Hero's Welcome Read Online Free Page A

soul.
    Still, she had summoned the courage to tell him her secrets. He would do the same. If she was still there in the morning.
    As tired as he was from his work in the fields, Link remained awake for a long while before sleep finally claimed him.
    To his surprise and vast relief, he found Kasi the next morning, sitting at the table in the galley. Her eyes were red, as if she’d spent the whole night crying, and her hands were clenched tightly in front of her. But she was there.
    He propped his hips against the counter, meeting her gaze with a steadiness that belied the pounding of his heart.
    “So what do you think of me now?” she asked. “Kasimanda of Renfaral. The woman who served four Dorre soldiers against her will.”
    The calmness of her voice frightened him. He sensed he could lose her with a single wrong word. “I think you’re as brave as any war hero, Dorre or Farlian,” he answered from the depths of his heart. “Brave enough to keep going after you lost your whole family. Brave enough to go through what must have been hell to get yourself here. Brave enough to face me and my anger, and to take care of my leg, when I know what you wanted to do was run away.”
    She stared at him as if she couldn’t believe the appraisal.
    He ran a shaky hand through his hair, and fear made his words come out stiffly. “Kasi, when I first saw you here, I couldn’t face what I felt. That’s why I acted angry. I was terrified that you were going to hurt me.”
    Her lips parted, and her huge, gorgeous eyes opened wide in astonishment. “Me? Hurt you ?”
    “Oh, yes. The way you did that night seven years ago when you ran away from me in the garden.” He swallowed, tried to gather some courage of his own to match hers. “Kasi, I have loved you since I was ten. A crazy, hopeless love. But now—” He gave a little laugh. “Now I guess I’m willing to wait for you until I’m a hundred, if that’s what it takes.”
    Wildly conflicting emotions chased across her features.
    “No pressure,” he said, relieved that he had finally confessed the truth. “No demands or requests. No real expectations.” He was lying, of course. Through his teeth. He had expectations, all right, enough to last several lifetimes.
    Turning so that she couldn’t see his face, he poured himself a mug of coffee. Then, without another word or even a glance in her direction, he grabbed a grain cake and headed for the fields.
    She was waiting for him when he came in for dinner. While they ate the food she had prepared, they talked quietly about growing rokam and about the supplies she needed for the house.
    He made his first wordless request when they were reclining on wide loungers beside the empty swimming pool. Moving his leg, he gave a small groan.
    Her head swung quickly toward him. “Is it bad?”
    He shrugged elaborately.
    “You need more of the salve.”
    “I think you’re right.” He considered his options—his bedroom where she would be nervous, or out here where he would feel defenseless without his prosthesis. He chose her comfort. “We could use the lounger.”
    “Yes,” she answered on a rush of breath that told him he’d made the right choice. Still, his gaze slid away from her as he pictured himself taking off the leg. He wasn’t ready to do that in front of her. Standing, he steadied himself against the wall. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
    The sun had set by the time he returned. Overhead, stars winked in the black velvet of the sky, and the smallest of the four moons cast a blue radiance on the fields beyond the house.
    He looked around anxiously for Kasi, afraid that she might have changed her mind. Then she moved, a shadow detaching itself from the wall of the house, and he watched her silhouette glide toward him. She was tall like most Farlian women, almost his height. But the blue light gave her a fragile, indistinct look. Long ago she had told him how things appeared to her in the moonlight. To her