“Give me a break!”
“You needn’t be insulting. I’m as serious about my faith as you are about yours.”
“I don’t believe in God.”
“You believe in yourself. You believe you have control over your life and can live accordingly. That’s your religion.”
He didn’t say anything for the next five miles. Grace wished she’d kept quiet. So much for being friends. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Roman.”
“Who brainwashed you? Your aunt?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He’d never believe an angel came to her any more than Aunt Elizabeth had. The visitation had opened her heart to the Lord. How do you explain that kind of experience to an atheist? Or was he an agnostic? Did it matter?
“I’d like to hear.”
He looked serious, and she couldn’t see a way out. “There’s order everywhere: the stars, the seasons, the currents of the ocean, the air that moves over the planet, down to the cells that make up everything. I don’t believe that’s by chance or a series of accidents. It takes intelligence to create all that, intelligence beyond anything human beings can understand. That’s part of why I believe in God.”
“There was a serpent in the garden.”
Was he mocking her, or did he seriously want her to talk about what she believed? “Satan.”
“You believe in a devil.”
Just when she was beginning to enjoy his company! Was the rest of the trip going to be like this? “Yes, and I believe in hell, too. Everyone these days likes to think they’ll go to heaven or a better place somewhere. The truth is, the price for sin is death and hell. That’s why Jesus came. That’s why God sent His Son. Only Jesus could live a sin-free life and be the perfect sacrifice to ransom us. All He asks is that we believe. And I believe.”
“I must have pushed a button and gotten the recording.”
“You asked.” Hot tears threatened, and she looked out the window. Lord, You deal with him. “My ex-husband didn’t believe either.”
“If faith matters that much to you, why did you marry him?”
She gave a bleak laugh. “You have no idea how many times I asked myself that same question. He needed me. I thought I loved him. I was warned.” By her aunt as well as the quiet voice within her. “I just didn’t want to listen.” She had been so desperate for someone to love her she swallowed a lie.
She didn’t like feeling exposed. Let Roman do the talking. “Why don’t you tell me what you believe?”
“We’re born. We survive as best we can. We die. End of story.”
She glanced at his profile. He looked grim, as though hope didn’t exist. “No wonder you’re so miserable.” She turned her face away. “Why don’t you read Ecclesiastes tonight? You have a lot in common with King Solomon.” Including his taste for women.
Roman gave her an irritated glance and made the turn to Bodie.
She sighed. “Do you want to hear some history?”
“Something other than the brochure I read and practically recited to you?”
Grace breathed in and out slowly as she did a search on her phone. She read about the gold-and silver-mining boomtown that had boasted ten thousand inhabitants in its heyday—sixty-five saloons, gamblers, prostitutes, and a reputation for violence and lawlessness. A little girl, on hearing where her daddy planned to move the family, said, “Good-bye, God. We’re going to Bodie.”
Roman parked and got out of the car.
They walked among the dilapidated buildings. Grace paused to peer through windows, while he stood waiting, hands in his jacket pockets. A church, a saloon, a store. She looked through the window of a small house where a prostitute had once conducted business. “What a miserable life that must have been.”
“She picked it.”
Annoyed, she started to walk on, then decided not to let his comment go unchallenged. “Do you really think a woman wants to be a prostitute? I can’t imagine anything worse than having to sell my body to any guy who wanted to use me. I think women do that kind of work as a last resort.”
He looked angry now. “They aren’t forced into it.”
She was sick of being the brunt of his ill temper. “That depends on what constitutes force in your dictionary, Mr. Velasco.”
“Spoken like a college girl, Ms. Moore.”
“What if a woman lost her husband on the way out West? They didn’t have the same rights and opportunities men did. Or the physical strength. What if it was a girl on a wagon train and her family died of cholera or typhus? Can a woman plow a field and build a cabin on her own?” The only way she could stop herself from saying more was to walk away from him. He fell into step beside her. She quickened her pace.