Part 3 (1/2)

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

24.

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 25 he would miss her companions.h.i.+p. 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 cla.s.s, Angela had taken to crediting him with making her a better writer.

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

On the first day of cla.s.ses, 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.

26.

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. .h.i.t 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.”

His words made a direct hit on Kari's heart and knocked the wind out of her. Not in her wildest nightmares had she thought he would start the discussion like that. This was the part where he was supposed to apologize and beg her forgiveness. She reminded herself to breathe. Help me, G.o.d.

She hadn't wanted to believe it, even after seeing him run from the apartment the day before. And after her initial breakdown, she had decided to withhold all judgments on the matter until he got home, until they could talk about what happened and why Tim wasn't at the conference as he had said he would be. In the meantime she'd had no choice but to act like nothing was wrong.

She'd gone to church that morning and taught second-grade 27 Sunday school as always. For every question about her puffy eyes, she blamed allergies, saying nothing about the situation with Tim even when her mother asked twice if something was wrong.

After church she stopped to fill up the car. Every time thoughts of Tim came to mind her heart would race, her breathing suddenly fast and shallow. There's a reason, she told herself. There's a reason . . . there's a reason. . . .

And the anxiety would subside.

Three hours before Tim got home, she was putting away laundry, still insisting that somehow the situation couldn't be as bad as it seemed, when she walked by their wedding photo on the living-room bookshelf. She searched his intelligent eyes, his friendly face, soaked in the love that clearly existed between the two of them, and she remembered the caller's words from the day before.

Your husband's having an affair . . . having an affair . . . having an affair..

In less time than it took her to inhale, the rea.s.suring pretense disappeared.

Choking sobs erupted from her angry soul and spewed hot tears down her face.

Immediately, the situation became clear. Yes, her husband had a reason why he had lied to her and spent the weekend at a student's apartment. It was the same reason the caller had given her, and no matter what lies she wanted to tell herself, the truth was blatantly obvious.

Tim was involved with another woman.

In that moment, the sorrow and anger in Kari's heart became fury. She grabbed the wedding photo, hurled it across the room, and watched the gla.s.s shatter into dozens of pieces. Then slowly, as if she were in a trance, Kari sank to her knees and began to pray.

”I hate him, G.o.d!” She shouted the words, weeping harder than before. ”How could he do this to me?”