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He didn’t believe her for one minute, and he sensed that she knew that. Her next words proved him right.
“We’ll talk later.”
Which he knew meant when we’re alone, so he let it be ... for now.
He kept his arms around her until she was ready to leave them, and when she moved to slip away, he let her though he reminded in a whisper, “Later.”
She nodded and returned to healing mother and child.
It wasn’t until later that night when all was quiet, Mary and Allena asleep, that he and Bliss had a chance to speak.
They had moved the table and chairs to make room for their blanket on the ground in front of the fireplace. No flames were needed to warm them; their bodies snuggled close did that for them.
Trey kept a firm arm draped around her waist, her back snug against his chest, and his leg resting over both of hers. A wool blanket covered them.
Contentment washed over him, and he wondered if it wasn’t only his own he felt. Bliss rested contentedly in his arms though he could tell she was fatigued. He didn’t know how he knew it, he simply did.
“You are bone-tired,” he said against her temple after kissing there.
“More than usual, but that is the way of it when I attempt to heal quickly.”
“It robs you of strength? The reason you almost collapsed earlier?”
“Nothing to worry about.”
“But it is,” he said. “You give too much at times.”
“When necessary, I give more than usual, and this situation warranted more,” she said, her last word caught on a yawn.
How did he argue that with her? She was right, this situation did warrant more. Mary and her daughter needed to get well as fast as possible so that they could leave the area, which was growing ever more dangerous.
“What of your strength? You share it with others, then leave yourself exhausted. How then do you manage the journey?”
“Sleep will heal me well enough.”
“I remember seeing you sitting in the chair beside my bed sleeping.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. I was talking with you just as I did with Philip,” she said. “You are a brave warrior, but your heartache kept you from fighting as strongly as you could have. I had to get past your sorrow to help you heal well.”
He was curious. “Did you sense my sorrow?”
“Your sadness was so great that I felt it as if it were my own. My own heart hurt for yours, and I wished there was something I could have done. But such heartache is for fate to heal, not me.”
“But you have helped heal my heartache,” he admitted.
Her hand slipped over his, where it rested at her waist, and locked fingers with him. “You finally want it to heal, and so healing has begun. I have learned through the many healings I have done that those who not only wish to get well, but have a strong reason to get well, heal much faster than those who have surrendered to their illness ... surrendered to death.”
“So in a sense, Mary and her daughter helped your healing along because they both had a reason to live?”
Bliss nodded while she yawned. “Mary’s determined to see her daughters safe, and hope is alive in her heart that her husband will return to her. Allena misses her da and worries over her sister, so she fought to live for them.”
He was silent a moment, then asked, “I felt as if I had nothing to live for after I lost Leora. Why then, when I was so close to death, didn’t I die? And I don’t believe fate had anything to do with my living. So what then kept me alive?”
“Something just as powerful as love.”
“There is nothing more powerful than”—he shook his head—“hate.”
“Your hate for those who took Leora from you gave you the will to live though, at the time, you didn’t know it,” she said. “A warning ... leave revenge to fate. She has a way of balancing things in time, and though it may take us a while to realize it, in the end we are aware of the wisdom of her ways.”
