Beloved Counterfeit (36 page)

Silence.

Then the gravity of the situation hit her. Not only had she lost her husband to lies, but she’d compounded that loss by her shrewish behavior.

“I’m sorry.” She backed up and rammed her elbow into the door frame. “Come home, Micah.”

When he ignored her, she decided to take desperate measures. “Micah,” she said softly. “Please.” As she said the word, Ruby knelt then molded herself to her husband’s back. Snaking her arm around his waist, she began to pray. After a moment, she said softly, “I wanted to be carrying your child by now.”

Three months of marriage had not been enough to teach her the ways of her husband’s mind, but she’d learned a bit about how to reach his heart. Unfortunately, he slipped from her grasp and stormed outside to stand on the deck.

Dignity did not allow her to follow quickly, but she did follow. “The girls have asked about you,” she said when she spied his profile at the far end of the dock. “And Tess? She says you’re a hero.”

His shoulder’s slumped, and she could tell her words had hit their target. “Please reconsider what you’re doing, Micah,” Ruby said.

“Go home,” was his only response.

“My home is with my husband.”

Micah turned to stare. “I’m not altogether certain you still have a husband, Ruby.” He paused. “Or perhaps I should call you Claire.”

“Please,” fell from her lips in a last-ditch plea, but her husband ignored her.

“All right,” she said, “I’m going home, but you said vows before God that makes the bed where I sleep your bed, too. You can do this all you want, but nothing will change the vow you made.”

“I am not unaware of this.”

“Yes, well.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a quick gasp. “And while I’m on the topic, Micah—or should I call you
Reverend
Tate—I would have you think about exactly what you would tell one of your parishioners should he come to you having been told something like this. Would you tell him to leave the wife and children he promised God to care for and go hide out on a boat somewhere? Would you tell him to judge his wife then cast her aside?”

His eyes flashed with what appeared to be anger. “That is unfair.”

“As is this situation you’ve forced me into, Husband. I took you to the beach the day before we wed and tried to tell you everything. I showed you who I was, and you danced in the waves with me.” She swiped at the traitorous tears now coursing down her face. “I tried to tell you, Micah. I’m not stupid. I know the story is a difficult one. And yes, I am at fault for leaving out details I should have told you. Details I was ashamed of.”

Nothing.

“Micah?”

He showed her his back.

“So that’s how it will be? How dare you cause me to fall in love with you, then reject me for my honesty?”

Again nothing but the splash of her tears.

“Very well, then.” Ruby turned away, resisting the urge to look back over her shoulder to see if any of her words had penetrated Micah’s hard head. With each step she took away from her husband, she prayed he would come after her.

He didn’t.

Her footsteps echoed in the silent and deserted streets, and her heart hurt. This was not the return she’d expected, but then, her husband had not given the response she’d expected, either.

What happened to forgiveness?

She wanted to cry out, to shout the question, but awakening the citizens of Fairweather Key to let them know the man chosen as their next pastor did not practice what he preached seemed wrong. Satisfying, yes. But still wrong.

A second set of footsteps joined her, and Ruby stopped to glance over her shoulder. “Just an echo,” she whispered as she resumed walking.

Ruby passed the door to Viola’s home and slowed, hoping to see lamplight in the upper windows. They were dark, so she picked up her pace.

Ahead she saw the church and its parsonage, also bathed in darkness. The moon, hidden behind clouds that portended rain before morning, offered little light to lead the now-familiar way.

Something moved behind her, and she whirled around to find she still stood alone. She turned toward home, comforted by the fact that one scream would likely bring a dozen people running. The downside to this knowledge was that she would then have to explain why she was skulking about at that hour.

And why her husband was neither with her nor at home.

“Lord, I thought You honored the truth,” she whispered. “The Bible says the truth will set me free.”

Feeling foolish for speaking aloud, she once again glanced over her shoulder to be sure she hadn’t an audience. “The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.”

Ruby relaxed at the memory of the verse she and Micah had read together what seemed like just this morning. In truth, it had been the morning of the day he left. Surely God had known she would need to be reminded.

The city fell behind her as Ruby began her walk up the hill to the boardinghouse. “I trust You, Lord,” she whispered, though she felt an urgent need to hurry home.

“Don’t be silly,” she admonished herself as she left the main road for the footpath through the mango grove that was her favorite shortcut. “There’s nothing out here that can hurt me.”

“Don’t be so sure, sweet Claire.”

Jean Luc.

She opened her mouth to scream and bit into something that tasted as foul as it smelled. Her hands went behind her, captured into something that bit into her wrists and pained her shoulders.

Her mind began to reel, searching through the choices she had for convincing the man she knew too well to release her. First he would have to see her eyes. Indeed, he’d rarely been able to resist her once she set her mind to it, so a look at her face would do the trick.

Ruby began to relax. In a moment this would be over and Jean Luc would be on his way.

Without warning, her feet left the ground as the horizon tilted. “Be still,” the smuggler hissed against her ear. “I did not travel alone tonight.”

The statement gave her pause, though Ruby continued to tick through the ways she might be released. Whichever underling Jean Luc had brought would likely pose no less threat than the Frenchman.

Ruby froze. Men were assigned to the boardinghouse when Micah was not in residence. This had become his habit since their marriage. One member of the militia on guard in the front, and another of Micah’s men in the back.

Rescue was within reach. The knowledge gave her reason to fight. First she attempted a kick, which only landed in midair. Then Ruby yanked against the bonds on her wrists, and Jean Luc slapped her. A cry of outrage was impossible, and she felt tears roll over her stinging skin. Ruby arched her back, determined to cause her captor to let her go.

Instead, he bundled her like so much baggage through the mango trees and down a path he seemed to be creating himself. Likely with a militia member trailing a safe distance behind.

“Be still,” he said in a tone that was almost soothing. “If you are harmed, it will not be at my hands.”

She relaxed a notch. Surely her rescuer would arrive soon.

The thought carried her all the way to the beach, where Jean Luc dropped her into a small skiff then inexplicably stepped back to push her out alone into the surf. As the tiny vessel took float, she searched the narrow expanse of beach for the militia who surely must be standing at the ready by now.

Nary a torch pierced the darkness, nor did she see any sign of those who had sworn to protect the key.
That doesn’t mean they’re not there. Hiding. Waiting. Looking for the best opportunity to free me.

Above all, she wondered,
Where is Micah?

Yet she knew. Her husband, the man who had vowed to keep her safe, vowed never to fail her, was likely asleep on a pillow made from a wrinkled jacket and a healthy dose of self-pity.

The skiff bumped against something, jarring her from her thoughts. A chuckle. Low. Deep.

Familiar.

“Hello, Ruby Red.”

Chapter 42

How dare you cause me to fall in love with you, then reject me for my honesty?

Ruby’s question soaked through Micah’s skin and settled into his bones as he tried once again to sleep. He could blame the sleeplessness on poor planning and a lack of decent bunk space, but the truth of it was the lumpy mattress on which he lay was stuffed with pure, stubborn pride.

Micah rolled to his back, then forced his eyes to shut. Dawn would come eventually, and with it another day. A vessel passed in the dark, the waves lapping against the hull and rocking him in a way that once was so familiar. How had he, an avowed sailor, become so hopelessly landlocked?

Yet now his life had moved from the ocean to a house on the hill. He looked in that direction now, his view obscured by poor light and a few ill-placed palm trees. When he stood, however, and looked beyond the palms, he could see a light still burned in the room where he’d last laid his head and slept comfortably.

All the ugly secrets his wife had hidden came tumbling out like stones in a wall forever wedged between them.
“How dare you cause me to fall in love with you, then reject me for my honesty?”

Again Ruby’s question haunted him. Or was she Claire? He’d lost the ability to know.

“Nobody told me about Jesus.”

Micah sank back onto the deck and leaned against the rail. Her statement was like a punch in the gut. What excuse did he offer for judging her unfit to be his wife? He exhaled slowly.

“Nobody told me about Jesus.”

He pounded his fist against the wood.

“But I can’t trust her, Lord,” he said, fully aware of how foolish he’d look should anyone catch him speaking aloud to God. “She’s lied to me. Left out important things. Done who knows what? She’s—”

Your wife, and no less imperfect than you.

Micah scrubbed his face with his palms. God’s truth hurt more than Ruby’s truth. Indeed, he’d failed. Not in the same way as Ruby, yet did the Lord use some sliding scale to weigh one’s sins? Had one of his parishioners come to him with the question, he would have said no.

Why then, now, did he wish desperately the answer was yes?

Stepping into his boots, Micah made short work of returning home to the boardinghouse. There he found his wife gone and the girls sleeping soundly.

Thomas Hawkins’s girls, he corrected. Yet the thought did not hold the sting it had before. He went back into their bedchamber and slipped into bed to await his wife’s return.

Of all the nights to be without a militia guard
,
he thought as he rolled over onto his back. Had he a man stationed around, he might have some idea of where his wife had gone.

“I remember enough about my criminal days to know how to disappear.”

Micah shrugged away the thought.
That was then; this is now
.
His wife was indeed a new creature in Christ, and he’d been an idiot to forget that.

At least he could be reasonably sure she was safe, given the fact that neither smugglers nor Indians had dared show themselves at Fairweather Key. Still, he found that sleep evaded him, so Micah finally made his way downstairs to wait for Ruby on the porch.

* * *

Ruby gagged as Jean Luc stuffed the putrid cloth into her mouth. While her eyes pleaded with her former protector, her heart knew she’d lost all hope the moment Micah slammed his fist into the Frenchman’s face.

The cabin was small, tiny by Tommy’s standards, yet the lamp overhead illuminated only a small circle of weak light. A glint of silver caught her attention, and Ruby saw the knife in Tommy’s hand.

“You’ll likely not believe me, but I am sorry it’s come to this.” A moment of silence. “Leave us,” Tommy said as he moved into the lamplight.

A slam of the door. The creaking of wood. Footsteps as Tommy moved toward her.

Ruby stared at his eyes and tried to think of how they were blue like Tess’s. She saw fair hair that belonged to all three girls and a tall stature that both Carol and Maggie would likely inherit.

Seeing these things kept her from thinking of what might happen next.

“My girls,” he said. “I want them back.”

She froze. Had the gag not been in place, she might have told him to kill her now, for he’d never find them. He sheathed the knife and removed her gag. His expression told her he’d release her in a heartbeat if she’d only give him what he wanted: his daughters.

Indeed, before her stood Tommy, the man who’d saved her more than once.

“I know you have them,” he said, “though Rabelais was unsure as to where you’ve hid them.”

Ruby let out the breath she’d been holding. At least Jean Luc had been faithful to protect her in that.

For that she gave thanks.

“They’re all I have left of her, Ruby Red,” he said, though she didn’t believe for a minute that he wanted them as some memento of time spent with Opal.

“You’re a fool to bring me here,” she said. “My husband and his men will have your hides.”

Tommy laughed as he rested his palm on the knife’s handle. “Not before I have yours.” He leaned close, placing his knuckle against her jaw. “One more chance,” he said. “Tell me where my girls are.”

Ruby looked him in the eyes and said nothing.

“All right, pigeon,” he said. “I always did think you were the more interesting O’Connor sister.” His knuckle traced a path down her jaw and around to grasp the back of her neck. As Tommy drew her forward, she remained still. “Last chance.” Closer still. “I want them back.”

Again she met his stare. “Never,” she said.

“I’m almost disappointed.” He wrenched her toward him and stuffed the gag back into her mouth.

Tommy’s hands spanned her waist to lift her up, and for a moment she thought he might release her. “Don’t worry, Ruby Red,” he said as he tossed her like a rag doll onto the bunk then removed the knife and set it aside. “I’ll not use this on you tonight.” Tommy moved closer, and by degrees, she realized his intentions. “Because I want this night to be our little secret. Just something you think of when you think you might want to lie to me about where my girls are.”