Sleepy Fox Hollow To the house in the pines where the road ends

She sucked in a breath and held it, because Mahler did not listen; he answered even when she requested that he not and once again his words punched through the heart of her. This time with something new: potential.

Wylla hadn't believed him the first time, not truly. She'd waited for the other shoe to drop and it never had. She doubted him the second time because on the tail end of it he admitted that he intended to father children with multiple women. She didn't believe any man was stupid enough to tell someone they swore to love such a thing, because requited or not, doubt was cast that way.

But Mahler claimed it a third time, earnest in spite of the ways she wounded him and continued to, and now Wylla believed him. He was an honest and direct man, if a foolish one. The simple, thrice confirmed existence of his feelings—his singular love, she thought—was enough to wash her (or surely any woman) in emotion, so that although she did not love him in the way he did her, there was a sudden surge of affection there, and if nurtured in the right way, then there was the potential for it to bloom.

You had to know telling me that would change things, she prompted, half a question and half a statement.