Mirror of My Soul by Joey Hill (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

Mr. Reynolds would bring in next. The embrace of the sky as she leaped out into the vastness of it. The impatiens she had decided to plant by the kitchen door in that bare shady spot that needed it, that was now only a mud puddle. A life without fear. A life filled with love and friendship. And suddenly, she found she wasn’t quite so tired anymore. He was gone. And she was free. Perhaps always could have been free, the moment she decided she was.

She’d reached her waist now. Tyler’s palpable apprehension was like a warm

blanket that wrapped around her, making her feel safe, loved. She turned and reached out her uninjured hand. When he took it, she let her knees go and dropped below the water’s surface, immersing herself, but keeping tight hold of his hand. Knowing that he would not have permitted it otherwise, but she didn’t reach out to him only because of that. As she let the silent Gulf waters embrace her, she remembered.

Remembered her and David in that cocoon of warmth, the hold of their mother,

perhaps the Mother, when all things were possible and perfect. Tyler’s strong fingers reminded her that he’d filled the aching emptiness the loss of her brother had left her with for twenty long years.

His hand tightened on hers and she let him draw her toward him and up. She

found the strength to push off the sand with her own feet. Surging out of the water into sunlight and the fire of his eyes, she felt it move in her, tears and happiness both.

Tyler caught her as she pressed against him, soaking what remained dry of his

shirt. The water lapped at the hips of his jeans. She turned her head, her eyes reaching out to Brendan, bringing him to them. The man took her taped hand, his fingers holding hers gently as she pressed her face into Tyler’s neck, breathed him in. Renewal. Rebirth.

When there was love like this they were possible, no matter what the darkness.

Quiet determination rose in her to plant those impatiens, nurse the blooms and bring them to life. Giving them the chance to be as vibrant as they could, in whatever amount of time the world would give them. The fear she’d always felt in Tyler’s arms was simply gone. Komal was right. Of all the things to fear in the world, the fear of being loved and loving back was the most absurd.

“Master, please forgive me,” she murmured. “Forgive me for not being strong

enough.”

Tyler pressed his forehead to hers, a shuddering going through those lean muscles as he closed his eyes. “You tore my heart out, Marguerite.”

“I know.” She kissed his cheekbone, his closed eyes. “Thank you for loving me

beyond your heart. Can you forgive me?”

“If you promise never to leave me. If you agree to marry me.”

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Mirror of My Soul

She lifted her head then, felt joy flood her. “That’s blackmail,” she said, her voice not quite steady. “And you’re as persistent as a terrier.”

“Angel.”

“Irritant.”

He smiled then, caressed her wet hair. “Say yes, or I’ll dunk you and hold you under until you agree.”

“Brendan will protect me from your bullying.”

Brendan chuckled, dared to run a hand down her back. “I think you should agree, Mistress. He looks determined to have his way.”

That surge was the last of her strength. As her feet came back to rest on the sand, her knees buckled. It was Tyler who lifted her this time. Striding out of the water, he laid her down in the hammock again. “Brendan, will you go in and find Sarah, ask her for some towels?”

The man nodded and left them alone. Lying in the hammock, Marguerite could not take her gaze from Tyler’s face. With her vision clear for the first time in days, she saw the deep lines of worry, the drawn tension of his mouth. The fierce resolve in him had been held in place past endurance so that the strain showed in every line. She remembered Sarah’s words, how he sat on the landing, avoiding sleep so the vision of a dancer whose toes had given out on her, strangled her into a willful death, would not haunt him in dreams.

She’d asked for forgiveness, but only now did it hit her, the magnitude of the request. She could feel again, see everything clearly, the water’s cleansing having loosened the guts and blood gumming up the dam to her emotions.

The things she had said and done on that building and since came back to her, not just from her own mind, but because she saw them buried in his expression where they could fester into a cancer if left untended.

She struggled up, despite her weakness. When he would have stopped her, she

caught both his hands in her right one and dropped out of the hammock on her knees in the soft sand, bowing her head despite the pain that shuddered through her shoulder.

“Please forgive me, Master.” She repeated it, lifted her gaze to meet his. He’d squatted down and was holding her upper arms, apparently thinking she needed his assistance.

“I can never forgive myself for saying and doing such things to you as I’ve done. I know how much it must have hurt you.”

Her voice, low and broken, did something to Tyler. A wall shattered, behind which he’d stored his anger and worry, his gut wrenching, bowel-freezing fear. Because he heard her understanding of his pain, her knowledge of what she’d done, suddenly he didn’t know if he wanted to kill her out of fury, keep her chained to him until he didn’t feel the fury anymore, which might be by the time they were both well over a hundred, or hold her until every part of her was imprinted on him forever.

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Joey W. Hill

She sat on her knees, weak from physical and emotional stress and hunger, a

woman willing to sacrifice life and more to save an innocent. A woman willing to sacrifice