Arden sensed the thrumming of what she could only describe as
joy, pulsing through the ground, spreading outward from the massive old oak
where he sat. A new perfume filled the air, constantly changing, never
lingering long enough for her to describe it. With Glynna close beside her, she
followed that thrumming, that perfume, through fields bursting with emerald
life, to her favorite stream, and the oak where she liked to sit on a wide
branch and daydream and let the trees and fields and flowers sing to her.
She stepped around the oak and saw the man. For two heartbeats
she was startled, but then she knew who he was. Outwardly, he was just a thin
young man with a thick cap of nut-brown hair, skin a shade lighter, green eyes,
a thin dusting of beard, and slightly dusty traveling clothes of roughspun and
leather. His smile wiped away her momentary trepidation and made her feel
breathless as she went to her knees next to him.
“Don’t leave Westerland, dearheart,” he murmured.
“I don’t want to, but if my father …” She flushed hot and
couldn’t meet his smiling eyes. “Am I being silly?”
“It’s never silly to love, to join your soul in delight and
abandon to another soul.” He winked. “I’ve only recently been blessed with that
gift, and it takes my breath away whenever I think of her. I’m constantly
wondering how I could be so lucky that she loves me.” He laughed, and Arden
laughed with him.
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