Love & Redemption

"Do you love me?"

He reformed her question, and her stomach knotted. Now, he asked too much of her.

"I asked you first," she whispered. She swallowed her regret, a wall erecting between them. He wanted those words from her, but she couldn't say them. For in saying those three words, she'd commit herself to this, to him, and that was the trouble.

She'd said the vows to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, 'til death do them part. She'd said them, though, with a gun at her back and a stranger's hand in hers. By admitting she loved him, the words took on meaning and held requirements. It meant she'd stay by his side always and maybe never see her family again. She became responsible to him.

A tear rolled down her cheek. She swiped it away.

Michael cleared his throat. "I love you, Anne. My question is, why you don't love me back?"

-

Michael O'Fallen simply wants to survive. A poor Irish boy living in post-Civil...