Conceived Without Sin by Bud Macfarlane Read Free Book Online Page A

meal.
    He had never hit Maggie, and the urge he felt now as she ignored him, having outmaneuvered him, was sudden and fierce.
    He took a step back, afraid forher, afraid for himself, not at all accustomed to the desire to strike her. He had just lost a battle. He hated to lose.
    He was a warrior. A tough guy.
    He retreated from the kitchen, and climbed the stairs to the master bedroom. He found his luggage, gathering dust, in the back of the fancy walk-in closet he had repainted two years earlier. He resisted an urge to run downstairs to renegotiatethe treaty. She would no doubt make him beg, and mock his sincere apologies. She was tired of his apologies.
    And he was too proud to beg. He had given his word to leave on her conditions. He was a man of his word.
    What about the girls?
    He put the girls out of his mind.
    One hour later, he was driving away from his own home, not sure where he was going to stay for the night.
    His late father hadalso been a tough guy–a cop. And Mark's older brothers were tough guys who had made sure their younger brother was nothing less than a tough guy. He was also an honorable man, and, despite his love for his wife and their three daughters, he was supremely frustrated because he did not know why his marriage was crumbling out of his hands, falling down through mental grates into dark sewers. Beyond hisreach, irretrievable.
    Mark was big, tall, muscular. He was an FBI agent. He had been an all-state football player and wrestler in high school, and received an appointment to the Naval Academy. He had towered over his fellow midshipmen, and earned second team All-American honors at tight end.
    He was not a gentle giant, but there was a measured quality to his anger. He was calculatingly ferociouswhen he thought the situation merited it. This fierceness induced fear in others. The calculation brought success. His voice carried over land like a ship's horn over water. His voice alone could stop a bad guy in his tracks at times when other agents needed bullets.
    He had more of everything. More charisma. More strength. More intelligence. More savvy. More, more, more. Men who weren't toughguys had a natural fear of him. The small fraternity who were also tough guys respected him, and saw him as a kind of modern king. Historians say Charlemagne was a foot taller than his peers, and his height alone commanded homage in an age so violent that war, not football, was a seasonal pursuit of the brave and wealthy.
    But this king's marriage was crumbling. Mark Johnson was a Catholic. Heloved his faith. But his faith wasn't helping him–not yet. His Rosaries weren't answered. His wife didn't respect him.
    Maggie. Once you told me that you wanted to be by my side forever.
    Maggie, he remembered, was truly a queen when they met. Queen of the high school prom the year before he met her, and Homecoming Queen of Hood College, the all-women school she was attending the weekend he mether at a formal.
    She had not been able to keep her eyes off the king. As he drove away now, he remembered the tan color of her shoulders set off against a dress so white it made you squint. They had danced. Then he escorted her over to the ground-level balcony outside the reception hall. She was smiling. Looking at him.
    "Let's get out of here," he had said.
    "How?" she had asked, her blue eyessparkling.
    "This is how," he replied, lifting her up, making her feel like a small girl with his strength, as he carefully swung his leg over the stone banister, and took her across the lawn to his Jeep.
    He drove her to Main Street in Annapolis, and they talked and walked, arm-in-arm, on the crowded sidewalk. Passersby stared at the king and queen. He was in the full dress whites of the NavalAcademy. They made all that surrounded them seem a dull gray.
    He could tell she wanted him. All the girls always did. Despite many opportunities to throw away his virginity, he had saved himself for the one. She had saved herself, too. Later, they would