Imperfect Love (Heart of Hope 4)

Description

A broken marriage.

A broken heart.

A broken home.

Brayden and I have everything going against us.

There was a time when we were madly in love.

Our laughter still echoes in my ears.

They say marriage is built on trust.

They said love is the foundation.

I wonder if we have either of those now.

And what’s worse?

I’ve been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.

Divorce or death.

I have no clue what comes first.

But they both feel the same.

Brayden still has my heart.

And I have a feeling that he wants to keep it.

Will he fight for us and give our love a second chance?

Or is this the end of an era for our family?

Prologue

Terra

I wondered when my marriage went off the rails. As I sat on the edge of my bed, I experienced a rare moment of quiet and solitude in my home. I searched my brain for the moment the fairy tale ended. I couldn’t pinpoint an exact time. The busyness of life must have simply worn away at us until all that was left was resentment.

I should have known it wouldn’t last. I learned at eleven years old that life is a bitch and then you die. This lesson really sank in after I watched my mother battle cancer, only to lose in the end... She’d endured painful and debilitating treatment to save herself. She’d sacrificed any quality of life in the hopes that she’d live, but her fight was all for naught. She died anyway.

I wondered, if she would have made a different choice. Had she known she was going to die, no matter what, would she have sacrificed some time to be able to enjoy life more fully until the cancer took her? Would she have taken me for mother-daughter tea like we did once a month before she was too sick to walk? Would she have piled all the pillows on her bed and turned out all the lights to watch movies with me like we often did until her sight left her?

After she died, my father said we had to live life to the fullest, for her, and for the most part I had. But in my mind, I’d always been aware that love and happiness could be gone in an instant, and therefore seeking it, wishing for it, was dangerous.

It wasn’t until I’d met Brayden that I let love and laughter into my life again. From the moment I met him, I was his. For the first time since my mother had died, I wondered if maybe some part of the fairy tales I read as a child were real. But now, years later, I saw that I was wrong.

I sent the letter, from my lawyer, which I received today. I was in awe, in a bad way, of how quickly plans could change. I’d been considering walking away from the life we’d failed to build, but now that couldn’t happen.

I heard the front door open and the sound of my children’s voices as they scurried into the house. Tears welled in my eyes. I closed them, and listened like it was the last time I’d hear them.

“I want apples and peanut butter,” six-year old Lanie said.

“No peanut butter,” four-year old Noah whined.

A sad smile came to my lips. Noah didn’t like how thick and sticky peanut butter was.

“Put your packs away and meet me back in the kitchen,” Brayden said. His voice was closer, which suggested he was making his way to our room.

I sucked in a breath to prepare myself to see him.

He stepped into the doorway and, for a moment, I remembered the man who’d stolen my heart ten years ago. As I looked at him objectively, I thought that he was more handsome now than when I’d met him. His six-foot three-inch frame carried a muscular physique which he maintained through regular exercise at the office gym. At least I thought he was still muscular. I didn’t see his body too often anymore. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had sex. A few weeks ago, I caught him in the shower masturbating. There was a time I’d have found that a turn on and joined him, letting him jerk off into my mouth. But that time was gone. When I watched stroke himself, I felt hurt instead. Unlike him, my body wasn’t anywhere close to the size two I’d been when we met. I was sure he wasn’t thinking of me as he shot his load. It was probably his secretary.

“You’re home.”

“Yes, I finished earlier than I expected.”

He stepped into the room and shut the door, a sure sign we were going to fight and he didn’t want the kids to hear. “You said you were busy and needed me to pick up the kids.”

“I thought it would take longer.”

He set his hands on his hips as he looked down on me. “I had to cancel an important meeting to get the kids, Terra. You could have picked them up.”

Work. Perhaps he was banging his secretary, but his real mistress was work.

“I didn’t know I’d be done so soon.” I stood, not liking the feeling I was being interrogated. I took off my jewelry as I didn’t usually wear it unless I was going out. Raising kids was messy work, so I didn’t dress nice or wear jewelry in my everyday life.

“Now I’ll have to stay late. My wife gets annoyed when I work late.”

I hated when he talked to me in third person. “Yes, heaven forbid she would want her husband home to have dinner with her and the kids.” I closed my jewelry box.

“What’s this?”

I looked at him through the reflection of the mirror over my dresser. He was holding the letter from the lawyer. For a moment, I had a feeling of panic, but then I figured there was nothing to hide. Maybe he’d be relieved.

He frowned as he looked toward me. “You want a divorce?”

I turned toward him, noting that he still looked pissed, but not upset or worried as I might have hoped his reaction would be to my consulting with a lawyer. Of course, divorce was out of the question now.