Free The Silver Thread by Emigh Cannaday Page A

said, rinsing the blade in the sink full of warm water. “It’s the exact same formula that my father used when he taught me how to shave. I’ve tried others, but this is the one I keep coming back to.”
    “That’s so sweet,” Annika said, and kept watching him in wonder. Here was a creature she had thought of every day for months, never sure if she would see him again, yet there he stood. She couldn’t help but stare at him, afraid that if she looked away he would disappear, and it would all have been a dream. But one glance at her twisted bed sheets suggested otherwise. Her eyes moved over to the alarm clock on the nightstand, and seeing it was blank, she ran to check the time on her phone.
    “Hey, did you unplug my alarm clock? I overslept.”
    “I may have been involved with the unplugging of a clock,” he admitted, rinsing the blade in the warm water. “I thought you might enjoy your beauty sleep. There is nothing more attractive on a lady first thing in the morning than a smile.”
    “You would know,” she said, not amused.
    He shot her a look but said nothing, and instead continued shaving while she turned on the water in the shower.
    “Jeez, how can you do that without cutting yourself? You make that look so easy.”
    “It’s not difficult,” he said, passing the blade up his throat and swishing it clean in the water. “I can’t recall the last time I cut myself shaving.” He made a funny expression as he focused on the tricky place under his perfectly straight nose.
    “Why don’t you just run it under the faucet instead of rinsing it in the dirty water?” she suggested. He looked sideways at her as he rinsed the blade in the sink basin again, against her advice.
    “Because this is how I shave, love. Better get used to it. You’re stuck with me and
all
of my habits for the rest of eternity.”
    A low, wicked laugh followed this declaration, and Annika watched him in silence as he took his sweet time swishing around in the dirty water. It was almost like he was mocking her.
    She suddenly realized that yes, she
would
have to get used to all these habits. She was married to this mysterious creature. There was no way she could keep trying to return to her old life now, the one where Talvi didn’t exist. Sneaking a glance at her wedding ring before returning her gaze to him, she felt a little intimidated; a little scared. It wasn’t the fact that he loomed over her in height, or that he was older than her by over two centuries, or that he possessed much more strength than her. It was that there was so much about him that she didn’t know. All she knew was her body and her brain didn’t always meet up when it came to him. She had no idea how he took his coffee in the morning, what his favorite subject in school was, or if he had even gone to school at all. She knew nothing of his childhood, really. She knew his family and liked them well enough, and she liked his close friends, but there was still an aura of danger surrounding him. Why did it linger?
    She took mental note of the laugh lines on the sides of his mouth, the delicate points of his ears, the faint scars on his right index finger from getting snagged repeatedly on his guitar strings. They were such minor observations, yet they spoke volumes. His rebellious hair was a perfect indication of his personality; too wild to stay still and behave for very long. It gave the appearance that it had endured countless adventures on horseback over hill and dale, with the wind rushing through it all along the way.
    His eyes, too, were symbolic of his persona. Just as he had never fully committed to one trade, one hobby, or one home, his eyes refused to commit to just one color. A hypnotic shade of green outlined their blue centers, and being the hues of water, they changed just as quickly. Most of the time they were light and twinkling, but they could flash dark with intensity, whether it was for better or worse. With the dark circles under them,