Abide With Me

by Shellie Arnold

  She was loved. And she was not alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  You have paint on your chin.”

  “And you just now tell me?” Angelina looked across the table at Nicholas and let herself revel in the tender omelet, the fluffy pancakes, and the flirtatious look in his eyes as he watched her wipe her chin. “I painted last night.”

  “At first, I thought it was butter or eggs,” Nick said. “I didn’t know.”

  “Because I’ve always been a sloppy eater?”

  “No. But you are downing those pretty quickly. Do you need more pancakes?”

  “Need? No. Want? Yes, but I shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to gain five hundred pounds, that’s why. Did I get it all off?”

  “No. Come over by the sink.”

  She followed him. He wet a paper towel.

  “No mirror here. You want me to do it?” His voice still held a playful tone.

  “I …”

  She let herself look into his eyes. Let herself feel the jolt, the unexpected pull to touch.

  She stepped closer to him and raised her chin in invitation. He steadied her jaw with his fingertips as he rubbed the spot.

  “Must be oil-based,” he said. “Doesn’t want to come off with water. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Their eyes locked, and she knew he was giving her the option of backing away.

  Don’t turn away. Let him love you.

  “I’ve nail polish remover upstairs in our bathroom if you still want to help me.”

  “I do. Want to help,” he said.

  She led the way. With the exception of coming up here to get the books the other day, she’d not been in this room in months. She’d moved out before Thanksgiving, not wanting to spend another holiday alone in this house. Thinking now, if she’d done differently, she could have spent the time with Pierce and Laurie and Daniel and Kay.

  Angelina sighed and opened the medicine cabinet. She dabbed the liquid onto a clean cloth and handed it to him.

  “That smells strong,” he said. “You sure about this?”

  “Yes. It’s fine.”

  He worked at her jawline, then rinsed the rag and wiped the area clean.

  “Done,” he said.

  “Nicholas.”

  Every ounce of love she’d ever had for him reignited. This man— who cooked for her, and touched her gently, and kept his word—was exactly who she wanted, who she thought she’d married so long ago.

  “When you prayed with me last night, I was very uncomfortable,” she said.

  “That wasn’t my intent.”

  “I know. I’m not saying that to make you feel bad. I don’t remember you ever praying with me like that before.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “As I said, at first I was uncomfortable. Then I went upstairs. Something pushed me—I don’t mean physically, I mean inside—to ask questions and answer them. I’ve never had an experience like that before. I sensed, well, a presence with me.”

  “You mean God?”

  Thinking this way was new to her, yet she knew what she’d experienced.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Like when we first asked Him into our lives. When I woke this morning, I still felt Him in a good way.”

  “Then why do you look upset?”

  “Because I’m uncomfortable again.”

  The need to tell him how close she’d come to breaking her marriage vows became a weight in her heart. She needed to tell him the truth. Not to hurt him, but so there would be no secrets, no lies between them.

  Only truth.

  Dread wrapped a large hand around her throat. The tension inside her threatened to tear her apart. Telling Nick would hurt him. But if she wasn’t truthful about who she was, she couldn’t expect him to be, either.

  “If I ask you something, will you be honest with me?” she asked.

  “To the best of my ability.”

  “All the weeks and months you traveled, were you always faithful to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “No lonely nights? Attractive strangers across a crowded room?”

  “I don’t think I experience loneliness the same as you. Whenever I missed you, I told myself I was working toward our future. Like investing. One has to pay to get a return if that makes sense. I was always swamped with work. I worked, I ate, I slept. When I did get lonely, the feeling made me dream of you. There wasn’t room for anyone else. There never has been.”

  “Thank you.”

  Angelina left the bathroom and stood by their bed. She wrapped her arms around her middle.

  “When I went to Rita’s wedding—my goodness, was that only a week ago? When I went to Vegas, I was in a really bad place. I couldn’t believe you’d turned down a free weekend away with me. I felt like you were saying spending time with me wasn’t valuable to you.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I’m beginning to understand that, but at the time, I was really hurt. I didn’t realize how hurt until I was sitting in the ceremony and suddenly I couldn’t stand it. I mean, a wedding? When you think your own marriage is dead? I started crying. Couldn’t stop. I ran out.”

  “I’m sorry, Angie.”

  “Don’t misunderstand. I’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty.” She sat on the edge of their bed and wrung her hands in her lap. “I was too needy. Too desperate.”

  She paused as he sat beside her. Then made herself look him in the eyes.

  “Lorenzo was there. Rita had asked him to keep an eye out for me. No questionable motives on her part, just worried about me being alone there. I misinterpreted.”

  She told him what had happened. What she’d almost done.

  “What’s worse is, at the time, I thought I was mistaken about his interest. Now I know he was interested, but not particularly in me. He’s interested in whoever’s close by. I would’ve meant less to him than I thought I meant to you.”

  He took a deep breath, blew it out, and looked away. He was silent so long, she wondered if he might not respond. He might just leave.

  “You didn’t sleep with him.” He tapped his thumbs against his thighs.

  “No.”

  “But you wanted to.”

  “I wanted to feel connected to someone. I wanted to feel loved and focused on.”

  The way we used to get lost in each other, she thought.

  “Telling you this is much harder than I thought it would be.”

  He wiped a hand across his brow, then pressed his knuckles there. “Did you kiss him?”

  “No.”

  “Hold him? Did he hold you? Touch you?”

  “No. Except for kissing my hand. At the time, I honestly thought you couldn’t care less if he or anyone else did. You left me starving for companionship. Starving for my best friend and my lover.”

  He dropped his hand. “I knew there was something between you two.”

  “There was nothing between us except a lonely woman’s conjured fantasy.”

  “You take one trip on your own, almost sleep with someone, and say there was and is nothing between the two of you?”

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I know you’re mad. I understand why.”

  “If I hadn’t been arrested and called you, would you have spent the weekend with him, then come home and filed for divorce?”

  “I don’t know! I know this doesn’t make sense. I’m trying to be honest with you.”

  “Like your father was honest with your mother?” His voice rose. “He confessed after the fact, too, right? She knew if she received a gift he was ‘sorry for his indiscretion.’ Which is why until a couple of days ago you wouldn’t accept my gifts. Or is your accepting them now your I’m sorry gift to me?”

  “I can’t win.”

  She stood. She rolled the chains at her neck between her fingers, then turned to face him.

  “Would you send a starving person to jail for stealing b
read to eat? Don’t you answer that. You think about it. Because that’s how you left me.” Her voice cracked. “You left me hungry and in need. I married you to be a mate and to have a mate.”

  If Nicholas was going to be furious with her, she might as well completely unburden herself.

  “Going to Las Vegas was not my first trip on my own.”

  “What? Where have you been? And when?”

  “All over the world.” She gestured wide. “Alone. To places I wanted to paint. I’ve been to Paris and a dozen or more other locations you didn’t take me when you could have.”

  “A dozen or more?” Shock filled his voice. “And Paris? I might have liked to have known that. You know, in case something happened to you? There were terrorist attacks all over Europe last year and the year before. Several in Paris.”

  “Why would I have thought you cared? If you didn’t want to stay with me, why would you care? You know what? Yes. Yes, I probably would have slept with Lorenzo. And regretted it. And felt horrible. And beaten myself up—just one more way I’m a failure because he wasn’t the first man I considered giving myself to in the last couple of years.”

  Nick shook his head. “I can’t believe what you’re telling me.”

  He looked away, leaving her feeling dirty and tainted and rejected.

  “I want to think I couldn’t do it,” she whispered. “I want to think if he’d actually touched me, I’d have recoiled. You’re the only man I’ve ever been with, and I would never have pictured myself as someone who could break her marriage vows that way, especially after seeing what my mother went through. Maybe—given the right circumstances— anyone can fall.”

  “Was the first man a stranger, too?” he asked. “A random person you met while traveling?”

  “No.” Shame made forming words difficult. “I wasn’t looking for anyone. He was just there.”

  “Did he reciprocate?”

  “No. He didn’t recognize or return my interest.”

  “So you didn’t sleep with him, either. Well, that’s something, at least.”

  He drew a deep breath, let it out. “I thought I’d figured out what to do to fix us. It’s much harder when I’m not the only one in the wrong.”

  “I’m sorry. You don’t have to say anything to me—my, the tables have turned, haven’t they? I’m guilty. One hundred percent guilty of wanting someone to want me for more than a couple of days and at his convenience.”

  “That’s not exactly fair.”

  “At least we agree on something.”

  He stood. She expected he’d leave. Or reach for her in an effort to talk her out of her feelings, but he didn’t.

  Instead, he went into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. He dried with a towel.

  “Did I really make you feel unwanted?” he asked.

  “Worse,” she whispered. “You made me feel forgotten. I shouldn’t have, but I admit I used that feeling to justify my actions. ”

  “You said to me once—maybe around our seventh anniversary, right before we moved here—that while I was away working time didn’t stop for you. For you, time passed without me. That’s what forgotten means, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Saved by the bell,” Angelina said. “Or in this case, Laurie. I better let her in.”

  She descended the stairs.

  ***

  Angelina opened the door for Laurie, who took one look at Angie’s face and hugged her.

  “What’s wrong?” Laurie asked.

  “You know, your sensitivity must come in handy in your marriage. I bet you always know when something’s wrong with your husband.”

  “Not exactly. It’s a catch twenty-two. Too often I pick up on too much. Or think everything bothering Pierce has to do with me. He sometimes says I’m an emotional minefield—no place is safe for him to step. It wouldn’t take a mind-reader to see you’re upset. Sorry I’m late. This morning I chased a two-year-old who decided to stuff her diaper with French toast. Syrup in poo, very sticky stuff. Don’t worry; I washed my hands several times.”

  “You are so real. Not like any church person I ever imagined, even after meeting Daniel and Kay. I wish we’d been friends earlier.”

  “My fault, too. But let’s deal with today.”

  “Come on in. Come back to the kitchen.” She led the way, listening to be sure Nick was still upstairs, then lowered her voice. “Can I ask you about your and Pierce’s troubles before Hope was born?”

  “Yes.”

  She needed something to do with her hands, so she pushed up her sleeves, removed her bracelets, and cleaned up the kitchen. Laurie moved to help.

  “No, you sit,” Angie said. “I need to move to be able to think and talk. How long did it take to heal your relationship with Pierce?”

  “We’re still healing. We probably always will be. God doesn’t work on everything in both of us at the same time. He works on a piece here, a piece there.”

  “So it’s a back and forth thing. Two steps forward, one step back?”

  “Hopefully, we don’t take steps backward. Are you asking if it’s a process full of uncertainty? In the beginning, it can be when you’re not sure what the other person wants. Pierce and I resolved to work in the same direction, toward the same goal. We still do.”

  “I thought my love for Nicholas was dead. I thought I couldn’t believe he would ever change. Blowing up the other night the way I did? Somehow saying it made me realize how much I’ve kept inside all these years. How much I’ve demonized him when he wasn’t there, or how a memory can become slanted.

  “Don’t get me wrong, our marriage is a mess.” Angelina opened the dishwasher to load. “But I’m beginning to think that’s because each of us is a mess.”

  “I’d say you’re right.”

  “I confessed to Nick this morning about Lorenzo and something else you probably don’t know about.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “His reaction isn’t easy to accept, but I still think we took a step toward each other.” She returned the butter to the fridge. “That probably doesn’t make sense given what we’re up against here.”

  “A miracle doesn’t make sense. I think your spirit is stirring and waking up.”

  “I’ve never really felt this before, even when I first asked God into my life years ago. It’s like there are parts of me I didn’t know were dead, and they’re coming alive.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Laurie wiped her eyes. “Sorry. Happy tears, I promise.”

  “Is it possible to live like this every day? To ask for God’s work in your life and cooperate with it?”

  “It sure is.”

  “Then that’s what I want to do from now on,” Angie said.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Grand Central.” Angelina headed for the front door. “Be right back.”

  She peered through the peephole to find Lorenzo waiting with camera in hand. She steeled herself and opened the door.

  “Beautiful Angelina. You look unhappy.” He leaned against the doorframe as if he owned the place and her. “Is the morning not pleasing to you?”

  Back in Las Vegas, what had she thought she’d seen in this man?

  “Hi. Laurie’s in the kitchen. You can go ahead to the library. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  “Ahh. Straight to business. The husband must still be home, no?— despite what I heard on the news this morning.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “A witness has come forward in your little scandal,” he said. “A woman who says she had many communications with your husband about money and other things.”

  “We haven’t been watching the news,” Angelina mumbled.

  Yesterday, Julius had taken Nick to retrieve his impounded car. She’d thought that meant—well, she didn’t know exactly. But combined with the fact neither of them had been contacted by the authorities since Nick’s release, she’d assumed at least part of the legal cris
is was over.

  Lorenzo shrugged. “Maybe the woman is mistaken. If she is, the reporters will probably leave before lunch.”

  “What reporters?”

  “The ones I steered through to pull into your driveway. They are lined up along the road.” He entered, removed his coat, and moved toward the library.

  “Laurie and I will be there in a moment.” She peered outside then closed the door.

  Angelina laid her brow against the doorframe. This woman coming forward. New evidence?

  She was falling in love again with her husband. What would she do if he now had to leave her permanently, through no choice of his own?

  ***

  Nicholas braced both hands on the bathroom sink as he relived the last minutes with his wife. What Angelina had just told him hurt. He hurt worse than he remembered hurting in his entire life.

  He wanted to blame her. He wanted to believe no matter what he’d done, nothing could excuse what she’d almost done.

  But if the situation were reversed …

  “We’re all broken,” Pierce had told him earlier that week.

  No truer words.

  His blasted phone chimed. Abide in my love.

  Lorenzo’s masculine voice rumbled up the stairs. Laurie was here, too, but still, Nick didn’t want Lorenzo to be alone with Angelina even for a moment.

  But what could Nick do? Behave like a clingy teenager, prop open the door to the kitchen and eavesdrop as they worked in the library?

  Ah, yes. The kitchen, complete with dirty dishes from preparing breakfast, waited for him. At least he’d have an excuse to be downstairs, wouldn’t he?

  His heart skipped a beat. What might Angelina do if he were convicted and sent away to prison for years?

  His phone vibrated in his hand. “Hey, Julius.”

  “I’m almost to your house. You’re there, right?”

  “Where else would I be? Sorry.”

  “Don’t think twice about it. I know you’re under a lot of stress.”

  He looked back at his and Angie’s bed. Last night, he’d drifted to her side. When he’d pulled the comforter into place this morning, he’d considered simply sleeping on her side tonight to avoid disheveling the entire thing. Now, he wondered if he’d be able to sleep in their bed at all.