Bitterroot Valley I waited for you

She did not avert her gaze or duck her head as he moved closer, as she had in the past. It hurt, just a little, to look at him like this. So close, so close, touching — she didn't understand the burn of it in her chest or the squeeze of it low in her belly or the way that her nerve endings prickled down her spine and in her toes. A fanged set of jaws seemed to grab hold of her heart and wrench it forward, almost bringing her along with it, so that they might touch all the more —

But she held steady, the only signs of her distress her rabbiting heart and a soft but shuddering exhale.

He was teasing her, she knew. But when he spoke, it was again with words of intention. This time, Angel felt the promise was more concrete. She could no longer wonder if they were dancing around what she thought. Either he wanted to marry her, or he was a liar.

"A woman must make her expectations known," she replied, her eyes sparkling. She would take him at his word until forced to do otherwise. "Besides — how am I to know what you got up to while I was away?"

She was only teasing. She'd had a spy here, after all, and Elowyn had reported no unsettling developments.