Redeeming Love (45 page)

“Come here,” he said, putting a blanket before the fireplace. She came willingly enough, but there was something somber and secret in her eyes.

What was tormenting her?

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Angel leaned back against the solid comfort of Michael’s broad, muscular chest. She loved his hands on her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, nuzzling her neck. “Something’s been eating at you all evening. Did Miriam or Ruth say something to upset you?”

“Not on purpose.” She didn’t want to tell him about Paul. She didn’t want to tell him how much words hurt. She had denied their power all her life, but each name cut. “It’s just that I’m so happy,” she said, her voice shaking. “I can’t get over feeling that I don’t deserve this.”

“And you think I do?”

“What have you ever done to be ashamed of in your life, Michael? Not a blessed thing.”

“I’ve committed murder.” He felt the shock go through her at his admission. She drew away from him and turned, eyes wide.

“You?”

“A hundred times. When I came back for you the first time and saw what Magowan had done to you. And Duke. I’ve killed him a hundred times in a hundred ways, each worse than the last.”

She relaxed, understanding. “Thinking about doing something wrong isn’t the same thing as doing it.”

“Isn’t it? Where’s the real difference? The same desire is there, feeding on itself and me.” He tugged her braid lightly. “Don’t you see? Neither of us
deserves
this. It’s got nothing to do with whether we do or not. Every blessing comes down from the Father, not in payment for good done, but as a gift.”

Michael saw that her eyes flickered at his first mention of God. He felt her growing resistance.
God,
the foul word. God, the being that had no meaning in her life other than retribution for sins committed, some not her own. She believed God was wrath and that he would continually punish her for living a life she was forced into by a seedy old drunk who didn’t know what he was doing. God was unmerciful and enjoyed inflicting pain.

How could he make her see that God the Father was the only escape she had from living in hell when the only father she had ever known had wanted her ripped out of her mother’s womb and thrown away?

“Show me this Father of yours, Michael,” she said, unable to keep the edge out of her voice.

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“I am,” Michael said quietly.

“Where? I don’t see him. Maybe if he stood before me, I’d believe he existed.” And she could spit in his face for everything that happened to her and her mother.

“He’s in me. I’m showing him to you every hour of every day, the only way I know how.” And clearly not doing a good enough job.

She saw she had hurt him and softened. He was so sincere. And he loved her so much. She loved him, too, though she had fought so hard against it.

He had made her love him just by being Michael. But that had nothing whatsoever to do with God. Did it?

“Love isn’t enough,” she said, touching his beloved face. “If it was, I should have been enough for my mother, but I wasn’t. I won’t be enough for you, either.”

“No, you won’t. And I won’t be enough for you, Amanda. I don’t want to be the center of your life. I want to be part of it. I want to be your husband, not your god. People can’t always be there for you, no matter how much they want to be. And that includes me.”

“And God is?” she said derisively. “God was
never
there for me.” She moved out of his embrace and stood, retreating to the bed. He watched her loosen her hair. She looked at him and went very still. “I’m glad you like blondes,” she said mildly.

She wasn’t going to put him off that easily. “Your looks may have had a little to do with why I first noticed you,” he admitted, standing up. He tossed the blanket over the back of the chair.

“Only a little?” she said without conceit. Until Michael, she had always looked upon herself as fodder for a man’s lust.

“A little,” he repeated firmly. When she raised her eyes, he gave her a solemn look that belied his mood. “Actually, I think it was your even temper, your willingness to adjust to my way of life, your constant desire to please me.…” He crossed the room as he spoke and sat on the bed beside her as she laughed.

Her defenses dropped at his disarming smile. “So,” she said, “you’re just another bloke who rises to a challenge.” Her smile faded even as the words came from her lips. Why did everything she say have to brand her with her 316

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past? She looked away again and continued to unbraid her hair. His hand rested comfortingly on her thigh. Even that light touch made her melt inside. “What do you feel now that I’m soft clay in your hands, Michael?”

“Joy,” he said. “Pure joy.” He saw how the pulse raced in her throat and pressed a kiss to it. He heard her soft intake of breath and felt the answering warmth spread swiftly through him. He wanted her. He would always want her. And, praise God, she wanted him as well. He felt it every time he touched her.

“Beloved,” he whispered, feeling an overwhelming tenderness at the look of uncertainty in her blue eyes, “if anyone knew how or why people fall in love with one another, they’d bottle and sell it off to one of those traveling medicine wagons. It wasn’t how you looked. It isn’t that you smell and taste so good to me now. You know it isn’t,” he said, kissing her.

“It’s part of it,” she said with a sigh.

“God knows that’s true, but it’s something beyond just that. Something unseen. You cried out to me that day when you walked by, and I couldn’t do anything else but answer.”

“So you said before.”

“And you still don’t believe me.”

“Oh, Michael. Life’s done things to me. I’m so full of…” she paused, swallowing hard and pressing her lips tightly together, looking past him, unable to look into his eyes.

“Of what?” He stroked the tendrils of hair back from her temples.

“Shame,” she managed thickly. Her eyes burned, and she struggled to push the emotions down again. She couldn’t give in to tears, not even one, but she wanted him to know how she felt. “I don’t know what I did wrong. I never knew, but I understood from the earliest time I can remember that I was never going to be good enough to deserve a decent life.” And that her very presence took away the decency of others. Would it take away Michael’s eventually as well? She couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to him.

“So how do you explain this?”

She reached up and touched his face. “I don’t. I can’t. I just know it’ll never last.”

Michael’s eyes filled with tears. She broke his heart. She always had. “I’ve 317

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never turned away from you. Nor will I ever. It’s always been the other way around.”

“I know, but if I gave you everything I had, it wouldn’t be enough. I don’t have enough for a man like you.”

He took her hand and pressed it hard against his heart. “Then take what you lack from me. Let what I have make the difference.”

Her heart was so full she hurt. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered tremulously. How could she, of all women, be loved so much by a man like this?
Oh, God, if you are there listening, why did you do this to him?

For you, beloved.

A shiver went through her body, and she felt the hair rise over her head.

Not for me. Never for me.
She closed her mind tightly to the still, quiet voice.

“What is it?” Michael asked, seeing her sudden pallor.

He was so handsome, but she was drawn to him for something other than that. Maybe it was as he said. Something unseen. There was something inside him that drew her like a moth to flame, but it was a flame that didn’t scorch or destroy. It lit something deep inside her so that she felt she was becoming part of him. He gave her life meaning. It wasn’t a matter of survival anymore. It was something else she couldn’t even yet define or understand, and yet it kept beckoning to her.

And what of Paul, Angel?

A frown flickered across her brow. Michael lay beside her and tipped her chin toward him. “Tell me.”

She marveled at how he was sensitive to her every thought, but could she reveal this without driving the wedge in further between him and his friend? Paul wasn’t wrong about her. He saw her as the rest of the world must, as a woman who sold her body for money and nothing more.

She shook her head. Michael kissed her as though he wanted to give her his hope. “I wish I could change things,” she said sadly when he raised his head to search her eyes. “I wish I had come to you clean and whole.”

“So that I would love you more than I do now?” he asked with a tender smile.

So that I might be worthy of you.
She drew his head down and kissed him.

“I can give you pleasure.”

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“You please me just as you are.”

She wanted more than anything to please him in all ways.

Remember all I taught you, Angel,
Duke’s voice came unbidden.
Use
it and use him.

When Michael smiled at her, the dark voice lost its power. “No barriers,”

Michael said. “Nothing between us.”

So Angel gave herself up. She had no thought for anything but Michael.

She had always thought a man’s body ugly. Michael was beautiful, and she worshiped him.

Michael rejoiced in her. “You’re like the earth…the Sierras, the fertile valley, and the sea.” He drew her up so they were sitting cross-legged on the bed, facing one another. She didn’t know what he had in mind until he took her hands and bowed his head. He prayed aloud, giving thanks for the pleasure they had taken in one another.

Angel’s heart hammered violently. What was his God going to think of
this?
When Michael finished praying, he smiled at her, the glow in his eyes easing her fear.

“No lightning, beloved,” he said, understanding.
“All
good things come down from the Father. Even this.” He lay back and drew her to him, holding her close until they both slept.

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Twenty-four

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds
that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never
enter the kingdom of heaven.

J E S U S , M A T T H E W

5 : 2 0

Paul sat brooding before his fireplace, a jug in his lap and his wedding picture in his hand. Tessie had been gone two years now, and he wanted to keep her memory alive. He didn’t want to forget what she looked like. But lately, until he held the picture, all he could remember was that she was dark and had Michael’s smile. He tried to remember what her skin felt like and how her voice sounded, but it was all fading away, all except the sweet memory of what they had shared so briefly. The empty, aching loneliness she had left behind was all that remained firm. Laying the picture aside, Paul drew long on the whiskey. Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes wearily.

He hadn’t seen Michael since he had come and asked him to help him find Angel. He couldn’t forget that day or his own regret.

“She’s run off again?”

“Yes. I have to find her.”

“Let her go. You’re better off without a woman like her.”

Michael’s eyes blazed. “When are you going to open your eyes?”

“When are
you?”
Paul shot back. “If she loved you, don’t you think she’d stay? You wouldn’t be able to drive her out. Michael, when are you going to see what she is?” When Michael turned his horse away, his anger had erupted.

“Look for her in a bordello. Isn’t that where you found her in the first place?”

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Swearing, he’d gone back to turning the soil with his spade, and he hadn’t been able to get rid of the fallow feeling in his heart since. Not even when Michael had come back.

It was clear he hadn’t found any trace of Angel. He had pitied Michael then. He wasn’t sorry Michael hadn’t found Angel. He was sorry Michael was torn up about losing her. She wasn’t worth grieving over.

“She does love me, Paul. She does. You just don’t understand her.”

Paul left it alone. He didn’t want to know any more about Angel than he already did. One day in her company had been enough to sour his soul for a lifetime.

Michael stayed, and they talked about crops and the land, but it wasn’t the same as it had been before Angel came into their lives. It didn’t matter whether she was gone or not. She was still between them. “You’re making progress,” Michael said before leaving. “That field looks good.”

“The work would go faster with a horse. Too bad I lost mine on the trail.”

“Take this one.” He took off the saddle while Paul stood dumbfounded. “As soon as your crops are in you’ll have enough to buy another.” Ashamed, Paul couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat. Michael shouldered the saddle.