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Chapter 34 – The Space Between Heartbeats
Last Updated:
2025-04-13 14:38:20
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Love's Healing Touch Chapter 35 – The Unraveling
The following morning broke with a different radiance that neither Adrian nor Elara expected. The sky, washed bright by the rains of the previous days, burst into a stunning boundless expanse of pure blue. The light poured over fields and rooftops, turning raindrops left on branches into little stars. The forest sparkled like a phoenix.Elara leaned against the railing of her tiny garden, arms crossed over her chest, blowing back behind her on the wind. Adrian stood on the porch, watching as the sun fell over her hair and the rise and fall of her shoulders with each slow breath."Do you ever wonder what comes next?" he burst out suddenly, stepping off onto grass.Elara turned, eyebrows raised a little. "After what,Quiet. This place. Us."The word us fell between them, as gentle as dew. Elara waited before she said anything."I thought there was nothing after that. That this was all. All that was left. And then. now you appeared. And now I do not know. I think that is better."Adrian
Last Updated : 2025-04-13Love's Healing Touch Chapter 36 – Tangled in Quiet Things
The sun came up in the morning, rising quietly into the cottage, pushing softly between the curtains as a quiet guest. Its warmth brushed softly in gold upon the wood floorboards and rested upon the two forms that were curled up on the couch—Adrian's arm around Elara's shoulder, her head resting lightly upon his chest. The fire had died down by evening, but the heat between them was an unspoken promise that neither of them was yet courageous enough to voice.Adrian went first. He blinked up at the ceiling, stunned at the quiet emptiness in his chest. The familiar pull of fear, of regret, was somehow absent. All that lingered was the soft sound of Elara's breathing, and the faint scent of herbs and old books that clung to her like a second cloak.His arm locked around her a bit involuntarily, and Elara moved, her eyelashes flicking up as she looked up at him."Morning," she answered, voice still husky from sleep."Morning," he answered, his deep voice a bit gritty.They didn't budge.E
Last Updated : 2025-04-13Love's Healing Touch Chapter 37 – Whispers Beneath the Willow
Morning broke in songbird trill—soft and entrancing, as if the woods themselves sang a living cradle song full of spring. Adrian slowly awakened, caught in the heat of Elara's blankets and the gentle cadence of her breathing against him. The light streamed through the lacy curtains, illuminating golden filigree on wooden walls. He didn't recall falling asleep. Only the stillness of her arms. The weight of her hand upon his heart.He rotated slowly, not wanting to disturb her. Elara was on her side, hair a matted halo around the pillow. Her face was serene, lips parted slightly, a tiny crease between her brows as though dreaming of something difficult.Adrian paused, then leaned in to smooth that crease out with his thumb. Her eyes flew wide at the touch. She blinked once, slowly, and smiled in a small, intimate manner."Morning," she whispered."Hey," he whispered. "You okay?"She nodded, stretching up like a cat. "Mmm. Just. a little sore."Adrian flushed, moving over to the window.
Last Updated : 2025-04-13Love's Healing Touch Chapter 38 – The Road Home
The morning air was fresh with the scent of dew and wildflowers that clung to Elara's cloak as she emerged to saddle the old mare. Adrian stood in the doorway, his gaze scanning the horizon where the ridges of the mountains blended into the road that led off far out into the village.Years since he'd been in the city. Years since he'd drawn its air, walked its crowded streets, or spoken aloud the name of his family. But now, the thought of returning didn't make his stomach turn to acid. It made his heart beat faster—but not out of fear.With resolve.Elara shifted, brushing hair from her forehead. "She's ready."Adrian descended, shaking his coat around himself. "You are?"A faint smile quivered on her lips. "Only if you are."They mounted the horse and rode together, side by side, the little cottage they'd, over years, made something more than home. It was home—a haven. Beyond them, the wood became less dense, showing wider paths, open fields, and the muffled rumble of encroaching ci
Last Updated : 2025-04-14Love's Healing Touch Chapter 39 – A Place Between Two Worlds
Sunlight streamed through the Lancaster house velvet curtains, golden-filtered, tempering the cold beauty chill that pervaded the atmosphere. Elara awakened first, slowly opening lids as senses grappled with sheer newness—the light linen sheeting over her, the polish and lavender scent, the quiet which wasn't quite that country quiet but was so much more sophisticated.She propped herself up, shifting slowly so she would not wake Adrian. The air was warm, and the room was too clean, far too clean. There was no songbird scratching on a window sill there to be heard; no groan of old wood above. It was lovely—it was irrefutable as that—but it was not home.Other than her, Adrian shifted. His heavy lashes brushed over pale cheeks, and his eyes opening created a moment of disorientation in their depths. She touched him with a light kiss on the temple."You're safe," she whispered.His lips curled into a parched smile. "I know. But somehow it still feels as though I'm dreaming I was trying
Last Updated : 2025-04-14Love's Healing Touch Chapter 40 – Threads of the Familiar
The return trip to the village was in silence, not quiet, but in the peaceful way that it wrapped around you like a blanket. The thud of horse hooves on the earth road, the trill of birds out of sight flying over the cover above, and the wind's howl blowing through the leaves—everything mixed in a soothing symphony, showing the peace they both yearned for so desperately.Elara sat beside Adrian in the carriage, hands loosely locked in his. The city proper was now nothing more than a fantasied dream—the glittering corridors and aching memories enfolding them like a haze. What was left was the fleeting warmth of facing the past and clinging to the future.Adrian had spoken little since walking through the gates. He didn't need to. His silence wasn't choking, not anymore, when he'd walked in fear of being abandoned behind. His silence was more akin to thinking now. Gratitude. Healing.Elara's hold on his hand eased somewhat. "What do you think about?He stood in front of her, the corners
Last Updated : 2025-04-15Love's Healing Touch Chapter 41 – The Greenhouse Promise
Sunshine filtered golden from outside, upon Elara's peaceful face. She rolled very slowly under the bedclothes, the smell of wet earth and lavender washing in on the breeze through the open window. Birds sang in the yard, and the remote ringing of hammers was making its way upwards from the rear yard.There came a very small smile slipping on to her lips. Adrian.She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and stepped outside. The air still had a bite to it, with spring in the air as well. And there he was—shirt cuffs rolled up, hair messy and plastered to his forehead, totally absorbed in the task of constructing the greenhouse. He did not even notice that she was out.She stood at the edge of the garden, arms crossed, watching him for a few moments. His movements had become stronger, more confident. There was a calm determination in the way he measured, lifted, nailed. It was the kind of strength born not from muscle, but from healing.Finally, she called out, “You’re going to wear you
Last Updated : 2025-04-18Love's Healing Touch Chapter 42 – Whispers of the Market
Early sunlight seeped over twigs and formed pools of gold in damp meadow while Elara strapped on the loop of her basket. Batches of dried lavender, soap cut in chamomile-scented blocks, and jars of honey tipped in herbs curled up in between were her initial produce for the village's small spring market. Adrian had encouraged her, and despite being attracted, close-knit tension writhed in her belly, but there was a dizzily whirling one too.Adrian rested his elbow on the fence, one elbow on creaking rusty wooden gate ajar in the arched road to the village square. He was soft-looking in rolled-up sleeves and linen waistcoat, curls on forehead. He would not have ventured out and exposed his face to anyone looking, would not have been there he was struck by sunlight some years back.And then he smiled when he saw her."Ready?" he panted."More or less." She let out a giggling, unstable sort of laugh. "Do you think that people actually will buy something?""They'd be fools otherwise," he t
Last Updated : 2025-04-18
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Love's Healing Touch Chapter 56 – A Place Called Home
The morning wind carried the first promise of fall, sharp and heavy with loam and the last summer bloom. Elara lingered by the garden entrance, shawl knotted close about her shoulders. The seasons were changing—and with them, something in herself.The creak of the cottage door stood behind her. Adrian emerged, arching back in a stretch, a sleepy grin on his face."Did you sleep?" she asked, watching as he ran a hand through his tousled hair."Bound well enough," he replied, coming to stand at her side. "You were warm. I slept beside you."She smiled quietly. "You always do."They stood shoulder to shoulder, watching a fox couple stroll along the treeline's edge in the distance, tails glinting like rubies of flame in the fog. Elara had named them weeks ago—Ash and Ember. Wild, cautious creatures. Not so unlike Adrian once was.He looked where she did. "You think they'll ever let you get close to them?""Not anytime soon," she said. "But I don't mind waiting."Adrian gazed down at her.
Love's Healing Touch Chapter 55 – Where the Past Softens
Breeze blew through treetop foliage as Elara stood at the corner of the newly cleared pathway, holding onto the handle of a shovel sheathed in wood. Sunbeams filtered through the tops of leafy branches above, sunny on her back. Adrian approached her with spools of stakes and twine."Care to dig another one today?" he asked, a glint in his eye.She turned to him with a soft smile. "We’re getting close to where the trail splits toward the river."They labored in comfortable quiet, the only noises those of birds, the soft chop of tools into the earth, and their even breathing. Repairing the old trail had become more than a project—it was therapy. It gave them time to speak, or not. To remember, or simply be.They sat for a little while, leaning on a felled log beside the boughs of an ancient oak. Adrian mopped at his brow with his arm, looking at Elara with subdued wonder."You never get tired," he told her."I get tired," she said, holding out a water canteen to him. "I just happen to k
Love's Healing Touch Chapter 54 – Between Two Worlds
The countryside was aglow with dew from an early dawn morning as Elara pushed the cottage window open, letting the fresh scent of lavender and wet earth into the air. The birds sang in the branches, a gentle chorus of life starting its rhythm. The village itself slept on, oblivious to the quiet miracle occurring over the past weeks: Adrian Lancaster's return — in body, certainly, but in heart, as well.Adrian stood barefoot beside the fence, gently petting the nose of one of Elara's goats who bleated at him lovingly. He chuckled, speaking quietly to the animal as if it were a party to something. The picture softened Elara's heart.It was hard to think of how far they'd traveled. The tormented man she first saw standing by the edge of the woods now smiled. Laughter. Alive.And yet. The change hadn't stopped coming.Adrian was standing outside the cottage, his gaze meeting hers through the open window."Morning," he drawled, in that low, husky voice she'd grown to love.Elara leaned out
Love's Healing Touch Chapter 53 – Threads of Forgiveness
The sun shone across the estate gardens, and the rose bushes threw long, dew-wet shadows. Adrian leaned against the weathered veranda railing, hands around it, staring out to sea in contemplation. The memories of last night still thawed his chest — not hurt, but a silent, whispered kind of peace. He had faced his past for the first time in years and lived.Behind him, the door creaked open and closed softly. Elara padded across the stone floor in her slippers, a shawl draped over her shoulders.“You’ve been out here a while,” she murmured.“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted. “Too much in my head.”She stepped beside him. “Regrets?”He shook his head slowly. "Not regrets. Just... wondering how it might have been. If things had gone differently."Elara didn't respond immediately. She allowed her hand to fall into his, their fingers interlocking."Perhaps it was always going to be this way," she said. "So that you would understand who you're actually meant to be."Adrian stared at her. "And
Love's Healing Touch Chapter 52 – The Road Back Home
Dawn the following morning, and a gentle mist drifted between the trees, wrapping the cottage in sleeping tranquility. Adrian stood on the edge of the garden, fists at the pockets of his coat, looking east. Beyond those hills was his old world — his world that he had abandoned, his world that had cast him out.He sensed Elara before she spoke a word."You sure you want to do it today?" she inquired softly, striding over to stand next to him, wrapped in a scarf at her throat and holding a teapot.Adrian nodded slowly, his gaze still elsewhere. "Yes. I think I will. If I don't do it today, I'll never get a chance to break free."Elara didn't prod him. She just held out the tea and wrapped her arms around his shoulder. "Then we'll go, then. You don't have to do any of this by yourself."She'd said it before — in words, if not necessarily exactly in words, on days, however many — but every time she spoke the words, something new and whole itself together inside of him.By late morning the
Love's Healing Touch Chapter 51 — Threads of Tomorrow
The morning after Adrian's sweet overture of honeyed words, sunlight seeped into the cottage, depositing a golden, warm glow on the wood floorboards. The fire had burned for hours earlier, but its heat lingered – in the quilt that kept them close, in the contours of Adrian's body pressed against Elara, and most of all, in the air between two people who had at last, fully selected each other.Elara woke, eyelids slitting over light. For what felt like forever, she listened only — to Adrian's quiet breathing beside her, to bird calls distant out there, to the quiet stillness of home. Her hand tightened reflexively, reaching for the ring still proudly on her finger, tangible proof that the previous night wasn't a fantasy.She turned over, her eyes on him.His sleeping face no longer creased with the pain and self-loathing she'd witnessed daily in his eyes. His face still carried a shadow of loss, perhaps always would — scars took more than a day to heal — but love had tempered him. He wa
Love's Healing Touch Chapter 50 — A Promise Beneath the Stars
It came the next day, shrouded in pale mist. The fields far out beyond the cottage sparkled with silver mist, and the world was hushed, shut.Adrian had gotten up early, and couldn't sleep, a raw hurt of pain in his chest. Not scared, only — but a raw sensation that something huge had to be told, had to be told.He looked over at Elara, still wrapped in the quilt, her peaceful face sleeping. His heart ached with love. Regardless of how many mornings he had with her, he never got used to waking up with her. She was the best of every morning, the reminder that despite all the ugliness and hurt, he could be loved.He moved closer, drawing a kiss to her forehead then resting on the bed, slowly settling back onto it.Today there would be a difference.Today, he promised himself, he would show her something — something better than those smooth words of comfort or fumbling kisses. Something she would remember in years to come.Adrian settled into houses woods ahead of time, migrating until h
Love's Healing Touch Chapter 49 – Whispers of a New Dawn
The bridal-day romance that poured on afterward seeped into days like slow, iridescent fog.Adrian and Elara fell into such a smooth, easy pace, that they felt the universe had plotted to achieve this for them. The tiny cottage, that little nest of lonely silence for Elara before Adrian's arrival, resounded now with happy laughter, soft late-night conversation beside the firesides, and moments of deep wordless love.Adrian woke up every morning early, before the rest of the family. Then he'd discover that he was happy to just stay there, observing Elara sleeping next to him. Her chest moved with deep breaths, her hair a golden light over the pillow, her hand always naturally curled against where he was. He'd draw tiny patterns on her skin, memorizing every freckle, every curve, every scar that had shaped the woman who'd rescued him.Sometimes he questioned whether he had worked for any of it. If someone like him — a failure, sick, and alone — had indeed worked for such happiness. But
Love's Healing Touch Chapter 48 – A Promise Sealed by Stars
Their honeymoon evening, their very first ever was a most beloved dream suspended halfway between reality and fantasy.Arm in arm, Adrian and Elara returned through the meadows to Catherine's cottage, their footsteps unhindered and unencumbered. The sky was ablaze with stars in a lovely scattering of light, and the fading resounds of music and laughter from the village carnival still clung to them behind. But here, amidst this new stillness of the fields, there were but the two of them — wife and husband, bound together by vows spoken in hushed tones beneath the old oak.Adrian kept her a step or two away from the cottage, and with this arm around her waist, pulled her into his arms. In starlight, he looked at her face, too full to grunt out one word. With his thumb drawing along the line on the ridge of her cheek in gentle, light-feather motion, Elara gazed."Are you real?" he roughly demanded, as if he was afraid of waking to find this one of his bitter dreams.Elara smiled, the ski
