Redemption (4 page)

Other memories came to mind, times when Tim had made her feel simple and inferior. Wasn’t that why she spent so much time working and volunteering at church? Wasn’t that why she had joined the book club and signed up as a museum docent? So he’d see her as more than a decoration? So he would be proud of her?

It was all so unfair. She loved Tim with her whole heart, intended to stay married to him forever. Wasn’t that enough?

Hours passed, and Tim didn’t come home. Kari was not surprised. What could he say? What was left to say?

The tears finally subsided, and she sat up. Her throat was swollen, and she struggled to draw a deep breath. She blew her nose and gazed out the front window at the dark skies beyond. How was it that yesterday she’d thought her marriage to Tim was a shining beacon of what married love was supposed to look like? What had happened? Even if the student had something Kari couldn’t offer, was it that easy for Tim to walk away from all they had shared, all they had promised?

Her fingers tightened into two fists. If that’s how he felt, he could go ahead and leave.

“Jerk.” She whispered the word through clenched teeth. “We had it all, and you threw it away.”

No answers came, and Kari closed her eyes, angry and defeated.

Where were God’s reassuring whispers now? Where was God, for that matter?

She blinked and sighed deeply, knowing the answer even as she asked the questions. God hadn’t disappeared just because Tim was having an affair. Even now, with her world upside down and every breath an effort, Kari knew the Lord would never leave her. And somehow he would help her and Tim sort through this mess, even if right now the idea sickened her.

Yes, things would eventually work out. Tim would come home and apologize, and they would get counseling like a handful of her friends had done when their marriages had been threatened. They would make it work, wouldn’t they? Wasn’t that the foundation of what she believed? That with God all things were possible?

Still, the thought of being married to a man who could lie to her, cheat on her, betray her, felt as welcoming as a life sentence in the state penitentiary. God could bring restoration, but she knew she would never be the same again after today. Tears stung at her eyes once more, and an overwhelming sadness settled like a lead blanket over her heart.

Kari pulled her knees up beneath her chin and thought about the woman she’d been that morning. Happy, idealistic, confident about her relationship with Tim. Trusting him implicitly and ready to launch a marriage group from their home. There hadn’t been a single warning sign. She’d been busy, sure, but who wasn’t? That had never come between them before.

And as the midnight hours bled into the early dawn, Kari grieved for the woman she’d once been. The woman she’d never be again.

A woman who had drawn her last breath at ten-thirty the night before.

Freshly popped corn and vanilla candles warmed the Baxter home, a sprawling Victorian in the nearby township of Clear Creek. The Dallas Cowboys had just won a close contest, and John Baxter used the remote to turn off the television. He shifted his gaze to Elizabeth, his wife of more than thirty years. She was still beautiful, but his attraction to her was more than that. She bore a certain charm and elegance that couldn’t be taught.

The screen faded to black, but John was in no hurry to get up. After raising five children, silence seemed almost sacred. He ran his thumb over his wife’s soft hand and savored her presence.

God, you’re so good to me . . . thank you for letting her live. Thank you.

A holy reassurance massaged the rough edges of John’s soul, and he felt the corners of his mouth lifting. He was fifty-seven years old, married to his best friend, and certain that when the clock ran out on his days in this life, he’d have an eternity together with his loved ones in a place that would put all of earth’s goodness to shame.

Life couldn’t get much better than that.

He was about to say as much when Elizabeth released a troubled sigh, stood, and slowly crossed the room, her gaze fixed on the framed photographs lined along the mantel above the fireplace. There they were, all five of them—Brooke, Kari, Ashley, Erin, and Luke. Oldest to youngest.

After a few minutes, Elizabeth dabbed at two silent tears. John’s heart sank, and he went to her side.

“Which one?” He slipped his arm around her shoulders.

Elizabeth dabbed at another tear and made a sound that was part laugh, part bottled-up sob. “Kari.”

John shifted his gaze and stared at the face of his second-oldest daughter.

“I’m worried about her and Tim.” Elizabeth nestled her head on John’s shoulder.

There were goose bumps on her arm, and John ran his hand down the length of it. “Did you talk to her?”

“This morning. Before her shoot.”

“What’d she say?” He studied his wife, wishing he could ease her anxiety.

“Everything’s fine.” Another tear trickled down her face. “Maybe I’m the only one who sees it, but something isn’t right.” She wiped the tear away. “The distant look in his eyes lately, the way he’s always too busy for family dinners.” She paused. “He’s out of town again.”

John was quiet. He looked at the face in the photo once more. Suddenly the picture in his mind changed, and Kari was no longer a confident young woman in her twenties, married and living not far away in Bloomington. She was an anxious teenager wondering why Ryan Taylor hadn’t called.

Daddy, do you pray for me every night?
John could hear her precious voice as clearly as he’d heard it that long-ago day. He closed his eyes and let himself drift back.

“Of course.” John remembered taking his daughter’s hands, trying to will peace into her troubled heart.

“Will you still pray for me when I’m grown-up and married?” Her eyes grew watery and her chin quivered. “I’ll need your prayers forever, Daddy.”

Was her heart troubled now? Were there problems between Kari and Tim that none of them knew about? Elizabeth had always been perceptive when it came to their children, sometimes knowing their needs even before they recognized them.

“Okay.” He gently squeezed Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Let’s pray.”

Elizabeth nodded as they joined hands, bowed their heads, and placed their second-oldest daughter in God’s hands where she belonged.

Even if she had no troubles at all.

Chapter Three

Tim Jacobs wished more than anything else that his upcoming meeting with Kari were over.

It had been wrong for him to stay at Angela’s after seeing his wife out on the street, but he had felt paralyzed to do anything else. He had no idea what he was going to say to Kari, and anyway it was virtually impossible for him to walk away from a weekend with Angela Manning.

She captivated him like no other woman ever had; his feelings were that intense.

On Sunday evening, by the time he pulled up outside the home he shared with his wife, he had convinced himself that her discovery was a good thing. Now he could admit the affair and ask for a divorce. Yes, it would be sad, and it was bound to be difficult for both of them. But the outcome was fairly predictable. Tim would need to move out while the divorce was pending, and that meant one very wonderful thing.

He and Angela would never have to be apart again.

He killed the engine and stared at his front door. If only the whole ordeal were already over and done with. After all, he wasn’t the first husband in the world to come home and ask his wife for a divorce. This kind of thing happened every day in neighborhoods across the country, right?

Tim swallowed and remembered something he’d heard in a sermon once.
The more bad choices you make, the less bad your choices seem.

He dismissed the thought. Ridiculous. It was just his overactive conscience, nothing more. Life was about to be better than it’d ever been. His guilty feelings did not surprise him. He
was
guilty. And in some ways he felt awful about it. But during these past few months with Angela he’d felt like a kid in a toy store, lured away from his ordinary life by a woman who’d captured him heart, mind, and soul.

A sigh slid through Tim’s clenched teeth as he climbed out of the car and went inside. She wasn’t in the front room. He dried the palms of his hands on his pants legs, his throat so tight he could barely speak. “Kari?”

What he was about to do would be the hardest part. She would cry and carry on, and in the process he might even shed a tear or two. The truth was, he still cared about Kari. And he’d miss her like crazy when he was gone.

Images of Angela came to mind, and his heart rate doubled. Okay, so he wouldn’t miss the bondage of being married. But he’d miss seeing Kari at the breakfast table, miss the way she looked with her hair messed up in the mornings before she took a shower and the way she hummed to herself when she worked around the house. Of course, he wouldn’t miss her busy schedules, the way she made room for everyone and everything but him. The way their intimate moments had dwindled to little more than simple routine.

The truth was, Kari’s life was full. Modeling, teaching Sunday school, church choir, her volunteer work at the museum, the time she spent with her family. In the long run, when the shock wore off, she’d be fine.

This was the kindest thing he could do—no matter how much he would miss her companionship. It was something he should have done months back, when he thought a few afternoons and evenings with Angela would cure him of his attraction to her.

Had he ever been wrong about that.

“Kari?” He set his bag down. His palms were sweaty again. He shoved his hands deep into his back pockets and exhaled hard. With every new development of his relationship with Angela he’d found a way to justify his actions. After all, his heart wasn’t involved at first. That hadn’t happened until the end of the summer.

Tim thought about how slowly, how insidiously his relationship with Angela had developed. He’d been attracted to her from the first day—it was hard to ignore somebody built the way she was—but that didn’t signal an alarm. Dozens of attractive coeds had dotted the course of his career. Then he’d read her writing samples.

If he was honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he’d fallen in love with Angela less because of her physical beauty than because of the way she could write. The combination of intelligence and emotion that poured from her text was striking, brilliantly so. And after spending a semester in his class, Angela had taken to crediting him with making her a better writer.

That had done unbelievable things to his ego. Even then, their relationship had been nothing more than admiration and desire until she returned from summer break in the middle of August.

On the first day of classes, they had shared lunch together—as they’d often done through the previous spring. But after a summer apart there was no denying that they both wanted more, needed more than a shared meal. After lunch they went to her apartment, and in the course of the next two hours Tim knew his marriage to Kari would never be the same again.

A week later his entire outlook on life had changed, and he was all but certain he wanted a divorce. Something about being with Angela made Tim feel better than anyone else ever had, even Kari. It was as if he was addicted to everything about his new love—the way she looked, the way she made him feel. Angela was aware of the effect her looks had on men. She was cool and self-possessed by day in her role as college student.

But by night . . .

Tim sucked in a slow breath. There were no words to describe the way she—

Footsteps sounded from down the hallway.
Okay. Get it over with quickly.

Kari entered the living room through a side door, and Tim felt his words hit a logjam somewhere in his throat. There were streaks on either side of her face, and her eyes were red and swollen. Yet her beauty still caught him off guard. Pure, wholesome beauty, the kind that no longer excited him.

For a long moment they stayed that way, their eyes locked. No words were necessary. The expression on Kari’s face told him everything he already knew—that his affair had caught her by surprise and slammed her heart into the ground.

Tim bit his lower lip and decided it was best to get to the point. “I’m sorry, Kari.” His heart skipped a beat as he exhaled long and slow. “I don’t want to be married anymore.”