Page 108 of Bound to a Warrior
“I didn’t want to.”
“It is good you feel so sure about your love for my son,” Mara said.
“I have not a speck of doubt that I love Duncan.”
“No matter what?” Mara asked.
Mercy thought her question odd but answered it without hesitation and with more truth than Mara would realize. “If I should have to leave here tomorrow, my love for Duncan would remain strong in my heart always. And no one or anything could change that.”
“You are strong. You will survive this.”
Mercy wondered if Mara realized that perhaps she was speaking the truth and encouraging her, but that wasn’t possible. No one knew of her morning departure, though she wondered if Mara knew more that went on in and around the keep than she let anyone know.
The two women sat in silence for several moments before resuming the conversation.
“Loving someone can be difficult,” Mara said.
“Loving someone is easy,” Reeve said rounding his mother’s chair and giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“Shame on you for sneaking up on us like that, be gone with you now,” Mara scolded, shooing him away. “Besides what do you know about love?”
“All I need to know to stay away from it.” He grinned and hurried off, out of reach of his mother’s swatting hand.
“I fear Reeve will have the most difficult time with love since he takes it so lightly,” Mara confessed.
“I never thought much of love,” Mercy admitted.
“Why?”
“My mother raised me to believe it served no true purpose and that in the end it brings nothing but tears and heartache,” Mercy said. “I’ve often wondered if perhaps my mother had been deeply hurt by love and that was why she felt the way she did. But I never got the chance to ask her.”
“Love can leave scars,” Mara said.
“That never heal,” Trey said as he walked passed them, though never stopped.
When Trey was out of sight, Mara said, “He loved and lost and has yet to heal.”
“I’m so sorry. How terrible for him,” Mercy said, her stomach quivering from the thought. Leaving Duncan of her own free will was one thing, but having him taken away from her, knowing she would never see him again was something she didn’t know if she could live with.
“Time is the only thing that will help him,” Mara said, shaking her head. “Sometimes the wound is too deep to ever heal.”
Mercy wondered if that was what happened to her mother. Had she been wounded so badly by love that it never healed? She wished she had asked her mother about her past when she was alive. Now she would never know.
“Though sometimes love can heal any wound as long as the heart is willing to take another chance,” Mara said.
“You know your sons well,” Mercy said. “Am I what you expected for Duncan?”
Mara shook her head, though smiled. “You are so much more. I knew Duncan would be the first to fall in love. He has known for sometime what he wanted.”
“Which was?” Mercy asked eagerly.
“To fall in love, marry and raise a family. He may have enjoyed the favors of women now and again, and probably be horrified that I said so, but he knew once the right woman appeared he would know and never let her go. It seems his dreams have come true.”
“Mine certainly have,” Mercy admittedly happily.
“I’m the fulfiller of dreams,” Duncan sang out and came up behind Mercy, leaned around and kissed her cheek.
“Mercy’s just being nice,” Bryce teased and slapped his brother on the back. “Come, we have more work to do. You can fulfill dreams later.”
