Page 19 of A Balm of Healing
“How doyoueven know how I feel about her? I’ve hardly said a single thing and we just arrived.”
“Because,” she squeezed his hand, “you used to look at Mama the way you look at Gweneth. There are a lot of things I’ve forgotten from my childhood, but I never forgot that.”
Lifting a shaky hand, he covered his eyes again as he tried to push away the pain, as he tried to reject the emotions running rampant through his body. “Losing your mother destroyed me. I can’t lose Gweneth. I’m terrified of hurting again.”
Nyana knelt in front of him and slowly peeled his hand away from his face. Earnestness and love stared back at him in her blue eyes. “I know more thananyonehow you feel, Papa. Before I met Joel, my life was more terrible than you could imagine. But I wouldn’t change any of it. Because I am now married to the love of my life, and I have three beautiful children. My greatest trials have brought me my greatest happiness.”
He voiced one of his most substantial fears. “What if she doesn’t care for me?”
“Look her in the eye and ask yourself that again.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“That she returns your feelings?”
He nodded. “I know it’s silly. I’m terrified she won’t have me, and I’m terrified she will.”
And he felt even sillier for talking to his daughter about this, the very one whose relationship with him had been strained over the past year.
To try to better put his feelings into words, he amended with, “I want a life with her. I just don’t know how to move forward.”
She squeezed his hand. “With faith in yourself and hope for a brighter future. You just took your first steps in a very long time, Papa. Keep on walking forward, and you’ll get there.”
Releasing a long breath, he pulled his daughter into an embrace. “I am ever grateful for you.”
“And I you.”
They held each other for a few moments as Emeric fought off his emotions. One thread in the tangled web of his existence unraveled. And although he knew he had at least a dozen more to contend with, he was immensely happy that he was facing his challenges and overcoming them one by one.
“Let’s not leave Gweneth with Calle for too long.” He chuckled as he pulled away from her. “She might faint in his presence.”
“I can’t say she’s the only one.” She laughed alongside him. “It happened to me once as well.”
His heart lifted as they shared a smile, and the lightened burdens on his shoulders was a strange and foreign sensation. His daughter was right. If he just kept walking forward, somehow, sometime, he would reach his destination.
Chapter Eight
“You only have one more day to back out,” Emeric grunted from where he clung to the banister with white knuckles. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay to aid a helpless man?”
Gweneth pinched his side. “If this is your way of trying to get me to live here permanently as your nurse, it’s not working.”
Oh, but yes. It was working wonders.
Her lips pressed tightly together as she ascended the next step with him at her side. He was getting stronger, as if the will to walk on his own was a bigger driving force than even yesterday. Getting offered the position of her dreams should have had her leaping with joy and crowing from the rooftops. But the thought of accepting left a pit of discomforting ache in her stomach.
She didn’t want to go anymore.
Because Emeric was here.
They ascended the last step together, and he turned to her, momentarily stopping her heart with the intensity of his silver eyes. A thrill shot through her at having to lookupat him rather thandown. He was taller than she expected, just the perfect height to wrap her arms around his waist and—
Emeric’s legs suddenly collapsed from beneath him, and both of them cried out when he crashed to the ground at the top of the landing, bringing her down with him. She landed with a thud on soft carpet, staring up at the ceiling in a daze of surprise.
Beside her, Emeric said, “I think it’s safe to say I’m good and stuck up here. No amount of coaxing will get me back down there.”
Laughter burst out of her, and his promptly followed. But then the laugh slowly fizzled out when he turned onto his elbow and gazed down at her. Her stomach responded with a flutter, her heart with a dip as he touched her wrist with the softest brush. His fingers lightly traveled up her arm to her shoulder, and then he cradled her face with one hand.
Hard as she tried, she couldn’t breathe.
