“You see, when I met you in the vestry that day, I too thought this is a man who is fearless. Who won’t run away from things…” She bit her lip. “Who won’t leave you,” he finished for her. Stiffly, she nodded, unable to look him in the eye for fear that she would fall upon him and tell him how very much he was coming to mean to her. Her emotions felt too raw, and her pride too tender, for such needy protestations. For a moment, he seemed almost afraid, then his body steeled as if in defiance, toward her or someone else, she couldn’t know. His eyes burned into her. “Then I will not.”
