24.12.2023 Views

Redeeming-Love-By-Francine-Rivers

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

R E D E E M I N G L O V E

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.

Searching frantically she found soap and ran for the creek. Stripping off

her clothing and heedlessly casting it aside, she waded in. The icy air and

water bit her flesh, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was to be clean, to

wash it all away, everything from as far back as she could remember.

Maybe right to the very moment of her conception.

202

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!