Redeeming-Love-By-Francine-Rivers

R E D E E M I N G L O V E
“Oh, she’ll live. And don’t look down your nose at me! I know Angel.
She’ll live. And he can’t have her for nothing. I can tell you something else.
She brought this on herself. The little witch knew exactly what she was
doing. She pushed Bret over the edge. She’s been nothing but trouble since
the day I picked her up out of the mud in San Francisco.”
“You can have your gold,” came the voice that had pulled her from the
darkness. But now it was hard. Angry. Had she done something wrong
again? “But get out of here before I do something I’ll regret.”
The door slammed. Pain exploded in Angel’s head, and she groaned. She
could hear two men talking. One of them spoke to her. “I want to marry you
before we leave together.”
Marry her? She gave a whimpering laugh.
Someone took her hand. She thought it was Lucky at first, but Lucky’s
hand was soft and small. This one was large and hard, the skin rough with
calluses. “Just say yes.”
She would agree to wed Satan himself if it would get her out of the
Palace. “Why not?” she managed.
She drifted on a sea of pain and quiet voices. The room was full of them.
Lucky was there, and Doc, and the other man whose voice was so familiar,
but she still couldn’t place it. She felt someone slip a ring on her finger. Her
head was raised gently, and she was given something bitter to drink.
Lucky took her hand. “They’re rigging his wagon so he can take you
home with him. You’ll sleep all the way with the laudanum you drank. You
won’t feel nothing.” She felt Lucky touch her hair. “You’re a regular married
lady now, Angel. He had a wedding ring on a chain around his neck. He
said it belonged to his mother. His mother, Angel. He put his mother’s wedding
ring on your finger. Can you hear me, honey?”
Angel wanted to ask who she had married, but what did it matter? The
pain gradually receded. She was so tired. Maybe she would die after all. It
would all be over then.
She heard the clink of a bottle against a glass. Lucky was drinking again.
Angel could hear her crying. She squeezed Lucky’s hand weakly. Lucky
squeezed back and sobbed softly. “Angel.” She stroked her hair. “What’d you
say to make Bret do this to you? Did you want him to kill you? Is life really
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