Page 33 of Love Beyond Reach (Morna’s Legacy #11)

A ll I could think when I spotted Grier standing in the woods as if she’d never left all those years ago was that I couldn’t let Jerry see her.

Not yet—not until I’d spoken with her. I felt deeply protective of him.

While I’d grieved her absence from my life once, I knew instinctively that she was not the same person I once knew.

After the burial, Grier was no longer visible. I knew she awaited me in the woods. I could feel it.

Jerry stood at the opposite side of the crowd of villagers. I made my way over to him as quickly as I could. I needed to know where he’d be so I could make certain he wouldn’t run into Grier. Fortunately, I didn’t have to search for an excuse to keep him busy—he already had plans.

“A lad in the village has asked Kip and me for help with a horse. I am so weary I can scarcely stand, though I think ’tis best if I stay away until Henry is gone. Do ye mean to tell him today?”

It wouldn’t be as soon as I’d hoped. I would have to speak to Grier first, but I had every intention of ending things with Henry before nightfall.

“Aye.”

Jerry nodded, and the line between his brows relaxed.

“Good. I’ll return to my cottage later, but for now, I shall spend the day in the village and allow ye and yer brother to see Henry gone from here. He may ask ye what has caused ye to end yer engagement. If he sees me, ’twould only cause unnecessary trouble.”

I nodded and turned to leave him, but his hand reached out to stop me.

“Wait, lass. I wish to give ye something. As I told ye earlier, I’ve not slept much these past nights.

I wished to be there for ye and I couldna be, so I wrote some thoughts down for ye.

I know it willna be easy for ye to hurt Henry.

Ye’ve a kind heart, and harsh words doona come easily to ye.

I hope that reading what I feel for ye will give ye strength. ”

I smiled at the folded parchment he extended toward me. Squeezing his hand, I slipped it into the bosom of my dress.

“I’ll read it as soon as I get back to the castle. I’ll see ye when everything is done.”

His letter—no matter how eager I was to read it—would have to wait.

An overdue visit with a ghost from my past stood waiting just footsteps away.

S he spotted me before I saw her, and her voice was as distinctive and recognizable as ever.

“Ye grew into just the woman I knew ye would—just as beautiful, just as strong, just as na?ve, though the last is no fault of yer own.”

She stepped from the woods with the grace of the creatures who lived within them. She could blend in anywhere. Her confidence made any place look like her home.

In the eight years since I’d seen her, she’d not aged a day.

When she opened her arms to me, I cautiously approached and allowed her to embrace me.

Her arms wrapped around me, and one hand stroked the back of my hair as she spoke. “I’m sorry about yer father, lass.”

“Ye are not. Ye hated him.”

She laughed and released me as she stepped away, her long hair blowing around her face wildly.

“Ye are right. I needn’t lie to ye. His death is the best thing that shall ever happen to ye. ’Twas inexcusable for him to keep ye from yer magic as he did. I’m glad ye found the journals I left for ye.”

As expected, she’d been watching all from afar.

“’Twas ye that led wee Eoin to the books then, aye?”

She nodded.

“O’course. Though I made sure to hide myself from him. I gently guided him with magic.”

The thought of Grier’s spells directing Eoin in any form filled me with unease. There was a time I would’ve trusted her with my life. Now, I felt suspicious of everything she said.

“What are ye doing here, Grier? Why, after all this time, have ye returned?”

“Come now, Morna. Ye must know.”

I truly didn’t. So little of it made sense.

I shook my head and awaited further explanation. She looked at me expectantly but quickly grew frustrated and threw up her hands in exasperation.

“’Tis all for ye, lass. Doona ye remember the spell we cast our last day together? Jerry is the man I saw in yer future.”

She said it so casually as if it explained everything.

“Aye, I’ve known that for some time. Why then did ye keep him away from me for a year, all the while lying to him about yer ability to help him? Why did ye allow him to believe ye were dead? How did ye survive the fire, and where did ye go during that time?”

An unidentifiable expression passed over Grier’s face. Distant, shaken, lonely, and most especially, embarrassed. She looked lost and unsure and very unlike herself.

By bringing up all the questions surrounding her strange behavior, I’d triggered memories she’d rather leave forgotten.

She could see by the directness of my gaze that she had little choice, and the sigh she released said so much more about her true age than her appearance ever would.

“Ye’ve never known what ’tis like to be truly alone, Morna.

I hope ye never do. Loneliness is a slow sickness.

At first painless, it eats away at ye little by little.

When it starts, ye doona even realize it will change ye, but over time—over days, months, and years of having no one to love—ye change, and the person ye once were no longer exists. Ye become the pain ye hold inside ye.

“I wasna lonely the day I cast Jerry for ye, but I was an empty shell by the day he arrived in our time. I lived a full life here at Conall Castle with ye, yer grandmother, and Alasdair. Your father took everything from me the day he sent me away. For years I had nothing and no one. I dinna realize at first, lass, I truly dinna. I’d not thought of our spell in so long that when I first met Jerry, I dinna know who he was.

“When I realized, I told myself every day that I would tell him the truth, that I would bring him to ye and allow him to either live the life he was meant to with ye or send him home as he wished. But I enjoyed his company too much, and over time, the lie became too big.

“’Twas only when that bastard Creedrich set flame to our home that I saw my opportunity to free myself of Jerry. If he thought me dead, fate would see that he found ye, and it did.”

She looked as sad and weary as I felt, as if all the tears she possessed had already been shed. My heart ached for her, but her story still left one blaringly large question unanswered.

“I canna tell ye how sorry I am for what my father did to ye. I missed ye for years after ye left. More than once, I thought about running away and searching for ye. But there is still one question I must ask. Forgive me if it sounds callous. If ye meant to free Jerry from ye, why are ye here now?”

“To seek forgiveness for the pain I caused him and for the time I took from the both of ye. I just need to speak to him one last time, and then I’ll leave the two of ye be.”

A voice deep inside me suspected the lie for what it was, but it was not my right to deny Jerry the chance to speak with her. I would have to let her see him regardless of the dread that settled in the center of my chest.

“He’s in the village. He stays in the cottage that was once yer own. I will go and get him. Wait for him there.”

Perhaps it was the wind, but I thought I heard her laughing as I walked away.