Faith Hope and Love (A Homespun Romance) Read Online Free Page A

glad.  Money had never meant much to her.  Where she was going, she wouldn't need it anyway.
    "Merry Christmas, ma'am."
    Christmas.  That was right.  Four weeks to Christmas.
    "And to you." 
    Empty, meaningless words.  Empty meaningless life.
     
    The clerk at the desk found her key right away.  Yes, her room was in a quiet area.  Yes, they would hold all calls.
    Rachel walked to her room in a daze.  The corridor seemed never ending, the smells nauseating.  The key turned smoothly.  The first thing that's gone right today she thought hysterically.  Someone ought to make a note of it.  Tears trembled on her lower lids, waiting for an excuse to fall.  She wouldn't let them.  She was past crying.  Into agony.
    A shower would be nice.  It had been so long since her last one. 
    Incongruous thoughts pierced her fatigue like mismatched pieces of different puzzles.  She had no other clothes with her.  The travel weary pant and shirt she had worn since Hong Kong were left behind in the changing rooms of some department store.  The wallpaper in here was ugly.  She hated that shade of mud brown, bilious green and jaundiced yellow.  Chris' baby would be fine.  That man looked like Auld Lang Syne and the National Anthem rolled into one.  Imagine using those colors for cabbage roses...if she wasn't so tired she would have insomnia just looking at them.  All she had now was the handbag she had transferred her traveller's checks and passport to, and an empty rucksack.  Nothing else.  It was a good thing she had a return ticket. 
    The need for sleep edged out the need to feel clean.  Rachel's footsteps changed direction.  She could sleep for a week.
    The knock on the door seemed a joke.  Cruel, worthless, unnecessary.  She wouldn't answer.
    "Ms. Carstairs.  Open up.  I have to talk to you."
    It was her name that did it.  Only Dyan Jenks knew where she was.  He wouldn't contact her if it wasn't important. 
    "Yes?"  Her head was a wedge in the door.  Even Emily Post wouldn't insist on courtesy after thirty six hours without sleep.  No one was going to get in here without a good reason.  Not even the President of the United States.
    "I'm Luke Summers.  I have to talk to you." 
    Open sesame. 
    He walked past her, turned, waited.  Swaying on her feet, Rachel put a hand behind her for the couch, sank weightlessly into it.  No, sitting would have her asleep quicker than one could say Jack and Jill.  She struggled to her feet. 
    She had to think straight.  She wasn't new to fatigue.  They had never adhered to working hours in the places she had been in.  Lines of people formed magically at first light.  Patient, suffering, hopeful.  The team worked till the light faded or the last patient was attended to.  Whichever came first.  Rachel tapped into that same reserve of sheer will power now.  This might be her last chance to win Gordie.  Maybe this man would listen.  Maybe she ought to tell him what the child represented. 
    Rachel looked at him.  Strange.  He had no face at all.  Just shimmering waves.  Someone had stolen his face.  She had to let him know so he could do something about it.  Only her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth.  She looked again.  Now his face was just one big blank of silver.  Like the floods in Bangladesh.  Angry water reflecting cruel sunshine.    Hypnotizing.  Will sapping.  Dominating.
    Her eyelids fell.  Rachel crumpled.
    "Damn!"
    He'd caught her just in time.  What was wrong?  Had his earlier suspicion been correct?  Leaning forward, Luke smelled her breath.  There was absolutely no trace of liquor.
    She weighed less than a day old foal.  Luke strode into the bedroom, placed her on the covers.  The little fool.  She should have told someone how she felt.  What if he hadn't decided to come and talk to her right away?  She could have lain here forever.
    A half hour later Luke had the emergency ward of the nearest hospital on their