Redemption Series: Redemption Part 9

Her grin made his knees weak. "Well, then, welcome home."

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She moved her toned body to one side so Tim could see far enough into the apartment to notice lit candles and dimmed lights. Something freshly baked mingled with a smell that was sweet and intoxicating. Her hand found his. "I've been thinking about you all day."

He started to step inside when another Scripture verse flew through his mind.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and- "Tim?" Angela angled her head and studied his face. "What's wrong with you?"

Flee from s.e.xual immorality.

Tim sighed and tossed his hands in the air. "I'm sorry. I've got a lot on my mind."

"Yeah." Angela's smile faded. "Me too."

Tim felt his heart lurch. "Everything okay?"

"Sure." Her expression fell.

He lifted her chin, caressing her face as he did. "Tell me the truth, Angela.

What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "Nothing."

He swallowed and forced a chuckle. "You're not having second thoughts, are you?"

Angela leaned her head against the wall. "I wanted tonight to be perfect.

But..."

The thud of his heartbeat sounded in his ears. He'd sacrificed his marriage for this woman. He had no idea what he'd do if she backed out now. "But, what?"

She looked at him. "I'm struggling, Tim. Really."

He searched his memory and tried to imagine why she'd be struggling. She had everything she had wanted. Including him. He brushed a finger along her brow.

"Come on, Angela. Whatever it is, you can tell me."

She exhaled softly, and after a long while she began to speak. "My father left us when I was ten." Her eyes met his and held. "He ran off with another woman."

Silence hung between them for a moment, and Tim rested 70 against the Door frame again. He wasn't sure where she was going with this, so he waited.

"I promised myself I would never date a married man." There was a catch in her voice. "And now here I am. No better than the woman who stole my daddy away."

Tim could barely breathe as he considered her words. "Should I go?"

"No. That's just it." She looked up, her eyes a mix of sorrow and desire. "I want you to stay. Forever, Tim. Really."

"Good." He felt himself relax. "I want that too."

She moved closer and ran her fingers along his hairline. The sadness eased from her expression. "You know what we need to do?"

Whatever it was, he would do it. How could he not, with her standing there, sweet and beautiful and vulnerable, mesmerizing him with her every movement?

"What do we need to do?"

"Have a little wine." She smiled, holding up a hand to ward off his objections.

"Now, look. I know you don't drink, but come on ... just one gla.s.s?" She curled her lips into a pout that made Tim weak.

"Angela, I don't..." His argument fizzled, and another verse flashed in his head.

Be holy, because I am holy.

"Come on." She pulled at his hand again. "I'm tired of drinking alone." She led him into the apartment, but halfway across the entry she turned, rose on her tiptoes, and kissed him soundly on the mouth. The kiss lasted longer than either of them intended, and when Angela came up for breath she grinned at him. "Don't fight it, Tim. You can't tell me no, remember? Just one drink. For me."

And there it was, the offer he had never intended to accept, standing between them like a doorway. In that instant he knew instinctively that the Scripture verses would fade if he took the drink. What could it hurt, really? He wouldn't do anything crazy

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or over the edge, nothing life-threatening like the frat kid or Uncle Frank.

Just a gla.s.s of wine to please Angela, ease the pain, and help him think clearly.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and- "You know, I think that'd be nice," he heard himself say.

Angela gazed back into her apartment and lifted her shoulders twice. "I just so happen to have a bottle of white zinfandel in the refrigerator." Her eyes danced, and Tim realized he didn't need a drink at all. He was intoxicated just being near her.

She led the way into the kitchen and nodded toward the table. It was set for two, and the lovely smell was bread baking in the oven. There were winegla.s.ses at both their place settings. "Actually, you have a choice," she said. "The zinfandel or a nice little merlot."

He inhaled sharply and chuckled. "I'll trust your judgment."

She poured him a gla.s.s of pale pink liquid. It looked like the type of wine his friends used to drink years ago at more sophisticated college parties.

He gripped the stem of the gla.s.s just as yet another Scripture verse filtered through his mind.

I have come that you might have life and have it to the- "To new beginnings ..." Tim raised his gla.s.s to hers, and the two made a clinking sound.

He took a single sip and tried not to react as the liquid left a subtle burning sensation on his tongue, a feeling that worked itself down into his gut. So this is it, huh? The great forbidden fruit.

He took another sip, then another. A gentle floating sensation stole over him as he drank, gradually was.h.i.+ng away the pain and anxiety Tim had felt in the past week. This wasn't so bad. He had no desperate desire to guzzle the liquid or finish off the bottle. When Angela offered, he accepted another gla.s.s, and as he drank it he felt his muscles warm and relax.

Before they made their way to the bedroom, he had finished off three gla.s.ses of wine and was still sober enough to recognize 72 what seemed to be an important fact. He was not like his uncle Frank. The alcohol had helped him unwind, nothing more. The relief of knowing he didn't have a problem with alcohol felt almost as good as the gentle buzz that helped him sleep that night.

He considered Uncle Frank's statement about why he drank: It's one way to stop the pain. His uncle's words rang in his mind that night and again the next, when he and Angela finished off another bottle.

The next day he purchased a small bottle of vodka and hid it in his desk at the university. Lugging a wine bottle to work would look bad, but the little flask of clear liquid was easy to conceal. Besides, he guessed he would need only a single swig of vodka to give him the feeling he'd gotten from several gla.s.ses of wine.

It wasn't that he needed to drink. But if it helped him sleep, no doubt it would ease the emptiness and guilt he felt during office hours.

A week later-after sharing wine with Angela seven nights straight and nearly finis.h.i.+ng off the vodka-Tim realized Uncle Frank had been wrong about something.

Drinking wasn't one way to stop the pain.

It was the only way.

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--Ashley Baxter was disgusted with her family's obsession with faith, but for the sake of her sister she was trying to keep her opinion to herself.

What sort of G.o.d would insist that Kari stay married to a creep like Tim Jacobs?

That's what Ashley wanted to know. Kari had been living at their parents' house for two weeks, and Ashley still couldn't believe the conversation they'd shared the morning after her arrival.

"Let me get this straight." Ashley had sat perched on one of the kitchen stools while Kari leaned against the counter, sipping a cup of coffee. "Tim told you he's seeing another woman . . . but you're the one who doesn't want the divorce?"

"I don't expect you to understand." Kari had gray circles under her eyes again that morning. She held her mug with both hands and sighed. "He can tell me he's in love with her, but in his heart of hearts he doesn't believe that any more than I do."

"What?" An angry pit had formed in Ashley's stomach. "He told you that? That he's in love with this . . . this student?"

"He's not in love with her, Ashley. He's mixed up." Kari 74 straightened, leveling her gaze at Ashley. "I promised to love Tim Jacobs until the day I die, and that hasn't changed."

Ashley stood, her hands on her hips. "Don't you get it?" She and Kari were the same height, and as she approached her older sister, Ashley looked straight into her eyes. "Your marriage is over."

"Listen." Kari set down her coffee and studied Ashley with a quiet strength.

"You can sit down, Ashley. And you don't have to raise your voice. I know my opinion is not popular."

"Not popular?" Ashley huffed out loud. "Listen, big sister, the guy should be hung from his-"

"Stop!" Kari's eyes welled up, and Ashley was seized with remorse. "Don't you understand? He's my husband, Ashley! I haven't had time to think it all through yet, but there's one thing I know for sure: If there's a way to get past this thing ... to resolve it and put it behind us, that's what I want to do."

The memory faded and left a sour residue in Ashley's heart.

It was just after two o'clock, and Ashley's son, Cole, was sleeping. He was three years old, and naps were still a much-needed part of his schedule-not that Ashley was very good about schedules. That was her mom's area of expertise, and in some ways Ashley knew her son had two mothers. A young, single mother who liked feeding Cole his favorite ice cream, taking him to the park, and cuddling with him when he had bad dreams. And a more mature, responsible mother who made sure he ate bananas with his cereal and got a proper nap each afternoon.

Sometimes the arrangement bothered Ashley, made her feel guilty and a little jealous. Other times she thought her son had the best of both worlds.

Right now, though, her mom was at a Bible study and Kari at the grocery store.

With Cole asleep, Ashley had the house to herself. She opened her French impressionists art book and tried to tackle the third chapter. But every few sentences the image of Kari's husband, Tim, came to mind.

How dare he cheat on Kari? Ashley tapped her pencil on the 75 open page and thought about where G.o.d fit into this mess. You're still there, right, G.o.d? She let the thought sit on the front porch of her mind for a moment before sweeping it away. Of course he was there. Ashley had no doubt about the existence of G.o.d. It was his caring about their everyday lives that Ashley tended to doubt.

A loving, involved G.o.d would have some sort of intelligent system whereby people like Tim would die suddenly in their sleep and people like Kari, people who taught Sunday school and read their Bible faithfully, would get some kind of break. If all Kari wanted from life was a marriage that would last forever, then that's what G.o.d should have given her.

But look at what Kari had instead.

Ashley exhaled loudly and turned a page in the textbook. What had G.o.d ever done for her big sister? A flash of remorse pierced her dark thoughts. Maybe she was being too hard on G.o.d. He'd helped all of them to some degree-by dying on the cross. Wasn't that the basic message of all those years of Sunday school?

Still, it wouldn't have hurt him to give Kari a better husband too.

Kari's unabated devotion to G.o.d in the face of Tim's affair was truly beyond Ashley. For that matter, it was beyond her how Kari could want such a simple life in the first place. Ashley gazed out the kitchen window of the Baxter home and took in the rolling hills and endless miles of red- and gold-decked trees.

The world was meant to be explored, conquered, tasted, sampled.

Wasn't that why she'd escaped to Paris the minute she finished her a.s.sociate's degree? Wasn't it why she had done the things she'd done, why she'd decided to have Cole in the first place? Ashley closed her eyes, and she was arriving in Paris again, trying out her high school French on locals who pretended not to hear her, sampling new flavors and sounds and experiences wherever she found them, deliriously free of the

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expectations of living in a community where everyone knew her as the doctor's daughter.

The Christian doctor's daughter.

Of course, sometimes she wasn't proud of the lifestyle she'd lived in Paris, but those were the times when she thought like a Baxter, not like the expressive and free-spirited individual she knew herself to be. All in all, Paris had been worth it, regardless of the cost.

That's where she and Kari were so different.

Kari had spent six months in New York, but all she'd accomplished was some modeling and sightseeing. She hadn't immersed herself in the culture there, hadn't really lived in New York. Ashley sighed. It was one thing to be safe and conservative, to live a life based on your beliefs. Ashley could admire that, although it certainly wasn't her-not the safe and conservative part, anyway. But it was another thing entirely to pine away your days waiting for a faithless husband to come to his senses.

Especially with a hunk of a catch like Ryan Taylor back in town and wonderfully single.

Ashley thought about Ryan for a moment, the way he and Kari had been when they were younger. Kari had obviously opted for Tim because he seemed to be a safer bet, the type women wouldn't fawn over the way they fawned over Ryan.