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Gently, he touched her cheek "What do you see when you look out?"

"So much water"

"All the way to the horizon and beyond When a iven to the sea Over the years, Anne, I’ve learned that it matters not where a man is buried It ht she’d cried her fill in Scutari, but it seemed she had athered them with his thumbs

"I would take your pain if I could," he said in a low rough voice

When she thought her heart could ache no more, he bent his head and tenderly brushed his lips over hers, before gathering her into his arht have said or done could have devastated her more He understood loss, he understood pain, he understood walking ahen one dearly wanted to stay

For the first ti, the fractured reht finally heal

Chapter 11

Dahts and days since hehis kiss, he certainly had never envisioned it being so uneventful It was never supposed to offer comfort; it was never supposed to be little more than a brief touch, a quick taste

Blast it all! It was supposed to be designed to have her gasping and clinging to hi him to take it further It was supposed to end with a tumble on his bed

As he jerked free his unruly cravat to once in to properly tie it, he wasn’t certain he’d ever been usted with himself He couldn’t very well deliver the sort of kiss he’d drea about Hence the journey to the crow’s nest

But she’d seemed so vulnerable, the pain still in her eyes Whatever had possessed him to utter such poetic nonsense about where people were buried? If that was not erazed his lips over hers as though his body were not in a constant hardened state by the ether--their last dinner together--after which he would not be at liberty to claih he owned it, because--dammit all--he’d already claimed the proive her a kiss that any woain There had been no heat, no passion, no swirling of tongues

Good God, it ht as well have not happened