The Redemption of Micah Read online

  The Redemption of Micah

  The Redemption of Micah

  BETH WILLIAMSON

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  December 1872, Plum Creek, Colorado

  The moon hung low in the winter sky, a strange yellowish orange color. Micah stared at it through the window of Eppie’s bedroom, wishing the nightmare would end.

  The last five months had been hell on earth and he’d endured it, as he endured everything else in his life. There wasn’t another choice to be made.

  “You need to come down to supper.” Orion stood in the doorway, his stooped figure casting a shadow across the silent room.

  Micah turned to him, thankful to have the older man in the house to help out. In fact, there was an overabundance of help around the house. No one wanted to leave him alone again.

  “Be there shortly.”

  Orion appeared not to believe him. He stepped into the room shaking his head, the tight white curls nearly glowing in the moonlight. “Sitting up here brooding isn’t going to help Miss Eppie. She’s surviving and so is the babe.”

  Micah wanted to snarl, scream and shout at the old man to shut up. He knew exactly what Eppie and their unborn child were doing, every second of every day. He didn’t need a reminder.

  “Surviving isn’t living.” He pushed away from the window. “But since you won’t leave me be, I’ll come downstairs and eat.”

  “That’d be a good thing.” Orion nodded. “Miss Candice brought by some right tasty vittles.”

  Micah wondered how he’d ever stumbled across people who would give without expecting something in return. Candice had been friends with Madeline Brewster, the woman who had gifted the house to him and helped with Eppie’s medical care. Although Madeline now lived in Denver with her husband, others had taken on what she started. Candice now helped with the cooking while Orion helped with the house.

  Any man would be grateful for such assistance.

  Micah, however, wasn’t just any man.

  He leaned down and kissed Eppie’s forehead, the skin cool from winter’s chill. Then he pressed his ear to her burgeoning stomach, and was rewarded with a kick to his ear. The baby was strong, like its mother.

  “I’ll be back soon, darlin’.” He squeezed Eppie’s hand and forced himself to walk away from the bed.

  As Micah followed Orion out of the room and down the stairs, he barely saw anything but the other man’s back. Life was colorless, meaningless without Eppie there beside him. God had seen fit to make her sleep like that princess in the book he’d seen once in Denver. She was sleeping away her life while he endured his.

  The smell of beef filled the kitchen and Micah dutifully sat down to eat. Orion frowned at him across the table.

  “You know, for a man who has a nice house, a beautiful woman, and everything he could want, you are pitiful.”

  Micah had to smile at the old man’s honesty. Once upon a time, when he’d first come to live there, Orion had acted like the former slave he was. Quiet, reserved, and quick to obey. Now however, free from the yoke the Websters had forced on his neck, Orion had discovered how to use his voice and wield his opinions.

  “I know. I’m the most pitiful man in Colorado. Now eat.” Micah shoveled the meat and potatoes into his mouth, never tasting a bite. He should have been grateful, as Orion said, but he wasn’t. Instead, he felt cheated, resentful, and angry, a perfect combination for misery.

  “You plan on drinking your way to the grave?” Orion frowned, a potato halfway to his mouth.

  “None of your business, old man.” Micah pushed away from the table, unable to eat another bite.

  Orion stopped him with a hand on his arm. “She wouldn’t want you to do this.”

  Micah knew a lot of things about Eppie, more than most folks could even imagine he knew. However, Orion was right. She would blister his ears if she saw him wallowing, but he couldn’t seem to do anything else.

  “But she’s not here to stop me, is she?” he snapped. “I’m done eating.”

  Micah stalked away from the kitchen, heading for the parlor. He had an appointment with a bottle and intended to keep it. Keeping watch over his woman was a hard business and a man had to do what he needed to do to survive.

  Much later, he made his way up the stairs, mostly on his hands and knees. The house was eerily silent, Orion long since retired to his room at the end of the hall. Micah crept into Eppie’s room, her scent immediately calming him.

  He wiped his sweaty face and runny nose with a sleeve. This time when he pressed his ear to her stomach, he didn’t get a playful kick from the baby. Her belly was hard, harder than a block of wood.

  In his inebriated state, Micah didn’t know what it meant, but he figured it couldn’t be good. When he put his hand on her belly, it came away wet. He stared at his hand and wondered if he’d forgotten to put the pisspot beneath her.

  However, his hand didn’t smell like piss at all. It had a unique odor, one mixed with blood and something else. In his limited experience as a man, he hadn’t had much occasion to be around women who were expecting a child.

  It might have been the whiskey, or it might have been the lack of sleep over the last six months that made him slow to catch on. In either case, he stared at his hand in befuddlement for several minutes. The truth finally slammed into him like a brick wall.

  Eppie was going to have the baby. Right then.

  Micah almost blacked out for a moment as panic raced through him. When he finally was able to get hold of his senses, he poked his head out of the room and started shouting for help. He couldn’t lose Eppie this time; she had survived for so long, had nurtured the baby and stayed as healthy as any woman would be in her situation. Birthing a child was as old as mankind. There was no reason to think she couldn’t do it.

  Of course, most women weren’t in a coma when they gave birth. Micah’s heart beat so hard, he could barely catch his breath. Orion poked his head in the room.

  “What’s all the racket?”

  “The baby’s coming. Go wake Doctor Carmichael.” Micah sat beside Eppie and decided to pray for the first time in a long time. He’d ignored God for years, never trusting Him to help when needed. However, he was willing to try anything.

  He fell to his knees beside the bed and pressed his closed hands to his forehead, a penitent pose.

  Save her, save the baby.

  Chapter One

  August 1875, Plum Creek, Colorado

  The shovel dug deep into the loamy soil as Micah did his best to fix the mess left by the stupid dog. He shouldn’t have kept it in the first place, but the damn puppy had been happily living in the carriage house before he even knew about it. Damn that Candice, anyway; she shouldn’t have brought it.

  Apparently he couldn’t say no anymore.

  The breeze cooled his face and for just a moment or two, Micah simply concentrated on his task while the buzz of bees on the flowers surrounded him. He hadn’t worked with his hands much growing up. The only things they ever touched were food, women and his horse’s reins. God, how things had changed since he’d been a young fool, eager to
fight in a war they were supposed to win in six months.

  “Good evening.” Candice, Plum Creek’s shopkeeper and Micah’s self-appointed guardian, arrived every weekday afternoon at five to help with supper and anything else that needed doing. She was a forty-something spinster who had shown nothing but kindness, except of course for the puppy incident.

  “Evenin’, Candice.” He spotted the basket under her arm. “Don’t tell me you brought another pie.”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you.” She looked up at the house. “Any change?”

  Micah closed his eyes for a moment and pictured Eppie as she lay on the bed upstairs. He hadn’t given up hope, not completely, anyway, but each day grew harder and he often considered what his life would have been like if Eppie had died after being shot, or after she’d gone into labor. A maudlin thought, but Micah never considered himself to be a good person. Taking care of the woman he loved while she slowly wasted away was the hardest thing he’d ever done, and that was saying a lot.

  If anything ever did happen, Candice should know he would have been shouting or screaming, yet she asked every day like clockwork. He wanted to tell her to stop asking, but didn’t know how without hurting her feelings, and he’d done enough of hurting others for two lifetimes.

  “No change, other than the damn dog digging holes again.” He kicked at a clump of dirt. “Stupid mutt thinks she’s part groundhog.”

  Candice sat on the steps and shook her head. “She’s a bit feisty, I’ll admit.”

  Micah snorted. “Feisty isn’t the word and you know it. She’s taken over the house like some kind of canine queen.”

  “Oh, admit it, you like Daisy.” Candice raised her eyebrows at him expectantly.

  “I’m not admitting anything.” Truth was, Micah liked the dog’s spirit, but that didn’t mean he actually liked the dog.

  “Hmph, I don’t think you need to.” With a tinkling laugh, the redhead stood and walked toward the front door. “I’ll fetch you when supper’s almost ready.”

  A black-hearted soul such as Micah never wanted to be beholden to anyone for anything, yet here he was, each day digging himself a little deeper into a hole. If Madeline were there instead of in Denver, she’d likely smack him upside the head and tell him to snap out of it. Fortunately or not, she wasn’t there and he continued to wallow in his self-pity.

  “Daddy, pick flowers for Mama?”

  Micah glanced up to see his daughter, Miracle, standing in the flower bed surrounded by blossoms, with a big grin on her beautiful face. His dark thoughts blew away on the wind. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be in there, but the girl loved the feel of the petals on her bare legs. Even her dresses were always in the bright colors of the blossoms that surrounded the house. She couldn’t know her mother used to dress the same way, always brighter than anything around her.

  “I did it this morning, but if you don’t stop walking in those, there won’t be any left to pick.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief. “And if Daisy doesn’t stop digging in the flower beds, we’re going to have to tie her up.”

  Miracle had been blessed with wavy dark brown hair, her mother’s chocolate brown eyes, and the most gorgeous light cocoa skin. The mixture of her two parents gave Miracle an exotic look that made most folks look at her twice. Micah wasn’t boastful when he said his daughter was perfect—she was.

  Miracle pooched out her lip. “Daisy’s a good dog.”

  He turned to the flowers again, unwilling to get sucked into his daughter’s trap to save her dog from a leash. “Yes, she’s a good dog.” A blatant lie—she was the spawn of the devil as far as Micah was concerned. “But puppies need to behave, honey. She’s not going to learn if we don’t teach her.”

  When he glanced up again, Miracle’s little body was just disappearing around the back of the house. No doubt to go whisper into the yellow dog’s ear about how much trouble she caused.

  Being a father had taught Micah a great deal of humility, but he was still working on patience. Although she’d never heard her mother speak, Miracle already had the sassy, bossy quality that always popped out of Eppie’s mouth.

  “That child needs two proper parents.” The Reverend Mathias’s voice cut through Micah’s peaceful moment like a sickle. The pompous windbag made it his duty to preach to everyone about their sins, shortcomings, and how readily they were headed to hell.

  Micah almost snorted at the thought. He’d been in hell for more than ten years. The older man had no idea how much a human being could endure on Earth. Enough so that Micah didn’t even think about the hereafter.

  “She has two parents.” Micah slammed the shovel into the dirt, unwilling to get into another shouting match with the minister. “What do you want?”

  “Tomorrow is Sunday. I wanted to come by and personally invite you to services tomorrow.” The man bobbed his white-topped head and latched his hands across the burgeoning belly above his belt.

  Micah’s hand tightened on the shovel. He’d accepted the invitation once. Just once. He’d never do it again. The women in town had treated his daughter as if she had a disease that was catching. No way in hell he’d subject Miracle to it again.

  “Until your congregation treats my daughter as a human being, there’s no chance in hell we’ll come to services.” Micah went back to his chores, pointedly ignoring the minister and his judgmental gaze.

  “Mark my words, boy, you’ll be looking for a Savior and he won’t be there when you need him.” With that, the man walked away, thankfully leaving Micah in peace.

  Two hours later, Micah sat in the parlor and listened to the sounds from the bathing room upstairs. Miracle was singing at the top of her lungs while Candice hummed along. There were splashing, giggles and fun going on, yet he didn’t join them. He couldn’t.

  He ran his hands down his face and looked around at the opulent furniture left behind when Madeline moved to Denver. The room reminded him of his mother’s house and how they’d lived their lives in oblivious ignorance, taking whatever they wanted without ever giving back.

  Perhaps having Eppie but losing her inch by inch was his penance for such a childhood. Or perhaps it was punishment for his other multitudinous sins. No matter, it was his life and he’d come to accept it, but he couldn’t enjoy it. Miracle was everything sweet and good in his life, and he treasured her beyond words. Just thinking about her soft hugs made his throat tighten.

  God, he loved that little girl more than life.

  With a sigh, he stood and headed toward the stairs. Each night he sat with Miracle as she visited her Mama before bed. Her childish voice would detail every second of her day to an unresponsive Eppie. One day, perhaps, it would be more than a one-sided conversation.

  Micah knew exactly how many breaths Eppie took each hour. He watched the rise and fall of her chest, waiting and hoping. The hell of it was, he wasn’t sure what he was hoping for. Micah wasn’t ready to let her go, but seeing her trapped between two worlds was killing him. He missed her, he loved her, and dammit all, he wanted to see her open her eyes again.

  It had been a true-blue miracle the baby survived the trauma to its mother’s body; even more amazing was that the child was born healthy and perfect. When she was pregnant, watching Eppie had become a habit because he could watch his child. Their child. The baby made from a love that shouldn’t be, but was. Miracle had been active, sometimes for hours at a time. During that six-month period, Micah never got tired of sitting by Eppie’s bedside and watching, placing his hand on her belly, telling them both he loved them.

  Micah wanted so many things, but what burned down deep in his gut was the fact he wanted to convince Eppie to marry him and he wanted to tell her he loved her. He’d been hesitant of revealing his feelings before, afraid of being rejected, of losing what he could have.

  Regret was something he knew well, ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day. It brought him nothing but misery, yet it was still his constant companion.

&nb
sp; He entered Eppie’s bedroom and was immediately awash in her scent, that unique smell that always made his heart beat faster. A gas lamp burned on the side table, bathing her in a golden glow. Just being in the room with her made him feel better.

  She still looked beautiful, even if she’d survived for nearly three years on broth, milk and water. Micah knew every inch of her body from the adorably crooked little toe to the sweet spot behind her right ear. He ran his fingers down her cocoa-colored cheek, the skin as smooth as her daughter’s.

  “Hey there, Eppie girl.” He sat down in his usual chair and put her hand in his. Squeezing the limp fingers, he started talking of Daisy and Miracle’s antics. “That crazy dog actually came back and started digging when I was fixing the damn hole. Miracle wasn’t happy about tying her up, but she did it anyway. She’s a good girl.”

  “Who’s a good girl?”

  Eppie’s voice, long since unheard, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  “Jesus Christ.” He jumped out of the chair, knocking it backwards a good three feet. Micah looked down into the eyes of the woman who held his heart. “Eppie?”

  She blinked and glanced down at herself, then back at him. “Why am I lying in bed? Have I been ill?”

  “Are you really talking to me, honey?” His heart slammed into his throat as it pounded so hard, even his bones vibrated. “Eppie, oh my God, tell me I’m not dreaming.”

  “I’m not sure who you are or why you’re in the bedroom with me, but I’m fairly sure you shouldn’t be calling me honey.” Eppie cocked her head and narrowed her gaze. “Who are you?”

  Chapter Two

  She had come into awareness slowly over a long period of time. The sounds and smells around her had become familiar as she surfaced from the depths of darkness. His voice had always been there, a soft gentle companion she’d come to expect and wish for.