Beloved Counterfeit Read Online Free PDF

He was left studying the toe of his boot and praying the Lord would allow him the confession that was long overdue.
    The judge seemed to sense his trouble. “Is there something in your past that might prevent you from accepting this position?”
    Micah nodded, unable to lift his gaze.
    “Did you kill anyone?”
    He jerked his head to meet Caleb’s even stare. “No.”
    “Are you a thief?”
    Again Micah replied in the negative.
    “In that case, I’m satisfied in offering you this position.” Caleb shrugged. “Whatever you’ve done, it can’t possibly disqualify you from the work the position requires. Unless you can’t shoot a gun. That’s not the case, is it?”
    “No,” Micah said, “I’m a decent shot.”
    “Then it’s settled.” Caleb paused to run his hands across the edge of the desk. “Look, you don’t have to tell me anything, Micah, because I’m certainly not asking. I’m living proof a man can have a past and still have a future.”
    Micah considered the statement. Certainly the Washington lawyer turned Fairweather Key judge had overcome the fact that his mother’s Benning family tree held more pirates than lawyers. He’d even managed to snatch up Emilie Gayarre from right under Micah’s nose.
    “I don’t need to know, either,” Josiah said. “You’re a good man. I’ve watched you, and I know it to be true.”
    The temptation to shake hands on the deal weighed heavily on Micah. How easily he could see himself at the helm of that vessel. What he couldn’t see was standing up on Sunday morning to preach with this lie hanging over his head.
    Micah swallowed hard. The Lord was fair even when what He asked was hard.
    “Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you.”
    Serve Him in truth. Indeed, it was time, even if he served the Lord from a jail cell instead of the pulpit.
    “I’m a deserter, Judge Spencer,” he said before cowardice could take hold again, “and I’m thinking you might want to throw me in that jail of yours rather than promote me and give me a gun and a boat to patrol with.”

Chapter 4

    “Viola, darling, you know I love you.” Dr. Daniel Hill rose from the blanket so quickly he nearly stumbled over his own feet.
    “Yes,” she said. “Of course I do.”
    “Then I want you to understand that no matter what may happen, anything I do is out of love for you.”
    “All right.” She gave him a sideways glance as she folded the blanket and set it aside. “Is something wrong, Daniel?”
    “Wrong?” He shook his head then reached to give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Of course not. It’s just that, well, one never knows what the future holds.”
    Yet one might hope it held a wedding .
    As Viola Dumont made short order of packing the remains of the picnic lunch back into the basket, she watched Dan without caring whether he noticed. He did not, of course, for the shock of mentioning a wedding had sent him into fits of panic once again.
    An exaggeration, but only slightly.
    She did know he loved her—or at least she knew he called it that. After all this time measured now in years rather than weeks or months, it was something, this thing between them. But she’d begun to wonder if the course of love had run dry—at least on Dan Hill’s part.
    Yet today he’d suggested a picnic at their favorite spot on the bluff, the place where the mangroves grew so thick that the tiny crabs skittering about under their limbs were the only sign of life. He’d taken her boating beneath the canopy of green once before. The crabs had terrified her only slightly less than the feelings that threatened to overwhelm her when Dan Hill kissed her for the first time. Odd how their kisses would always bring her back to the creepy tunnel of crab-infested mangroves.
    Dan jerked at his collar and grimaced as the salt-tinged breeze lifted a strand of dark hair and brushed it against his jaw. She noticed the bead