Redeeming Love (39 page)

Maybe she would not have so much to regret.

Her whole life was one huge regret, right from the beginning.
“She should
never have been born, Mae.”

Michael took her hand, and she started. “What are you thinking about?”

he asked quietly.

“Nothing.” Warmth spread through her at his touch. Disturbed, she drew her hand away. He frowned slightly. “Something’s bothering you.”

She shrugged, not meeting his eyes.

He studied her thoughtfully. “Paul isn’t going to say or do anything to hurt you.”

“It wouldn’t matter if he did.”

“If he hurts you, he hurts me.”

His tone caught her full attention. She had intended to hurt Paul and had hurt Michael instead. Not once had she thought that day of what it would do to him. She thought only of herself and her anger and her hope-270

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lessness. Maybe she could make some amends. “It’s nothing to do with Paul,” she assured him. “It’s just that truth always catches up.”

“I’m counting on that.”

Michael watched Amanda throughout the day. She withdrew further and further into herself. She worked with Elizabeth and Miriam but said very little. She was preoccupied, in full retreat, building her walls again. When Ruthie took her hand, he saw the pain in Amanda’s eyes and knew what she expected. He couldn’t promise it wouldn’t happen. Sometimes people became too caught up in the problems of day-to-day living to notice the pain in someone else.

Young Miriam noticed. “She’s here, but she isn’t. She won’t let me close, Michael. What’s wrong with her today? She’s acting the same way she did when we first came to your place.”

“She’s afraid of being hurt.”

“She’s hurting herself now.”

“I know.” He wasn’t going to reveal her past or discuss his wife’s problems.

“Paul doesn’t like her. That’s part of it. She’s not a prostitute anymore, but she expects everyone to look at her and treat her like one.”

Rage shot through him. “Did Paul tell you that?”

She shook her head. “She told me the first night and loudly enough for Mama to hear.” Tears filled her eyes. “What are we going to do about her, Michael? The way she holds Ruthie breaks my heart.”

Michael knew Miriam was going to have plenty to do in helping John and Elizabeth get this place going. He couldn’t ask her to make frequent visits to his place so Amanda would know the affection was real and not a matter of convenience, and the girl was already looking on Paul like he was a Greek god come down from Olympus, despite his flaws. He knew Paul found the girl attractive, as well. It was clear in the studied way he avoided her. Whatever way it went, Miriam’s loyalties were going to be put to a hard test.

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4

John took out his fiddle. No quiet mournful hymns this time, but Virginia reels. Michael caught hold of Angel and whirled her around. Being in his arms was heady stuff.

Angel’s heart raced. She could feel heat pouring into her face and didn’t dare look up at him. Jacob danced with his mother while Miriam danced around the clearing with Ruth. John lifted his booted foot and gave Andrew a shove toward his sister Leah. Paul watched, leaning indolently against the cabin wall. He looked so alone, Angel pitied him.

“It’s the first time I’ve danced with you,” Michael said.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “You’re very good.”

“And that surprises you.” He laughed. “I’m good at a lot of things.” His arm tightened around her, speeding up her pulse even more.

Jacob came and bowed to Angel, and Michael relinquished her with a grin. She glanced around the yard, and they danced. It only took one look at Miriam to know she wanted to dance with someone other than her baby sister or younger brothers. But Michael had danced with Elizabeth, Leah, and Ruth, and left Miriam alone. An unpleasant sensation stirred in Angel’s belly.

Why did Michael avoid Miriam? Was he afraid to get too close to her? When he came back to claim her from Jacob, she pulled her hand away. “You haven’t danced with Miriam. Why won’t you dance with her?”

He frowned slightly and caught firm hold of her hand, pulling her into his arms. “Paul will get around to it.”

“He hasn’t danced with anyone yet.”

“And he won’t feel the necessity if I step in for him. I’d hazard a guess he’s thinking about Tessie. He met her at a dance. It’ll dawn on him soon that young Miriam needs a partner.”

Paul did dance with Miriam, but he was stiff and grim and hardly spoke a word to her. Miriam was clearly perplexed. As soon as the dance was finished, he said good night and went for his horse.

“We’d better head for home, too,” Michael said.

Miriam embraced Angel and whispered, “I’ll be over in a few days to visit. Maybe you’ll tell me what’s eating that man.”

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Angel lifted little Ruth and held her tightly, kissing her smooth, baby cheek and nuzzling her neck. “Good-bye, darling. Be good.”

Michael lifted Angel onto the saddle and swung up behind her. His arm held her firmly as they headed home in the moonlight. Neither spoke the whole way. Angel was overwhelmingly aware of his body against hers and was confused by the sensations running through her. She wished she were walking.

When she spotted the cabin through the trees, she was relieved. Michael dismounted and reached up for her. Leaning toward him, she rested her hands on his strong shoulders. Her body brushed his as he lifted her down, and she felt life coursing through her, wild, exhilarating, and unfamiliar.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly.

“You’re welcome.” He grinned, and her mouth went dry. When he didn’t take his hands from her waist, her heart beat faster and faster. “You’ve been very quiet all day,” he said, pensive again.

“I’ve nothing to say.”

“What’s bothering you?” he asked, pushing the thick braid back off her shoulder.

“Nothing.”

“We’re on our own again. Could that be it?” He tipped her chin and kissed her. Angel felt her insides melting, her knees weakening. When Michael lifted his head, he touched her face tenderly. “I’ll be in shortly.”

Pressing her hand against her quivering stomach, she watched him lead the horse away. What was happening to her? She went inside the cabin and set to work on the fire. Once it was going, she looked around for something else to do to keep her mind off Michael, but everything was tidy. Elizabeth had even restuffed the mattress with fresh straw. Herbs hung from a beam and filled the cabin with their sweet, fresh scent. A jar of mustard flowers was on the table, undoubtedly placed there by Ruth.

Michael shouldered their things in from the barn. “Pretty quiet around here with the Altmans gone, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll miss Miriam and Ruth most.” He set the trunk back in the corner.

She was bending over the fire. He put his hands on her hips and she straightened. “They love you.”

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Her eyes flickered. “Let’s talk about something else, shall we?” she said and stepped away from him.

He caught her shoulders. “No. Let’s talk about what’s on your mind.”

“There’s nothing on my mind.” He waited, obviously unsatisfied, and she drew in a ragged breath. “I knew better than to get close to them.” She pushed his hands away and hugged her shawl about her.

“You think they love you less now that they’re living in their own place?”

She glared at him defensively. “Sometimes I wish you’d just leave me alone, Michael. That you’d just send me back where I came from. It’d be so much easier all the way around.”

“Because you’re
feeling
now?”

“I
felt
before, and I got over it!”

“You adore Miriam and that little girl.”

“So what?” She would get over it, too.

“What’re you going to do when Ruth comes over here with another fist-ful of mustard flowers? Show her the door?” he asked harshly. “She’s got feelings, too. So does Miriam.” He saw by her expression that she didn’t think they would come at all. He took her in his arms, holding her there even when he felt her resistance. “I’ve prayed unceasingly that you might learn to love, and now you have. Only you fell in love with them instead of me.” He laughed softly in self-mockery. “There were times when I wished I’d never brought them here. I’m jealous.”

Her cheeks burned, and she couldn’t still her racing heart no matter how hard she tried. If he knew the power he had over her, what would he do with it? “I don’t want to fall in love with you,” she said, pushing away.

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll just end up using it against me.” She saw she had angered him.

“How?”

“I don’t know. The truth is, maybe you wouldn’t even know you’re doing it.”

“Whose truth are we talking here?
Duke’s?
Truth sets you free. Were you ever free with him? Even for a single minute? He filled your head with lies.”

“And what about my father?”

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“Your father was selfish and cruel. That doesn’t mean every man in the world is the same as him.”

“Every man I’ve ever known is.”

“Does that include me? What about John Altman? What about Joseph Hochschild, and a thousand others?”

Her face jerked in pain.

Seeing her torment, he gentled. “You’re a bird who’s been in a cage all your life, and suddenly all the walls are gone, and you’re in the wide open.

You’re so afraid you’re looking for any way back into the cage again.” He saw the emotions flicker across her pale face. “Whatever you choose to think now, it’s not safer there, Amanda. Even if you tried to go back now, I don’t think you could survive that way again.”

He was right. She knew he was. She had reached the end of enduring it even before Michael claimed her. Yet, being here was no assurance.

What if she couldn’t fly?

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Twenty-one

As a hart longs for flowing streams,

so longs my soul for thee.

P S A L M

4 2 : 1

The land awakened with the coming of spring. The hillsides were splashed with purple lupines and golden poppies, red paintbrushes and the white of wild radish. Angel found something strange stirring inside her as well. She felt it first while watching Michael turn the earth in the vegetable garden.

The movement of his muscles beneath the shirt sent a rush of warmth through her. He only had to look at her, and her mouth went dry.

At night, they lay side by side, hardly touching, tense and silent. She felt the distance he put between them and honored it. “This is getting harder to do,” he said cryptically, and she didn’t ask him what he meant.

Her own loneliness grew. It had to do with Michael, and the ache grew worse, not better, with time. Sometimes when he would finish reading at night and raise his head, she wouldn’t be able to breathe for the look in his eyes. Her heart would beat wildly, and she would look away, afraid he would see the deep longing she felt. Her whole body spoke of it. It sang inside her like a loud chorus, filling her head with thoughts of him. She could hardly speak when he asked her a simple question.

How Duke would laugh.
“Love is a trap, Angel. Stick to pleasure. It doesn’t
require any great commitment.”

She wondered now if Michael wasn’t the answer to all things for her.

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Contemplating that, she was afraid. At night, when he turned to her in his sleep, his strong body brushing hers, she would remember the way he used to make love to her—with joyous abandon, exploring her body as he did the land he owned. She had felt nothing then. Now, the lightest touch made her senses spin. His dreams were becoming her dreams.

Michael opened his hand more each day, but she was frozen in fear. Why couldn’t they leave things as they were? Let her stay
this
way. Let her still be inside herself. Let things be as they had been. Still, Michael kept pushing, gently relentless, and she held back in fear because all she could see ahead was a great unknown.

I can’t love him. Oh, please, I can’t!

She couldn’t be more than her mother, and Mae hadn’t been able to hold on to Alex Stafford. All her love hadn’t been enough to keep him from riding out of her life like the wind. Angel could still see his dark figure, cape flying, as he galloped down the road and out of her mother’s life. Had he even come in person to tell Mama to pack and get out? Or had he left it to that young lackey to do it for him? She didn’t know. Mama never said, and she never asked. Alex Stafford was sacred ground Angel had never dared walk over. Only Mama spoke his name, and only when she was drunk and despondent, and it had always grated like salt on a raw wound. “Why did Alex leave me?” Mama had wept. “Why? I don’t understand.
Why?”

Mama’s grief had been so great, but her guilt had been even greater. She had never gotten over what she had given up to have
love.
She had never gotten over
him.