Husband by Choice
How did he make such a promise? He didn’t think of Chantel in those terms.
Because she’d been his wife’s best friend? And he was a married man?
“Would you have gone out with me if I’d been around after Jill died?”
She was giving him complete honesty. Laying her heart out on the table. So different from Meri’s secret inner life. Her inner hell.
“I don’t know,” he said. And then, “Probably.” Because it was also the truth.
“So, just this promise, Max. If you do become single again, we’ll go out. At least once.”
One date. It wasn’t much to ask.
“How can I make that promise?” he asked. “You’re helping me keep my wife safe and I’m praying with every ounce of my being that when Smith is out of the picture she’ll come back to me.”
“But you said tonight that you think the marriage is over.”
“It might be.” He didn’t know. What if they did get Smith? Then Meri wouldn’t have to fear for Caleb’s well-being anymore.
He just knew he couldn’t promise himself to another woman when he was still so in love with Meri.
“And until you know for sure, you can’t think about making a promise to another woman,” she said, with a small smile. A kind smile. And a knowing one. A familiar one.
“That’s right.”
“And that’s exactly what makes you so special, Maxwell Bennet. So I just want you to know, my offer, it stays open. Indefinitely.”
She said that now. But who knew what the future would bring.
Chantel was a bright, beautiful, giving woman. When the right guy came along and swept her off her feet, she’d forget she ever had a thing for a pediatrician who was besotted with the wife who’d left him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JENNA CALLED YVONNE Thursday morning, just as she always did, to confirm the address for the day’s session with Olivia. The little girl was making great progress and would probably be swallowing completely on her own very soon.
Yvonne’s phone rang. And rang again.
Jenna had just finished a session with the little boy who stuttered. He knew his exercises well and, unlike a vast majority of the children she worked with, did the exercises on his own. Often. As self-directed and determined as he was, he was at a point where he could work fully on his own, or transfer to another speech pathologist without losing any ground.
Her work was coming to an end.
Yvonne’s phone rang until it switched to voice mail. Jenna didn’t leave a message.
She waited five minutes and called back. Waited twenty-five, in case Yvonne was on the road and not picking up, and then called a third time.
At which point she paced the secure parking lot at the Stand and called Yvonne’s case worker at The Lighthouse—the shelter where she’d first met Yvonne.
Her bus stop was just through the door at one edge of the parking lot that led into the thrift shop and out onto the street. She’d heard the bus come and go twice. “I can’t get Yvonne on the phone,” she said as soon as the woman picked up.
“Meredith? I didn’t recognize your number.”
“I’m on a secure line,” she said quickly. Explanations about her didn’t matter at the moment. “I’ve been working with Olivia every day and she’s making great progress and there’s no way Yvonne would just not show up. I’ve called three times in half an hour.”
“She’s in the hospital.” June’s tone was personal, compassionate, as she delivered the news. “She took Olivia to see her paternal grandparents yesterday and Olivia’s father was there. His parents said that he’d been through a program, that they’d had a long talk with him and they all wanted to turn over a new leaf. They asked her to give their son a second chance. They promised they’d do their part, check in all the time, and he said he’d do his. You know the drill. He cried....”
Jenna didn’t want to hear anymore. Sick to her stomach, she asked, “What hospital did he put her in?”
June named the one across town from Max’s clinic—the one he seldom visited.