Page 46 of Love Beyond Words
“I am rather tired.”
Turning, she opened the door to his room and entered, but he couldn’t keep from saying one last thing to her before she closed the door to him.
“Laurel, lass, I believe Morna lied to ye. I doona believe she brought ye here so ye could write a book.”
Most nights, they lit their fires by hand so as to reserve their magic, but he didn’t trust himself to step inside his bedchamber with her. With a quick flick of his wrist, he brought his room to light and his knees grew weak at the glint in her eye as she leaned into the doorway.
“Oh, yeah? Why do you think she brought me here then?”
“To heal what is broken inside ye and mayhap to find the love ye are so resistant to.”
Laurel’s brows pulled together and her tone was defiant when she spoke. “I’m not broken, Raudrich.”
He wouldn’t follow down the road she wished to lead him. He could sense it was one of the ways she so often pushed people away.
“Ye know that is not what I said, lass. Every one of us have broken pieces inside us, but we alone are the only ones that can heal them. Until we do, we canna become the people we are meant to be.”
“And you’ve healed all your broken pieces, have you?”
“’Tis work that never ends, lass, but I shall never stop working to heal whatever may fracture inside me. Growing up here makes one less patient with the pain we cause ourselves. Not when ye know that pain could be brought on by another at any time—pain that ye canna control.”
Laurel’s eyes were sad and thoughtful as she gently sighed and closed the door between them.
Chapter 27
I fell asleep quickly after Raudrich left me. My mind was too full from all I’d seen that night, my body too alive from Raudrich’s touch to process all of the things that were running through my mind. Instead, the moment my head hit the pillow, I was out, left to work through all of my thoughts as I slept.
I dreamed of Kate. She sat at the end of the bed and spoke to me as if she knew all that had happened—almost as if she were actually here.
“It’s funny, isn’t it? How I can tell you the same thing a hundred times and you won’t hear it, but the minute you meet a man who calls you on your crap, you can actually see the problem.”
Sitting cross-legged across from her, I answered.
“What crap? He didn’t call me on any crap.”
In my dream, Kate was whole again, unmarred from injury. She crossed her arms and lifted her brows at me. “Oh, really? How exactly did you read that then?”
I’d not had time to read into it at all. I was still processing Nicol and Freya’s story, still reeling from the interaction with the wicked-scary faerie. By the time we’d gotten to Raudrich’s room, I was so turned on that all I’d been able to think was that I needed to get myself in the bedroom quickly or I was going to rip all of his clothes off.
Then came the whammy of my confession and all of the feelings I realized I didn’t even know I was feeling until they came crashing down on me. My mind was too full and weary to read anything into Raudrich’s last few words to me.
“I…” I hesitated and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Kate shook her head and leaned in close.
“Well, then, let me tell you what he was not actually saying but definitely, totally meant.”
I leaned back into the grand, carved headboard and settled in.
“By all means, Kate. Please do.”
“That was a man who wants you, Laurel. But unlike most of the men you date, he’s not going to let you chew him up and spit him out the moment you get scared or start to doubt your worth or feel a little self-conscious. He can see that you’re not ready for him. You’re not ready for something that’s real, and he’s not going to waste his time on anything but that.”
There was no doubt my sister was wise, but all this seemed beyond her limited insight into my complicated psyche.
“So what if I’m not ready? Everybody grows in their own time, Kate. It’s just not time for me yet.”
Kate held up one finger as if she were getting ready to list off a multitude of points.
