Husband by Choice

“And if someone here knows you by your legal name, who would be hurt?”

Jenna couldn’t think of a thing to say.

Lila sipped tea. Jenna wanted out. It was past Caleb’s bedtime.

Not a Lemonade Stand thought.

“Okay.” The older woman’s voice broke the silence again. Broke through the emptiness inside of Jenna. “Block the name out. Show me the certification and I can put you to work immediately. We have a seven-year-old boy whose speech has become practically paralyzed with stutters....”

“You can look up my license number and know who I am.”

“I didn’t say give me a copy, I said show it to me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“You want it now?” Jenna reached for her purse.

“Yes.”

She pulled out her tablet. Turned it on.

The certification was legible, but small. Holding the tablet with her thumb over her identifying information, she carried it over to show Lila.

The woman lifted her glasses. Read.

“Thank you.”

Jenna returned the tablet to her purse.

“When you’re ready, you bring me the rest of that and whatever I see there will remain between you and me. You have my word on it.”

“It’s not you, Lila, I just...”

Holding up her hand, Lila stood. “When you’re ready,” she said. “Just remember that I am here. That’s all I ask. When you need me, you do whatever you have to do to find me.” The woman repeated what she’d said the night before.

Jenna nodded, more because it was expected of her than because she could foresee any circumstance where she might do as the woman asked.

“And when you have something to say, there is space, right here, between you and me, to put the truth, no questions asked.”

Emotion rose inside of her, tightening her throat. Jenna picked up her tie-dyed cloth bag and slipped away.

CHAPTER SIX

“DID YOU WORK TODAY?” Max returned to the living room after exchanging wet scrubs for a pair of red basketball shorts and a gray T-shirt with a faded FBI emblem. It was left over from a trip he and Jill had taken to Washington, D.C., a decade before. As he walked in, he found Chantel standing at the mantel over the fireplace, looking at pictures.

Mostly they were of Caleb, taken in the different stages of growing from newborn to two. The center photo was of him and Meri, taken on their wedding day.

In one corner was an old photograph of a much younger Meri with her parents and little brother.

And in the other, Max’s favorite photo of Jill—in a sundress, not a uniform, taken on the day he’d passed his residency. There’d been a party. And she’d been wholly his wife that day. For the entire day.

It had been nice.

“Yeah, I worked and then headed up here as soon as I was off shift,” Chantel said, her back to the photos now as she watched him.

“Shouldn’t you be getting back?”