Tara Taylor Quinn - Husband by Choice

“There was a note, Max.” Another drop in Chantel’s tone. Another splash from the tub. Another rumble inside. “She said that she just couldn’t do it anymore. That she was too worried about Caleb all the time. That she couldn’t even leave him at day care for an afternoon, so how would she ever cope when he went to school? She was afraid that her paranoia would rub off on him. She said she had to go before he was old enough to remember and be traumatized. She left the phone because it was in your name.”

She’d have told him if she was leaving him. She would never have left Caleb. It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t going to panic.

“Were the keys in the car?” If she was ever in trouble and had to run—if she ever thought Steve was after her—she’d leave the car parked with the keys under the driver’s seat. It was one of the many precepts she’d laid out when she’d agreed to marry him.

Precautions, she’d called them.

They had to be prepared, she’d said.

“They were in the closed cup holder. Just like she said they’d be in the note.”

Who left a note in a car telling whoever looked that the keys were in the cup holder?

He sank down a little farther against the tub. She’d very clearly told him she’d leave them under the driver’s seat.

“She left you, Max. I’m so sorry....”

Another rumble. Another splash. And Dr. Max Bennet started to panic.

CHAPTER THREE

JENNA MCDONALD SAT at the white faux antique desk, a diary opened in front of her, and picked up a pen.

DAY ONE.

Pausing, pen suspended over the page, she read what she’d written.

Not her usual handwriting. There was some familiarity to it, but it was too shaky. It would improve. With time.

Everything did.

Until a time came that it didn’t? Did one have warning when that time had come? Did one know?

The wall in front of her was off-white. Her gaze following the color upward, she studied the soft gold-painted wood trim at the top. To remind her that a pot of gold awaited her, she’d been told. Different rooms had different messages. She’d chosen the pot-of-gold room. Jenna liked gold.

Something good to know. To hang on to.

Turning, she took in the generously sized room. Off-white metal furniture, including a queen-size bed, nightstand, and two dressers, fit with room to spare. The floor was carpeted, a light plush beige.

Nice. Peaceful.

The adjoining bathroom had a granite vanity, extra deep tub and walk-in shower. All donations, she’d been told. And lovely.

The closet was small. But too big for the couple of outfits hanging there—chosen from the impressive collection on-site—more donations. They’d told her to take as many as she’d like or thought she could use.

Taking things one day at a time suited her best. Until she figured out what was to come.

It had been said that clothing choice spoke of personality. Jenna’s personality wasn’t clear to her yet.

Somewhere in the folder of paperwork she’d amassed over the previous couple of hours, there was a coupon for a makeover, too, if she wanted one. Though her lack of need for one had been stressed ten-fold, lest she think she wasn’t good enough just as she was.

Lovely surroundings. And the price of admittance was higher than money could ever pay.

With a sigh, Jenna turned back to the diary she’d found still wrapped in its package, along with a new pen in the drawer of the desk at which she sat.

DAY ONE. She read again.

She might do the makeover. Just for the fun of it. Having someone fuss over her might be nice. As long as she didn’t get used to it.

Jenna McDonald was going to live an independent life.

At least she wasn’t financially dependent. She’d grabbed the few hundred dollars she’d had hidden behind the glove box closure. And always kept a few hundred hidden in her purse, too. She had her checkbook for the personal account Max had insisted she have, just so she’d feel safe. There was enough money in there for her to be fine for a while—not that she wanted to use it. The checking account could be traced....

She glanced at the diary. It was something she had to deal with. The woman who appeared on that page.

DAY ONE. Jenna touched the pen to the page.

I’m bereft. So much so it hurts to draw breath. The pen faltered as her fingers grew weak. She paused. Read the written words. And resumed writing.

The future looms before me. Frightening. I feel today that my life will be short. I won’t grow to be an old woman. I won’t live another year.

I want to live. I want to be the wife and mother I tried to be. More than anything.

Pen clutched in her sweaty grasp, Jenna gritted her teeth, closed her eyes. And breathed. She was fine. She’d been here before. Oh, not the room, here. Or even the building here. But she’d been at this point.

And being here again...this she could do.

Opening her eyes, she picked up the pen again. She couldn’t turn her back on the woman on the page.

How does a woman leave the man who is her whole world? Who cherishes her and loves her as much as she loves him? How does she leave a good man?

And how does she leave her baby?

Jenna’s pen flew across the page so quickly now her hand cramped up.

How did her heart continue to beat? Her blood to flow and her stomach to feel hunger pangs?

How could it be that she’d woken that morning as one woman and would go to bed that night a totally different person? Not just a woman with a different name, but a woman who was irrevocably, permanently changed?

But I did the right thing. The only thing. I am putting action to the greatest gift life has to offer. The gift of love. I, of all people, know the value of unconditional love. I was given a chance to know it in its truest sense. And now I must honor that love by loving selflessly back.

I can live the rest of my life, however long or short, knowing that I loved my men enough to put their well-being before my own. I can leave this world in peace knowing that.

Peace. I need it. For them, first. And for me, too.

The pen paused and eyes closed, Jenna tried to clear the mind that raged inside of her. The mind of a woman who’d been so many people. In so many places.

I am absolutely certain that I am not going to run again. I don’t know yet how I’m going to do what I’m going to do, but I am in a place where I will be safe while I figure out exactly how I am going to stand up to the man who’s determined to keep me down, to hold me locked in an embrace that stifles everything that is good inside of me.

As soon as I have figured out how to beat Steve Smith at his own game, as I know now that that is the only way to beat him, I will present myself for battle. To his death or my own. I must either be free to live with my husband and son, or die fighting for that freedom. There is no other life for me. I am not the same powerless woman he once knew. Love gives me the strength to fight the demon....

Jenna jumped as a knock sounded on her door and quickly closed the diary, sliding it inside the desk drawer without making a sound. She moved just as quietly to the bed, lying down with her back to the door.

“Come in.”

“Jenna?” She recognized the voice. Lila McDaniels had introduced herself earlier that evening as the managing director of The Lemonade Stand—Jenna’s current abode.

“Yes?” Hoping that the older woman would respect her need for solitude and go away, Jenna didn’t turn over.

“We missed you at dinner.”

She’d smiled when they’d rattled off the cafeteria hours. And smiled a second time when Lila and Sara had invited her to join them.

“I had some fruit in my bag,” she said. And still did. Left over from another place and time. It had been meant for another. A little boy. She’d get rid of it before it rotted. Just not that night.