Redeeming-Love-By-Francine-Rivers

F R A N C I N E R I V E R S
Miriam wasn’t finished. “I would never have come to you the way I did if
not for Amanda.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Her voice dropped. “I wouldn’t have had the courage.” She could see he
didn’t understand, and she couldn’t explain. Her throat was closed tight
with pain, and she just wanted to sit down and put her head in her hands.
Even if she could tell him, he would never listen. He was deaf to anything
that had to do with the goodness in Amanda.
Her face was crumpling like a hurt child’s, and he felt his insides twisting
tight in pain. “I love you,” he said hoarsely. “Miriam, I love you.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“Angel got between Michael and me. Don’t let her come between us,
too.”
“You put her there!”
“No, I didn’t,” he said fiercely. “Can’t you see what she does?” He wanted
to beg her to listen. He couldn’t bear the look on her face. “She’s broken
Michael,” he said, his voice cracking.
“Michael’s stronger now than he ever was.”
“That’s why he’s on his knees?”
“He’s fighting for her the only way he can.”
“Miriam, she got her hooks into him and then ripped him to pieces.”
“Are you really that blind? Michael’s the one who tore through all her
defenses. She loves him!”
“If that were the truth, wouldn’t she have stayed? Nothing could have
driven her away. But she didn’t stay, did she? She left him just like that.” He
snapped his fingers. “And here you are trying to tell me she has a heart.”
Miriam sat down heavily and looked up at her husband’s embittered face.
Had she really thought to save him by herself? What arrogance! He was further
from her now than if he had gone back to the mountains to look for
gold. All she knew was what she felt. “I love her, too, Paul, as much as any
one of my own flesh-and-blood sisters. Whatever you think of her, I know
her, and I’m going to pray every day of my life that she comes back.”
Paul slammed the door as he stormed out.
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