“Do you think I’m such a saint?” he said hoarsely. Only moments ago he had denied love and God himself and even longed to kill his own wife. What was the difference in murder by hand or thought? His fleshly nature had relished thoughts of retribution, even lusted for it.
He went down on his knees and held her shoulders. “I should have run all the way to Pair-a-Dice,” he said thickly. “I shouldn’t have waited for Paul to come home with his tail between his legs.”
She raised her head and looked him straight in the eyes, wanting to end it quickly, once and for all. “I gave him sex just to pay for the ride back.”
The pain of those words hit him hard, but he didn’t give up on her. Michael lifted her chin. “Look at me, Amanda. I’m never taking you back. Not ever. We belong together.”
“You’re a fool, Michael Hosea. A poor, blind fool.” She shivered violently.
Michael got up to get her a dry blanket. When he turned, her eyes were on him, and they were filled with fear. “What is it?” he said, frowning. “Do you think I mean to harm you?”
She closed her eyes tightly. “You want what I don’t have. I can’t love you. Even if I was able, I wouldn’t.”
He hunkered down, took the damp blanket from her and covered her with the dry quilt. “Why not?”
“Because I spent the first eight years of my life watching my mother do penance for loving a man.”
He tipped her chin. “The wrong man,” he said firmly. “I’m not the wrong man, Amanda.” He straightened and dug in his pocket. Kneeling down before her, he dug beneath the quilt and found her hand. He slipped his mother’s wedding ring back on her finger. “Just to keep it official.” He touched her cheek tenderly and smiled.
She hung her head and pulled her hand back beneath the heavy folds of wool. She clenched it against her breasts and felt every self-inflicted scratch and bruise, but far worse was the feeling blooming inside her.
The spark was becoming a fire.
Michael took a cloth and dried her hair. When he finished, he pulled her close and cradled her in his arms. “Flesh of my flesh,” he whispered against her hair. “Blood of my blood.”
Angel closed her eyes tightly. His desire for her would diminish with time. He would stop loving her the same way her father had stopped loving Mama. And if she let herself love Michael the way Mama had loved Alex Stafford, he would tear her heart out.
I don’t want to weep myself to sleep on a rumpled bed and drink my life away.
Michael felt her trembling. “I can’t send you away without cutting myself in half,” he said. “You’re already part of me.” He brushed his lips against her temple. “We’ll start over. We’ll put what’s happened behind us.”
“How can we? What’s done is done. It’s all inside me, carved in stone.”
“Then we’ll dig it out and bury it.”
She gave a bleak, humorless laugh. “You’ll have to bury me.”
His heart lightened. “All right,” he said. “We’ll baptize you.” Not just with water but with the Spirit, if she would ever allow it. He kissed her hair and held her. It was ironic how close he felt to her now, closer than he ever had before. He stroked her hair back. “I learned a long time ago we’ve control of little in this world, Amanda. It doesn’t belong to us. It’s out of our hands. Like being born or being sold into prostitution at eight. All we can change is the way we think and the way we live.”
She gave a shuddering sigh. “And you’ve made up your mind to keep me with you for a while.”
“Not for a while. Permanently. I’m hoping you’ll make up your mind to stay.” He caressed her skin tenderly. “Whatever anyone else has said and done to you, it’s up to you now to make the decision. You can decide to trust me.”
She searched his face uncertainly. “Just like that?”
“Yes. Just like that. One day at a time.”
She studied him for a moment, then nodded. Life had been too unbearable the other way not to try Michael’s.
Stroking her cheek with his thumb, he kissed her mouth. Her lips softened beneath his, and she clutched the front of his shirt. When he raised his mouth from hers, she rested her cheek against his chest. He felt her body relax completely into his.
Michael closed his eyes. Lord, forgive me. You said go to her, and I let pride stand in my way. You said she needed me, and I didn’t believe. You said love her, and I thought it would be easy. Help me. Open my heart and mind so that I will love her as you have loved me.
The fire crackled softly, and a steady warmth built within Michael as he held his young wife; and sometime within the space of a shuddering sigh, he ceased thinking of her as Angel—the harlot he loved and who had betrayed him—and saw her instead as the nameless child who had been broken and was still lost.
You are our letter… written not in ink,
but with the Spirit of the living God,
not on stone tablets, but on tablets of human hearts.
2 CORINTHIANS 3 : 2 – 3
Forgiveness was a foreign word. Grace inconceivable. Angel wanted to make up for what she had done, and she sought to do it by labor. Mama had never been forgiven, not even after a thousand Hail Marys and Our Fathers. So how could Angel be forgiven by a single word?
She worked to make it up to Michael. When she was finished with her own chores, she sought him out and asked for more to do. If he plowed, she walked behind him and pulled up the rocks, toting them to the stone wall growing between the fields. When he downed trees, she hacked off the branches with a hatchet, piled and tied them into bundles and stacked them inside the barn to dry for kindling. When he split wood, she stacked it. She even took up a shovel to help him dig up stumps.
He never asked her to do anything, so she looked for things to do for him.
By nightfall, she was exhausted but could not sit idle. Idleness made her feel guilty. Rather than pleasing him, she found he withdrew from her more each day. He was quiet, watchful, pensive. Was he already regretting his impulsiveness at bringing her back?
One evening, she struggled with her weariness as he read. His voice was deep and rich, and she drifted, exhausted, fighting to keep her eyes open. He closed the book and put it back on the mantel.
“You’re working too hard.”
She pushed herself up straighter and looked at the mending in her hands. Her hands were shaking. “I’m just not used to this kind of work yet.”
“You’ve enough to do without thinking you have to take on half of what I do as well. You’re dead on your feet.”
“I suppose I’m not very good company.”
When Michael put his hand on her shoulder, he felt her wince. “You ache all over from toting those rocks yesterday, and this morning you were shoveling manure from that stall.”
“I needed it for the garden.”
“Tell me and I’ll take care of it!”
“But you said the garden was my responsibility.”
There was no use in talking to her. She was set on doing penance. “I’m going to go out and walk awhile. Go on to bed.”
He went up to the hill and sat, forearms resting on his knees. “So what do I do now?” Nothing was the same as it had been. It was as though they both walked side by side, never touching, never talking. She had cut herself wide open and poured her insides out to him the night he brought her home. Now she lay bleeding to death and wouldn’t allow the healing to come. She hoped to please him by working like a slave when all he wanted was her love.
He raked a hand back through his hair and held his head. So, what do I do, Lord? What do I do?
Tend my lamb.
“How?” Michael said to the night sky.
Entering the cabin quietly, he saw she was asleep in the chair. He lifted her gently and put her to bed. She looked so young and vulnerable. How far was she removed from the child raped at eight? Not far enough. No wonder she had never seen sex as having anything to do with love. How could she? He knew he didn’t know the half of what she h
ad gone through. He knew the only one who could mend a ruptured soul was God, and she wanted no part of him.
How do I teach a hurt child to trust you when the only father she knew hated her and wanted her dead? How do I teach her the world isn’t all bad when the priest turned her mother away. Lord, she was sold into bondage to a man who sounds like Satan himself. How do I convince her there are good people in the world when everyone she has ever known used her and then condemned her for it?
Michael lifted a strand of her pale hair and rubbed it between his fingers. He hadn’t made love to her since bringing her home. He wanted to. His body yearned for her. But then he would remember her lifeless voice as she said, “Duke has a thing for little girls,” and his desire evaporated.
What was she thinking all those times we were together? Was I just like all the others, taking my pleasure at her expense?
She had always seemed so strong. And she was. Strong enough to take unspeakable abuse and survive. Strong enough to adapt to anything. Strong enough to lock herself away inside walls she thought would make her safe. What choice had she then? How could she even comprehend what he offered her now?
She was just a child, Lord. Why did you let it happen? Jesus, I don’t understand. Why? Aren’t you supposed to protect the weak and innocent? Why didn’t you protect her? Why didn’t you help her? Why?
How was Angel any different from Hosea’s wife, Gomer, sold to the prophet by her own father? A child of prostitution. An adulteress. Was Gomer ever redeemed by her husband’s love? God had redeemed Israel countless times. Christ had redeemed the world. But what about Gomer, Lord? What about Angel? What about my wife?
Tend my lamb.
You keep saying that, but I don’t know how. I don’t know what you mean. I’m not a prophet, Lord. I’m a simple farmer. I’m not up to the task you’ve set for me. My love hasn’t been enough. She’s still there in the pit, dying. I reach for her, but she won’t take my hand. She’ll kill herself trying to earn my love when it’s hers already.
Trust in me with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
I’m trying, Jesus. I’m trying.
Dejected, Michael sat down on the edge of the bed. Tessie’s skirt slid off and landed in a heap on the floor. He picked it up and looked at the threadbare fabric. Frowning, he tossed it back on the bed. He picked up the faded shirtwaist and looked at it. He rubbed it between his fingers. The first time he had come to Angel in her upstairs room, she had been in satin and lace. Now he dressed her in rags. Not even her own but those of his dead sister.
Not once had Amanda asked for anything to replace them, and he had been too caught up in his own bleak thoughts and labor to give time to it. Well, that was going to change. They weren’t so far away from Sacramento that they couldn’t make a trip to see Joseph, who would be well stocked with his merchant’s sharp mind on the coming influx of families.
Michael went to Paul and asked him to watch over the stock while he and Amanda were away. At the mention of her name, Paul paled. “You brought her back?”
“Yes. I brought her home.”
Paul fell silent, his face stiff, when Michael reminded him she was his wife. Paul agreed to take care of things.
“I’ll settle up with Joseph while we’re in Sacramento,” Michael said.
“Thanks just the same, but I’ll make my own arrangements.”
Michael hesitated, then nodded. He felt the rift between them growing wider. Paul and his insufferable, stiff-necked pride. Paul and his guilt.
Michael loaded the wagon with sacks of potatoes, boxes of onions, and crates of winter apples while Amanda stood in the barn doorway, hugging her shawl around her shoulders. She didn’t ask any questions.
“Paul’s going to watch the stock,” Michael said as he pulled the canvas top over the produce.
“I can do that. You didn’t need to ask him.”
“You’re going with me.” That clearly took her aback. He smiled. “Make some extra biscuits this evening. We’ll pack a couple cans of beans and be on our way in the morning.”
They left at sunrise. Amanda said very little on the way. They stopped for a noon meal and started off again, driving until dusk before Michael made camp a hundred yards off the road. It was cold, the sky clear. Amanda gathered wood while Michael dug a wide pit and pitched a lean-to over it. After they ate supper, he shoveled hot coals into the earthen hollow. He spread a layer of dirt over them, then pine bows and canvas before the blankets. Angel sank into the bed gratefully, her body aching from the bouncing wagon.
A coyote howled and she edged closer to Michael. He put his arm around her and she pressed against him, fitting him like a puzzle piece. He turned to her and kissed her, his fingers digging into her hair, but after a moment he withdrew and lay back staring up at the stars.
Angel moved away. “You don’t want me anymore, do you?”
He didn’t look at her as he spoke. “I want you too much. I just can’t stop thinking of what it must have been like for you as a child.”
“I should never have told you anything.”
He turned his head to her. “Why not? So I could keep on taking my pleasure and never understand the cost to you?”
“It doesn’t cost me anything, Michael. Not anymore.”
“Then why did I have to force you to say my name?”
She couldn’t answer that.
Michael turned toward her and tenderly caressed her face. “I want your love, Amanda. I want you to feel the pleasure I feel when I touch you. I want to please you as much as you’ve pleased me.”
“You always want too much.”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s just going to take time. It’s going to take us getting to know one another better. It’s going to take trust.”
Angel stared up at the star-studded sky. “I knew soiled doves who fell in love. It never worked.”
“Why not?”
“Because they became obsessive just like Mama and they were just as miserable.” Angel counted herself lucky she lacked the ability to love. She thought she did once, but it was only an illusion. Even Johnny had turned out to be only a means of escape.
“You’re not a prostitute anymore, Amanda. You’re my wife.” Michael smiled ruefully and toyed with a tendril of blonde hair. “You can love me as much as you want and feel safe.”
Falling in love meant you lost control of your emotions and your will and your life. It meant you lost yourself. And Angel couldn’t risk that, even with this man.
“What do you feel when I touch you?” he asked, running a fingertip down her cheek.
She looked at him. “What do you want me to feel?”
“Forget what I want. What goes on inside you?”
She knew he would wait until she answered, and she knew he would know if she lied. “I don’t really feel anything, I guess.”
Frowning, he kept touching her face. He loved the feel of her soft, smooth skin. “When I touch you, my whole body comes alive. I feel the warmth all through me. I can’t even describe how wonderful it feels when we make love.”
She looked away again. Did he have to talk about it?
“We’ve got to find a way to help you like it just as much as I do,” he said, and lay back beside her again.
“Does it matter that much? Why should it matter at all whether I feel anything or not?”
“It matters to me. The pleasure is meant to be shared.” Michael put his arm around her. “Come here. Just let me hold you.”
She turned to nestle her head against his shoulder and relaxed. She put her arm across his broad chest. He was so warm and solid. “I don’t know why it bothers you,” she said. It never bothered anyone else what she thought or felt, just as long as she did what she was supposed to do.
“It bothers me because I love you.”
Maybe he just didn’t understand the facts of life. Maybe he was functioning under some illusion. “Women aren’t supposed to really enjoy sex, Michael. It’s all
an act.”
“Did someone tell you that?”
“A few.”
“A man or woman?”
“Both.”
“Well, I know that’s not the way the Lord intended it to be.”
She laughed derisively. “God? You’re so naive. Sex is the great original sin. He threw Adam and Eve right out of the Garden because of it.”
So she did know something about the Bible. Probably from her mother. And she had her theology twisted. “Sex had nothing to do with why they were cast out. Eve’s sin was trying to be God. That’s why she wanted the apple, so she would know all and be like the Lord. She was deceived. Adam was weak and went along with what she said rather than follow what God had told him.”
Angel drew away slightly and stared up again. She wished she hadn’t brought up the subject. “Whatever you say. You’re the expert.”
He smiled. “I studied the Scripture before we were together that first time.”
She glanced at him in surprise. “Your Bible told you what to do?”
He laughed. “Knowing what to do wasn’t the problem. It was the how I worried about. Song of Solomon told me a man and woman’s passion is intended to be mutual.” His smile dissolved and he looked troubled. “A shared blessing.”
Angel moved out of his embrace and looked up at the stars. It made her uncomfortable when he started talking about God. The great I AM hovering and watching her. Mama said God could see everything, even when the lantern was extinguished, even when you were in bed with someone. She said God even knew what you were thinking. The great “spy in the sky,” eavesdropping on her every thought.
Angel shivered. The vast darkness of the night sky frightened her. Every sound seemed amplified and ominous. There really wasn’t anyone up there, was there? It was all in Mama’s head. It was all in Michael’s.
Wasn’t it?
“You’re shaking. Are you cold?”
“I’m not used to sleeping in the open.”