A Promise in Defiance: Romance in the Rockies Book 3 (15 page)

“Quit botherin’ me,
Preacher. I ain’t comin’ to your stupid church.” Amanda, a once-pretty black
girl, tried to shove past him, her pale lips pinched in annoyance. Her gaunt
face reflected hints of innocence, especially in her still-alluring amber eyes.
Her complexion, however, looked washed-out; her eyes were dilated, and
red-rimmed. The smell of opium and the stagger in her walk revealed the
addiction she’d fallen into. “Tell Mollie and Emilio to leave me alone too. I’ve
had it with you people.”

Logan bit his tongue
and stepped aside. The girl marched on, disappearing in a throng of miners. A
raindrop hit him on the shoulder. Above the murmuring traffic thunder rolled
ominously in an angry sky.

A young Oriental girl,
not more than fourteen, shoved a flyer in his hand. Bowing respectfully, she
drifted away, disappearing into the crowd like a ghost. It took Logan a moment
to realize she’d even handed him anything. The headline on the paper roared at
him.

Dip your wick at
Delilah’s new Crystal Chandelier. Come bid on a virgin!

He closed his eyes
against the drawing of a naked woman and wadded up the paper, dropping it to
the ground as if it were on fire.

Several tents up, a
woman screamed and Logan heard the familiar sound of fists landing on flesh.
Two men tumbled into the street, punches flying. The woman appeared at the tent
flap, half-dressed, hands clasped in front of her face, almost as if in prayer.
Logan waited a moment to see if anyone would intervene. Men and women on their
way to the sluices, to the Sunnyside Mine
[5]
,
to wash clothes, or to anywhere but there, merely walked around the scuffle. Fights
in Tent Town rarely drew a crowd.

The combatants didn’t
waste energy on words. Grunting like animals, they punched, kicked, gouged, and
clawed. Logan had to give it to them. He’d rarely seen men try as hard as these
two to wear each other out. At least neither one of them had a gun or a knife.
About to intervene, Logan gladly pulled back when a group of miners surged into
the fracas and separated the two. Both groups swore and cursed loudly as they pulled
the men apart and dragged them in opposite directions.

Logan sighed, his heart
heavy. The overwhelming depravity in Defiance sat on his shoulders today like a
leering gargoyle. He hurried through the throngs of men, pushing at the bodies,
desperate for a quiet spot to pray.

He could not accept
that Pender Beckwith would do nothing to stop Delilah and her sordid auction.

The old Logan cried to
be set free. The old Logan wanted to deal with this woman in the worst way. A
few drinks in him and he would beat her until she crawled from Defiance on
bloodied hands and knees. He grimaced at the thought, sickened by it, sorry for
ever raising a hand to any woman.

No matter what, he
would not resort to that to stop Delilah.
Then how, God?

He wondered if McIntyre
had this same struggle. The two of them certainly had this in common: their
past mistreatment of women. Now, here they both were, trying to serve the Lord
in a town as decadent as Sodom or Gomorrah. And Logan, at least, felt like he
was failing.

For such a time as
this.

The scripture from
Esther whispered in his mind . . . again. Ever since McIntyre
had pointed out that Logan and Delilah had rolled into town at nearly the same
time, the words had been echoing, repeating.

Without knowing how he’d
gotten there, he found himself standing beside the Animas River, its rocky
shores covered in driftwood. He stumbled across the loose river rock to a dead
tree and collapsed. His knees had gone out from under him. It felt like his
heart was giving out too.

“God, I can’t do this.
There’s too much here.”
Too much evil, too much resistance.
He rested his
face in his hands and massaged his forehead.
Help me, Father. I feel so
alone. I need someone to talk to, but I’m the pastor. I’m the one who should be
strong, have all the determination to carry on
 . . .

“Preacher?”

Startled, Logan rose
and spun.

Mary Jean had again
caught him praying. Wisps of her mousy ash-brown hair dancing around her face,
she clasped her hands in front of her and lowered her chin a little.

“Mary Jean. You must
think I never get off my knees.”

“Isn’t that a good
thing?” she asked softly.

Logan ducked his head
and smiled, properly chastised. He climbed to his feet and sighed. “Yes, yes it
is. In this town, in front of all these hard-hearted people, I forget that a
man is strongest when he’s on his knees.”

She ambled forward,
slowly, as if making sure of her welcome. “My father used to say that.”

“Your father was a
Godly man?”

“He was a preacher,” she
said carefully, as if she wasn’t comfortable with Logan’s description. “I never
would listen. I was a handful at home. I signed up to be a mail-order bride
just to get away. I do impulsive things like that. Daddy and Momma warned me to
follow the Lord or I’d wind up in a bad place.” A bitter chuckle escaped her
lips. “They were right, I reckon.” She shrugged. “What were you prayin’ about? You
look mighty troubled.”

“Oh,” Logan glanced up
at the sky. “This auction. I have to stop it.”

“That won’t be easy.
Delilah’s planning on making a lot of money off it.”

He shook his head and
muttered, “Satan goes about like a roaring lion . . .” He studied
Mary Jean for a moment, wondering about her future.

An innocent young girl,
one who’s made some poor choices. We are all guilty of that. But maybe I can
help her.

“Mary Jean, contact
them. Your parents. Let them know you’re all right.” Logan stepped over the
driftwood to her, desperate to do something right in this town. “I’m sure we
can get you stage fare to go home.”

Head lowered, brow
creased, she traded places and sat down on the tree. “It’d be too hard to go
back. They were right—about everything. I’d feel like a dog crawlin’ home with its
tail between its legs.”

“Does that really
matter?” Logan sat beside her. “You’re living in a vile place, working in a . . .
a . . .” He let that pass and moved on. “Filth and debauchery is
a way of life here. This ain’t no place for a young girl. Swallow your pride
and go home.” He put his arm around her, surprised at himself, yet the touch of
another human strengthened him. “You’re the prodigal child, and your father
will welcome your return.”

“Do you think so?” She
looked up, hope glowing in those breath-stealing green eyes. “Do you think he’ll
let me come home?”

Caught somewhere
between plain and pretty, Mary Jean had undeniably beautiful, flawless skin,
and lips the color of a peach. Ashamed he’d noticed, he pulled his arm away,
wondering what had come over him
. Loneliness, that’s what.
“You’re his
daughter. He loves you. Of course he will.”

Logan and Mary Jean
exited the Western Union office and stood quietly on the busy boardwalk. The
high-noon sun, bright and inviting, brought out her pink parasol and he tugged
his well-worn Stetson a little lower. A group of backpack-heavy miners slogging
past forced him and the girl off to the side. They waited to speak until the
men had passed.

“Well . . .”
She tapped a toe and smiled at him. “All I can do now is wait.”

“I’m sure your pa will
be glad to have heard from you, Mary Jean. He and your ma are probably worried
to death over you.”

Biting her bottom lip,
she twirled the umbrella slowly. “We’ll see.”

The uncertainty in her
voice weighed on Logan. Had he misled her? Mary Jean knew her family situation
better than he did. What if her pa rejected her?

No, Lord, surely he won’t
.
“How ’bout some lunch? Martha’s Kitchen isn’t Delmonico’s, but I hear there’s a
passable chicken pie . . . I’m buyin’.”

The twirling parasol
sped up. Her green eyes hit him and he realized it had been a long time since
he’d been sober enough to really notice a girl. Back in Willow there had been a
couple of farmers’ daughters who were pretty . . . but not like
Mary Jean. She made him think of a flower that closed at night and opened up
for the sun in the morning. He wanted to see her petals reach for the light.
She mattered to him. The feeling at once scared him and put a spring in his
step, though he wasn’t sure if this was a pastor’s affection for her . . .
or something more.

Martha’s Kitchen had
long plank tables set out in front of it, covered by a rickety tin roof.
Customers walked to the window of her small kitchen to place their order. Only
a few men were eating lunch yet. Logan paid for the two tin plates filled with
the broth-rich chicken pie, then carried them over to Mary Jean. She sat at the
end of the table closest to the street, watching the stage roll by.

“Wish you were on it?”

She blinked and took
her plate from him as he sat across from her. “I don’t know what I wish for. I
wasn’t happy at home. I just wanted some adventure. Becoming a mail-order bride
was fool-hardy, I suppose, but it was a way out of Weaverville.”

“Was your town really
that bad?”

“It wasn’t the town.”
She used her fork to tear a piece of piecrust loose, but then only swirled it
around in the broth. “I come from a Quaker family, Preacher. I thought I was
gonna suffocate there.” She looked up, but stared past him. “I want to sing.
That’s all I really, really want to do. I’m sorry Jay got killed, but if we’d
gotten married I would have only hurt him. I was planning on running off eventually.
To San Francisco or someplace.” She did look at him then. “Am I a horrible
person?”

Her eyes pleaded with
him to say no.

“You’re young. We all
do stupid, cruel things when we’re young. Make bad decisions. Fall in with bad
people.”

She flinched a little.

“Mary Jean, I ain’t
judging you. If sins have weight, then I truly have been weighed, measured, and
found far more wanting than you. I’ve
killed
men. But I would urge you
to go home. Maybe you’ll leave again, I don’t know, but be smarter about it.
And don’t burn your bridges.”

Surprise rolled across
her face, and then, to Logan’s surprise, changed to sympathy. “I can see you
carry a terrible weight. We had a hand on our farm who’d had some trouble with
the law.” She regarded him with a strange intensity, as if she were trying to
look into his soul. “He had that same look in his eyes. Like . . .
like he was running from a deep hurt. Or tryin’ to.”

Logan took a bite of
chicken and then nodded. “It’s a scar, I think. Of sadness. Regret. The people
I’ve hurt . . . the knowing—the
understanding
—of the
misery I’ve wrought. That leaves its mark. But at least a scar is evidence of
healing.”

Logan would like to see
Mary Jean leave Defiance unscathed, without any scars of her own. But if she
didn’t, she needed to know there was a Healer. “I can’t erase the things I’ve
done, Mary Jean, but God has forgiven me. I know that. I live for Him now. He
has brought me a peace I’ll never be able to put words to. Remember that when
hard times hit—wherever you are—He’ll be there for you.”

The moment seemed a bit
too weighty, like he was pushing, so Logan leaned back. “Sorry. That’s what you
get when you have lunch with a preacher.”

Mary Jean picked up her
cup. “Small price to pay.” She lifted the mug to her lips, and Logan was pretty
sure she was hiding a smile.