Redeeming-Love-By-Francine-Rivers

R E D E E M I N G L O V E
Elizabeth and John returned. Angel saw the way John touched his wife
tenderly and noted how Elizabeth blushed. Angel had seen that same look
on other men’s faces, but they hadn’t smiled into her eyes just that way. With
her, it had been business.
The cabin was overcrowded, and she went out into the field of mustard
flowers to sit down. She wanted to empty her mind. She wanted the anguish
to go away. Ruthie joined her. The mustard weeds were taller than she, and
Ruthie thought it a great adventure to make paths in the golden forest. Angel
watched her dropping blossoms and chasing a white butterfly. Her heart
squeezed tight and small.
Tonight, she and Michael would walk away, and that would be the end of
it. She wouldn’t see Ruthie anymore. Or Miriam. Or Elizabeth. Or the others.
She hugged her knees tightly against her chest. She wished Ruthie
would come back and want to be held. She wanted to cover her sweet face
with kisses; but the child wouldn’t understand, and she couldn’t explain.
Ruth did come back, eyes bright with childish excitement. She plopped
down beside Angel. “Did you see, Mandy? The first butterfly.”
“Yes, darling.” She touched her silky dark hair.
Ruth gazed up at her with wide, sparkling brown eyes. “Did you know
they come from worms? Miriam told me.”
She smiled. “Is that so?”
“Some are fuzzy and pretty, but they don’t taste good,” Ruth said. “I ate
one when I was little. It was awful.”
Angel laughed and lifted Ruth to her lap. She tickled Ruthie’s tummy.
“Well, then, I don’t suppose you’ll eat another one, will you, little mouse?”
Ruth giggled and bounced up again to pick more mustard flowers. She
tugged one plant up by the roots. “Now that we have a cabin, are you and
Michael going to come live with us?”
“No, sweetheart.”
Ruth looked at her in surprise. “Why not? Don’t you want to?”
“Because now we each have cabins of our own.”
Ruth came back and stood in front of her. “What’s the matter, Mandy?
Don’t you feel good?”
Angel touched her baby-soft hair. “I feel fine.”
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