Redeeming-Love-By-Francine-Rivers

R E D E E M I N G L O V E
San Francisco. Now, shall we go?”
He wasn’t giving her any choice. Angel hugged the trembling child closer.
“Close your eyes, sweetheart. We’ll get you out of here.” Or die trying.
Cherry stayed close to her side as Jonathan Axle led them out to center
stage. The music came to a discordant end, and the dancing girls came to a
confused stop. Angel looked around and saw the shocked expressions on
men’s faces. Duke was nowhere in the room. Neither was the man who had
guarded her. “Let’s go,” Axle said quietly, his hand a firm but gentle support
beneath her arm. She went down the steps into the middle of the room. The
men parted before her.
Many of the patrons were staring at Cherry, dressed and made up like a
fast woman though she was clearly still a child. Men moved back to open a
path before her. The child’s whimper seemed to fill the room.
The men began talking in low, stunned voices. Angel overheard some of
the remarks as she passed. “Why would he have a little one like that in a
place like this?”
Angel stopped and looked at him. “Why do you think?” she said softly,
grief-stricken, and saw the man’s mouth drop open in horrified comprehension.
Voices rose like a groundswell behind her, and she heard the violence in
them. The men wanted blood, but not hers. She came out into the night air
and let out her breath, not even aware she’d been holding it.
“This way,” Axle said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve no carriage. It’s several blocks.
Can you manage?”
Angel nodded and shifted the child’s weight. She followed him some distance
in silence before asking, “Where are you taking us?”
“To my house.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What for?”
“So my wife and daughter can see to your needs while I figure out what’s
to be done about that place. It should be burned, and that devil with it.”
She was embarrassed for her distrust, but she didn’t know anything
about this man for all his apparent sympathy. The fact that he was a banker
didn’t mean he had goodwill in mind. She had known bankers before.
The weight of the child seemed to increase with every step. Her muscles
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