Francine Rivers

by Redeeming Love

  “You’re telling me this is the life you want?”

  What did want have to do with anything? “This is my life.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. If you had a choice, what would you want?”

  “From you? Nothing.”

  “From living.”

  A bleakness settled inside her. Living? What was he talking about? She felt battered by his questions and defended herself with an aloof, cool smile. Spreading her hands, she showed off her simple room with its spare furnishings. “I have everything I need right here.”

  “You’ve got a roof, food, and fine clothes.”

  “And work,” she said tightly. “Oh, don’t you forget my work. I’m real good at it.”

  “You hate it.”

  She was silent a moment, wary. “You just drew me on one of my bad nights.” She went to the window. Pretending to look out, she closed her eyes and fought for control. What was wrong with her this evening? What was it about this man that got to her? She preferred the numbness to this stirring of emotion. Hope was torment; Hope was an enemy. And this man was a thorn in her side.

  Michael came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. He felt her tense at his touch. “Come home with me,” he said softly. “Be my wife.”

  Angel shrugged his hands off angrily and moved away from him. “No, thanks.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to leave, that’s why. Is that a good enough reason for you?”

  “If you won’t go with me, at least let me get a little closer.”

  Finally. Here we go. “Six steps ought to do that, mister. All you have to do is put one foot in front of the other.”

  “I’m not talking feet and inches, Mara.”

  All the feelings slowed inside her and spiraled downward as though they were draining away into a black hole beneath her feet. “Angel,” she said. “My name is Angel. Have you got that? Angel! And you’re wasting my time and your dust.”

  “I’m not wasting anything.”

  She sat on the bed again and let out her breath. Tilting her head to one side, she looked up at him. “You know, mister, most men are fairly honest when they come. They pay, take what they want, and leave. Then there are a few others, like you. They don’t like being like the rest. So they tell me how much they care and what’s wrong with my life and how they can fix it.” Her mouth curved sardonically. “But eventually they all get past that and get down to what they’re really after.”

  Michael drew in a breath. She didn’t mince words. Fine. He could talk plain, too. “I only have to look at you to be made aware of my body. You know pretty well how to feed frailty. Yes, I want you, but you’re wrong about how much and for how long.”

  She grew even more uneasy. “You shouldn’t feel so bad. It’s just the way men are.”

  “Hogwash.”

  “Now you’re going to tell me about men? That’s something I know all about, mister. Men.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Every man likes to think he’s different from the last. He likes to think he’s better.” She patted the bed. “Come here, and I’ll show you just how much alike you are. Or are you afraid I might be right?”

  He smiled gently. “You’d be more comfortable with me in that bed, wouldn’t you?” He came over and sat in the chair, not the least disconcerted. He leaned toward her, his hands loosely clasped between his knees. “I’m not saying I’m any better than any other man who comes to you. I just want more.”

  “Such as?”

  “Everything. I want what you don’t even know you have to give.”

  “Some men expect a whole lot for a couple of ounces of gold dust.”

  “Listen to what I have to offer you.”

  “I don’t see that what you’re offering is any different than what I’ve got.” Someone rapped twice at the door.

  Relief swept through Angel, and she didn’t bother to hide it. Smirking, she shrugged. “Well, you got your half hour of talk, didn’t you?” She stood and walked past him. She took his hat from the hook by the door and held it out to him. “Time to go.”

  He looked disappointed, but not defeated. “I’m coming back.”

  “Whatever makes you happy.”

  Michael touched her face. “Change your mind. Come with me right now. It’s got to be better than this.”

  Angel’s heart raced. He looked as though he really meant it. But then, Johnny had looked sincere, too. Johnny, with his charm and glib tongue. When it was all said and done, all he had wanted was to take something away from Duke and then use it. All she had wanted was to get away. They had both failed, and the terrible cost of it had been far too great.

  Angel wanted this farmer out of here. “Your gold dust is better spent elsewhere. I haven’t got whatever it is you’re looking for. Try Meggie. She’s the philosopher.” She started to open the door.

  Michael flattened his hand against it. “You’ve got everything I’m looking for. I wouldn’t have felt what I did the first time I saw you. I wouldn’t feel this certain now.”

  “Your half hour is up.”

  Michael saw she wasn’t going to listen. Not this time, anyway. “I’m coming back. All I’ll ask for is one honest half-hour of your time.”

  She opened the door for him. “Mister, five minutes and you’d run like the devil.”

  For I do not do the good I want,

  but the evil I do not want is what I do.

  ROMANS 7 : 19

  Hosea did come back, the next night and the next. Each time Angel saw him, her unrest grew. He talked, and she felt desperation stirring. She knew better than to believe anyone about anything. Hadn’t she learned the hard way? Hope was a dream, and reaching for it turned her life into an unbearable nightmare. She wasn’t going to get sucked in by words and promises again. She wasn’t going to let a man convince her there was anything better than what she had.

  Yet, she could not dispel the tension that rose each time she opened her door and found that man standing outside it. He never laid a hand on her. He just painted word pictures of freedom that resurrected the old, aching hunger she had felt as a child. It was a hunger that had never died. Yet each time she had run away to find an answer to it, disaster had fallen upon her. And still, she had kept trying. The last time, the hunger had sent her running from Duke and landed her here in this foul, stinking place.

  Well, she had finally learned her lesson. Nothing ever got better. Things only went from bad to worse. It was wiser to adjust and accept and survive.

  Why couldn’t this man get it through his thick head that she wasn’t going anywhere with him or anyone else? Why wouldn’t he give up and leave her alone?

  He kept coming back over and over again, driving her crazy. He wasn’t smooth and charming like Johnny. He didn’t use force like Duke. He wasn’t like a hundred others who paid and played. In fact, he wasn’t like anyone she had ever known. That was what she didn’t like the most. She couldn’t fit Michael Hosea into any mold she knew.

  Each time, as soon as he left, she tried to put him out of her mind, but something about him gnawed at her. She found herself thinking about him at the oddest times and had to force herself to think of something else. When she succeeded, others roused him again.

  “Who was the man with you last night?” Rebecca asked over supper.

  Angel stifled her irritation and buttered her bread. “Which one?” she said and glanced across at the buxom redhead.

  “The big, good-looking one. Who else?”

  Angel bit into her bread, wanting to enjoy her meal of sourdough bread and venison stew in peace and not be questioned about who went in and out of her room. Who cared what any of them looked like? After a while, they all looked the same anyway.

  “Give over, Angel,” Rebecca said impatiently. “It’s not as though you care. He was with you last night, last one out your door. I saw him in the hallway as I came upstairs. All six feet of him. Dark hair. Blue eyes.
Broad shoulders. Every inch of him lean and hard. He walks like a soldier. When he smiled at me, I felt it all the way down to my toes.”

  Lucky passed on the stew in favor of the bottle of red wine. “If a pockmarked midget from Nantucket smiled at you, you would feel it all the way down to your toes.”

  “Drink your wine. I wasn’t talking to you,” Rebecca said contemptuously. She had no patience for Lucky’s good-natured insults, and she returned her attention to Angel. “You can’t pretend you don’t know the one I mean. You just don’t want to tell me anything.”

  Angel glared at her. “I don’t know anything. I’d just like to enjoy my meal, if you don’t mind.”

  Torie laughed. “Why shouldn’t she want to keep him for herself?” she said, her British accent thick. “Maybe Angel’s finally met a man she likes.” The others laughed.

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to be bothered, like she says,” Lucky said.

  Rebecca sighed. “Angel, have a little pity. I’ve had one untried boy after another for the last month. I’d welcome a man for a change.”

  Torie pushed her plate away. “If someone like him came to my room, I’d lock him in and keep him there.”

  Angel poured herself a glass of milk and wished they would all leave her alone.

  “That’s the second glass you’ve had,” Renee said to her from the end of the table. “Duchess said one glass for each of us because it’s so expensive, and you’re taking two!”

  Lucky smirked. “I told her before supper she could have my share of milk if I could have her share of wine.”

  “That’s not fair!” Renee whined. “I like milk just as much as Angel does! She always gets what she wants.”

  Lucky grinned. “If you had another glass of milk, it would just turn to more fat around your middle.”

  As they began to quarrel, Angel wanted to scream and leave the table. Her head was throbbing. Even Lucky’s endless needling irritated her, and Rebecca would not give up about that wretched man.

  “He must have hit it big to make it to your room three times in as many nights. What’s his name? Don’t pretend you don’t care.”

  All Angel wanted was to be left alone. “He’s not a miner. He’s a farmer.”

  “A farmer?” Torie laughed. “Who are you trying to fool, dearie? He’s no farmer. Farmers look dumb as the dirt they plow.”

  “He said he was a farmer. That doesn’t mean he is one.”

  “What’s his name?” Rebecca asked again.

  “I don’t remember.” Did the man have to plague her even when he wasn’t around?

  “Oh, yes, you do!” Rebecca was angry now.

  Angel threw her napkin down. “Look! I don’t ask names. I don’t care who they are. I give them what they want, and they leave. That’s it.”

  “Then why does he keep coming back?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  Lucky poured another glass of wine. “Rebecca, you’re just jealous he isn’t coming to your room.”

  Rebecca glared at her. “Why don’t you shut your mouth? Keep on drinking the way you do, and Duchess will toss you out on your backside.”

  Unruffled, Lucky laughed. “It’s still a pretty good backside.”

  “If women weren’t so scarce, no one would bother knocking on your door at all,” Torie sneered.

  Lucky was warming to battle. “I’m better drunk than either of you are sober.”

  Angel ignored the insults being slung back and forth, relieved to be left alone. But now, he was on her mind again.

  Meggie was sitting next to Angel and hadn’t said anything through the whole exchange. Now, she looked at Angel as she stirred a teaspoon of precious sugar into her black coffee. “So, what is this delectable man like, Angel? Has he got any brains?”

  Angel gave her a dark look. “Invite him in and find out for yourself.”

  Meggie arched her brows and leaned back smiling. “Really? I might just do that with all the interest he’s stirred among our friends here.” She studied her. “You really wouldn’t mind?”

  “Why should I?”

  “I saw him first!” Rebecca said.

  Lucky laughed. “First you’ll have to knock him out and get someone to drag him into your room.”

  “Duchess won’t like it,” Renee said, her thin face waspish. “You know the men pay more for Angel. Though I can’t see why.”

  “Because she looks better dog tired than you look on your best day,” Lucky crowed.

  Renee hurled a fork at her, which Lucky dodged easily. It twanged off the wall.

  “Please, be quiet, Lucky,” Angel said, sure Magowan would come in. Lucky never stopped to think when she was drinking.

  “So you really don’t care,” Rebecca said.

  “You can have him with my blessing,” Angel said. She didn’t want him bothering her anymore. He wanted her. She felt it radiating from his body, but he never did anything about it. He talked. He asked questions. He waited, for what she didn’t know. She was tired of trying to think up lies to make him happy. He just asked the same question again in a different way. He wouldn’t give up. Each time he came, he was more determined. The last time, Magowan had come back twice and finally shouted through the door that he had better get dressed and get out if he didn’t want trouble. Hosea hadn’t even unbuttoned his shirt.

  And he said the same thing he always did just before he left. “Come away with me. Marry me.”

  “I already said no. Three times. Don’t you ever get the message? No. No. No!”

  “You’re not happy here.”

  “I wouldn’t be any happier with you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Put on something you can travel in and come with me. Right now. Don’t think about it so much. Just do it.”

  “Magowan might have something to say about it.” But she saw plainly Magowan didn’t worry him at all. She wondered then what it would be like to live with a man like this, who didn’t seem to be afraid of anything. But then, Duke hadn’t been afraid of anything either, and she knew what living with him had been like.

  “For the last time, No,” she said firmly and reached for the doorknob.

  He caught her wrist. “What’s keeping you here?”

  She pulled her wrist free. “I like it.” She yanked the door open. “Now, get out!”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said and went out.

  Angel had slammed the door and leaned back against it. She always had a splitting headache by the time Hosea left. That night she’d sat on the end of her bed and pressed her fingers against her temples, trying to ease the pain.

  The same pain that plagued her now. Pain that only got worse as Hosea’s question echoed in her mind. What was keeping her here? Why didn’t she just walk out the door?

  Her hands balled into fists. She would have to get her gold from the Duchess first, and she knew there was no way the woman would give over all of it at once. Piecemeal, that’s what she would get, enough for a few luxuries but not enough to live on. The Duchess couldn’t afford to be that generous.

  And what if Angel did have enough gold to leave? It could turn out the same way it had on the ship or at the end of the voyage when she had been beaten and left behind for those scavengers to find. Those few days on her own in San Francisco had been the closest thing to perdition she had lived. She had been cold, hungry, afraid for her life. She had looked back on life with Duke with actual longing. Duke, of all people.

  Desperation filled her. I can’t leave. Without someone like Duchess, or even Magowan, they would tear me to pieces.

  She didn’t want to risk going with Michael Hosea. He was by far a darker unknown.

  Michael was running out of gold dust and time. He didn’t know how to get through to that woman. He could see her withdraw from him the moment she opened the door. He talked, and she looked through him and pretended to listen, but he knew she heard nothing. She was just waiting for the half
hour to be up so she would have the pleasure of telling him to leave.

  I’ve got enough dust for one more try, Lord. Make her listen!

  Going up the stairs, he was going over in his mind what he was going to say to her this time when he bumped into a redhead. He drew back with an embarrassed apology. She laid a hand on his arm and smiled up at him. “Don’t bother with Angel tonight. She said you’d like me better.”

  He stared down at her. “What else did Angel say?”

  “That she’d see it as a favor to have you taken off her hands.”

  He clenched his teeth and took her hand away. “Thanks for telling me.” He went down the hall. Standing in front of Angel’s door, he tried to get control of his anger. Jesus, were you listening? What am I doing back here? I’ve tried. You know I have. She doesn’t want what I’m offering. What am I supposed to do? Drag her out of here by her hair?

  He rapped twice, the sound echoing loudly down the dim corridor. She opened the door, took one brief look at him, and said, “Oh. It’s you again.”

  “Yes, it’s me again.” He walked in and slammed the door behind him.

  Her brows rose. An angry man could be unpredictable and dangerous. This one could do a lot of damage to her without much effort.

  “I’m not getting anywhere with you, am I?”

  “It’s not my fault you’re wasting your gold,” she said quietly. “I did warn you the very first night. Remember?” She sat down on the end of the bed. “I haven’t misled you.”

  “I’ve got to go back to the valley and get some work done.”

  “I’m not stopping you.”

  His face was pale and rigid. “I don’t want to leave you here in this godforsaken place!”

  She blinked at his outburst. “It’s not your business.”

  “It became my business the minute I saw you.” Her foot began to swing gracefully back and forth, back and forth, ticking off the time. Asleep with her eyes open. She was self-contained. Nothing showed in her beautiful blue eyes.

  “You feel like talking again?” She covered a yawn and sighed. “Go ahead. I’m all ears.”

  “Am I putting you to sleep?”