Love Practically (The Penn-Leiths of Thistle Muir, #1)

by Nichole Van

Instead, he had moved with her throughout the night, as if she were a star and he tethered to her gravity.

knot. “It’s merely that I dinnae have the energy for both yourself and Malcolm. I can only focus on one man at a time. And at the moment, that man is Malcolm. He needs me. Mrs. Gilmour and William have the running of Laverloch well in hand. Ye will be well-cared for in my absence.”

“Sometimes,” he said, letting the words fall slowly into the silence between them, “when a person has suffered loss after loss, it becomes almost impossible to open the heart to love again. It has nothing to do with the worthiness of the person before them and everything to do with the paralyzing fear of grief . . . with something being irreparably broken within.”

Joy and grief are two sides of the same coin. Ye cannae have one without the other. It’s foolishness in the extreme tae be so consumed by the possibility of loss that ye miss the joy of love entirely. Sorrow means the heart loved true.” Fox

Behind him, the door closed with a quiet click that sounded suspiciously like the death knell of their marriage.

This was the worst part of loss, Leah thought. The endless ambush of emotion. The sense that the worst had passed

and then bam! Something unexpected—a sound, a smell, an image—would bring grief crashing down again.

“Death is an amputation.” He fixed her with haunted eyes. “A violent severing of a vital part of ye. It throbs like a phantom limb, pulsing with a pain that nothing can soothe.”

“Just this. Only a fool cuts off his own arm out of spite. Dinnae be an eejit and let a lack of words amputate a man from your life while he is yet living.” He rested his head back in his arms, eyes closing. “Life is short, sister. Love hard and true . . . while ye still have time.”

Because Fox was not a safe place. When her heart sought refuge, he had not been a warm, welcome home for her.