His gaze drifted to the curtained windows, where the sunrise burned with a golden shimmer through the bright, hard, cold December dawn.Nest Freemark sat across from him at the kitchen table, her clear, penetrating gaze fixed on him, assessing his tale, measuring it for the consequences it would produce. She looked pretty much as he remembered her, but more self-assured, as if she had become better able to cope with the life she had been given. He admired the calm acceptance she had displayed the night before on finding him on her doorstep after ten long years, taking him in, asking no questions, offering no conditions, simply giving him a room and telling him to get some sleep. She was strong in ways that most people weren’t, that most couldn’t even begin to approach.“So you went to Wales,” she prodded, ruffling her thick, curly hair.He nodded. “I went.”Her eyes never left his face. “What did you learn there?”“That I was up against more than I had bargained for.” He smiled ruefully and arched one eyebrow.
