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Chapter 43 – A Letter from the Past
Last Updated:
2025-04-27 00:02:15
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Love's Healing Touch Chapter 44 – A Journey Toward Forgiveness
The morning was clear and bright, a piercing contrast to the previous night. Adrian perched on top of the little kitchen table, thumb tracing Catherine's letter between his fingers. He hadn't slept, his mind racing too hard to permit him. Elara, always in tune with him even when asleep, stirred and sat beside him at the table, and pushed a hot cup of tea over to him."Your mind's been made up, has it?" she panted, voice heavy with sleep even now.Adrian nodded. "I have to go to her. I have to go see my people. Not because I owe them anything. But because. I think I must."Elara's hand on his, holding him back. "Then come with me."He looked at her, shock washing over him once more. Wherever this path took them, Elara would be there. Always.With the sun in their faces, they had stuffed into a small pouch provisions one would need. Adrian remained in the doorway, not actually hesitating to unzip it and emerge into the world that had spurned him before. This time, he did not go out alo
Last Updated : 2025-04-27Love's Healing Touch Chapter 45 – A New Beginning at the Village Square
The next morning, Adrian woke up at an early hour, sunlight pouring across the quilt bedcovering. Elara slept restlessly beside him, breathing untroubled, arm hanging loose on his chest. Empty-headed, he smiled, brushing aside a lock of hair from beside her forehead.It was the day he'd meet the rest of the village—those same villagers who'd left him when he'd most needed them. His chest was bound with nerves and resolve. He wasn't that same broken little boy who'd run from this place. And he wasn't going to approach them alone.Slipping out of bed carefully, Adrian dressed and headed downstairs, where the smell of fresh bread greeted him. Catherine was already bustling in the kitchen, her sleeves rolled up, a smile lighting her face when she saw him."You’re up early," she said, setting a plate down on the table."I couldn’t sleep much," he admitted, pulling out a chair.She nodded, comprehending. "Welcomed some of the villagers yesterday afternoon after you'd gone," Catherine gestur
Last Updated : 2025-04-27Love's Healing Touch Chapter 46 – The Unspoken News
Golden morning light streamed through Catherine's windows and kissed wooden floors. Elara drummed her fingers on the rim of her teacup while seated at the table. Adrian stood a few paces away from her, a sign of his frustration.It was to be their day, that day they had selected, that day they would share — the tiny, cherished miracle that lived within Elara. To voice it, to share it with another human, was both terrifying and thrilling."Maybe she'll cry," Elara chuckled to cover the void, a quivering smile spreading across her face.Adrian growled and backed away from her, his hands to the fronts of her shoulders. "She cried when she saw me yesterday. Wouldn't surprise me."Elara turned her face to look up at him. "Are you ready?"Adrian halted. Not that he wasn't thrilled — he was. But this was going for a life he'd never been foolish enough to dream for himself. Family. Duty. Hope."I'm ready if you are," he said at last, his fingers pressing into her shoulders with a gentle force
Last Updated : 2025-04-27Love's Healing Touch Chapter 47 – Whispers of Forever
The following days melted into a sun-drenched haze of joy. Elara and Adrian's engagement was the subject of conversation in the village, and it spread like wildfire. Catherine's doorstep every day hosted new faces of guests—neighbors with gifts of small tokens of goodwill, bouquets of fresh flowers, fruit baskets, handmade work of exquisitely embroidered napkins, and even expertly made cradles for the baby of the near future.Elara was engulfed by the best kind of strangling. She had been so isolated, with nothing to converse with but her beasts, in the quiet of the forest that she stood there mute at this flood of care. But she was conscious of Adrian's hand holding on to the rigidity of his unyielding form.Adrian steered the adoration in a subdued aplomb. Even crowds still shaming him, even the wounds to his heart still smarting painfully when strangers spoke his name too loudly, he never let Elara escape from him. Every handshake, every hug, every well wish was reminder: they were
Last Updated : 2025-04-27Love'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
Last Updated : 2025-04-28Love'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
Last Updated : 2025-04-28Love'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
Last Updated : 2025-04-28Love'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
Last Updated : 2025-04-29
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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
