Redeeming-Love-By-Francine-Rivers

F R A N C I N E R I V E R S
“We know one another as well as we’re going to.”
The day grew so warm and pure that Miriam laid out blankets for a picnic.
Angel saw Michael and Paul talking. Her stomach tightened as she
thought of the horrible things Paul could gleefully relate to Michael about
her cold-blooded behavior on the road. The grotesqueness of it nauseated
her. How would Paul see what had happened between them? As a straightforward
business proposition? a wanton act without feeling? No wonder he
saw only black foulness inside her, the leprosy of her soul. She had shown
him nothing else.
She watched Michael covertly, hungering for his glance in her direction
just to show things were all right, but he was intent on what Paul was saying.
She tried to calm her heart. Michael had seen her in a worse place than
Paul could imagine, and still he took her back. Even after she deserted and
betrayed him, he fought for her. She would never understand him. She had
thought men like him were weak, but Michael wasn’t. He was quiet and
steady, unyielding, like a rock. How could he still look at her with anything
but loathing after all she had done? How could he love her?
Maybe the reality of Angel hadn’t caught up with him yet. When it did,
he would look at her the same way Paul did. What he saw now was clouded
by his own fantasy of a woman redeemable.
But it’s all a lie. I’m just playing another role. Someday the dreamer will awaken,
and life will fall back into the old pattern again.
As she talked and worked with Miriam, she pretended nothing bothered
her. The dark inner silence grew, familiar and heavy, weighing her down
inside. She shored up the cracks in her walls and girded herself for the coming
attack. Yet every time she looked at Michael, she weakened.
But the past kept catching up with her, no matter how far she ran.
Sometimes she felt as though she were on a road and could hear the hard
beat of the horses’ hooves coming, as though a coach were coming straight
at her but she couldn’t get out of the way. In her mind she could see it racing
toward her, and within it were Duke, Sally, Lucky, Duchess, and Magowan.
And there on the high driver’s seat were Alex Stafford and Mama.
And they were all going to run her down.
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