Francine Rivers

by Redeeming Love

  “Not likely, but that’s what you want, isn’t it? Another beating. More hard knocks.” He was afraid of his own rising emotions, the hot surging blood that made him almost call her challenge. He was shaking with the power of it. “It’s the only thing you know, and you’re too full of your own stubborn pride to find out if there’s anything else in the world!”

  “Don’t make me laugh! You think you’re any different from the rest? I’m quit of this place. I’ve matched you hour for hour. You’ve had your gold’s worth of work out of me.”

  “Hogwash. You’re just running because you’re scared, because you’re beginning to like it here.” She swung at him, but he blocked her hand. She swung again, and he caught her wrist. “Finally I have your full attention!” He let her twist free. “At least you’re looking at me instead of through me.”

  Angel spun away and marched across the yard. She went into the cabin and slammed the door. Michael expected to see something come crashing through the window, but nothing did.

  His heart was pounding like a locomotive. He let out his breath and pushed his fingers back through his hair. It was going to be open warfare from here on out. Well, so be it. Anything was better than her apathy. He went back to his work.

  When he came in, Mara seemed calm enough. She glanced at him and gave him a sweet smile as she ladled stew into a bowl and set it on the table for him. One cautious taste and he knew there was enough salt in it to pickle him. The biscuits had sand in them, and when he looked into his mug of coffee, he saw half a dozen flies floating on the steaming surface. He laughed and pitched the coffee out the door. What else had she cooked up for him? “Why don’t we discuss what’s really bothering you?”

  Angel folded her hands on the table. “I’ve only got one thing to say. I am not going to stay here with you forever.” He just looked at her with that faint, enigmatic smile on his face that made her want to use a club on him. “I’m not,” she said again.

  “We’ll take one day at a time, beloved.” He took a can of beans from the shelf and opened them. Her eyes were hot enough to fry a steak. He leaned his hip against the counter and ate his cold meal.

  She glared up at him. “I don’t belong here, and you know it.”

  “Where do you think you belong? Back in that bordello?”

  “That’s my choice, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t even know you’ve got a choice yet. You think there’s only one way to go, and that’s straight downhill to hell.”

  “I know what I want.”

  “Then would you mind telling me?”

  “I want to get out of here!” She got up and went outside, too angry and frustrated to look at him.

  Michael set the can down and came to lean in the doorway. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I know, but I don’t see that what I want is any of your business.” He laughed, but it wasn’t in amusement. She glared back at him, her eyes glittering in the moonlight. “What everything did you have in mind when you brought me here?”

  Michael didn’t answer for a long moment. He wondered if he could make her understand. He wondered if he could even put it into words. “I want you to love me,” he said and saw the derision in her face. “I want you to trust me enough to let me love you, and I want you to stay here with me so we can build a life together. That’s what I want.”

  Her anger dissolved at his sincerity. “Mister, can’t you understand that’s impossible?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “You don’t have any idea who and what I am other than what you’ve created in your own mind.”

  “Then tell me.”

  Go ahead, Angel. Tell him. He could never even guess at the things that had been done to her or that she had done. Oh, she could tell him. Level the gun. Both barrels. Point-blank. Straight for his heart. Annihilation. That would put a quick end to everything. Why was she holding back?

  Michael came outside. “Mara,” he said. His gentle voice was like salt on her wounds.

  “My name isn’t Mara. It’s Angel. Angel.”

  “No, it isn’t. And I’ll call you by what I see. Mara, embittered by life; Tirzah, my beloved who stirs a fire in me until I feel like I’m melting.” He moved toward her. “You can’t keep running away Don’t you see that?” He stopped right in front of her. “Stay here. Stay with me. We’ll work things through together.” He touched her. “I love you.”

  “Do you know how many times I’ve heard those words before? I love you, Angel. You’re such a pretty little thing. I love you, sweetheart. Oh, baby, I love you when you do that. Say you love me, Angel. Say it so I believe you. As long as you do what I tell you, I’m going to love you, Angel. I love you, love you, love you. I’m sick to death of hearing it!”

  She stared at him angrily, but the look on his face defeated her. She hugged herself tightly. Don’t think. Don’t feel anything. He’ll destroy you if you do. She tried to focus on something else.

  The night sky was so clear, stars everywhere and a moon so big it seemed to be a single silver eye staring down. Her mind and emotions still boiled. She tried to call up her defenses, but they had dispersed. She wanted to be up on that hilltop, seeing the sunrise again. She remembered his words: “Mara, that’s the life I want to give you.” Who was he kidding? She knew it could never happen, even if he still didn’t.

  Her eyes burned. “I want to go back to Pair-a-Dice as soon as possible.”

  “Am I getting too close?”

  She swung around. “I am not staying here with you!” She tried to calm down and reason with him. “Look, mister, if you knew even half of what I’ve done, you’d have me headed back for Pair-a-Dice so fast—”

  “Try me. Go ahead and see if it makes a difference.”

  Angel withered at the thought. She had opened Pandora’s box and couldn’t get it closed again. The horrible, grotesque memories rose from the dead. Her father. Mama dead, clutching her rosary. Rab with the cord around his neck because he knew Duke was not the moral, upstanding citizen the public thought he was. Duke raping her over and over again. The dozens of men in the years that followed. And the hunger, the endless, aching hunger inside herself.

  Michael could see her face white in the moonlight. He didn’t know what she was thinking, but he knew she was tormented by her past. He reached out to touch her cheek. “I wish I could open your mind and climb inside with you.” Maybe the two of them could fight off the darkness that was trying to swallow her whole. He wanted to hold her, but she had withdrawn from him already. God, how do I save her?

  Angel looked up at him and saw the sheen of moisture in his eyes. Shock ran through her. “Are you crying? For me?” she said weakly.

  “Don’t you think you’re worth it?”

  Something inside her cracked. She writhed inside to escape the feeling, but it was there nonetheless, growing with the light touch of his hand on her shoulder, with every soft word he spoke. She was sure if she put her hands against her heart, her palms would come away covered with her own blood. Was that what this man wanted? For her to bleed for him?

  “Talk to me, Amanda,” he whispered, “Talk to me.”

  “Amanda? What’s this name supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know, but it sounds like a gentle, loving name.” He smiled slightly. “I thought you might prefer it to Mara.”

  He was a strange man given to strange ways. What had become of her defenses? Where was her defiance and anger? her resolve? “What do you want to hear, mister?” she said, meaning to sound amused and failing. What could she tell a man like him that he would even understand?

  “Anything. Everything.”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Ever.”

  Michael cupped her face tenderly. “Then just tell me what you’re feeling right now.”

  “Pain,” she said before she thought better of it. She pushed his hands away and went back into the cabin.

  She was cold, and desperate to get warm. She knelt down before the fire, b
ut even its warmth couldn’t permeate. She could lie in the coals and still not melt the chill attacking her.

  Run away from him, Angel. Run away now—Stay, beloved.

  Voices warred in her head, pulling at her very soul.

  Michael came inside and sat down beside her on the floor, watching quietly as she drew up her knees and hugged them against her chest. He knew she was trying to shut him out again. He wasn’t going to help her succeed this time. “Give your pain to me,” he said.

  Surprised, Angel looked at him. She was in a wilderness with this man. She was desperate to find a familiar road, some known landmark to guide her away. She couldn’t remember the last time she had even felt close to tears. And she had no tears, not anymore. Hosea perplexed her.

  “I’ve done everything for you but the one thing I know best.” She searched his eyes. “Why not?” His expression changed, and she felt a softening toward him. He was vulnerable, and oddly she felt no desire to attack his defenses. “Are you afraid? Is that what holds you back? Do you think I’d make fun of you because you’ve never been with a woman before?”

  Michael took a strand of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. Where were all his rational answers now? “I suppose it’s entered my mind. But more than that, I need to know why.”

  “Why what?” she asked, not understanding.

  “Why you would make love with me.”

  “Why?” She would never understand this man. All the men she had ever known would expect her to “thank” them if they had given her so much as a box of candy or a bouquet of flowers. This man had kept her alive and nursed her back to health. He had taught her things that would help her live on her own. And now he wanted to know why she offered her body to him. “Would gratitude be enough reason?”

  “No. It wasn’t in my hands whether you lived or died. That was up to the Lord.”

  Angel turned her head away. “Don’t talk to me about your god. He didn’t come back for me. You did.” She put her forehead against her raised knees and said nothing more.

  Michael started to speak, but the voice held him back.

  Michael, there is a time for all things.

  He sighed inwardly, heeding the message. She wasn’t ready to listen to the why and wherefore. It would be acid, not salve. And so he held his silence.

  Lord, please guide me.

  The fire crackled, and Angel began to relax just listening to the soothing sounds. “I wanted to die,” she said. “I couldn’t wait, and just when I thought I had, there you were.”

  “Do you still want to die?”

  “No, but I don’t know why I want to live, either.” The siege of emotion passed. She turned her head slightly and looked at him again. “Maybe it has something to do with you. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  Joy leaped inside Michael but only briefly. She looked hurt, not happy; confused, not certain. He wanted to touch her and was afraid if he did, she would take it the wrong way.

  Comfort my lamb.

  If I touch her now, Lord…

  Comfort your wife.

  Michael took her hand. Her whole arm stiffened, but he didn’t let go. He turned her hand over in his and smoothed his fingers down over her blackened palm and fingers so that his large hand covered hers. “We’re in this together, Amanda.”

  “I don’t understand you,” Angel said.

  “I know, but give me time and you will.”

  “No, I don’t think I ever will. I don’t know what you want from me. You say everything and take nothing. I see the way you look at me, but you’ve never treated me as a wife.”

  Michael turned the gold band on her finger. She was his wife. It was time he did something about it. If she didn’t know the difference between having sex and making love, he would have to show her. Oh, God, I am afraid, afraid of the depth of my physical desire. Most of all he was afraid he would not know how to please her.

  Lord, help!

  Angel watched him looking at the ring on her finger. “Do you want it back?”

  “No.” He wove his fingers with hers and smiled at her. “I’m just as new at being married as you are.” A calm settled over him, and he knew everything would be all right.

  Angel looked away. Married men had come to her plenty of times, and she knew what they had to say about it. Their wives didn’t understand them. They married for convenience and progeny. They were bored with the same woman and needed a little change, like having steak for dinner instead of stew, fish instead of chicken. Most said their wives didn’t enjoy sex. Did they think she did?

  “What I know about marriage isn’t encouraging, mister.”

  “Maybe not.” Michael kissed her hand. “But I believe marriage is a contract between a man and woman to build a life together. It’s a promise to love one another no matter what comes.”

  “You know what I am. Why would you make a promise like that to me?”

  “I know what you were.”

  She felt an ache inside her. “You’ll never learn, will you?”

  Leaning over, Michael tipped her face toward him and kissed her. She didn’t pull away, but she wasn’t moved either. Lord, I could use a little help down here. He shook as he combed his fingers into her hair and kissed her again.

  He was so tentative, Angel relaxed. She could handle this. She could handle him just fine. She could even help him along.

  Michael drew back. He wasn’t going to allow his desire to become rampant. He wasn’t going to embrace sex and lose sight of love, no matter how much more comfortable she would be with that.

  “My way, not yours. Remember?” He stood up.

  Angel watched him in confusion. “What do you know about it?”

  “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Why do you make things difficult for yourself? It all comes down to the same thing. It won’t be my way or your way. It’ll just be the way it is.”

  A sexual act was what she meant, and he didn’t know how to show her it was meant to be a celebration of love.

  All Angel saw was his determination. She stood slowly and joined him. “If it has to be your way, fine. It’ll be your way.” In the beginning.

  Michael looked into her eyes and saw no hardness. Neither did he see understanding. He wasn’t sure which part of himself to listen to anymore. He was hard pressed by his physical nature. She was so beautiful to him.

  “Let me help you,” she said and took his hand.

  Michael sat in the willow chair, his heart in his throat as she knelt before him and pulled off his boots. He was losing control fast. Standing, he moved away from her. He unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off. As he undressed, Michael kept thinking about Adam in the Garden of Eden. How had he felt the first time Eve came to him? Scared half to death, yet surging with life?

  When Michael turned, his wife stood naked before the fire, waiting for him. She was breathtaking, just as Eve must have been. Michael came to her in wonder.

  Oh, Lord, she is so perfect, like no other creation in the world. My mate. He swung her up into his arms and kissed her.

  As he stretched out beside her on their marriage bed, he marveled at how she fit him, flesh to flesh, molded for him. “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered, awestruck by the gift.

  Angel felt him shaking violently and knew it was due to his long, self-imposed celibacy. Strangely, she was not repulsed. Instead, she felt an alien sense of sympathy. She pushed the feelings away, blocking him out of her mind—and was surprised when he drew back from her and searched her eyes, his own filled with so much she turned her face away.

  Think of your money in Pair-a-Dice, Angel. Think of going back and getting it from the Duchess. Think of having something for yourself. Think of being free. Don’t think about this man. It had worked for her in the past. Why not now? Come on, Angel. Remember how you used to close your mind? You’ve done it before. Do it again. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Just play the part. He’ll never know.

  But Michael wasn’t like other men, and
he did know. He didn’t have to die to realize she had brought him to the edge of heaven and slammed the gates in his face.

  “Beloved,” he said, turning her face back to him. “Why won’t you let me get close to you?”

  She tried to laugh. “How close do you want to be?” She could feel the difference in this man right through her pores and sought to protect herself from him.

  Michael saw the flatness in her blue eyes, and it broke his heart. “You keep shutting me out. Tirzah, stay with me.”

  “Is it Tirzah now?”

  Oh, Jesus, help me. “Stop running from me!”

  Angel wanted to cry out, “Not from you! From this. From the mindless, selfish grasping for pleasure. Theirs and yours, not mine. Never mine.” But she didn’t. Instead she challenged him in anger.

  “Why do you have to talk?” She struggled, but he was unyielding. Why did he have to keep intruding on and interfering with her thoughts, breaking her concentration? He kept confusing her feelings, stirring them into a boiling mess. He held her and looked into her eyes and was aware of her, and something deep within her shifted.

  Her panic grew, and she closed her eyes.

  “Look at me, beloved.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what? Don’t love you? Don’t become part of you? I am part of you.”

  “This way?”

  “In every way.”

  “No,” she said, struggling.

  “Yes!” He gentled. “This can be beautiful. It doesn’t mean what you’ve been taught. It’s a blessing. Oh, my love, say my name.…”

  How could he think this could be anything but vile and simple? She knew everything there was to know about it. Hadn’t Duke taught her? Hadn’t all the rest? So this farmer wanted to know what it was really like. Well, she would show him.

  “Don’t.” His rasped command confused her.

  “Don’t you want me to please you?”

  “You want to please me? Say my name.” His breath mingled with hers. “You said you wouldn’t say no to anything I asked of you. Remember? I want you to say my name. Anything, you said. Can’t you keep your word?” His calm left. “Say it!”