Redeeming-Love-By-Francine-Rivers

F R A N C I N E R I V E R S
field. His heart jumped. Her younger sister Leah was with her this time. He
pulled his shirt on and buttoned it while waiting for them to reach him and
tell him what they wanted.
“Mama sent me,” Miriam said apologetically. Her eyes barely touched his.
She held out the basket she was carrying.
“Thanks,” he said roughly, taking it. His hand lightly brushed hers, and
her eyes came up. “She needn’t have bothered,” he said.
“Oh, it was Miriam’s idea,” Leah said, mortifying her older sister further.
“Hush, Leah,” Miriam said, blushing. She took her sister’s hand. “We’d
better go. Enjoy your dinner, Paul.”
Paul watched the gentle sway of her hips. I’ve got no right to be feeling this
way about a girl like her. “Tell your mother I’ll bring the basket over.”
“No hurry,” Miriam called back. “I’ll come get it tomorrow.”
That was exactly what he didn’t want her to do. He would ride over at
first light and leave the basket at their door. He put it down and brought up
another bucket of cold water. Dousing his face, he cooled himself down. He
was in bad shape when just looking at a pretty, sixteen-year-old girl made
him feel this way. He ought to ride to the nearest camp and stop in at the
local brothel. The very idea sickened him.
He took Miriam’s basket into the cabin. The grate was cold. He lit a fire
and ate. He was feeling the same emptiness he had when Tessie died. Those
first months without her had been bad, but he had had the struggle to survive
the Sierras to occupy his mind. When he and Michael reached this
land, he poured himself into building the cabin. Then the grief had struck
hard. The fierce pain of loss had been too much. He couldn’t look out at the
fields of wildflowers without thinking about how much Tessie would have
loved it. Their own land in California had been a shared dream. It was
empty and meaningless without her.
When the gold rush hit, he was ready to leave. In the beginning, he had
lost himself in the excitement of working the streams, the chance of getting
rich just beyond his reach. The excitement quickly wore off. Life narrowed
down again to dawn-to-dusk labor. All he made was enough for food and a
day in town to get drunk and go to a brothel. Even while taking his pleasure,
he couldn’t rid himself of the pointlessness of his life—and the shame
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