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"I have a feeling you have missed many night's sleep."
"A few." She smiled.
"A lot," he affirmed.
"Y-yes."
As though it dawned on Moon exactly what she was saying he came up to her and jerked her into his arms.
He held the back of her head with one hand, and a hand at her back. "No wonder you wanted to come with me. Now it makes good sense. I hadn't considered that of him, he's your family. You must have nearly worried yourself to death."
For Moon to understand this and be compassionate shocked Lissa. She hadn't expected it.
Suddenly he realized she was in his arms and he let her go. "I am sorry. It is only that I want to protect you. It is that I finally understand what you fear the most. And you have every right to fear it."
She stared. "I know, you think I'm a child. Sometimes I kind of act like one. It's not intentional though. I guess being an only child makes me sometimes childish, and sometimes very mature. But you are right, I did fear him, still do."
He stared with a grin, "I wish I did think of you as a child." He murmured and walked off.
She stared at him now.
He turned around to look at her again.
"Did I scare you?" he asked with a slight frown.
"No, I'm not afraid of you."
"You're not?" he sent her a smile.
"No!"
"Why, you do not know me that well to make such a judgement."
"Women go by instincts, I guess. I mean it could have gone many ways back there in the barn. If you were dangerous you could have killed me and Earl, even yourself. You could have hurt me then if you wanted to. You didn't. Instead, you protected me. Why should I mistrust you? When someone offers you a kindness, you offer them your trust."
"We better get some sleep, we have a long day ahead of us." He told her, shaken by her sound reasoning. He hadn't meant to hug her, but the memory of holding her stayed in his mind. She had felt so warm, so small and so inviting.
It had been a long time since a woman had given him her trust.
She nodded and he offered her the blanket once again.
Chapter Four
That night she heard a noise and she raised up from the blanket wide-eyed.
"It is an owl. Everything is fine, go back to sleep." He told her.
"I should know that, but it woke me." She said softly.
When he didn't say anything, she went on to explain.
"I've never been on my own like this before, out in the wilds like this at night. Nighttime and the darkness scare me some. It's funny… "
"What?" he asked staring.
"When you’re a child, nothing scares you much, like out here. But when you grow up you see the dangers lurking and you become afraid of it. It should be the other way around, don’t you think?"
"I've always embraced the forest and the countryside." He answered. "When you get to know it well, it will never scare you."
