Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 89331 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 447(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89331 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 447(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
“I imagine they are together now and happy,” Flora said.
“I hope so. I hope they have in death what they did not have in life… time together without fear or turmoil.” He tucked a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek behind her ear. “We will love every day, wife, and share a good life together, for I will have it no other way.”
He kissed her and she smiled.
“Do not take long to slip inside me, husband, for I have an ache for you,” she said.
“As you say, wife,” he said, teasingly and did exactly as she asked.
The icy cold woke Torin. It circled his legs and crept up along his body. He shivered as he opened his eyes. A light emanated from the end of the bed, and he sat up. It shimmered and he watched as it began to take shape. A man and a woman, a quite beautiful woman, stood there, the man’s arm wrapped around her.
They smiled and he could have sworn he heard the man say, “I am grateful, great-grandson, and I am proud of the man you have become.”
The woman spoke and he heard her clearly in his head. “You will be blessed with six wonderful children, and they will do the Clan Norham proud.”
They began to fade when his wife was suddenly sitting up beside him.
“Do you see them?” Torin asked, continuing to stare as they slowly faded.
“See what?” Flora asked, narrowing her eyes to look where he did, hoping to see whatever it was he saw.
“My great-grandda and Annora. They are together and happy,” he said with a huge smile.
“Truly? That is wonderful and you see them?” she asked excitedly.
He nodded. “They are gone now, but I saw them clearly.”
“My parents are at peace as well. They came to me in a dream. They know I am safe, and they are happy.”
Torin slipped his arm around his wife and laid back to rest her against him. “I am happy they are at peace as well.”
“We are blessed,” Flora said.
“We are, and Annora says we will be blessed with six wonderful children that will do the clan proud.”
Flora rested her hand on her stomach. “The first one is already inside me.”
Torin’s hand rushed to cover hers. “For certain?”
“Aye, husband, come summer our first bairn will be born.”
“I love you, wife,” he whispered and kissed her brow.
“And I you, husband. We should think of names now so we will be prepared whether it be a lad or lass, we will be ready. I am going to start talking with the women who have bairns and learn all I can about what to expect. I was thinking of making an area in my solar a place where I could keep the bairn while I am there.”
Torin smiled, listening to his wife’s chatter and happy to hear it. He may have wanted a quiet wife, but fate knew better and sent him a woman he could not help but love.
CHAPTER 30
Epilogue, two years later.
“Wah dat? Wah dat? Wah dat, Da?”
Torin smiled at his two-year-old daughter Alina, named after Flora’s mum, holding her comfortably with one arm. She was as curious and as chatty as Flora, and he loved her dearly.
Alina placed her tiny hands on her da’s face and turned his head, then pointed her small finger. “Dat, Da. Wah dat?”
“A tree, Alina,” he said.
“And dat?” she asked, pointing elsewhere.
“A flower,” Torin said.
“And dat?” she asked, pointing up.
“A cloud,” Torin responded patiently
“You need to be more specific, Torin,” Flora said, extending her hand out to him to help her to stand from where she had been kneeling to dig up a batch of nettles.
Torin took her hand and helped ease her to her feet. “Are you all right,” he asked concerned, seeing her rub at her lower back.
“I am good, a backache from bending over,” she assured him.
He rested his hand on her rounded stomach. “Are you sure the bairn gives you no trouble?”
“Aye,” she said, resting her hand over his. “We have two months before he is born and while he is an active one, he causes me little discomfort.”
Torin smiled when he felt the bairn move against his hand. He had often laid his hand on his wife’s stomach when she carried their daughter, amazed to feel her moving and know that their love had created her. It was no different with this second bairn. It still amazed him.
He kissed her cheek.
“Me, Da. Me,” Alina said, turning her cheek to him for a kiss which he did not fail to give her.
“Love kisses,” Alina said with a giggle.
“My kisses, Alina, only my kisses,” he warned, already worried about the time when she reached marriageable age, and he would have to find her a husband.
“We have discussed this, Torin. She will choose her own husband,” Flora said as if she read his thoughts.