Redeeming Love (46 page)

“You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you, Paul?” He headed for home.

A few days later, Paul took a side of venison to the Altmans and learned Michael was on his way to Sacramento to bring Angel home. Joseph had sent word she was working in a general mercantile. A likely story. He’d bet everything she was selling herself to wintering miners. Six ounces of gold for fifteen minutes. Maybe more than that to make up for the time lost on Michael.

“You don’t look very happy about the news,” Miriam said, watching him closely.

“I’m sure Michael’s happy,” he said and went for his horse. “He’s a fool,”

he muttered under his breath.

Miriam followed him. “He loves her very much.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“What would
you
call it?”

He glanced back at Miriam as he slung the reins over the horse’s head, but he didn’t answer.

“Why don’t you like Amanda?” Miriam asked.

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Paul almost blurted out that her name wasn’t Amanda. It was
Angel,
and she was anything but that, but he kept his tongue. “I’ve got my reasons,” he said. The saddle creaked as he mounted.

“You were in love with her, weren’t you?” she said flatly.

Paul gave a harsh laugh, his grip tightening on the reins. “Did she tell you that?”

“No. I guessed.”

“Well, you guessed wrong, little Miriam.” He turned his horse before she could ask more questions.

Taking a step, she called after him, “Don’t call me little Miriam! I’m sixteen years old.”

He didn’t need the reminder. Mocking her, he tipped his hat. “Good day, ma’am,” he drawled and rode away.

She came over the next morning to invite him to dinner. “Venison steaks,” she said, “and Mama is baking apple pie.” She was wearing a pretty yellow dress that made him notice the slender curves of her young body. She noticed the direction of his gaze and blushed. Miriam’s dark eyes had a vel-vety glow to them. “Well?” she said.

“Well, what?” he said uneasily.

Her mouth curved. “Will you come this afternoon?”

She had an enticing smile. Dismayed, he was terse. “No,” he said and nodded toward the unplowed section of field. “I’ll be working through until dusk.” He clicked to the horse and pushed down hard on the plow, hoping she would take the hint and leave. Had he known she was coming over, he would have put a shirt on. As it was, he was stripped to the waist and had a dusty neckerchief tied around his forehead to keep the sweat out of his eyes.

A fine sight he was for an innocent young girl.

Paul couldn’t get it out of his head that if Miriam Altman had come along a few months earlier, Michael wouldn’t be in the mess he was. Miriam was just right for Michael. If that harlot ran off again, which she undoubtedly would, maybe Michael would come to see it, too. This girl would come to his marriage bed a virgin and stay faithful to him to death. She wasn’t the kind to cause a man grief. She would give him the children he wanted and make him happy.

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“You have to eat sometime,” Miriam said, walking beside him.

He didn’t look at her. The less he looked at her the better.

“Papa and Mama would like to thank you.”

“They said their thanks yesterday. Tell them they’re welcome.”

“Don’t you like children?”

“Children?” he said, lost. “I like children well enough. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I just thought you didn’t want to come to dinner because there are so many of us.”

She walked with her hands loosely clasped behind her. His gaze swept her body and his mouth went dry.

“What was your wife like, Paul?”

The question took him off guard. “Sweet. She was very sweet.”

“Was she tall?”

“About your size.” Tessie had been smaller, and she’d had light brown hair rather than luxuriant black. And her eyes. He couldn’t remember what color Tessie’s eyes were when he looked into the deep, soft brown of Miriam’s.

“Was she pretty?”

He looked at Miriam, and his heart raced.

“Your wife,” she said. “Was she pretty?”

He tried to remember Tessie’s face and couldn’t. Not with Miriam staring at him the way she was. Her shy fascination with his body gave him a growing panic. “She was
very
pretty,” he said and pulled the horse to an abrupt halt. “I think you’d better go home. I’m sure your mother’s wondering why you’re taking so long.”

Miriam’s face went red. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to keep you. Maybe you’ll come for dinner another time.” He saw her quick tears as she turned and hurried away. He almost reached out to her but stopped himself just in time. He clenched his hand and watched her go, an ache in the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t meant to be cruel, but if he apologized, she might stay, and she was altogether too tempting for that.

Paul never expected her to come back.

He was washing at the well when he saw her coming across a grassy 324

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field. His heart jumped. Her younger sister Leah was with her this time. He pulled his shirt on and buttoned it while waiting for them to reach him and tell him what they wanted.

“Mama sent me,” Miriam said apologetically. Her eyes barely touched his.

She held out the basket she was carrying.

“Thanks,” he said roughly, taking it. His hand lightly brushed hers, and her eyes came up. “She needn’t have bothered,” he said.

“Oh, it was Miriam’s idea,” Leah said, mortifying her older sister further.

“Hush,
Leah,” Miriam said, blushing. She took her sister’s hand. “We’d better go. Enjoy your dinner, Paul.”

Paul watched the gentle sway of her hips.
I’ve got no right to be feeling this
way about a girl like her.
“Tell your mother I’ll bring the basket over.”

“No hurry,” Miriam called back. “I’ll come get it tomorrow.”

That was exactly what he didn’t want her to do. He would ride over at first light and leave the basket at their door. He put it down and brought up another bucket of cold water. Dousing his face, he cooled himself down. He was in bad shape when just looking at a pretty, sixteen-year-old girl made him feel this way. He ought to ride to the nearest camp and stop in at the local brothel. The very idea sickened him.

He took Miriam’s basket into the cabin. The grate was cold. He lit a fire and ate. He was feeling the same emptiness he had when Tessie died. Those first months without her had been bad, but he had had the struggle to survive the Sierras to occupy his mind. When he and Michael reached this land, he poured himself into building the cabin. Then the grief had struck hard. The fierce pain of loss had been too much. He couldn’t look out at the fields of wildflowers without thinking about how much Tessie would have loved it. Their own land in California had been a shared dream. It was empty and meaningless without her.

When the gold rush hit, he was ready to leave. In the beginning, he had lost himself in the excitement of working the streams, the chance of getting rich just beyond his reach. The excitement quickly wore off. Life narrowed down again to dawn-to-dusk labor. All he made was enough for food and a day in town to get drunk and go to a brothel. Even while taking his pleasure, he couldn’t rid himself of the pointlessness of his life—and the shame 325

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of it. He knew what he bought was counterfeit. He knew because he had had the real thing with Tess.

Angel’s words came flooding back, hard and cold.
“I
know
what I am,
mister, but you call yourself his
brother.”

When he gave up looking for gold and came back here to his land, he thought he had hit rock bottom. He had been wrong. He swore to himself he would make it up to Michael. He would leave Miriam Altman alone so that when the time came and Angel left him again, there would be a decent girl waiting for him.

He tried to sleep and couldn’t. He couldn’t get Miriam out of his head.

He would close his eyes and see her dark, smiling eyes. Giving up, he put another log on the fire and took his wedding picture off the mantel. He stared at Tessie’s face again. Although it was still precious to him, it roused no deep emotion, not as it had a year ago.

A year ago, he hadn’t thought the pain would ever go away. But then, a year ago, he thought he would never fall in love again.

“Amanda!” Miriam cried out, racing down the hillside. “Come quick! It’s Ruthie!”

Angel ran toward her. “What’s happened?”

“She’s up a tree, and I can’t get her down. Help me!”

Angel raised her skirts and ran up the hill after Miriam. She was breathless when they reached the gnarled old oak. Heart in her throat, Angel looked up at the child perched twenty feet above on a thick branch. “Oh!

How did you get up there, you little mouse?”

Ruthie waved down at her.

“Ruthie!” Angel cried out in alarm. “Hold on! Don’t you budge! We’ll get you down.”

“I tried to climb, and I couldn’t,” Miriam said. “You give it a try.”

“Me?
I’ve never climbed a tree in my life!”

“Mandy, are you going to help me down?” Ruthie called down.

“You’d better hurry,” Miriam said, pushing at her. “There’s no time to lose.” She bent and cupped her hands.

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Angel’s skirts got in the way. “Wait a minute. I can’t do it like this.” She bent over, grabbed the back hem, and pulled it up between her legs, shoving it into her belt. She climbed up onto the first branch with Miriam’s help.

“Don’t be scared, Ruthie! Just don’t move.”

“I won’t,” Ruthie said, swinging her feet back and forth and seeming to have a wonderful time.

“What am I
doing?”
Angel muttered under her breath as she scrambled higher. She thought she heard laughter.

“Don’t look down!” Miriam called up to her. “You’re doing fine.”

Angel wasn’t sure whether Miriam was speaking to her or Ruthie as she made her way up through the branches. When she was within a few feet, she saw that Ruthie had a rope tied around her waist holding her securely to the trunk. She couldn’t have fallen if she wanted to. What was worse, the little imp was grinning from ear to ear. “Isn’t it fun, Mandy?”

“Ever seen your cabin from this vantage point?” Miriam said, just below her.

Angel’s face flamed in anger. “You scared me half to death! What do you think you’re doing?”

Miriam climbed past her and straddled on a large branch. “You said it yourself. You’ve never climbed a tree in your life.” She grinned mischievously.

“It’s about time you did.”

“You pulled her up by yourself? She might have been hurt.”

“We helped,” Jacob said, coming down from a higher branch. Andrew was just above him, and Leah peeked out from behind the trunk. They all looked so pleased with themselves, she forgot her anger and laughed. A tree full of magpies. Pulling herself up, she straddled a thick branch.

“You did real well for your first time,” Andrew said, walking along a limb.

Angel gave him a mock frown. “You should be working with your father.”

“He gave me the day off. He wanted to take Mama out for a walk.”

Miriam laughed. “I told them
we’d
go for a walk instead.” She lowered her voice so only Angel could hear. “One of the disadvantages to having a one room cabin is the lack of privacy.” She leaned her head against the 327

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trunk. “When I get married, my husband and I are going to build a loft for the children, and we’re going to have a nice cozy bedroom next to the kitchen.”

“There’s Michael!” Ruthie pointed. The children shouted and whistled until he turned and looked up the hill. He strode toward them. When he reached the tree, he looked up, fists planted on his hips. “What’s this?” He saw Angel aloft and laughed. “You, too?”

“They tricked me,” she said with great dignity.

Miriam winked at her and called down to him. “You’re going to have to get her down. She’s stuck!”

Angel laughed when she saw Michael pull his boots off and start up.

When he was just beneath her, he slid his hand up her calf. “Shall I tie Ruthie’s rope around you and lower you away?” he asked, knowing perfectly well she could make it down on her own.

“This would make a great swing tree,” Leah said, climbing down next to him. “See that big fat branch? You could tie the rope right there.”

“Hmmm, good idea,” Michael said. He lowered Ruthie and sent Andrew to the tack room in the barn for rope. Climbing back up, he tied both ends around a sturdy branch and let the loop hang for a swing. “I’ll fix a seat for it later,” he said, dropping down.

The children squabbled excitedly over who would get the first turn, but Michael caught Angel and set her in it. “Hang on,” he told her before she could stop him, and he sent her flying. The exhilarating rush made her laugh. Michael gave her another push and then headed back to the field and his work.