England 1192:
(The same fictional world as Enduringly Yours.)
Alana gave the reins a tug and Chester followed her beneath the arched entrance of the stone stable.
She heard his voice a moment later.
Some called him John the Merciless.
She called him her new sword master—among other things—but only in the silence of her heart, where they would have to stay forever.
Alana halted, sucking in a long breath to steady herself. The polite thing to do would be to turn back and greet him. She wanted to greet him. She wanted to do a lot more than to greet him and that was the problem. For the moment she’d have to settle for making her heart stop fluttering. Chester snorted in annoyance.
“I know, sorry,” she muttered to the horse, laying a palm on his chest and giving him a little push. “Back,” she told him. He compliantly back-stepped until they were no longer standing in the doorway.
John crossed over to them with something she could only think to call, a lazy-swagger. She’d had a picture of him burned into her memory from the last time she’d seen him, but her memory hadn’t done him justice. His shoulder-length sandy hair, leaf green eyes, and some quality she couldn’t put her finger on, drew her gaze. Was it confidence? No, that wasn’t the word she was looking for. Virility? She cleared her throat. Best she not go there. Whatever it was, it did things to her.
Darcy Branwyn 
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