Page 71 of Loving You Always

“Hard?” Cam matched the tightness in Walsh’s voice. “This is more than hard. I lost my wife, my best friend, and my baby girl. It’s hell.”

“I’m sorry.” Walsh was surprised by the hoarseness of his own voice.

“I think I believe you,” Cam said, some of the bitterness flaking away from his voice. “And maybe one day that’ll be enough, but not today, brother.”

Kerris grabbed Cam’s sleeve when he turned to leave.

“Cam, think about what I said before. Maybe talking to someone.”

Cam rolled his eyes and peeled her fingers away from his arm. “No.”

Without another word, he passed through the cottage door, closing it noiselessly behind him.

Kerris stared at the closed door before turning her concern on Walsh.

“I’m worried about him.”

“Cam’s a survivor. He’ll be fine. Eventually.”

“But Walsh, he needs help. He—”

“Baby, the same way we have to sort our own shit out, so does he. We’ve done all we can do to make our part up to him, short of not being together. And that’s not going to happen, so we wait.”

He pulled her into his arms, drawing his first clear breath since he’d left for Tokyo.

“When he’s ready, we’ll be there for him. If he’ll let us.”

“You want that?” She rested her hand on his shoulder. “To reconcile with him?”

“I don’t know.” He gave her his real answer. “What I do know is that I didn’t come here to talk about Cam.”

“Really? Is that so?” The look she offered teased him, but Walsh couldn’t laugh. Couldn’t even force himself to smile, because the weight of the next few moments pressed into his chest until his heart hurt.

“I want to tell you a story.” Walsh steadied his breathing and locked his knees in place because they were actually shaking. “A story my mom told me right before she died about my great-great-great-great-grandmother, who was actually a slave.”

Kerris blinked several times, processing the surprising information.

“I know it’s hard to believe looking at me, but she was an eighth black.” He studied her face with a wry smile. “People were probably always trying to figure out what she was, too. I guess you know what that’s like.”

Kerris looked away, but a small smile tugged at the soft line of her mouth.

“She was the master’s mistress.” Walsh grimaced before continuing. “She had two of his children. Those are my ancestors. But the story my mother told was about Great-Grandma Maddie and Asher, not her and the master.”

“Asher?” Kerris looked up at Walsh, frowning. “Who was he?”

“He was a slave on the plantation, and he fell in love with her almost instantly. He loved her, but he couldn’t live that way. Said he’d rather die than watch her with another man for the rest of his life. So he ran away. Escaped, but had to leave her behind.”

Walsh pressed on with the story, hoping it would make as much sense to her as it had to him.

“He went on to fight for the Union, and when the war was over, he returned to North Carolina to find Maddie. The master had died in the war, but had left her, as a free woman, a plot of land and a small bit of money to raise his two children with. That land and that little bit of money was the foundation for my family’s success.

“When Asher found her, she was raising the master’s kids and working that land by herself. He married her. He didn’t care that she’d been the master’s mistress, or that she’d had the master’s children, or that she was living on land the master had left her. He just knew she was his soul mate, and he’d do whatever it took to spend the rest of his life with her. They took their second chance.”

“Walsh, that’s beautiful.” Kerris curled her hand into a fist on his chest, her eyes telling him the story had landed with her the same way it had for him.

“Yeah, it is.” Walsh smiled for the first time since he had started. “My mom told me that story because I asked if she believed in soul mates. I thought I had found and lost mine.”

Walsh saw the tears standing in Kerris’s eyes and felt the band restricting his chest loosen inch by inch. He pulled a small ring from his pocket. It was a simple gold band. Not flashy, or expensive, but with an intricate pattern etched into the surface. His mother left her original wedding band for her father, but this one—this one she’d left for Walsh.

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