Husband by Choice

CHAPTER ONE

“SHA SHA, MAMA. Sha sha! Geen, Go! Geen, Go!”

Easing her foot slowly off the brake as the traffic signal turned from red to green, Meredith Smith Bennet tuned out Caleb’s chatter because she had to.

And took comfort from it at the same time. The blond-haired toddler, strapped into his car seat behind her, kicked his feet repeatedly with glee. Sha sha—French fries. That was all it took for him to be happy. The anticipation of a French fry.

With a glance in the rearview mirror, keeping the small green car four vehicles back in the other lane in sight, she turned left at the familiar Santa Raquel corner.

“Sha sha, Mama! Sha sha!”

She’d promised Caleb French fries at his favorite fast food place—a treat on the one day a week he had to spend an afternoon at day care—and he’d had his eye on the Golden Arches where they’d been heading before she’d been forced to turn off the main drag.

“Sha shaaaaa!”

Instead of excitement, she heard the beginning of tears in his voice as the arches disappeared from view. The green car had made an illegal right turn, cutting off another vehicle to cross over two lanes.

“I know, Caleb,” she said. Her son was not going to suffer. Or know fear. Not by her hand. “In a minute,” she said, keeping her voice light and cheerful—her husband’s description of her “mommy” voice. A voice he was certain he’d never tire of hearing.

But he’d also been certain that Steve was in the past.

“Mama’s going a different way,” she continued, changing lanes without a signal and making a quick left turn the second she saw the chance.

As luck would have it, she was able to cross three lanes and make a right and then another left turn before the not new, not old, not big and not particularly small green car with the black-haired man behind the wheel could follow.

She’d lost him.

For now.

* * *

PEDIATRICIAN MAX BENNET was finishing up his afternoon’s charting, listening to the chatter of the front office staff in the clinic he shared with several other family physicians. His private cell phone buzzed at his hip.

Last he’d spoken to his wife, she’d been leaving to take Caleb for French fries on his way to day care. But Meri knew his last patient, a four-year-old needing a well-check, had been at three. She probably needed him to stop for milk on the way home. Or vanilla wafers. Caleb was addicted to them. And since they were the only sweets the little guy was allowed....

The caller wasn’t his wife of three years. It was Caleb’s day care.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Dr. Bennet, but Mrs. Bennet isn’t here yet and Caleb’s not happy. He’s been upset since she dropped him off, but it’s gotten steadily worse. He’s crying so hard he just threw up.”

He and Meredith had disagreed on the whole day care thing. He’d thought it was important that Max be integrated. She’d wanted to keep the toddler with her or a private sitter.

She was paranoid about safety. With good reason.

But Caleb had grown too attached to them—the separation anxiety he was experiencing was, in part, their fault.

They couldn’t let Meri’s fears paralyze their son.

“It’s three-forty-five,” he said, glancing at the clock on his wall—a Seth Thomas he and Meri had purchased together at a little shop in Carmel. “What time did she say she’d be back?”

“Technically she’s not due until four but when he was so upset at her leaving, she said she’d be back by three.”

It got earlier every week. “What time did she drop him off?”

“One.”

They’d gone from one full day a week to one half day. And now it was down to two hours?

Still, it wasn’t like Meri to be late collecting their son. Ever.

“Mrs. Bennet had a client this afternoon,” he told the woman on the phone. “I suspect she ran over. I’ll be done here in another fifteen minutes or so and will stop by there on my way home. If she shows up in the meantime, have her wait for me, will you?”

They’d have to talk about increasing Caleb’s time at day care again. Later. Maybe over a glass of wine. When Meri was relaxed.

“Yes, sir. What do you want me to do with him in the meantime?”

“Tell him to go play,” Max said. He supposed he sounded harsh. But his son had to learn to cope away from his mother’s watchful eye.

At two years of age, Caleb was showing no signs of asserting his own independence.

Clicking to end his call, Max dropped his phone to his desk. And closed the file on his laptop. He wasn’t going to get any more work done. Might as well pack up and get Caleb.

But first, he put in a call to his wife. She wouldn’t answer if she was still in session with the little boy who had Down syndrome. His parents had hired her for private therapy one day a week in addition to the speech pathology work she did with him at the elementary school where she worked part-time.

Not surprised when she didn’t pick up—if she was out of session, she’d be getting Caleb—he put his cell phone in the breast pocket of his lab coat and headed out to the minivan he’d purchased when they’d found out they were expecting Caleb.

He pretended that he was as relaxed as he knew he should be. Meri was fine. There was nothing to worry about.

Trouble was he’d told himself that once before—in another lifetime. About another woman. His first wife.

And he’d been wrong.

She hadn’t been fine at all.

She’d been dead.

* * *

WAVING GOODBYE TO DEVON, who stood with his mother in the doorway to their home, Meredith hurried to her white minivan, a much less posh version of the one Max drove—her choice because she didn’t like to stand out or attract attention. With the remote entry device in the palm of her hand, her finger poised over the panic button, she waited until she was in front of the car, with a view of both sides of the vehicle, ensuring there was no one there waiting to jump in one door as she climbed in the other, and then, pushed the unlock button.

Ten seconds later she was safely inside with the doors locked. Mrs. Wright, Devon’s mother, was just closing their front door.

Adjusting her rearview mirror, she stole a panoramic glance of the road behind her. No green vehicles. No vehicles in the street at all.

And no one sitting in a car in a driveway that she could see.