Redeeming Love (28 page)

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“Michael, I’m sorry. I swear it wasn’t my fault. I tried to tell you what she was—”

“Get out of my sight, Paul. Go home and stay there.” And he did.

Michael almost didn’t come and get her back after that. She deserved whatever she got. She went looking for it, didn’t she? He wept. He cursed her. He had loved her, and she betrayed him. She might as well have stuck a knife in his guts and twisted it.

But at night, in the dark, he remembered those first days when she had been so sick and he had been given a glimpse of her soul. She had said a lot in her delirium, drawing pictures of the wretchedness of her life. Did she even know any better? He remembered Paul’s reaction to her, and her own anger. He had seen her hurt, though she had denied it fiercely. He had to go and get her back. She was his wife.

Until death do us part.

He prepared himself for anything on the way to Pair-a-Dice, but when he walked into that room and saw for himself what she was doing, he had almost lost all reason. If he hadn’t seen her eyes or heard the way she said his name, he would have killed them both. But he had seen and heard it—

for one brief, unguarded instant he’d known what she really felt. Relief.

Relief so profound it stopped him cold.

But it didn’t mean the instinctive rage at her betrayal wasn’t still there, bubbling just below the surface.

Michael shuddered and drew back from her. “Come on,” he said tightly.

“We’re going home.” He took her hand and started back through the woods.

Angel wanted to resist but was afraid. What was he going to do to her now? In this mood, could he be as brutal as Duke? “Why did you come for me?”

“You’re my wife.”

“I left the ring on the table! I didn’t steal it.”

“That didn’t change a thing. We’re still married.”

“You could’ve just forgotten about it.”

He stopped and glared at her. “It’s a lifetime commitment in my book, lady. It’s not an arrangement you nullify when things get a little tough to bear.”

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She searched his face in confusion. “Even after you just found me—” He started walking again, pulling her along with him. She didn’t understand him. She didn’t understand him at all. “Why?”

“Because I
love
you,” he said thickly. He swung her around in front of him, his eyes tormented. “That simple, Amanda. I
love
you. When are you going to understand what that means?”

Her throat tightened, and she hung her head.

They walked the rest of the way in silence. He lifted her onto the wagon seat. She shifted over as he pulled himself up beside her. She looked at him bleakly. “Your kind of love can’t feel good.”

“Does your kind feel any better?” She looked away. He unlooped the reins. “Right now love doesn’t have an awful lot to do with feelings,” he said grimly. “Don’t misunderstand. I’m as human as the next man. I
feel
all right.

I feel plenty right now, a lot I wish I didn’t.” He shook his head, his face strained with hurt and anger. “I felt like killing you when I walked in that room, but I didn’t. I feel like beating sense into you right now, but I won’t.”

He looked at her with dark eyes. “And no matter how much it hurts, and no matter how much I feel like hurting you back for what you’ve done, I’m not going to.” He snapped the reins and set off again.

Angel tried to shove her feelings down, but they kept coming up, choking her. She clenched her fists, fighting it. “You knew what I was. You
knew.”

She wanted him to understand. “Michael, it’s all I’ve ever been. It’s all I’m ever going to be.”

“That’s pure, unadulterated horse manure. When are you going to stop wallowing in it?”

She looked away, shoulders sagging. “You just don’t understand. It’s never going to be the way you want it to be. It can’t be! Even if there ever could have been a chance, that’s gone now. Don’t you see?”

His eyes impaled hers. “Are you talking about Paul?”

“He told you?”

“He didn’t have to. It was written all over his face.”

Angel offered no defense. She offered no excuses. Shoulders limp, she stared straight ahead.

Michael saw she took the whole blame on herself, but she and Paul were 197

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both going to have to deal with it. So was he. He faced the road again and was silent for a long time. “Why did you go back? I just don’t get it.”

She closed her eyes, searching for a good enough reason. She could find none and swallowed hard. “To get my gold,” she said bleakly. Admitting it aloud made her feel small and hollow.

“What for?”

“I want a little cabin in the woods.”

“You’ve already got one.”

She could hardly speak past the lump of pain in her chest. She pressed her hand against it. “I want to be free, Michael. Just once in my whole life.

Free!”
Her voice broke. She bit her lip and clutched at the side of the wagon seat so hard the wood dug into her hands.

Michael’s face softened. The anger vanished but not the hurt, not the sorrow. “You are free. You just don’t know it yet.”

It was a long, quiet ride back to the valley.

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Sixteen

The mind is its own place,

and in itself can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heaven.

M I L T O N

Michael couldn’t get it out of his head. She made no apology. She gave no excuses. She just sat, wordless, back straight, head up, hands clenched in her lap as though she were going into battle instead of going home. Would she rather reject his gift and live in eternal darkness than open her mind and heart to him? Was her pride the only thing that mattered?

He didn’t understand.

Angel sat in silent torment. She struggled against the emotions tearing at her, remorse, guilt, confusion. They became a solid mass, a hardened lump growing in her throat and chest, like a cancer spreading pain into every limb. She was afraid. The hope she thought long-since dead was resurrected.

She had forgotten the small light that had sometimes flickered inside her as a child. Something would strike its spark, and it would grow—until Duke crushed it.

She tried to crush it now with logic.

Nothing could be the same. Whatever might have grown between her and Michael was ruined. She knew that. The moment Paul had used her, she had thrown her last chance away.

I did it to myself. I did it to myself. Mea culpa. Mea culpa.

Her mother’s words haunted her, unbearable memories of a forsaken life.

Why was she feeling this small light again when she knew it would only be 199

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destroyed in the end? Just as it always had been. Hope was cruel. Only the aroma of sustenance before a starving child. Not milk. Not meat.

Oh, God, I can’t hope for anything. I can’t. I won’t survive if I do.

But it was there, a tiny spark glowing in the darkness.

As they reached the valley at first light, Angel felt the building warmth of the sun on her shoulders and remembered Michael dragging her with him through the night to face the sunrise.
“That’s the life I want to give you.”
She hadn’t understood then what he offered. She had not comprehended until she walked up the stairs at the Silver Dollar Saloon and sold her soul into slavery again.

It’s too late, Angel.

Then why is he bringing me back? Why didn’t he just leave me in Pair-a-Dice?

Duke brought you back, too, didn’t he? Several times.

She had always seen retribution in Duke’s dark eyes. He had made her suffer. Yet it had been easier to take what he did to her than to watch the suffering he brought on others who dared aid her. Like Johnny—before Duke dispatched him forever.

But Michael wasn’t like Duke. She had never seen that sheen of calculated cruelty in his eyes. She had never felt it in his hands.

There’s a price for everything, Angel. You know that. You’ve always
known.

What kind of price would he require for bringing her back from hell?

What price for saving her from her own folly?

She shook inside.

Michael swung the wagon around in the yard in front of the cabin and tied the reins securely. Angel started to climb down, but his hand clamped her wrist. “Sit tight.” His voice was heavy, and she sat silently awaiting his command. When he came around to lift her down, she closed her eyes, afraid to look into his. He set her on the ground gently.

“Go into the house,” he told her. “I’m going to see to the horses.”

Angel pushed the cabin door open and felt her whole being permeated with a sense of relief.
I’m home.

For how long, Angel? Long enough to make you suffer before he
casts you out again?

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She couldn’t let herself think of that right now. She entered and looked around for changes. Everything was so familiar, so plain, so dear. The rough table, the willow chairs before the fireplace, the bed made out of the wagon bed, the worn quilts his sister had made. Angel moved to lay a fire and make the rumpled bed.

Picking up a red wool shirt, she pressed her face into it and inhaled the scent of Michael’s body. He was the earth and sky and wind. Her breath stopped.

What have I done? Why did I throw it all away?

Paul’s words came back:
“You’re not even worth two bits.”
It was true. She was a prostitute and that’s all she would ever be. It hadn’t even taken a day for her to fall right back into her old ways.

Trembling, she folded the shirt carefully and tucked it away in his drawer.

She had to stop thinking. She had to get by as she had always done before.

But how could she now? How?

Her desperate mind worked for answers and none came.
I’ll do whatever
he wants for as long as he wants if he’ll let me stay. If he’ll only let me.

Though she had no appetite, she knew Michael would be hungry when he came in. She took great care with breakfast. While the porridge cooked, she dusted and swept. An hour passed, then another. Still Michael didn’t return.

What was he thinking? Was his anger growing? Had he already changed his mind about bringing her back here? Would he kick her out now? Where would she go if he did?

Memories of Duke made her stomach twist.

He’s not like Duke.

Every man is Duke when betrayed.

Her mind circled like a bird searching for carrion. Her self-defenses roused and took up arms against Michael. No one had forced him to come after her. If he was hurt about what he had seen, he had only himself to blame. It wasn’t her fault he walked in when he did. It wasn’t her fault he came at all. Why didn’t he just leave her alone in the first place? She had never tried to fool him. What did he expect? He knew from the beginning what he was getting. He knew what she was.

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What am I?
her mind cried out.
Who am I? I don’t even have a name of my
own anymore. Is there even a piece of Sarah left?

She kept seeing his eyes, and the hot heaviness of her own heart was unbearable.

Finally, she could bear it no more and went out to find him. He wasn’t in the field, though the horses were grazing. He was nowhere to be seen.

Finally, she entered the barn quietly and saw him. He was sitting, head in his hands, weeping. Her heart sank as she watched, and the ease she sought became an even heavier burden.

I’ve wounded him. I might as well have taken a knife and stabbed it into his
very heart. It would have been better if Magowan had killed me. It would have
been better if I had never been born.

Hugging herself, she went back to the cabin and sank to her knees before the fire. It was her fault. All the
ifs
flooded her: If she had never left Duke…if she had never gotten on that barkentine…if she hadn’t sold herself to any passerby on the muddy streets of San Francisco or gone with Duchess…if she had ignored Paul…if she had stayed here and never left…if she hadn’t gone back to Pair-a-Dice or gone up those stairs with Murphy.
If,
if, if…
the endless, twisting, downward staircase.

But I did all of it. I did. And now it’s too late, and Michael sits crying while I
haven’t a tear for anything.

She held herself and rocked back and forth. “Why was I ever born?

Why?” She stared down at her hands. “For this?” She could feel the filth of her trade covering them. Her whole body was fouled, inside and out.

Michael had taken her straight out of the abyss and offered her a chance—

and she had thrown it away. Then he came again and took her straight from her soiled bed to his home, and staying true to her own stupidity, she had spent the whole morning cleaning the cabin and had not once thought to cleanse herself.