Rachel by Jill Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

her.
    “What are you saying?” He had succumbed to delusion if he thought Jacob would stay here a moment longer than he had to. She wouldn’t let him! If they could not escape Leah, then at least let them escape this man who would ruin their life’s happiness in one selfish act.
    “If you were worth seven years, Leah is worth as much. It is only fair.”
    It took every bit of her strength not to strike him. But her stinging cheek and his grip on her arm stayed her hand. You don’t know the meaning of fair. But she could not say the words. She knew her father, knew what he was like. He just wanted Jacob’s free labor for as long as he could get it. They would never prosper if every bit of Jacob’s wages went to pay for her sister!
    Truth dawned with the thought. “You are doing this to keep Jacob from returning to Canaan.”
    Laban released his grip and shrugged. “It is part of the bargain. I cannot simply give your sister to him for nothing. She isalready risking life with a man who will not love her. I cannot make her feel as though she is worth nothing.”
    He sounded so magnanimous. But she knew the real reason. “You could have just asked him to stay.” But Leah was part of this mess. It was Leah’s desires he was caving in to. Farah must have been behind it too.
    “The hour is late, and I would have your word, my daughter. Can I trust your silence, or will you force me to take it from you?” He tipped her chin to look into her eyes. She could not lie to him.
    “You have my word.” But as he walked her back to the house, taking the long way to avoid any servants who might see her weeping, her mind whirled with some way to warn Jacob. If she could get word to Bilhah or her mother, someone , perhaps things could still go in her favor.

6
    Jacob’s pulse quickened as he stood in the center of his tent and allowed Laban’s servant Raheem to dress him. Rachel’s scent still lingered in the air, and he knew by one quick glance into her side of the tent that she had been there. He fidgeted with the sash until Raheem took it from him and knotted the belt at his waist. Rachel would undo the knot and he would remove her veils. Soon. They would at last be one.
    The thought made his blood pump like fire through his veins. He had waited so long. Oh, how he loved her! And yet seven years seemed like nothing to him now. She was his life! And he would shower her with every gift he could find for the sheer joy of spending each day with her. And one day soon, perhaps once the little ones came, he would return to his father and show him with pride the woman who had captured his heart.
    He followed Raheem through the tent’s opening and looked out across the field where Laban’s house glowed like the noonday sun. Lanterns coated in pitch sat low to the ground, illuminating the huppa at the edge of the family courtyard. Music of flutes and lyres and the occasional beat of the wedding drum floated on the evening air. Laughter from the wedding guests rose with the songs praising the bride’s purity. Rachel.
    He followed the scents and sounds, his eyes searching, until atlast he narrowed the search and found his bride. She was sitting on a raised dais, completely covered in veils so thick he could see nothing. Even her hands rested beneath the folds, hands he had come to love, not only for the foods they prepared or the tunics they mended, but for the long fingers and hennaed nails. His Rachel’s love of beauty made her paint the nails and the skin of her feet in patterns of leaves and flowers and the smallest lambs. How he longed to touch the hennaed patterns along her ankle and . . . He shook his head. He would not think of it now. Not until . . .
    He drew a breath as they approached the courtyard’s edge and a trumpet signaled his arrival. Laban’s plump form burst from among a crowd of guests, his flushed face like a man who had already partaken of too much wine.
    “Jacob, my son. You are here at last! Come.