Avenger of Blood by John Hagee Page A

little afraid of what those thoughts might be. But she’d gotten to the point at which not knowing was worse than knowing.
    â€œYou said you’d never stop loving me, Galen. What kind of love is it when you don’t want to be alone with me, when you won’t even talk to me?”
    â€œYou know I’m not very good at talking sometimes.”
    â€œThat’s not an answer; it’s an excuse. You may not have been the most talkative person, but you were always good company—and you were always here, with me, every spare minute you had.” Bittersweet thoughts of those happy times flooded her mind, but she didn’t stop to dwell on the memories. “You haven’t been to see me since that first night after I returned, and when you are here for church, you try to avoid me. Why, Galen? Why?”
    He pushed his hair back with both his hands, holding it off his forehead for a moment, then letting it drop with a sigh. “Every time I look at you, I think about how much I love you, then I think about what he did to you, and I just can’t get over it. I think about him touching you, and it makes my skin crawl. I can’t stand the thought of your being with another man—”
    â€œI wasn’t ‘with’ another man, Galen. I was raped!”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œBut do you understand that? It wasn’t an act of love. He touched me because he assaulted me.”
    â€œI understand that. I just don’t know how to deal with it, how to keep from thinking about it, how to . . .” He looked down at the ground, and Rebecca knew there was something else he wasn’t saying. Something that bothered him a great deal.
    â€œWhat else?” she asked.
    â€œYou have his child,” he said without looking up.
    Rebecca lost all the air in her lungs as suddenly as if he’d punched her. “Yes, I have a child,” she said slowly. “And I love my son dearly.” She took another deep breath and held it an extra beat before asking, “Is that something else you can’t get over?”
    Galen didn’t reply, and Rebecca realized his silence was an answer in itself.
    â€œYou don’t want to marry me now.” She didn’t even bother to phrase it as a question.
    He reached for her hand, and the wistful look in his eyes nearly broke her heart. “Maybe I just need more time, Rebecca.”
    â€œOr maybe you need more love.”
    As she thought about it now, Rebecca realized that she should have reached that conclusion earlier. She always had understood Galen better than he understood himself.
    He did love her; perhaps he always would. But Galen had idealized her. When she returned from Devil’s Island, she no longer fit the ideal, and he was unable to accept a less-than-perfect version of love.
    Rebecca punched the pillow and lay back down, trying to get back to sleep after her nightmare.
    It didn’t matter now. None of it did. The only thing that mattered was Victor.
    Galen was gone, out of her life. She’d had a dream and lost it, then found it and lost it again. Her heart was broken, but it would mend. And when it did, she wouldn’t ever make the mistake of falling in love again. The risk of losing another dream was simply too painful. No man was ever going to accept the fact that she’d been raped and borne a child, and she might as well face that now.
    Rebecca decided it was God’s will for her to remain single. She would devote herself to a ministry of works, and to her son—just as soon as she got him back.

5
    â€œTHIS IS NOT a social visit,” Jacob said, cutting off Naomi’s patently insincere greeting.
    From the moment she had swept into the room in one of her typically grand entrances, Jacob had known she was expecting them. Naomi did not look the least bit surprised. She did manage to look regal, however, even though she had already unpinned her hair for the evening. Voluminous