I said I miss Ermile.”
“No. I won’t lie to him,” Willow told her.
“Oh, for goodness sake, I’m not asking you to stab him in the eye,” Shauna brooded. “He ordered my betrothed to leave Shondravar and dissolved the…” her voice trailed off and she went a little green around the edges.
“He ordered?” Willow cast her a curious look. “What do you mean, he dissolved?”
“Caleb is the k—like the king to the people of Shondravar.”
Willow sat back a little aghast. “Then he is, in fact, after my father’s crown.”
Shauna let out a little laugh and then groaned and bit her lower lip. “I can assure you he is not after your father’s crown.”
Willow thought about it for a moment and knew it was true. He didn’t care about ruling a dead land. He wanted to heal it. “I know everyone loves him,” she said. “He would be a good king.”
“Yes. I think so too,” Shauna told her, smiling.
“Why does it make you happy when I share my heart with you about him?” Willow asked her. “If I had a brother and his worst enemy’s daughter was beginning to fall in love with him, I wouldn’t like it.”
Shauna’s green eyes lit up from within and her smile grew deeper. “Are you?”
“Falling in love with him?” Willow asked. “Yes. I am. And it frightens me more than anything in my life.”
“Why?” his sister whispered then guessed. “Your father.”
“How is this not a betrayal to him? I know you hate him, and I understand why, but he is still my father.” Ugh, she began to cry. It just welled up inside and came out. “So, yes,” she said wiping clean her eyes. “My father.”
Thankfully Shauna didn’t say anything for a few moments. Willow wasn’t sure it would be pleasant, and that’s not what she needed right now. When the men she loved most met, one or both were going to be taken from her. It was a hard truth to swallow and she needed to get it off her mind with the help of a friend.
“Would you like to pray about it?” Shauna asked her softly.
“Yes,” Willow said without hesitation. She liked talking to Jesus and to Pastor Joseph.
She was surprised when Shauna knelt by Willow’s bed and closed her eyes.
“Shauna,” Willow hated to interrupt her. “We can do it here?”
Caleb’s sister smiled affectionately at her. “Yes, Willow. Anywhere is fine.”
Willow heard Caleb enter the house a little while later and smiled looking up. She rose and left Shauna alone with the Lord. Willow liked talking to Him. She didn’t know if He was real or not, but it was strangely comforting to just lay everything at His feet.
She found Caleb in the kitchen. He turned from preparing supper when he heard her approach.
“Caleb—”
He held up his palm to stop her. “Please, let me apologize first since it was I who took offense to something that—when compared to how I feel about you—is nothing. But despite my feelings, and even your feelings for me, I don’t think it would be wise to engage in trying to build something between us that will most likely be destroyed when I deal with your father.”
Willow didn’t move. In fact, she stood absolutely still even as everything came crashing down on her.
“It sounds as if you’ve thought this all through,” she said woodenly. Was this it? Was she going back to Beldar, not to see him again until he came for her father?
“I had no choice but to think on it,” he told her. “You invade my every thought. And when I lose you, and I will, because when I see your father, I will want him to pay. Because you will grow weary of this life that’s so unfamiliar to your own. You will crave what I took from you, and you will come to despise me. And if neither of those is reason enough, I will lose you to things I cannot change.”
Willow didn’t care about any of the things he said. Perhaps she was foolish, but she didn’t think anything could separate her from Caleb. Nothing but him. “Who do you think you are to stand here and tell me how I will feel about things? They call you king. Do you profess to be God now, as well?”
“Willow—”
“Don’t speak to me!” She spun on her heel and ran back to her room before he saw her crying.
“He’s insane,” she told Shauna, lifting her head from her pillow.
“I heard some of it,” his sister confessed.