The Thorn Bearer

by Pepper Basham

  He stepped out into the hallway while Ashleigh put away her clothes and Fanny saw to Stephen’s needs, offering Kara a smile as she passed with a tray of tea. “I think you and Ashleigh are going to have your work cut out for you with three new children arriving tomorrow.”

  She offered a curt nod. “I understand children who need love. Fanny and I have had our share of it first-hand, and it will be an honor to give them back some of the good we got from strangers.”

  Sam’s grinned stretched. “With Ashleigh’s passion, you’re bound to have all twelve beds filled within two weeks if you’re not careful.”

  “Fanny’s always spoke highly of her, ever since she started working for the Dougall’s all those years ago, and I admit there’s none like her, sir.” Kara’s smile brightened and years dropped from her. “Any man would find himself blessed beyond his purse with the likes of her.”

  “I think you and I are in full agreement, Miss Kara.”

  “She works like a soldier and she’s got a heart of gold. I owe her my life, and that’s the truth. Saved me right out of my circumstances. I’ll work for her until my dying day out of pure gratitude.”

  Sam surveyed her, taking in her folded hands and quiet demeanor. “Ashleigh’s always been one to rescue people. You should have seen the collection of stray dogs and cats she tried to hide from her father when she was younger.” He chuckled. “But she always found a home for them once he discovered her secret zoo.”

  “Aye, rescuer is a good word for her. That’s what she did for me. Took everything in me to break free of him and run off without no place to go but to my sister.” Kara shook her head, chin wobbled for a moment, the only sign of her struggle. “And I wouldn’t take handouts, but I couldn’t go back to my life of sin. I’d have starved first.”

  Sam steadied his expression even though curiosity burned a fire of warning in his chest. Life of sin? Surely this quiet woman couldn’t mean what he thought. Ashleigh wouldn’t hire a woman with a questionable reputation to work with homeless children, would she? A woman with a disreputable past had no place with vulnerable children.

  “How did you get away?”

  Her gaze shot to his, determination marking her stare. “God found me right in the middle of the brothel and told me to leave. I didn’t know how I’d get my next meal or my ride to Edensbury, but I knew He didn’t want me in that horrible life no more, so He’d take care of the food and the ride.”

  Her matter-of-fact declaration and confirmation stole Sam’s calm. “And Ashleigh knew about your past when she hired you?”

  The kindness in Kara’s eyes flicked to fire. “I don’t lie.” Her voice remained much calmer than his. “Miss Ashleigh trusted me with a second chance. Ain’t nothin’ sweeter in this life than someone trusting you with a second chance. God’s done that for me and He’s used Miss Ashleigh for it. I’ll take it.”

  “I bet you will.”

  Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “I don’t expect everyone to understand, Mr. Miller. If you ain’t never realized you needed a second chance, you can’t understand the gift of one.”

  Her direct stare fueled his anger even more, but she spoke before he could. “Will that be all, Mr. Miller?”

  "Oh yes, Kara. That is all.”

  Ashleigh stepped out into the back garden of the hospital. All her efforts to ready the walled-in parcel as a play area for the children bloomed about her in the form of a small fountain and budding lilies. Benches were scarce, but perhaps she could convince Sam to add one or two more, then she could sit on one and think of him when he was gone.

  A lone bench nestled under a sprawling oak. Its rambling branches cast a lovely shade over the seat, as she’d hoped, and held the object of her search. Sam bent forward, hands folded in front of him and elbows resting on his knees. He’d told her he loved her. Not as a sister or friend, but as a man to a woman. He loved her. The notion pulsed a wonderful tingle through her and gave her added courage to open up her past to him. They knew each other, and loved each other well enough to weather her father’s sick mistreatment. Sam would love her anyway. He would understand.

  She walked a little straighter, confidence building with each step. After all, the atrocities hadn’t been her fault. God was with her. He could make her whole, as He promised. Her past didn’t have to rule her future, and in the light of Sam’s beautiful love, he would recognize her as an innocent victim.

  “I see you’re making wise use of our one bench in the garden.”

  His gaze remained fixed on the red-hued horizon over the wall, and her steps faltered. Something was wrong.

  “Do you remember the story of how my father met my mother?”

  A dark undercurrent carried his unexpected topic of conversation. She eased herself down on the bench beside him, confidence dwindling a little. “I believe so. He rescued his brother from entering a brothel, and met your mother there?”

  “She’d only been there for a week, so she claimed.” His tone sharpened with anger. “Sold to pay off her father’s debts.”

  “Oh, how horrible.”

  “Yes, it is horrible.” His frown twisted with disgust. He looked down at his clenched hands, his jaw tightened. “Because it tainted her forever. Some say that once a woman is…misused she can never carry on a normal life again. Those desires lurk underneath, waiting to find a way out.”

  Ashleigh drew back as if burned. He knew. Oh know, someone else had told him. “And you think those people are right?”

  He slammed his fist against his leg and stood, ramming a hand through his hair. “That’s why she left Father. She craved something more…and ran off with the first man who would give it to her.” He turned his gaze back to Ashleigh, eyes burning like blue fire. “They’d carried on with their relationship for months before Father found out. Her past life came back to steal her present and Father and I suffered for it.”

  Ashleigh pressed her back against the bench, breath thrumming shallow with her heartbeat. For years she’d watched him struggle with the wounds from his mother, seen him bury his anger deeper and try to ignore it, but the heat of it surprised her as it rose to the surface. Her courage trickled to nothing. “I don’t think that’s true for every woman, Sam.”

  “Clearly.” His gaze pierced her. “You’ve hired one of her kind to take care of needy children.”

  She replayed his words to find their meaning and released her kempt air in a quivered sigh. Kara. He’d found out about Kara’s past, not hers. “Her kind?” Relief hardened into a defensive shield as she stood. “I’d hire any of her kind for the quality and patience I’ve seen in her work.” Ashleigh gentled her voice. “Kara is not your mother.”

  “Your compassion is blinding you, Ashleigh. I don’t know if a woman like that can ever be truly reformed.”

  “And your bitterness is blinding you from seeing what God can do for a person who desperately needs forgiveness.” Her own words surprised her. The faith behind them. Perhaps she’d not left God as far behind as she thought. Perhaps He was constantly reminding her, pursuing her. Never letting go.

  Sam stepped close, gaze dark and face rigid. “Not everyone is as innocent as you, Ashleigh. Not everyone holds the same sweetness. And not everyone can be rescued. Some people are broken beyond repair.”

  She refused to back down to him, to agree with him. Every hope in her future depended on standing up to his false assumptions and unyielding prejudice. Her soul trembled with the need to fight. “I can’t believe that, Sam. I won’t believe it.” She pinched her hands together to keep them from shaking, begging the cool calm of her emotionless blanket to come, but it wouldn’t. She’d opened herself up to so many feelings for him; she couldn’t hide. Her heart was at his mercy, bare and begging. “If God is anything else, He is a rescuer of the lost.” Ashleigh pointed toward the hospital. “Kara Ramsey has shown nothing but the utmost virtue and kindness since I employed her. I’ve watched her with Stephen and even sent letters to people who knew her be
fore she was forced into prostitution. She is not—”

  “Forced?” he scoffed. “I think a woman can choose whether to give herself to a man or not.”

  He would despise her if she knew the truth. Just like Michael. The veil of unfeeling dropped over her, weakening their bond. Anger cooled to ice in her veins and her words softened to cold monotone. “Perhaps you’ve never been broken – never felt beyond hope, so you wouldn’t understand.”

  “My mother’s excuse was a ruse. These women chose their paths. They deserve their judgments.”

  The hardness of his words fueled her anger even more. She trembled with a need to prove him wrong, to shake him out of his arrogance. God, help me. “What of the…the Samaritan woman?”

  “What?”

  “And the woman caught in adultery?”

  He stepped back from her, shaking his head. “What do they have to do with—”

  “Did Christ show them mercy or wrath?”

  “We’re not talking about them.”

  “Yes, we are. Women like them, who needed more than a hard hand and a harsh word.” She pressed her fingers into her forehead, heat rising into her face. “God help us, Sam, if His hope and grace stopped with only the perfect, good, and healthy. Who is in need of healing and grace more than the wounded, sick, and dying?” Then the thought came to her, the realization. “Have you ever been broken? Ever cried out for a wholeness you craved like one more breath?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Have you ever yearned for one thread of hope when there seemed to be none?”

  “We’re not speaking of Kara anymore, are we?” His gaze turned wary. “Catherine?”

  She ignored his question, pushing forward with her argument. He needed to understand – their future hung on it. “You can’t know how much you need grace, until you think there isn’t any hope. God doles out judgment, but He reserved it for the self-righteous.”

  Sam’s eyes widened at her clear accusation, but she would not back down.

  “He showed mercy to the broken.” Ashleigh took a deep breath and pressed her point. “Kara has been broken, but not as you think. In your haste to pass a verdict, you’ve failed to find out the full truth. She offered herself as a substitute for her younger sisters. They were going to take one or the others. She shielded her sisters to save them.”

  To his mule-headed credit, a hint of regret broke onto his countenance.

  “But even if she hadn’t, God is still bigger than her poor choices or her stains.” Her words quelled to a whisper, truth dawning. “Larger than the ones others forced upon you too. Everyone needs redemption.”

  His brows wrinkled and he shifted his weight, gaze taking on less fire and more concern. Perhaps he would listen. “Ashleigh? What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Be careful how quickly you wield judgment, Sam.”

  His hands cradled her shoulders, gaze searching. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “Ashleigh!” Jess ran from the doorway, blood splattered across her apron and eyes wide. “We’ve had our first delivery of soldiers from the Britain’s offensive. Quite a loss, and an unexpected…miracle in the middle of it all.” She pressed a hand to her cheek and settled a sober gaze on them. “You need to follow me.” She stopped in mid-turn and looked back, complete helplessness in her expression. “You too, Sam.”

  Sam kept at her heels as they weaved through the corridors of the hospital toward the front room. Just before entering, he grabbed Ashleigh’s hand and squeezed it, pulling her to a stop outside the door. She looked up to see an apology etched in the lines on his face.

  “Ashleigh, we need to finish this conversation.” He pulled her close, a plea in his voice. “I don’t want this between us. Whatever your choice with Kara, I love you.”

  But not if he knew how similar she was to Kara. She stifled the burn of tears and forced her words out on a whisper. “I love you too, Sam. No matter what happens.”

  His sad smile reframed his apology. She squeezed his hand back and sped to catch up with Jess, holding to a fragile string of hope that a long discussion and honest explanation might clear up his doubts. He might be hard-headed, but he wasn’t unreasonable, and she’d hold out every last ounce of hope that reason would triumph over prejudice and stubbornness.

  “I wasn’t certain at first, because it seemed impossible,” Jess said as she led them at a frantic pace down the corridor to the main ward.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s unbelievable.” She shook her head and pushed through the doors of the ward, offering them an uncertain look over her shoulder. “But even all beaten up and bleeding, I recognized those green eyes.”

  Ashleigh tripped forward and Sam caught her arm.

  “Said he was found on a fishing rig and brought to shore.” They weaved between the cots, moans and the smell of morphine mixed with dried blood almost overpowering. “Then he must have wandered around in a haze, lost his direction and will to live, until he got caught up in the fighting. That’s how we have him. It’s the most bizarre case of lost and found I’ve ever seen.”

  Jess’s words clicked slowly, piece by impossible piece, until she stopped in front of a cot. “I told him I’d find you.” She shrugged and peered over Ashleigh’s shoulder so her gaze could include Sam. “Both of you.” With a helpless lift to her arms, she nodded toward the cot.

  Ashleigh focused on the man lying there, taking in the wrapped left thigh soaked with blood, the cradled left arm, and a scraped raw left side of his face. Matted brown hair flattened to his head by the usual trilogy of blood, mud, and sweat. Then, her gaze found his. His eyes focused on her, recognition coming slow, before tears fell down his mud-streaked cheeks.

  “Ashleigh.” His scratchy voice whispered the word, almost a prayer.

  She stared, frozen in place by sheer astonishment. Whether from compassion or the weakness in her legs, she knelt by the side of the cot and worked a strained voice through a tightened throat. “Michael?”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Seven weeks since the Lusitania and Michael was alive? She tried to speak, but the impossibility of it stripped all words. He shouldn’t be here. Alive. There were too many questions for answers right now, but one thing was certain – the sorrow in his eyes pushed past all the anger she wanted to unearth.

  What had he suffered in the last seven weeks? His raw physical pain told a story his raspy voice wouldn’t allow at present. Sam knelt beside Ashleigh, the wonder and astonishment on his face a mirror of her heart.

  “Hey, friend.”

  Michael looked over at Sam and another sob shook his shoulders, his absolute brokenness merging in the tears on his face. “So sorry.”

  One of Sam’s hands warmed Ashleigh’s back, the other covered Michael’s good arm. “I’m just glad to see you alive.” Sam’s voice broke and nudged the tears loose in Ashleigh’s eyes. “I’d never want to leave with last words like ours again.”

  Ashleigh stood and took a sponge from the basin nearby and gently dabbed at the wounds on Michael’s face. She needed to keep her hands busy, keep her emotions under amiable control – but this unexpected resurrection frayed her abilities. How? Sam offered her a soft smile, his own tears visible and tender, emerging as the gentle-man she loved, not the hardened one from outside.

  Michael’s hand clutched at Sam’s. “Forgive me.” He turned his head to Ashleigh, gaze imploring to her soul. “Forgive me?”

  The request stung like alcohol, burning open years of wounds and thousands of excuses. Her father’s face emerged unbidden. Forgive? A wave of nausea turned her face back to her work. Hands steady, heart erratic. How could she? After all he’d said, after the promises he’d broken. Broken? The fresh argument with Sam wedged a shaft of light into her bitterness, urging her to replay her own words. What God can do for a person who desperately needs forgiveness? He is a rescuer of the lost.

  “How did you survive?” She focused on the bandage a
round his leg and began to carefully unwind it. His request still reverberated in her chest, beating for an answer. “So many died of exposure, and we couldn’t find you in Queenstown.”

  He closed his eyes a moment and she thought he’d fallen asleep, but he rallied when she moved his leg to finish unwrapping. “Swam. Drifted. Fishing boat found me. Can’t remember days. Almost died.”

  “It’s a miracle.” Sam patted his good arm, still amazed. “Why didn’t you try to find us?”

  His breath hitched with a sob, and sorrow as tangible as the tears in his eyes contorted his raw features. “Why come to you?”

  The simple question broke through her resolve, her hard-earned bitterness, and she leaned close, barely able to voice her words. She took a cloth and wiped at his grimy face. “We spent days trying to find you.”

  “Searched for me?”

  “Of course,” Sam added, but Michael’s eyes never left Ashleigh’s face. “Like I told you onboard. You could have come to me.” He tossed Ashleigh an encouraging glance. “To us.”

  “Lost everything. My wife. Self-respect.” His voice broke. “My son.”

  Ashleigh’s gaze shot to Sam’s. His eyes grew wide, realization dawning in those beautiful blue depths. Here was something she could do for him. To show she cared. It wasn’t as dangerous as forgiveness, but it was something. Adrenaline pumped through her chest. “Michael, Stephen didn’t die.”

  Sam continued the story. “Ashleigh saved him.”

  Michael’s gaze dodged between the two of them, processing slow.

  “He’s here with us.” Ashleigh smiled at the comprehension dawning on Michael’s face. She looked back to his wound, forgiveness playing tag with her own need for justification. “Once you are able, perhaps we can secure you a room near him.”