Daughter of Joy (8 page)

“You don’t need a college degree to teach in the mission Thomas wishes to set up, once you and he arrive out West.” As if explaining this to a child, her father smiled benignly. “You don’t need a college degree to teach the children you will have with him. And surely there will be opportunities aplenty to teach your friends and neighbors, wherever you live, college degree or no. All that truly matters, in the end, is serving the Lord.”

But it wasn’t the way
she
wished to serve Him, Abby had thought that autumn day now over seven years ago. Neither her father nor Thomas, though, had ever considered, much less asked, what she wanted when it came to serving God. Indeed, they hadn’t ever seen the need to. They’d always imagined they knew what she needed far better than she.

With a bitter, resolute shake of her head, Abby forced herself back to the present. Her gaze focused on Conor MacKay’s handsome face and slammed into the lustful, predatory gleam in his eyes.

Resentment, followed swiftly by rage, swelled, engulfing her earlier fear. Never again, she vowed silently, glaring back at him. Never again would she allow a man to control her, use her, and expect her to deny her own selfhood.

With a strength fueled by her anger, Abby jerked free and struggled to her feet. “I want nothing from you, Mr. MacKay,” she cried, hoarse with emotion but wildly defiant. “Nothing except to be treated with respect and allowed the freedom to live as I believe. I’m sorry that you interpret every overture by a woman, however honest, as some pretense to seduce you. But that is your problem, Mr. MacKay, not mine.”

“So am I to take this little tirade as a sign then, that you’re rejecting my offer?”

Abby gaped at him. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The sheer arrogance of the man! No wonder he couldn’t keep a housekeeper for long.

In a dizzying rush, exhaustion suddenly overwhelmed her. This was too much to deal with, especially tonight. “I think, Mr. MacKay”—Abby gave a weary sigh and shake of her head—“it’s best you leave. I’m too tired, and you’ve been drinking. Neither of us is clear-headed enough to settle this right now.”

With a fluid contraction and relaxation of powerful muscles, the big rancher rose. This time, Abby stepped back.

“I may have been drinking,” he said, his voice gone low and intense, “but I’m most certainly not drunk. I never get drunk. Just don’t imagine for a minute that we’re done with this issue of God.”

Conor MacKay slipped past her and headed for the door. He halted when he reached it. “We’re far from done, Mrs. Stanton,” he said, his voice dropping to nearly a whisper, as he glanced over his shoulder at her, “if, after tonight, you’ve even the stomach left to stay.”

Abby spent a restless night, tossing and turning, her thoughts harking back to Conor MacKay’s visit. He had issued an incontrovertible challenge when he’d demanded that she not speak of God in his house. That agreement had at first seemed easy to uphold. But now Abby wasn’t so certain she could fulfill her part of the bargain. The love of the Lord and His service was her life. Though she thought she could refrain from openly proselytizing in the MacKay household, Abby didn’t know how she could keep from ever speaking about God.

Still, if those were Conor MacKay’s terms, then those were his terms. She must either abide by them, or leave.

But to leave … Abby turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling. What purpose would that serve? There would always be difficulties to overcome, compromises to be made, no matter where she went. Abby realized that this was part and parcel of life.

As difficult as it would be to work for the MacKays, she sensed there was a need, a hunger here, and it was a need and hunger that equaled her own. In their own way, Conor and Beth weren’t so very different from her. Perhaps she could, as Ella had said, be of some help to them just because she, too, had been through such terrible pain, confusion, and loneliness. And perhaps, just perhaps, they could also help her.

Abby rolled over, punched her pillow back into shape, then clasped it to her. Conor MacKay had been unsettling enough before this awful visit. Tonight he had also become a threat. Somehow he had turned predator, and she had become his prey.

Thank the Lord he appeared to be a man who could hold his liquor. Though he seemed not to think too highly of women, he still possessed some shred of honor. Otherwise … Abby shivered and squeezed her pillow even tighter.

While she didn’t want to admit it, something new was beginning to surface in her. Ever so slowly through the night, thoughts of him as a man nudged their way into her consiousness. She was strangely, inexplicably drawn to Conor MacKay. He angered and frustrated her, yet she found herself wanting to reach out, to hold him, to ease the anguish burning deep in his eyes. She wanted to make him laugh, smile. And, bewildering as it was to contemplate, Abby also wanted him to touch her, hold her, kiss her.

When it came to Conor MacKay, she was beginning to realize she was like a moth drawn to a flame.

But a moth could singe its wings by hovering too close to such scorching power. Indeed, the fire that attracted could well destroy … separating her from all she held dear.

In the end, that was what she feared most about Conor MacKay—and why she fought so hard against his strictures regarding the Lord. Shoving up in bed, she pressed her pillow to her. Her heart racing with a trip hammer beat, she faced the awful truth.

Conor MacKay was temptation personified. She was drawn so strongly, so forcefully to him that she might well endanger her immortal soul if she followed where he led.

It had never been his demands that she cease speaking of God in his house, Abby realized with a sudden, piercing insight. She could carry the Lord in her heart no matter where she went or with whom she spoke. She could live with Conor MacKay’s strictures, however unreasonable she found them to be. He could never separate her from the Lord with but a few rules.

But there
was
the danger of him separating her from her faith, if she permitted this attraction to him to overshadow her adherence to the Lord’s ways. Conor MacKay’s sordid past had obviously robbed him of any moral conscience, and a man without a moral conscience might stoop to anything. Wasn’t she, by allowing this attraction for him to persist, turning her back on her own morals and conscience?

She must have a care, Abby decided. He was a lost soul, a man seemingly bereft of hope or happiness. Whether he intended to or not, he had the power to pull her down with him into that pit of godless despair.

That was the reason she might eventually have to leave, if a reason must someday be given. But it was not a reason to give just yet. The Lord had wished for her to accept this housekeeping position. She must do her very best to carry out those wishes until her work here was done. Besides, if Culdee Creek’s owner could agree to maintain a respectful, platonic relationship from here on out, then this temptation might easily be faced and overcome.

She was in no mood, however, to be belittled and treated like a child ever again. But then, the doubts crept anew into her heart. She’d already failed twice before, first in trying to convince her father, then Thomas. Neither had ever seen her as an individual with her own thoughts and goals. To them she’d always been some dear possession who needed to be cared for.

Abby greatly feared that it wouldn’t be any easier to convince Conor MacKay to the contrary, than it had been them.

With a strange mixture of dread and anticipation at seeing Abigail Stanton again, Conor came down the stairs the next morning. After what had transpired between them last night, he’d lain awake for several hours wondering what her reaction to him would be this morning. Most likely, Conor told himself, it would be one of revulsion. Most likely, she’d also promptly tender him her resignation.

It would be a new record for him, having a housekeeper quit after just one day of work. If it had been any of the others, he could have laughed it off, then been the first one to carry her bags to the buckboard. But this resignation would somehow be a loss. He had not been fair, and Conor prided himself, if in nothing else, in being fair.

There was just something about the little brownhaired widow that scared him. She was pretty enough, and nicely rounded in all the right places, but he had seen prettier women. Besides, her prim and proper bearing should have been more than enough to send him running in the opposite direction.

No, Conor decided as he drew up in the hallway outside the kitchen to finish buttoning his shirt cuffs and buckling his belt. Though his attraction to Abigail Stanton lacked logic, it was not the source of his fear. The satisfaction of his physical needs frequently lacked much logic, and he liked it that way. If his head wasn’t involved, neither was his heart.

No, this had more to do with her religious obsession. She was a feisty, obstinate woman. If last night was any indication, she apparently wasn’t one to give up on something she believed in. That trait, in itself, was admirable. But when it was focused on God …

He didn’t like God. If the truth were told, Conor hated Him. She’d struck closer to the mark than she realized, when she had mentioned the inconsistency of his unbelief. Conor knew, as well as she, his rabid insistence that no words be spoken of a being he didn’t even believe in made little sense.

It especially made little sense, when he
did
believe in God. He couldn’t help but believe …

Tugged along against his will, Conor’s thoughts drifted back to a time now long ago, when he was eight. It had been a warm September day, and he and his mother had decided to take his religious lessons outside, where they’d sat in the shade of a tall cottonwood tree that grew beside their house. Between bites of a freshly picked plum, Conor had endeavored to answer his mother’s questions regarding the Ten Commandments.

“Now, Conor, lad,” Margaret MacKay had said, “tell me. What is the first commandment?”

After swallowing the last bite of plum, Conor had paused to pitch the pit as far down the hill as he could. “The first commandment,” he replied, “is ‘I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’”

“And what is commanded by the first commandment, laddie?”

Conor pursed his lips and furrowed his brow in thought. “I guess, Mama, that it means we must see God as the one, true God and love Him with our whole heart.”

Margaret nodded in approval. “And what of our fellow man? He was created to glorify God forever in heaven. Should we not love our fellow man as well?”

“If you say so, Mama.”

“If ye say so?”
Horror threading his voice, Robbie MacKay stalked over from where he’d been tying up his horse. He came to stand before his son, his hands balled, his shoulders rigid. “There’s no guessing or saying so,” he snarled. “Ye either know yer catechism, or ye don’t. Now which is it?”

A cold chill ran through Conor. His father had been drinking again—he could smell the whiskey on his breath—and had that mean look about him. He didn’t like his father much when he’d been drinking.

“Robbie, don’t loom over the boy so,” Margaret pleaded, her face taking on a thin, pinched expression. “He’ll surely forget all that he’s learned if you—”

“He either knows it, or he doesn’t!” Her husband leaned down and grabbed Conor by the front of his shirt, lifting him to his feet. “Now, which is it, boy?” He gave Conor a shake. “Should we not love our fellow man as well?”

“Y-yes, Pa,” Conor whispered. “We should love our fellow man. And that is why we must, out of love for God, love and help our neighbor. And when he has done wrong to us, we must forgive him and not render evil for evil.”

His father’s eyes bored into him. For a panic-stricken moment, Conor thought he’d spoken wrong. Then, with a grunt, Robbie MacKay released him. Conor fell backward, losing his balance, and plummeted to the ground. Immediately, he picked himself up, but averted his gaze from his father.

“Just see that ye hold that impertinent tongue of yers from here on out,” Robbie said, his voice beginning to slur. “And mind yer catechism, and mind it well, or I’ll take ye out behind the woodshed and beat it into ye.”