Emerald Fire (Christian Romance) (The Jewel Series) (3 page)

After a cursory glance around the room to be certain she was actually alone and the bedroom door was shut, she threw off the covers and rushed to the closet, looking for anything at all to wear. She grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweater and dashed to the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind her. She leaned against the closed door for a moment while her heart raced and her mind reeled.

What in the name of all things holy had they done? Rather, what had she done?

With a few flicks of her wrist, she turned the water on for a shower and stopped to look at herself in the mirror. She lifted her fingers to her mouth and traced lips swollen from his kisses. Her green eyes sparkled like the stones on her hand. She normally had straight black hair and olive skin, both traits inherited from her father, a nameless one-night stand her mother would only ever crudely and often drunkenly refer to as Crazy Horse. But this morning her hair was mussed all around her head and her cheeks looked rosy, flushed. She felt warm inside despite the morning chill.

In her entire adult life, no other man had ever even so much as kissed her. Not once. Many men had tried to taste her mouth, but whenever they’d gotten close enough, panic would rise up and make her push them away. That typically ended the relationship. The ones who suffered that humiliation soon learned that it wasn’t a one-time thing and very quickly gave up trying. As she stepped under the warm spray of water, she thought back to the night before and to her complete lack of fear.

Her husband of less than twelve hours – her husband didn’t frighten her at all. When he kissed her, it occurred to her that she felt absolutely none of her normal panic. Instead, what she felt was warmth, excitement, attraction. He made her feel safe. He made her feel … loved.

“Husband and wife,” the Elvis impersonating officiator had proclaimed with a shimmy and a shake. Then her husband had slowly leaned in, leaned close, and taken her lips with his strong, masculine mouth as if her lips were the most delicate rose petals. Her knees had vanished and she felt his arm around her waist holding her up, lifting her, supporting her as she kissed his heavenly mouth.

Then, here, in this hotel suite last night, her husband had carefully led the way. It was as if he sensed that she needed to be able to control the pace of the activity. She never had to say anything to him or explain her fear. He just accepted her hesitations or kissed her through them. He slowly coaxed and guided and offered until she accepted. It had been so wonderful, so beautiful, that he had held her to him with her head cradled against his broad, thick chest and his strong arms around her while she wept at the beauty of it.

Her sister, Robin, was going to kill her. Reflecting on that for a moment, Maxine realized she didn’t much care. She was excited, thrilled. Married!

She quickly finished showering and got dressed. After brushing her teeth and running a comb through her hair, she left the bathroom, again comforted by the solitude. Little nervous butterflies woke up in her stomach while she slipped into her shoes, the sight of the enormous ring on her finger distracting her with every motion of her hand.

Stalling, she straightened the bed. As she pulled the coverlet up, her ring caught the light. Running her hand over his pillow, she smiled and felt a warm rush of love flow through her heart, quelling the nervous butterflies.

When she could think of nothing else to do, she opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the living room. Seeing him standing there staring out into the sunrise brought back visions of every time she had seen his face in the last three years. She thought of every time she had sketched his face. She could not believe how much had happened in the last three weeks.

The thought stopped her. Three weeks? Had it only been that long since they put her brand new husband’s first wife in the ground?

He turned as soon as she opened the door and their eyes met across the room. Maxine’s smile froze at the stoic look on his face. “Hi.” His voice sounded low, scratchy, thick. She wondered if he had slept at all.

“Hi.” She smiled. She noticed the cup in his hand. “Is there coffee, too, or just tea?”

Using the cup, he gestured at the room service cart sitting next to the table and chairs. “I didn’t know how to make the coffee, so I just ordered you some instead.”

Warmth flooded her heart at his thoughtfulness. “Thank you.” She crossed the room and poured herself a cup. Her hand shook a little bit. What did they do now? What did they talk about? How did she handle this first full day of being a wife? His wife? More than anything at all, she wanted to please him.

When she turned back around, she saw that he had silently moved and now stood next to the couch.

“Obviously, we need to talk.”

She didn’t like the sound of his voice. No warmth, nothing she had felt from him the night before existed in his tone. She gripped the cup so hard she was surprised it didn’t break. “Yeah.” Needing to ease her own tension, she teased, “Kind of a little late for that, isn’t it?”

SIX WEEKS EARLIER…

BARRY
Anderson sat on the bench behind the little kitchen table in the alcove of his kitchen. His former linebacker physique made the bench look like an ottoman and the table look like an end table. He stared at his reflection in the huge bay window that looked out into his back yard without really seeing his reflected piercing blue eyes, close cropped blonde hair, or stony expression.

A closed Bible sat next to a steaming cup of tea and his mobile phone kept buzzing with incoming texts. As recently as a few months ago, Barry would have pored over the scriptures for up to an hour before leaving for the office. His morning habit would have had him meditating and praying over the space of his commute. This morning, Barry ignored the Bible, the tea, and the phone as he had for weeks.

Instead, he let his mind wander.

Had someone pulled him aside twenty years ago and asked his twenty-year-old self what he thought marriage would be like, never in a million years would he have answered that marriage resembled his present reality. He could never have imagined he’d be living in separate bedrooms from a woman who treated him like something she wanted to clean off the bottom of her shoe.

He remembered when they had met their Freshman year of college. He had worked hard for a football scholarship, and she had made the cheerleading squad. They were wed eighteen years ago, the day after graduation, with all their friends and family still in town. He couldn’t imagine a more beautiful woman to be his wife. According to those present, they were a match made in heaven.

That heaven only lasted about five years. Now, six or seven months out of the year, Jacqueline barely uttered two words to him while coming and going at her leisure; taking summer trips with “friends,” or enjoying extended vacations away from Boston – and away from Barry. Lately, Barry practically enjoyed the solitude during her absences and generally managed to ignore the special circumstances.

He threw himself into work and church activities and watched the occasional game with his best friend, Tony Viscolli, or Tony’s sister-in-law, Maxine. Maxine knew more about football than most of his former coaches and was as passionate about the game as Barry himself.

So for about half the year, Barry coped with unwanted solitude and earnestly prayed that God would soften Jacqueline’s heart and bring her back to him as his wife. However, when the leaves started turning, that time of year the couple typically established an informal truce. Football season for a former professional athlete was a very social time. The early winter holidays brought parties and more social occasions. Former college cheerleader, Jacqueline, craved that lifestyle. Since Barry required either a hostess or a date, and Jacqueline lived for the social lifestyle, it worked out for both of them.

Fall and winter fed her need for attention and fed him hope. Hope that this year, during their annual armistice, she would let herself love him again, or at least respect him, if even just a little.

In his memory, he replayed the last meaningful encounter he had with his wife which had taken place just over a month ago. Football season had just started, and the New England Patriots had a home game that week. Barry and Jacqueline had maintained season tickets ever since Barry retired from professional football years ago, and they almost never missed a home game.

That September morning, his Bible sat open before him and he had occasionally taken of sip of his steaming hot tea while he refreshed his knowledge of Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus. A landscaper with a backpack blower had walked along the edge of the covered pool blowing leaves off the stretched canvas. Another worked in the far corner of the yard using a different machine to mulch a pile of leaves. The noise and the activity hadn’t stolen Barry’s attention from God’s word.

He’d heard Jacqueline come into the kitchen and glanced at his watch. It was still early. Jacqueline never made an appearance before eleven, so a nine-thirty emergence threw him off his game.

With some concern, he had noted that she looked sick. Her normally immaculately coiffed deep red hair lay stringy and flat against her head. Her pale face accented the deep circles she’d had under her eyes. With shaking hands, she pushed her hair out of her face.

“Good morning,” he’d offered.

“Barry,” was her rejoinder. Jacqueline had retrieved a bottle of water from the refrigerator then surprised him by coming to the table and sitting down next to him. She’d pushed his Bible toward the center of the table and out of her way, propped her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her palms, then announced, “We need to talk.”

“Oh?” A million things they needed to talk about had cascaded through his mind like a waterfall of thought. They could rationally discuss the way their marriage had started crumbling the instant he turned down a new football contract and decided to practice law instead. They could discuss the emotional distance between them that stretched wider each day like a bottomless chasm. They could discuss the fact that she had flatly and repeatedly refused to join him in visiting a Christian marriage counselor.

“This doesn’t have to be a fight,” she’d snarled.

Keeping his voice calm, even soothing, he’d rhetorically asked, “Who’s fighting?”

He’d watched her face relax from the snarl. “You’re right.” Then, unbelievably, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry
. Barry had let the words sink in and started silently praying.
God, if she’s finally coming to me to start to set this right, please keep me from messing it up.

He’d turned on the bench to directly face her. “Okay. What do you think we need to talk about, Jacqui?”

As Jacqueline had taken a sip of her water, her hand shook so badly that some of it splashed out of the top of the bottle. She’d wiped her chin and tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know where to start.” Giant tears fell from her lashes and slid down her face.

Barry’s heart had tightened in his chest and he reached for her. “Jacqui, baby, come here.” When she’d slipped her arms around his neck and sat on his lap, he’d felt like he was transported back twenty years, to a time of love, life, happiness. He’d pulled her close in that moment.

Her tears had soaked the shoulder of his shirt. For a long time, he had just been content to hold his wife.
Please, God, soothe my wife. Soften her heart toward me. Let her hear your voice. Stir the waters in her heart and let her know that she needs You in her life. Let her know that I can help her come to You.

“What is it, Jax?” He’d asked, using a private pet name he hadn’t uttered in more than a decade. “What’s wrong?”

Jacqueline had sat back and looked up at him. She’d looked absolutely exhausted and deathly pale. “I’m sorry,” she’d said, pushing all the way away and standing up. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m so emotional right now.”

Barry had taken her hand. It always looked like a child’s toy in his enormous grasp. “It’s okay.”

“No.” With her other hand, she’d covered his, sandwiching his massive hand between her two small palms. “Barry, I’m pregnant.”

For a heartbeat, his world had frozen. Even the buzzing sound of the leaf blower outside vanished from his senses. Barry had felt his heart stop, heard a roaring in his ears, and all at once, what she said struck him. Hard. “Is that a fact.” It wasn’t a question.

She’d nodded and then smiled. She’d smiled. She’d smiled just like she felt really happy. Like she had a right to be happy. Like ripping his heart to shreds gave her the right to be happy.

“We haven’t –”

“I know, silly. Why do you have to act so dense all the time?”

Barry stood, then. Something about his movement made her eyes widen. At six-nine, he easily towered over his wife. “Silly? Dense?”

For the first time in their marriage, he’d felt like lashing out in anger. Physically lashing out. Recognizing that, realizing that, he had crossed the room to put space between them. Jacqueline, apparently unaware of how close she had come to being knocked unconscious in her own kitchen, had followed him. She’d reached out and reclaimed his hand once more. He’d stared down their joined fingers, noting her long red nails and the giant diamond ring on her left hand. How could someone so small make him wish he were dead?