Keeley just didn’t understand what could have kept Gemma from her own for all that time. Keeley couldn’t imagine that sitting around all day—or kneeling—to pray to a god that might or might not answer could ever replace being with family.
But now Gemma was back! Gliding into Keeley’s shop with her pristine white robes and gloved hands, acting like they were old acquaintances rather than sisters.
She was so busy seething, Keeley had no idea how long she’d worked on that last pommel, letting her anger and annoyance at the current situation flow into her work. Usually, working was just how she enjoyed her day, but at the moment . . . it was keeping her from putting her sister in a headlock and squeezing until she’d put some sense back into her.
When she finally stopped, her hair drenched, her arms and hands dirty, she stepped back from the forge and into one of the Amichais.
Keeley faced the one called Caid. Well . . . she faced his thick neck. She had to tilt her head back a bit to meet his eyes, which was strange for her. She was tall, like her mother, and there were few men who could match her height except for her father. “It was the fact he could look me in the eyes and not the tits that sold me on your da,” her mother liked to say.
“Something wrong?” she asked when Caid just stared down at her with what appeared to be a dangerous scowl. But that could be just the way he looked at everyone.
It was hard to tell, but she had yet to see a hint of a smile on his face or anything resembling happiness. Even when Keran got Caid and his cohorts’ food, he just appeared angry at his bread and cheese. As if the meal had threatened him in some way.
What Keeley found secretly funny was looking at Caid’s angry face beneath all that hair. A literal mane of brown and gray hair with some thin streaks of white, although she doubted any of those colors had anything to do with his age. She could also see his sharp cheekbones, wide nose, and deep-set brown eyes; but she refused to find someone so eternally pissed off attractive. Life was too short to be that angry.
“The boy’s gone,” Caid finally announced.
Keeley frowned. “What boy?”
“The one you risked your life for.”
It did take her a minute to realize who he was talking about, but she blamed Gemma for that too. The little cow had distracted her.
“Why did he leave?” She raised a brow. “Did you say something to him?”
“I said nothing to him,” he replied flatly. “I had nothing to say.”
“Did you frighten him with your glare?”
His scowl became decidedly worse. “What?”
“Your glare. I’m sure that nice young boy found your glare terrifying. I’m used to it,” she said, pointing at herself. “I get glared at all the time. Insecure males mostly. But that boy has been through enough today and he doesn’t need your . . .”
“Glaring?”
Keeley fought her urge to laugh. There was something about this Amichai that entertained her; she just wasn’t sure what it could be. “Yes. Exactly. You probably terrified him.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then why did he leave?”
“He saw your sister and—”
“My sister?”
“The current expression on your face,” he said, “makes me feel like your sister may be currently unsafe. Like I should warn her to run away.”
“Too late!” Keeley spun away from Caid, marched through her shop, and stormed over to her sister, who was sitting and sipping tea.
Calmly, Keeley leaned down and said, “What did you do to that boy?”
* * *
Keeley’s bellow startled Caid and everyone else in his unit; his sister quickly sidestepped away from the two women. Not that he blamed her. The blacksmith was frightening when angry. Especially since he was guessing that Keeley wasn’t angry very often. Even after she’d fought for her life and the life of the boy against those soldiers, she had nothing but a smile and a laugh for them all.
But when she screamed into her sister’s face . . .
Caid would never do that to his sister. Not because he was above that sort of behavior but because Laila was a puncher. Despite being the youngest of them all, she’d been a fighter since birth.
But sister fighting sister was a different and decidedly more dangerous thing.
Then again . . . one of the sisters in this current dispute was a nun.
Still holding her mouthful of tea, Gemma gazed up at her sister, eyes narrowed. Caid briefly thought she was going to spit her tea directly at Keeley, but instead, after a moment, she swallowed. With dainty precision, she placed her cup of tea down on the wood table beside her.
Lowering her gaze, she seemed to center herself, letting out a small breath before she abruptly slammed both her hands against her sister, sending her big-shouldered sibling sliding back several feet.
Shocked, Caid quickly moved between the two women just as Keeley came charging back.
Caid had to use both hands to keep her from attacking her sister, and he could sense the nun now standing behind him. Once the pair couldn’t get to each other, the screaming began. Caid hated screaming. Not the words. He could not care less what the sisters were saying to each other. For him it was just the sound. If one was not in danger, one should not be screaming. But it seemed the Smythe sisters had never heard that before. Because they were yelling now and he was not happy about it.
While Caid and Farlan did their best to keep the two females from killing each other, the workers stood around, gawking, and his sister and Cadell stood back, waiting for the fighting to stop because they didn’t like screaming either.
There was one who did seem to be enjoying herself . . . Keran the cousin. She sat on a windowsill, a leg hanging down and swinging while she ate an apple and laughed but did not help. She was not helping.
Caid continued to push back against Keeley, whose intense strength was really beginning to impress him. He glanced over at his sister, about to ask for her help, when he noticed one of the older workers standing behind her . . . and staring at the long bare legs stretching from underneath her leather kilt. The man leered and, after making sure his boss was truly busy with the nun, he stretched out his arm and began to snake his hand under Laila’s kilt.
Despite all that was going on, Caid couldn’t help but smirk when his sister’s gaze moved from the fighting siblings to a spot across the room. Before the worker could even touch her, she had sensed him. With a slight tilt of her head, her eyes spotted him behind her.
Laila folded her arms over her chest and did what Caid had known she would.
* * *
Keran adored her family.
Well . . . not all of it. Her own mother and siblings she had no patience for because they didn’t understand her and had never tried. It was her choices that bothered them. But what did they expect? For her to go into a forge every day, pick up a hammer, and work with steel? Just the thought . . .
In her early years, the boredom would have destroyed her.
It wasn’t her fault either. That she had not only the love of a good fight, but the skill to win. Her own mother had said she “came out of my womb swinging! Nearly knocked out poor Nelly, the midwife who was helping with the birth.”
So Keran had gone off one day and entered the fighting guild. Unlike the stonemasons and blacksmiths, she didn’t have to start off as an apprentice, working for nothing and tolerating the general abuse of the elders. Instead, she just started fighting those who were her age, her size. Eventually, she moved up the ranks until she was known throughout the lands.
But, also unlike stonemasons and blacksmiths, eventually all fighters had to stop. If they wanted to live. She was more than forty springs and had gone out on top. She could have returned to the guild and instructed the younger fighters but . . . that wasn’t her. She had no desire to teach others.
Keran also could have gone home, but . . . for what? Her family had no use for her. And she didn’t plan to spend the rest of her days listening to her siblings and their youngsters chastising her about her choices. So Keran had come to see her aunt. Also a blacksmith, but she’d always been kind and Keran had liked her young cousins.
It still had shocked her, though, the way they’d welcomed her. Without question. Without judgment. And Keeley . . . sweet Keeley had given Keran a job. “Stay at the forge,” she’d said over some ale at the local pub. “Keep an eye on things when I’m not around.”
“I can swing a hammer, Cousin, but only to break someone’s jaw,” she’d reminded her.
“Really? I can crush a man’s entire face with one hammer swing.” She’d grinned, showing those adorable dimples. “I have enough blacksmiths working for me. All men, by the way, which should keep you highly entertained.”
“I do have an appetite.” She’d studied her cousin. “You sure you don’t mind?”
“You’re family!” Keeley had exclaimed. “We always make room for family. It’s just about finding what you’re good at. And keeping those bastards in line when I’m not around . . . that, my cousin, sounds exactly like what you would be good at.”
And she was. As always, her cousin had been right.
Still, sweet Keeley had one weakness. Her only weakness. Her siblings. All the younger ones, she kept in line just by being herself. But the second oldest . . . dear, pious Gemma? She’d always refused to fall in line.
Which made seeing her in her holy garb, covering herself completely as if even the wind touching her was a sin against the higher ones, more entertaining to Keran more than she could say. Because she knew how Keeley would react.
Exactly the way she was reacting now. Like a crazed banshee exploding from all her rage.
How dare her sister not do exactly what she’d told her to do!
Ahhhh. The women in her family. They were amazing. And insane. Because you needed to be both if you wanted to survive this world the way they did. Making their own choices and rules and ignoring all the men who tried to tell them no.
Even better, though, was that Keeley hadn’t returned from the forest alone. She’d brought friends! Amichai friends!