The Redemption of Micah Page 17

  Eppie took a deep breath. “I am. There are so many thoughts in my head, I don’t know which one to pay attention to first.”

  “Start with the first one,” he said simply. “Nothing you can do will be wrong.”

  “If only that were true.” She searched for the right words. “When I first woke up from the coma, I was so frightened, I felt as if I’d been adrift in an ocean and could hardly swim. You scared me more than anything.”

  He looked shocked and hurt. “I scared you?”

  “Maybe scared is the wrong word. I knew you but I didn’t. Your voice was familiar, and so were you, but there was this blackness I couldn’t see through. I pushed you away because I didn’t know what to do.” She took a deep breath and willed away the shaking in her belly. “I felt as if I were no one, with no past, no future, nothing but that room.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m so—”

  “Please just let me talk. I don’t think I’m going to get it out right if you interrupt me.”

  He nodded and locked his gaze with hers.

  “There was too much to absorb, to accept and to understand. You hovered over me so much I pulled farther away. And then, something magical happened.” She managed a small smile, even as her courage grew stronger. “I went to the river and discovered our spot. My body and heart recognized you even as my head kept saying no. Eventually I allowed my heart to override my head, and before I could tell you, you were gone.”

  “I’m sorry.” His quiet apology made her pause.

  “I think I know why you left, but it was so important to me that I find you. I forced Teague and Madeline to help me, so please don’t be angry with them.” Eppie took his hand in hers. “I am Elizabeth Archer, but in my heart I’m Eppie, and I’m in love with you.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, they shone with moisture. His throat worked even as he opened and closed his mouth. It was important they were completely honest with each other.

  “Whatever happens, I wanted you to know that. I think I offended Dr. Lawson, and likely will never remember my life before the coma. I’m a bit stubborn, headstrong and forgetful.” She chuckled at her own attempt at levity. “I have fallen in love with Miracle and I want to build a life with both of you.”

  Micah held up one hand and Eppie waited for him to catch his breath. In a few moments, he blew out a breath and met her gaze.

  “I’ve spent the last few years hoping I’d see you open your eyes again, and when you did, I reminded myself to be happy even if you didn’t remember me. Then when you came into my arms—God, I couldn’t believe how amazing it was. I could only pray you would be there again. And you were.” His smile was so bright it made her smile in return. “I waited so long to tell you I love you, I can hardly believe it’s finally now.”

  Eppie’s heart leapt with joy. “It’s now, with the help of some guardian angels looking out for us.”

  He rubbed a hand down his face. “I feel like I’m dreaming, darlin’, and I hope like hell I’m not going to wake up soon.” What sounded like a sob burst from his throat. “Irony is something I never expected to come full circle. I don’t deserve this, but that doesn’t mean I won’t grab on to it with both hands.”

  Eppie slid down to the floor and knelt beside him, more than concerned about Micah. “Everyone deserves love, a chance at happiness.”

  His laugh sent a chill up her spine and a coil of dread settled in her belly. “I am the last person on earth who deserves love or happiness. I’ve done so many things to put my ass straight in hell, I deserve nothing but misery and eternal damnation.”

  The most frightening thing about his speech was she could see in his eyes that he meant every word of it. Micah firmly believed that not only was he damned but there was no force that could change his fate. Eppie vowed to prove him wrong, come hell or high water. She almost laughed at the image, considering it was the high water that had brought them to the cabin in the first place.

  “Tell me,” she commanded softly.

  “I can’t. You see, if I let them out, I might not get them back in.” Ancient dark shadows lurked behind his gaze, so sharp and deadly, Eppie wanted to move away.

  But she didn’t. Instead she took his cold hands in hers and settled at his side.

  “Tell me.” This time she was more forceful, determined to ferret out what haunted the man she had come to love.

  He blew out a long sigh. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “Start where you grew up. If you told me any stories, I’ve forgotten them.” She smiled. “I’m like a sieve that way.”

  Her silly joke made the corner of his mouth kick up. “I grew up in Virginia on a big tobacco plantation. My grandfather had been a bastard who knew how to make money on the backs of others, and I gladly sat up there with him, eating, drinking and whoring from the time I was sixteen.”

  She wanted to say something about a sixteen-year-old whoring, but kept quiet, silently urging him to continue.

  “I had four good friends from similar backgrounds, and we spent our time doing whatever we felt like. I never worked a day in my life those wonder years, never had to even lift a finger to dress myself.” He shook his head. “Shallow, empty-headed son of a bitch. If you had known me back then, you would have hated me.”

  The self-hate was evident in everything from his posture to his tone, but Eppie didn’t succumb to it. She squeezed his hand, giving him the encouragement of her love.

  “When the war began, I was just twenty-one, so stupid and foolish, I assumed I’d be given a command and be home within a month, perhaps two. It gave us an excuse to go to Maryland and find new whores to play with.” He clenched her hands so hard, the bones smashed up against each other. “I didn’t know, you see, how wrong I was about everything, about life and how much I deserved. I was put in an infantry unit beside gap-toothed morons who likely were born from years of careful inbreeding.”

  In that moment, Eppie heard the spoiled Virginia plantation owner, the man who Micah hated, but who also lurked beneath the surface of the twisted soul he’d become.

  “I was muddy, cold, tired and miserable every second of every day. I complained mercilessly until the captain threatened to hang me if I didn’t shut up. He whipped me in front of the squad, in front of the regiment’s major. My friends turned their backs and pretended not to know me.” His body heated as he spoke, and Eppie felt perspiration gathering on his skin. “From then on I was a ruthless soldier, killing without thought or remorse, anything to release the rage and frustration at where I was. My bloodletting caught the attention of a lieutenant in the regiment and he promoted me to sergeant and gave me my own squad to command.” His smile set off the warning bells in her head to run.

  Eppie stayed put and swallowed the fear. This was who Micah was, and she had to love all of him, even his secrets.

  “My squad became known as the Red Grays because of all the kills we claimed during raids and battles. I remember one boy who was so afraid he shit his pants right before he killed his first man. From then on, he had the same bloodlust I did. That boy died a week before the war ended by his own hand.” He looked up into Eppie’s eyes and the ghosts of the war were clearly writhing in his memories. “I was left without a squad, without a friend, and without even a goddamn pair of shoes. After four years of killing, I didn’t remember much else. They sent me home and when I got there”—he swallowed so hard she heard the gulp—“I wanted to go back to the war.”

  He stood up so fast, Eppie fell forward, narrowly missing the bed frame. Micah paced the cabin like a mountain lion, naked and glistening with sweat. He was a great beast, caged by his memories.

  “My father was dead, as was my eldest sister. My mother and younger sister were still alive, and they’d turned themselves into whores. I found my b-best friend Edward fucking my mother for fifty cents a toss, on what was left of her marriage bed. He’d been the first to turn his back on me, yet there he was getting his dick serviced by my
goddamn mother.” He finally stopped and leaned his hands against the wall, pressing his forehead into the rough-hewn boards. “I don’t remember much except blood, and my sister Sarah screaming and pulling me away.”

  The silence in the cabin crackled louder than the dying fire. Eppie wanted to ask what happened, but knew if she spoke, the moment would shatter into a thousand pieces, and perhaps Micah with it.

  “I killed Edward, cut off his head and his dick. My mother was covered in blood and naked when she picked up the sword and sliced my face open.”

  Eppie couldn’t contain the gasp that flew from her mouth. His mother had been the one to give him the terrible scar. The war had completely destroyed who Micah had been, everything he had, and his future. She couldn’t imagine a worse fate than going from having everything to having less than nothing.

  “I might have killed her if it hadn’t been for Sarah. She stopped me, but not before I’d punched my mother into unconsciousness. Sarah sewed me up with a needle and thread from the kitchen and left the house. For nearly six months I wandered west, surviving sometimes on air and self-pity for days on end.” He patted the wall in front of him. “I built this cabin with all the fear, the anger, and the misery I’d been carrying around for almost five years. Even then there was so much more left inside me.”

  He turned to look at her and she could see him trembling. “I never thought I’d find love, that I’d find you, Eppie. I’m afraid now that you know who I am, I’ve lost you.” Micah slipped on his damp clothes as he spoke. “I am a monster, but I don’t want to hurt you, ever. You can walk out of this cabin and you’ll never be bothered again.” After yanking on his boots, he walked toward the door and paused with his hand on the knob. “I love you.”

  As soon as the door closed behind him, Eppie wept, the tears coming from deep down inside her. She cried for Micah and for herself. He might have done terrible things, but without them, he wouldn’t be the man she fell in love with. Did that make it right? She couldn’t answer that question without tumbling into the blackness that swirled around him.

  Micah was a different person than the spoiled boy who’d gone off to war fourteen years earlier. He’d literally lived through hell and emerged on the other side a changed man. She knew he expected her to reject him for all he’d done, but God had brought him into her life, had kept him by her side. She wasn’t about to throw that away because of past sins, even if they were tearing him up inside.

  Eppie had to help him overcome those memories, the dark dreams that plagued him even when he was awake. The layers were deep and thick, likely covered with thorns, but she’d battled her way up from a coma. She could defeat Micah’s demons.

  Micah walked around for an hour, blindly following trails he knew by rote. He passed by three rabbits and wondered where they’d been yesterday when he was hungry. Now he was numb, or rather, he was so overwhelmed by every emotion known to man, he couldn’t feel anything more. The bad memories had poured forth from his mouth and she listened to every one of them. He didn’t leave out one detail, much to his dismay. It was the details he was most worried about.

  He fully expected her to quietly walk away from him. Any woman who wasn’t loco would. Yet there was some part of him, a tiny spark of hope that refused to be extinguished, that counted on Eppie staying by his side. They had endured much together, and he hoped their bond was strong enough to overcome his sordid, bloody past. It was a most impossible situation, but it was of his own making.

  He shouldn’t have told her about the Red Grays and he sure as hell shouldn’t have told her about Edward. Yet once the words started coming, it was as if a cork had been pulled out and he couldn’t stop himself from confessing. She’d been like a man of the cloth, listening to his sins and offering him absolution. However, unlike a minister, it was up to Eppie as to whether or not she would absolve him.

  The image of Edward and his mother had woken him in a cold sweat many nights. He tried in vain to remember exactly what had happened, but still he couldn’t quite get all the details clear. The room had been full of shadows, yet the noises were clear as a bell since it had been two people having sex. Micah didn’t know what he imagined when he returned home, to the beautiful plantation resembling heaven in his mind.

  It hadn’t been a home anymore. What the Yankees hadn’t taken, they’d burned or broken. The fields had been ripped up and salted and looked like a battlefield rather than the lush green memories of his childhood. The house had been gutted, with only remnants of furniture remaining. Anything with value was gone, except for his mother and sister.

  He remembered walking through the door, hearing his footsteps slap on the bare floor, his voice echo through the empty shell. Then he heard the grunts and the slaps. Before he could think about what he was doing, Micah had run up the stairs two at a time, to see his mother on her marriage bed with Edward. He’d gone berserk, he knew it, but he had been outside his mind and body. Truly he remembered watching what happened instead of participating.

  But oh, how he’d participated. The screaming, the blood, the confusion. Sarah appeared like a small, lithe creature with the saddest eyes he’d ever seen. She was emaciated, with gaunt cheeks and dirt embedded in her skin. At first, Micah had thought she was a ghost, then she’d spoken.

  Micah stopped in his tracks, awash in a memory he’d repressed for years. Sarah had followed him to the kitchen, the screams of their mother echoed through the house. Vivian Spalding had been a spoiled, shallow woman who had lost what mind she’d had during the war. She’d treated Micah as a convenient heir to the fortune and had never once hugged or kissed him his entire life. Sarah, however, was a different story.

  She was six years younger than Micah more strength than any woman he’d met until Madeline and Eppie came into his life so many years later. Sarah was quiet and reserved, but so smart and clever. She’d brought life into Micah’s existence. He’d ignored her most of her life, except when she pushed her way through the haze. Sarah was a constant in his tumultuous life, and there she’d been again, saving him from himself.

  In the kitchen that fateful day, she was the one who stitched his face and bandaged him. She even gave him some of their precious stash of food and a pair of his father’s shoes hidden in the closet wall. There was even a hat she produced from somewhere to give him. Micah didn’t know what to say to her, so he’d said nothing. Sarah, however, had something to say. He was finally remembering her, and her gift to him.

  “You must go now, Micah. I will take care of her. Please, keep yourself safe.” She hugged him, the first of his life, then disappeared back upstairs.

  Micah dropped to his knees on the wet ground as the image of his sister burned in his mind. How had he forgotten Sarah? She’d saved his life, maybe his soul when she prevented him from killing their mother. There hadn’t been anyone in his life who had accepted him as he was except his sister.

  A hand on his head started the tears flowing, and Eppie was there beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. A storm of pain wreaked its havoc on him and the love of his life was there for him. He sobbed for the boy he was, the man he was ashamed of, and the man he wanted to be. He cried for Eppie and the lost days of her life, and for the moments he’d lost with her. Then, finally, he cried for all those souls he’d taken from the world, praying for them and for himself.

  Through it all, Eppie was there, in his arms, his heart, and in his soul.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Tell me about Miracle.”

  Eppie snuggled against Micah’s chest as they lay in front of the fire, exhausted from an emotional explosion. After returning to the cabin, they simply lay together, quiet and spent. She was proud of him, of his courage to face that which lurked in his memories, ate away at his soul, and kept a piece of his heart.

  It had been hard to accept his sins, but since she had no idea what sins lay in her past, she had no right to judge him. She only knew Micah as he was, not as he had been. It had been easy for her
to make a decision to keep him close. Only seconds after he left the cabin, she went after him. It had been a good thing his footprints had been easy to follow in the mud.

  When she’d seen him kneeling on the ground, crying as if his heart were broken, Eppie knew she’d made the right choice. Giving him her heart had been the easy part; building their lives together would be the hard part. Miracle was a bond they both shared, and although she’d known her for a month, she needed to know more.

  “What do you want to know?” His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been shouting, but she knew it was worn from the emotional storm he’d endured.

  “Everything. Tell me about the day she was born. When is her birthday?”

  Micah smiled slowly, a father’s pride on his face. “Believe it or not, she was born on Christmas.”

  Eppie sucked in a surprised breath and thought about the implications of having a child born on such an amazing day. It would be a memory she’d never share and she wanted to find out every detail she could. “What happened?”

  “You know, you’re the first person to ask.” He rolled over and bracketed his arm with his elbow. His gaze went to a memory, to a far, faraway place. “It was the most harrowing experience of my life.”

  Two beats passed by before Eppie answered. “Do I want to know how close I came to dying?”

  “No, and I don’t think I can let myself remember.” He touched her nose with a fingertip. “It was the second time I’d almost lost you.”

  “Was Doctor Carmichael there?”

  He nodded. “Madeline paid him to stay at the house the last two months. He’s the reason both of you are still alive, and for that he has my gratitude forever. After that night, there was only one thing I could name her.”

  “Miracle.” Goosebumps raced across her skin.

  “Miracle. She howled with a pair of lungs to rival an opera singer. It was the sweetest music I’d ever heard.”