building resignation.

When he looked at Mia, a flash of protectiveness seemed to fuel the anger.

Ford, on the other hand, looked… well, Mia couldn’t tell. At all. But not happy.

He avoided her gaze, which made her heart sink.

Breakfast was awkward. No one spoke much, apart from Daniel. He was throwing images in the air of different animals he thought he’d seen through the trees the previous day, and his hopes for the ongoing journey.

“I know no one else cares about this, but it doesn’t matter, I’m going to tell you anyway,” He chirped as he added yet another strange creature to the mishmash above them.

“I think we’re about done eating,” Anaisa said, interrupting her son. “We should get going.”

“Yes,” Mia put in. “I’m well rested, so we should take advantage of that and cover a lot of ground today.”

The pointed comment drew a short scowl from her father and a slight smirk from Ford.

“I’ll ride with you today,” Seth told her as he stood, stretching. “Unless there are any objections?”

Mia was dying to know how the conversation had gone, but didn’t exactly want it explained in front of everyone, including her young cousin. Her mind was racing, vacillating from demanding a thorough rundown of what had occurred and just moving on, pretending nothing had.

She voiced no objection, but looked questioningly at Ford. He was glowering down at his meal. Or brooding? Why couldn’t his face be more readable right now??

The group readied themselves to go, and Mia mounted without the opportunity to say a single word to Ford.

She’d also never gotten the chance to see if it was purely his invisibility that could make the secondary pull disappear, or whether taking his hand while awake could accomplish the same.

Too shy to ask him to try, she’d simply let the status quo continue. To their detriment, it seemed.

Now Papa suspected… well, she didn’t want to know everything he suspected, but she didn’t like that he did!

As she nudged Harper’s flanks, a final look over her shoulder to Ford assured her that he wasn’t injured in any visible way. If he was, hopefully he would drink a bit of the healing water they still had from the clearing.

“They stop now. The nighttime activities, whatever they are.” Seth growled in a low voice.

“It’s hand-holding. Stop making it sound worse,” Mia recoiled.

“Regardless, it stops. He agreed.” Seth told her. “He won’t be coming near you at night again without my express permission.”