“Mara, that’s the life I want to give you.”
The morning sunlight was so bright it hurt her eyes, blinding her more than the darkness ever had. She felt his lips against her hair. “That’s what I’m offering you.” His breath was warm against her skin. “I want to fill your life with color and warmth. I want to fill it with light.” He put his arms around her and held her back against him. “Give me a chance.”
Angel felt a heaviness building inside her. He had pretty words for her, but words weren’t life. Life wasn’t that simple, that straightforward. It was tangled and twisted, writhing from birth. She couldn’t erase the last ten years, or even the eight before Rab had led her through the streets to the brothel and left her there for Duke to ruin forever. It had started long before that.
She was guilty of being born.
Her own father had wanted her cut out of her mother’s womb and thrown away like garbage. Her own father. And Mama would have done it had she known she would lose him over her small defiance. All those years of endless weeping had told Angel that.
No, not a hundred dawns like this, not even a thousand, would change what was. The truth was there forever, just like Duke said in the dream. You can’t get away from it. No matter how hard you try, you can’t escape the truth.
Her mouth curved into a sad smile, and her soul ached. Maybe this man was all he seemed. Maybe he meant every word he said, but she knew something he didn’t. It was never going to be the way he wanted it. It just couldn’t happen. He was a dreamer. He wanted the impossible from her. Dawn would come for him, too, and he would awaken.
Angel didn’t want to be anywhere around when he did.
Even if you persuade me, you won’t persuade me.
ARISTOPHANES
Michael felt the change in Angel after that night, but it was not a change that made him happy. She retreated and held her distance. Though her bruises were gone and her ribs healed, she was still walking wounded. She wouldn’t let him get close. She regained the weight she had lost after Magowan’s vicious beating. She grew physically strong, but Michael sensed a deeper vulnerability in her. He gave her work to give her purpose, and the brothel and cabin pallor disappeared. Yet no life shone in her eyes.
Most men would have been satisfied to have such a malleable, hardworking wife. Michael was not. He had not married her to have a drudge. He wanted a woman as part of his life—part of himself.
Every night was a trial. He lay beside her and breathed in the scent of her until his head swam. She made it clear he could use her body whenever and however he wished. She looked at him every night as she took off her clothes. The question in her eyes made his mouth go dry, but he didn’t give in. He waited, praying for her heart to soften.
Her nightmares continued unabated. She often awakened shaking, her body drenched with perspiration. In the aftermath, she wouldn’t even let him touch her. Only after she went back to sleep could he ease his arms around her and tuck her close. She would relax then, and he knew that on some deeper level she knew she was safe with him.
It was small satisfaction when the natural needs of his body were driving him harder the longer they were together. His mind would create pictures of them making love as it was written in Song of Solomon. He would almost feel her arms around him and taste her honeyed kisses. Then he would come out of the daydream and feel more frustrated and bereft than ever.
Oh, he could have her now if he wanted. She would be accommodating. She would be expert. And he would know, all the while he poured his hope into her, that she was counting the beams in the ceiling or the chores for the next day or anything else that kept her from him. She wouldn’t look into his eyes or care that he was dying inside for love of her.
The memory was set in Michael’s mind: Angel sitting on the end of the bed at the Palace, swinging her foot back and forth like a pendulum. It would be just the same now if he gave in to his physical desire. It would be Angel, not Mara, just waiting for him to finish so she could consign him to oblivion with all the other men who had ever used her body.
God, what do I do? I’m going crazy. You’re expecting too much of me. Or am I expecting too much from her?
The answer remained the same: Wait.
More than anything, Michael was consumed with the need to hear her say his name. Just once, Jesus. God, please. Just once. Michael! An acknowledgment of his existence. Most of the time, she looked right through him. He wanted to be more than someone walking on the periphery of her soul, someone she was convinced would step on her and use her. Love to Angel was a foul four-letter word.
How am I supposed to teach her what love really is when my own instincts are getting in the way? Lord, what am I doing wrong? She’s more distant now than she was in Pair-a-Dice.
Have patience, beloved.
Michael’s frustrations built, and he started thinking about his father, who had claimed every woman wanted to be dominated.
Michael hadn’t believed it then, and he didn’t believe it now; but he almost wished he could. Believing that lie would make his life with Angel easier. Every time she looked through him, he thought about his father. Every time she moved close to him in sleep, he knew what his father would say about his self-imposed celibacy.
He heard another voice, dark and powerful and as old as time.
When are you going to act like a man? Go ahead and take her. Why are you holding back? Take her. She belongs to you, doesn’t she? Act like a man. Enjoy her body if you can’t get anything else from her. What are you waiting for?
Michael wrestled with the voice in his head. He didn’t want to hear it at all, but it was there, pushing and pushing at him whenever he was most vulnerable.
Even when he was on his knees in prayer, he could hear it taunting him.
Angel grew restless with time. Something was at work inside her, something slow and insidious and threatening. She liked life in this little cabin. She felt comfortable and safe, except for Michael Hosea. She didn’t like the emotions he was beginning to rouse in her, the feelings nibbling at her resolve. She didn’t like that he didn’t fit any mold she knew; that he kept his word; that he didn’t use her; that he treated her differently from any way she had ever been treated before.
He was never angry when she made mistakes. He complimented and encouraged her. He shared his own mishaps with a sense of humor that made her less annoyed with her own incompetence. He gave her hope that she could learn, and pride when she did. She could build a fire now. She could cook a meal. She could identify edible plants from weeds. She was even beginning to listen to the stories he read each evening, not that she believed a single one of them.
The sooner I get away from him, the better.
She had unfinished business to take care of back in Pair-a-Dice. Besides, she could have her own little cabin just like this one when she had her share of the gold she had earned. And she wouldn’t have to live with any man.
Angel mentally tabulated how much time and money Hosea had spent nursing her back to health and training her for independence. She intended to repay him every hour and ounce before she left.
She took care of his garden. She cooked, swept, washed, ironed, and mended. When he mucked out a stable, she found a shovel to help. When he chopped firewood for the winter, she filled her arms and made neat stacks against the barn.
By the time four months had passed, her skin was brown, her back strong, and her hands rough. She looked in the shiny tin again and saw that her face was back to normal. Even her nose had healed straight. It was time to start making plans to go back.
“Do you suppose those vegetables I’ve been tending for you would be worth a sack of gold back in Pair-a-Dice?” she asked him one evening over supper.
“Probably more.” Michael looked up. “We’ll have enough to buy a couple head of cattle.”
She nodded, unduly pleased at the thought. Maybe he would buy a cow, and they would have milk. Maybe he would teach her how to make cheese. Angel frowned. What wa
s she thinking? What did it matter to her if he bought a dozen cows? She had to go back and set things right in Pair-a-Dice. She lowered her eyes and ate slowly. The day was coming when she could take off his mother’s ring and forget all about him.
Angel washed the dishes and ironed while Michael read the Bible aloud. She didn’t listen as she pushed the sadiron around until it was cold and useless. She put it back on the grill. She had lived here with this man for months. She had worked like a slave; she’d never worked this hard back at the Palace. She looked at her hands. Her nails were broken and short, and she had calluses. What would the Duchess have to say about that? She picked up the sadiron again.
She tried to make plans, but her mind wandered to the garden, to the baby birds in a nest outside the bedroom window, to the deep, quiet serenity in Michael Hosea’s voice as he read. What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel this heaviness inside again? I thought it was gone.
It won’t be gone until you go back to Pair-a-Dice and get what the Duchess owes you.
Yes, that must be it. Until she went back to Pair-a-Dice, everything would be left hanging. The old harridan had cheated her. Angel couldn’t let her get away with it.
Besides, Angel reasoned, she ought to be relieved that her time with this farmer was over. But she wasn’t. She felt the same way she had the night she had watched him ride out of Pair-a-Dice, like a hole had been punched in her and her life was running out, not in a rush, but in a slow red trickle staining the dirt at her feet.
You have to go back, Angel. You must. You’ll never be free if you don’t. You’re going to get your money. There will be a lot of it, and you will be free. You can always build another cabin like this one, and it will be all yours. You won’t have to share it with a man who expects too much from you. He expects what you don’t even have, what you never had. Besides, he’s crazy praying to a god who doesn’t exist or care and reading a book of myths like it was the answer to everything.
She worried her lip as she worked. She put the sadiron back on the grill to heat up again. “When are we going back to Pair-a-Dice for supplies?” Thirty miles was a long walk.
Michael stopped reading. He looked up at her. “I’m not going back to Pair-a-Dice.”
“Not at all? But why? I thought you sold your produce to that Jew on Main Street.”
“Joseph. His name is Joseph Hochschild. And, yes, I did. I decided it’s better not to go back. He knows. There are other places. Marysville. Sacramento—”
“You ought to go back and get your money at least.”
“What money?”
“The gold you paid for me.”
His mouth tightened. “That doesn’t matter to me.”
She looked at him. “It ought to matter. Don’t you care that you were cheated?” She went back to ironing.
Michael watched her and realized she wanted to go back. Even after all this time with him, she was hankering after her life in Pair-a-Dice. His body grew hot and tense. She went on ironing as though nothing were wrong, seemingly blind to his feelings. He wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her.
Does she have any, Lord? Does she? God, haven’t I touched her at all? Have I worked her too hard? Or is she just bored with this quiet kind of life? Jesus, what do I do? Chain her like a dog?
He thought of something to keep her mind off Pair-a-Dice for a while. It was a mean, low trick, but the result would keep her on the homestead for a couple more weeks. Maybe she would come to her senses by then.
“I’ve got a job for you to do tomorrow,” he said. “If you’re willing.”
She had been thinking about leaving tomorrow; but it was a long walk, and she didn’t even know which road to take. She doubted he would point her in the right direction. What was she supposed to do? Ask his god? “What is it?” she said tersely.
“There’s a black walnut tree in the meadow. The nuts have fallen. I’d like you to go ahead and pick them up. I’ve got a gunnysack in the barn. You can dump them in the yard to dry.”
“Fine,” she said. “Whatever you want.”
He clenched his teeth. Back to that again. Whatever you want. If she said one more word he was going to put his father’s theory to the test. “I’m going to check the stock.” He went outside to cool off.
He stalked off toward the corral. “How do I get through to this woman?” he said between his teeth. “What do you want from me? Was I just supposed to bring her back and give her time to heal and rest before she went back? Whose will is at work here?”
He couldn’t seem to hear the still small voice anymore.
That night, he was worse off than ever. He almost followed the desires of his body rather than his heart and mind, but he knew what was expected. He got up and went down to the creek. The cold water helped, but it was no cure for what ailed him.
Why are you doing this to me, Lord? Why did you give me this bullheaded, maddening girl? She’s turning me inside out.
Angel knew when he left the bed. She wondered where he was going. She missed his warmth. When he came back, she pretended to be asleep, but rather than get back into bed with her, he sat in the willow chair before the fire. What was he brooding about? Cattle? His crops?
He was asleep in the chair when she got up in the morning. Angel shrugged off his old shirt and gathered her clothing. When she turned slightly and saw him staring at her, she knew what was wrong. She had seen that look on men’s faces often enough to know what it meant. Was that all that ailed him? Well, why hadn’t he said so?
She straightened, lowering her arms slowly so he could look at her. She gave him her old smile.
A muscle jerked in his cheek. He stood, took his hat from the hook by the door, and went out.
She frowned, perplexed.
Angel prepared his breakfast and waited for him to come in. When he did, he ate without so much as a word. She had never seen him in such a foul mood before. He looked at her darkly. “Have you decided whether you’re going to pick those nuts?”
Her brows flickered up. “I’ll pick them. I didn’t know you were in such a hurry.” She scraped her chair back and went out to the barn for the gunny-sack. It took several hours to fill it. She dragged her load back and dumped the nuts. She shook out the sack, proud of her work.
Michael was splitting logs. Pausing, he wiped his brow with the back of his hand and nodded toward the heap. “Is that all?”
Her smile evaporated. “Isn’t this enough?”
“I thought there’d be more.”
She stiffened. “You mean you want all of them?”
“Yes.”
Tight-lipped, she went back. “Maybe he’s part squirrel,” she muttered under her breath. Maybe he figured on selling them along with the vegetables and smoked venison. Stubborn and angry, she kept at it right through the noon meal. Let him fix something to eat for himself. If he wants nuts, he’s going to get nuts.
It was near dusk when she dumped the last sack in the barn. Her back was a mass of pain. “I sniffed all through the leaves and couldn’t find anymore,” she told him. She longed for a long, hot soak, but the thought of toting one bucket of water made her give up that idea.
He smiled. “We’ve got enough there to share with neighbors.”
Share? “I didn’t know we had any neighbors,” she said angrily, pulling a wayward strand of blonde hair out of her mouth. She hadn’t done all this work for a bunch of strangers. Let them pick their own nuts.
What do you care, Angel? You’re not going to be here.
“I’m going to wash up and fix supper,” she said and headed for the creek.
“Do that,” Michael said. He grinned and jabbed the pitchfork into the hay again. He started to whistle.
Half an hour later, Mara stormed back. “Look at this!” She held her hands for him to see her blackened palms and fingers. “I’ve used soap. I’ve used grease. I’ve even rubbed with sand. How do you get this stuff off?”
“It’s the dye from the hulls.”
; “You mean they’re going to stay like this?”
“For a couple of weeks.”
Her blue eyes narrowed. “Did you know this would happen?”
He smiled slightly and pitched hay into a stall.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Michael leaned on the pitchfork. “You didn’t ask.” Her stained hands balled into fists and her face filled with angry color. She didn’t look indifferent or aloof anymore. He added fuel to the fire already blazing. “The nuts still have to be peeled and dried before we can sack them again. Then you and I’ll have all winter long to crack ‘em.”
He saw the heat coming into her face; she was ready to explode. “You did it on purpose!”
His own temper was just beneath the surface, so he held his silence.
“How am I supposed to go back now with my hands looking like this?” She could just hear the Duchess laughing at her dung-colored hands. She could just imagine the remarks.
Michael’s mouth curved wryly. “You know, Mara, if you were really that set on going back to Pair-a-Dice, you’d have been on your way weeks ago.”
She blushed, which only added to her fury. She hadn’t blushed in years. “Why this?” she demanded hotly. “You got your money’s worth out of me!”
He heaved the pitchfork into the haystack. “I haven’t gotten anything from you yet, lady. Nothing worth anything.”
Fury made a red haze before her eyes. “Maybe you’re just not man enough to take it the usual way!” She swung around and started out of the barn, calling him a foul name under her breath.
Michael’s own temper erupted. He caught up with her and swung her around. “Don’t mutter it under your breath, Mara. Come on! Say it to my face. Let’s get your real feelings for me out in the open.”
She yanked free of him. She screamed names up at him. She knew plenty. She saw his anger and jerked her chin up, daring him. “Go ahead and hit me. Maybe it’ll make you a man!”