Loving Bella

by Renee Ryan

  She shook her head at him. “Still…what an awful burden to carry, day in and day out. How do you manage it? All by yourself?”

  “I’m not alone, Bella. Not anymore.” He tentatively took her hand in his. “God answered my prayers. I have you now.”

  “Yes.” She tightened her grip and smiled when a definite flash of contentment settled on his face. “Yes, you do.”

  Later that night, Bella waited until her patients had fallen asleep before settling down to read William’s letter. The room was silent other than the soft snoring of the girls with stuffy noses.

  Restless, Bella rose from her chair and moved to the window. Pressing her forehead against the cool glass, she studied the clear night sky. Black fabric strewn with a thousand diamonds, painted with God’s skillful hand. Controlled chaos. Much like her life had become these last few weeks.

  But unlike God’s perfect masterpiece in the sky, Bella doubted she could hold on to her control much longer. Her secret was burning a hole in her soul, turning her conviction of sin into self-loathing. And her attraction to Shane Bartlett was confusing matters further.

  Clutching William’s letter in her hand, she could no longer put off the inevitable.

  Returning to her chair, her hands shook as she slid a finger under the seal. Her pulse thundered loudly in her ears and she set the letter down in her lap.

  What if William renewed his suit?

  What if he didn’t?

  Taking a deep breath, she shifted until light from the moon illuminated the paper, flipped open the letter and read…

  My dearest love, my Bella, my heart,

  You were very naughty to run away from me. However, I do believe I understand. I am dreadfully sorry for the clumsy way I made my initial offer of protection to you. Come home at once and allow me to renew my suit properly. The arrangements are made. All you need do is contact my agent in Denver and you will be on your way home to me.

  Yours most affectionately,

  William

  Come home? Renew his suit? “What of your wife, William? What of your wife?” she hissed in the darkened room.

  A rage so strong, so refined burned in Bella’s chest at William’s callous arrogance, at his assumption a few words scribbled on fine parchment would change her mind and entice her down a road of sin with him.

  How could he expect that of her? How could he?

  A knock came at the door just as she crumpled the letter in her fist. Confused by the distraction, she took a deep breath and stared straight ahead. Still a bit disoriented, she looked around her. Blinked. Her gaze landed on Stacy breathing heavily in her bed.

  Another knock split through the silence.

  Blowing out a heavy sigh, Bella jammed the letter into her pocket and padded silently to the door. Ordering her heartbeat to slow, tucking her rage into a dark corner of her mind, she cleared her features and opened the door a tiny crack.

  Shane stood on the other side, carrying a tray with full tea service. The skin beneath his eyes was dark with fatigue yet there was contentment in his gaze. This was a man who knew who he was, a man who understood his purpose in life. He wasn’t idle, like William, or confused over right and wrong. Shane Bartlett was good and sure and true.

  Staring into his handsome face with those intense blue eyes and disheveled hair, Bella’s earlier rage over William’s letter shattered into something else entirely. Something far more pleasant. A tinge of hope sprang to life inside her.

  She quickly lowered her gaze to the tray he carried. “What is this?” Her voice cracked a bit but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “You didn’t eat much at dinner. I thought you might like some tea before going to bed.”

  The dear, dear man. Even in his own exhaustion he had thought of her. Again, something pleasant tugged at her heart. Not chaos, not fear, but something more refined, something comfortable and safe.

  He smiled at her, a flash of white teeth and sincerity. “I’ll set the tray in the upstairs parlor down the hall.”

  Not wanting to be alone with William’s letter, Bella placed her fingertips on the doctor’s forearm. “Will you join me?”

  Lowering his gaze to her hand, he stared for a long moment and then nodded slowly. “I suppose it would be all right. As long as we leave the door open.”

  At the innocent announcement, memories assaulted Bella. Her mind sped back to the months of William’s pursuit. She thought of the way he’d always closed the door to her dressing room during their visits. He’d claimed he hadn’t wanted to share her with anyone, especially not the other members of her cast and crew. At the time, she’d thought his explanation sweet. Now she saw how dishonorable his actions had been.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the girls, saw that they were asleep and slipped out the room. Vanity had her turning back. “I’ll only be a moment.”

  Rushing to the mirror, she took a quick look at herself and cringed. Her hair was a tangled mess atop her head. Her face was lined with worry and exhaustion. William’s locket looked cheap against her skin.

  No one in London would recognize her. Oddly enough, that didn’t seem such a bad thing at the moment. Of course, it would be ridiculous to try to tidy herself at this point. Dr. Shane had already seen her in this state and had agreed to share her tea anyway.

  For a moment, a very brief moment, Bella’s heart opened and she allowed herself to trust. To believe healing would come in spite of her mistakes.

  It was a nice thought to end an otherwise horrendous day.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Unsure how long his assistant would take to join him, Shane rubbed an impatient hand down his face. The day had been a trying one, but ever since his connection with Miss O’Toole in the hallway he hadn’t felt as weary as he might if he had to face this outbreak of measles alone.

  There was no denying he and Miss O’Toole worked well together. And yet, he’d be foolish to forget that she held a portion of herself back. Foolish to hope more was growing between them than a healthy give and take of doctor to assistant.

  Needing to walk off his uneasy mood, he rose but she joined him in the parlor at the same moment and he sat back down. She looked tired, a bit disheveled, yet incredibly beautiful. He decided she must be glorious on the stage.

  Lowering herself in the seat opposite his, she shuffled around the cups on the tea service and began pouring. Her movements were elegant, graceful, but he could tell something was bothering her tonight, more so than usual.

  Was he pushing her too hard? Was she having regrets about agreeing to assist him? “Miss O’Toole, are you—”

  “I realize I know so little about you, Shane. I can call you Shane, can’t I?” She tossed her hair back and stared at him, those big tawny eyes of hers filled with anticipation.

  Realizing she wasn’t going to talk about herself, not yet at least, he eased back in his chair and nodded. “I believe we’ve progressed past the customary formalities.”

  “So, Shane. Did you grow up here in Denver?”

  He carefully considered how to respond to her question. He went with the short answer. “I’m from back East.”

  A charming smile spread across her lips. “I knew it.”

  “Is that right?” She seemed a little too pleased with herself.

  “Your accent. Very highbrow. You clearly come from money.”

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or scowl at her incorrect observation. If only she knew the truth of his nefarious beginnings. But instead of sketching out the ugly details of his childhood, he said, “I was given the best education available in this country.”

  “Oh? Which schools did you attend?” she asked, her eyes filled with simple curiosity.

  His heart tripped. For a second he thought of his mother. How she had longed for a better life for him than the one she’d given him in the Bowery. Her death had provided for his future in an unexpected way. “A premiere boarding school at first. Princeton next. Harvard Medical School.”

 
; “Ah.” Sipping from her cup, she stared at him over the rim. “Do you have any family left back there?”

  Unbridled emotions buzzed in his head like angry mosquitoes. He should have expected the question, prepared for it at least. “My mother is dead. She died when I was sixteen.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Holding his gaze with a sympathetic look, she set her cup on the table and clasped her hands in her lap. “I can’t imagine losing mine. She’s my rock.”

  Silence hung between them. His mind blurred with complicated sensations, severing his ability to respond.

  “Was your mother all you had, then?” she asked.

  Shane sucked in a violent breath. Pride battled with weariness. Weariness won. He was tired of holding his past a secret. He needed to share his history. And he needed to share it with this woman. “I have a father and two younger sisters, two half sisters.”

  “I don’t understand.” She cocked her head at a charming angle. “Are you saying your father remarried?”

  He held back a snort of disdain. “No. He only married once.” Years of resentment sounded in that single word. “I’m a bas—that is, my father was never married to my mother.”

  A look of horror filled her eyes. “Does that mean—”

  “My mother was a rich man’s mistress.”

  Bella had an instant of pure shock. Her hand flew to her throat and her fingers knotted in the gold chain around her neck. She tugged, but only managed to tangle her hand further around the locket. Cutting through her shock was a quick, primal urge to run.

  “I see I’ve rendered you speechless.” His voice was flat, calm, but his eyes told her she’d let him down with her stunned reaction.

  He didn’t understand. He thought she’d judged him and found him wanting. But he was wrong. So. Very. Wrong.

  The thought of this man, this kind, considerate healer, experiencing such a terrible childhood broke her heart. She freed her fingers from William’s locket at last and reached to Shane across the small table between them. When he didn’t shake her hand off his arm, she asked in a gentle voice. “Did you know your father? Was he part of your life at least?”

  He relaxed into her touch, and she could see some of the tension easing from his shoulders. “My father never recognized me. Not in public, anyway.”

  “Oh, Shane.” She squeezed his arm gently. “That must have been hard.”

  He made a low sound of anger in his throat, but he placed his hand calmly over hers. “When I was young, he came to see my mother weekly. But his visits decreased once I turned ten, stopped altogether when I was fourteen.”

  Bella had no words. Afraid she would say the wrong thing she rolled her palm against his, clutched tightly and then moved around the table to kneel in front of him.

  How could she tell him she had a sick fascination with his tale, a personal interest that went far beyond curiosity?

  So many thoughts ran through her mind.

  At the time William had made his proposal, she had thought only of his wife as the victim. But what if Bella had accepted his proposition? Would she have had a child, like Shane’s mother?

  Her heart clenched in her chest. “How did your mother take your father’s abandonment?”

  “Badly. She died two years later, when I was sixteen.” He shook his head. “But in truth, she died in her heart the day his visits stopped.”

  Words of sympathy seemed inadequate. So she pulled his hand to her face, laid her cheek against his palm.

  He didn’t register her touch, just stared into the distance. “My father must have heard of her passing because he came three days after her funeral. There’d been no sadness in him at the loss of a woman he’d claimed to have loved. Love.” He spat out the word. “Peter Ford didn’t know the meaning of the word. He allowed my mother to suffer ridicule, shame and condemnation because of him. That’s not love. That’s possession.”

  “Yes.” Her fingers curled around his wrist. “Yes.”

  “Instead of sharing his condolences, the man had the nerve to offer to pay for my education.” Shane’s bitter tone told her he hadn’t considered the offer a blessing. Thus, his next words shocked her all the more. “I accepted.”

  “You…you did?”

  “Not out of gratitude.” His eyes blazed with distant memories and he pulled his hand away from her face. “I accepted out of revenge.”

  How could she fault a sixteen-year-old boy his anger? “You were young, Shane.”

  “There’s more.”

  Still on her knees, she blinked up at him.

  “There were…stipulations.”

  The raw pain in his eyes gripped at her heart. Bella had to help him understand she wasn’t judging him. On the contrary, she was judging his father. His mother, even, for her inability to put her son ahead of her love for a wicked man.

  A wave of tenderness had her pushing a clump of hair off his forehead. “What did he ask in return for your education?”

  “I had to keep silent about my mother and my relationship to my father.” His gaze filled with wounded pride. “In the eyes of the school administrators, I was a charity case of the great philanthropist Peter Ford.”

  “How that must have hurt. I’m so sorry.”

  “I agreed to the lie. I perpetuated it for my own end.” His voice was husky with self-directed anger. She knew all about that particular emotion.

  But, unlike her, he was wrong to condemn himself. “You were sixteen, alone and grieving your mother. You were vulnerable. Your father took advantage of that.”

  His spine went rigid. “I wanted revenge, not an education. In the end, I won.”

  Understanding dawned. “Instead of staying in New York you came here, to Denver, and opened a practice that caters to women like your mother.”

  His lips twisted in self-disgust. “A sinful, self-serving response, don’t you think?”

  “No, Shane. You might not realize it, but the Lord brought you here, not your drive for revenge. Like Paul says in Romans 8, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” She cupped his face in her palms. “No matter how or why you came to Denver, you are living out your purpose for the Kingdom now.”

  “How can you be so sure? God wants our efforts to be out of a cheerful heart. I can’t say that’s true of me.”

  “Oh, but it is.” Her affection for him felt so foreign, and yet so right. “You forget. I work alongside you daily. I see your strength of character, your integrity, your love for the lost. It’s in everything you do. You save lives, Shane.”

  “Except my mother’s life, she—”

  “Your mother chose to love a married man. She chose to believe his lies.”

  Who better than Bella to understand the woman’s delusions? She herself had chosen to believe William’s false promises. She’d ignored the signs. She’d only been spared a life like Shane’s mother through escape, not strength of character.

  Her hand went to the pendant around her neck, her albatross.

  “I couldn’t save her,” he whispered. “I failed my mother.”

  Bella dropped the locket. “No. Like you said when we were discussing Lizzie, there was nothing you could do. Your mother didn’t want to be saved.”

  But Bella did. Oh, yes, Bella did.

  She wanted to break free of William. Somehow, someway, she would find the courage to move forward with her life. If not in her own strength, then with God’s help.

  Why hadn’t she seen the truth sooner? She had to let God take the lead. If her Heavenly Father could place stars in the sky, surely He could guide her through the process of repentance.

  Only then would she be worthy of a man of Christian integrity, a man like this compassionate doctor who had turned his drive for revenge into something powerful for God’s Kingdom.

  Could she be falling for Shane Bartlett? Was that possible when she was still confused over her feelings for William?

  As soon as the thought surfaced, Bella rea
lized nothing would come of the situation.

  One day Shane would find out about William. He would discover Bella had nearly thrown her life away over a married man, just like his mother had done.

  And then he would hate her.

  Shane watched the myriad emotions cross Bella’s face. He saw understanding, pain, but not pity. How could someone so young and with such a small amount of worldly experience not judge him or his mother?

  Because she was special. “I…thank you for listening, Bella. I’ve never shared that much of my past with anyone.”

  “No?”

  “My half sisters know nothing of me. I was sworn to secrecy and I have kept to that vow.”

  Her gaze filled with sorrow. “You’ve carried this burden alone all these years?”

  “Yes.”

  She slid back into her chair, studied his face intently. “Do you think you will ever forgive your father?”

  It was a good question, an astute question, one he wrestled with daily. Looking into her intense gaze, he realized his answer mattered to her.

  Was she expecting him to make the right decision, the godly one? If so, she was going to be sorely disappointed.

  He knew what Jesus taught about forgiveness, had studied the Bible for hours while searching for freedom from his burning resentment. Unfortunately, Shane’s hatred for the man who had fathered him ran too deep. And so he answered her question with complete honesty. “Never.”

  She nodded. “I…don’t blame you.”

  Her quick response gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. And then, an ugly thought reared. Was Bella’s secret, the one that made her eyes sad and kept her out of church on Sunday mornings, tied to an illicit association? Had she fallen for a married man? Was she pining for him now?

  Shane prayed he was wrong. For both their sakes.

  Chapter Fourteen