Beloved Counterfeit Read Free

lone gull screeched overhead. Still, God did not answer.
    “Maybe I didn’t ask right,” she said as she turned her back to the water and dug her toes into the wet sand. “At least when I get it wrong, You don’t whack me like—”
    No. She’d been promised her past was just that—past—and her scarlet sins were white as snow. That meant all of them. Even the ones so shameful she couldn’t tell a soul except the Creator, who’d promised He would toss them down to the bottom of the ocean.
    “Now that’s something I know a bit about,” she said as she picked up a tiny shell with her toes and kicked it into the air. It landed a few yards away and rolled down into the water.
    “Just about everything I ever cared about except the girls is down there at the bottom of the ocean. My sins might as well be there, too. Sort of evens things out.”
    It didn’t, but Ruby figured if she said it enough, she’d believe it. The idea wasn’t any more farfetched than the thought that anyone could forget who and what she’d been.
    It was all too much to figure out, so she decided not to try.
    The island of Fairweather Key was so small she could walk the whole of it in an afternoon. She knew because she’d done it before, though that dark day was another she’d cast into the depths.
    Today her walk was with a purpose and must be completed before the hungry souls back at the boardinghouse came looking for their lunches. The fact that she’d been taken under the roof of the most respectable establishment outside of the church still astounded Ruby, for Mrs. Campbell, the owner, was not only the wife of the former judge but also the only live soul to whom Ruby had told the whole truth.
    When she had confided in Mrs. Campbell, Ruby had fully expected to be turned out on her ear, along with the girls. Instead, Ruby had been clothed, fed, and given the keys to the front door. Where she came from, people didn’t treat scarlet women that way.
    The whole thing made her regret she’d chosen the name Ruby. In her mind, the name had been a joke based on the condition of her character, and one she’d only carried forward once she found herself hauled soaking wet and shivering onto the shores of Fairweather Key by rescuers.
    Only the Lord could have planned a trip that ended in a shipwrecking and then began all over again with a new life. Ruby certainly hadn’t figured things to go that way. Now the joke was on her.
    “Keep moving,” Ruby said as she stepped over a tiny skittering crab, being careful to keep her skirts above the wet sand.
    She was a lady now, and ladies did not tromp through town with wet, sandy skirts. This much she remembered from her childhood, though she’d been hard pressed to remember it even then.
    Months of living like someone else on Fairweather Key had taught her well enough that the urge to throw off her frock and dance in the waves was a desire best left in her old life. Yet the yearning plagued her even now.
    So did the craving for the one thing that would take away the memories.
    “There,” she said as she spied what she had come for.
    The pale circle disappeared as the surf rose, the grainy sand playing havoc with the neat reminder of where it had been. Ruby waited to grasp the sand dollar when the water slid away.
    “Ahoy there,” a familiar voice called, and Ruby turned to see Micah Tate strolling her way.
    Handsome as the day was long, and twice as nice as any other man who’d come within smiling distance of her, the wrecker-turned-preacher never failed to set her jaded heart fluttering. It surely wasn’t his charm; from what Ruby had observed, the fellow hadn’t learned a thing about courting the ladies. Nor was it persistence of any kind, for Micah Tate seemed determined to ignore her every time she stepped into the room.
    Oh, he’d compliment her cooking and thank her for the seconds or thirds he always ate, but he rarely spared her more than a passing glance. What she’d really wanted