A Moment of Weakness: Book 2 in the Forever Faithful trilogy

by Kingsbury, Karen

  She had no response. She had been intentionally tricked, but she was without excuse.

  Tanner met her gaze and held it. He softened his voice. “There was no one before you … no one since.”

  Jade’s heart felt like a lead weight in her chest. All those years of misunderstanding. And now there was Ty to consider. No, she couldn’t tell Tanner now. He would never forgive her. Besides, he was about to be married; his life was finally coming together. She would keep her promise to Doris Eastman and not tell Tanner about the child he’d fathered. Not now when it would only complicate matters and possibly put her relationship with Ty in further jeopardy.

  “You … haven’t slept with your fiancée?”

  Tanner shook his head. “God’s always given me control in that area. Leslie’s been with two men before me—both boyfriends she dated for several years. But I told her how I felt. God couldn’t honor our relationship unless we stayed pure.”

  Jade hung her head. She’d heard those words before. “You said the same thing to me, but …”

  Her words drifted in the space between them until Tanner finished her sentence. “With you, Jade—” he placed his finger under her chin and lifted her head so she had no choice but to look at him—“with you I had no self-control. I’m sorry now just as I was then. Somehow it changed everything.”

  Jade nodded and thought of Ty. Tanner had no idea how right he was. A pang of fear coursed through her. He had explained his part; now it was her turn. There was only one place their conversation could go, and she wasn’t sure she was up to the explanation. Especially a dishonest one.

  Tanner drew a deep breath and stood up. He rubbed his neck and wandered through the room looking at Jade’s family pictures. He focused on a snapshot of Jade and Jim and Ty, taken when Ty was three years old. They were smiling in the photo and looked like an all-American family. Tanner kept his eyes on the picture as he spoke. “My mother lied to you. And you believed her.”

  Jade wanted desperately to go to him, hold him, and tell him how sorry she was. But somehow it didn’t seem right. Not now that he was engaged to someone else. “I’m sorry, Tanner. I don’t know what to say.” Jade remained on the sofa, her eyes trained on Tanner’s back. He was crying. She could tell because his shoulders shook slightly, and for several minutes he said nothing.

  Oh, God, what have I done? Why did I believe her without talking to Tanner first?

  Finally Tanner drew a deep breath and turned to her. She saw his tear-streaked face then and wondered how much pain her heart could take in one night. “You believed her and … so you married someone else.” Tanner’s eyes narrowed and his voice grew hard. “I can understand that, Jade. After spending a summer with me, after sharing your conversion with me, after we bared our souls and … and everything else … I have no choice but to understand that somehow you believed my mother’s lies and decided to marry someone else.”

  He searched her face, and when he spoke again his voice was choked with another wave of tears. “But three weeks after I left? Three weeks, Jade?”

  A single sob escaped from Jade’s throat, and she buried her head in her hands. How could she respond? How could she make him understand without telling him about Ty. Help me, God. I’m falling apart. Please help me. She expected Tanner to come to her side, reach out and put an arm around her. But he remained on the other side of the room, his feet firmly planted, his back to the series of photographs that had caught his attention earlier.

  Tanner waited, and when her crying quieted, he asked again. “Help me understand, Jade. Three weeks? What happened after I left?”

  Jade wanted to be anywhere at that moment other than alone in her house facing Tanner and the truth about the past ten years. But she had no choice and she drew a deep breath. “Jim was … always around.”

  “You never mentioned him.”

  Jade could be honest with this much. “He wasn’t worth mentioning. He was just … always around.”

  Tanner huffed. “Yeah, Jade, lots of guys hang around girls like you. You’re gorgeous. That doesn’t mean you marry the guy. Three weeks after.” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  Jade shook her head. “No, there were never lots of guys. Just Jim. Everyone at school wanted to date him. Big man on campus, that kind of thing.”

  “And he wanted the only girl he couldn’t get.” Tanner leaned back against the wall, avoiding the photographs.

  “Right.” Jade hated herself for having married Jim. But she wanted Tanner to understand. I never stopped loving you, Tanner. The words stayed stuck in her throat. “I, well, I was never interested, until …”

  “My mother lied to you.” Tanner’s voice was calm again as he finished her sentence, his eyes clear. Jade studied them and saw a veil of indifference. As if she had hurt him too badly, and now he was choosing to be vulnerable no longer where she was concerned. Tanner sighed. “Still … three weeks?”

  Jade was not proud of what she was about to say, but she needed to say it. “My father always told me I’d wind up with Jim Rudolph. Jim asked me to marry him when I turned eighteen and I refused. Daddy found out and said I was an idiot. After I learned about you, I guess I figured there were no other choices. Your mother told me you wouldn’t want me.… She said she knew we’d slept together.…”

  “What?” Tanner raised his voice again. “She told you that?”

  Jade felt another pang of regret. Not that, too, Lord. She was beginning to understand. Anything Doris Eastman had told her was probably a lie. Including this. “She said she knew, said you told her before you left.”

  The topic was getting dangerously close to forbidden territory, but Tanner didn’t seem the least bit curious. Apparently he believed Ty was Jim’s son, and even this discussion about their last night together that summer didn’t make him wonder. Tanner rubbed his neck again and stared at the ceiling. “I never told her about us, Jade. I never told anyone.”

  A new wave of hot tears made their way down Jade’s face, but this time she didn’t bother trying to hide them. She waited until she had Tanner’s attention, and then she continued. “Jim wasn’t a Christian. He … loved winning me over … but he never really loved me.” She hung her head. “I wanted our marriage to work. For Ty’s sake.”

  Tanner nodded, and when he spoke, Jade could still hear his intentional indifference. “And now?”

  “He had an affair. A teacher he works with. Obviously we’re not on good terms at this point.” Jade was desperate to change the topic. “What about you? Your fiancée must be a wonderful girl.”

  Tanner exhaled slowly. “Jade, I don’t want to talk about her. Not now.”

  “Okay … I’m sorry.”

  “No,” Tanner sighed. “You’re right. I want you to know. It’s just … oh, never mind. I met her two years ago. Her name’s Leslie and … we’re getting married this summer.”

  Jade wished he would return to the sofa and sit beside her again. He felt so far away, standing across the room, his back stiff. “I’m happy for you, Tanner. Really.”

  She searched his face, and somehow she wasn’t convinced that Tanner loved the woman he was set to marry. But that wasn’t her business now. There was nothing she could do about the direction their lives had taken. And she was determined to keep the truth about Ty to herself. It was the safest thing for everyone involved.

  Tanner hung his head, and again Jade wanted to go to him. He was a tall, strong, powerful man, an attorney feared by special interest groups across the country. But here in her living room he was broken by the truth of the past. His voice trembled when he spoke. “Why, Jade? Why would she lie to you?”

  Jade understood what he was talking about. They’d been so busy unraveling the pieces of what had happened Tanner hadn’t had time to analyze the truth about his mother. The woman had lied, and in the process, as she had tried to do so often back then, she had managed to change Tanner’s life. “She didn’t want me to marry you. It’s that simple.”

  Anger
flared in Tanner’s eyes. “It wasn’t her choice.”

  “But she lied all the same. And now here we are.”

  Tanner moved slowly back to the sofa and settled into the spot beside Jade. He turned his body so that his face was near hers. “Was it so easy to marry someone else?”

  Jade held his gaze. “No.” Fresh tears stung her eyes. “I thought about you every day.” Images of Ty came to mind, and she looked away, unable to meet Tanner’s gaze. “I think about you still.”

  Tanner framed her face with his fingertips, desperately searching her eyes and positioning her so that she had no choice but to look into his again. “You did love me, didn’t you, Jade?”

  She nodded, her words barely audible. “Yes, I loved you, Tanner.”

  “In all my life.” He moved his face closer to hers, and Jade knew what was coming. She knew but was unable to stop it, didn’t want to if she could. “I have never loved anyone … like I loved you, Jade.”

  He moved his mouth gently over hers and kissed her. It was a moment stolen from days gone by, a kiss that assured Jade had she not believed Doris Eastman’s lies she and Tanner would be together still. Together forever. His hands wove their way through her hair as he pulled her close, kissing her like a man might kiss his bride before heading off to war. Desperately, hungrily, with an almost fatalistic certainty that this kiss would be their last.

  Jade’s hands found Tanner’s face, his neck, and shoulders. No man would ever make her feel the way Tanner did, the way he still did. They kissed again and again, and sometime in the midst of the moment, Jade finally understood the Scripture from Jeremiah.

  This man, Tanner Eastman, had been God’s plan for her, the future and hope he had prepared for her life. But they had given in to desire, and after that she had chosen to handle the situation on her own—without trusting God’s voice or heeding his warnings about not being unequally yoked. She had acted hastily in irrational fear and married a nonbeliever while Tanner was studying religious freedom halfway around the world. The life she had now was the punishment she deserved. Punishment for her many sins.

  She had rushed ahead of God, and her sentence would last a lifetime.

  Tanner pulled away first, and Jade saw guilt in his eyes. He was, after all, engaged. There was no way they could turn back the clock and pretend ten years hadn’t gone by. “I’m sorry, Jade.”

  She kept her hands on either side of his face, her eyes connected with his. “Don’t be. It doesn’t change anything. I know that.”

  “You’re right.” His face was still inches from hers, and Jade found herself wishing he would embrace her once more. His breathing was raspy, and Jade could feel his body trembling beside hers. “I just wanted you to know the truth … I’ll never love anyone the way I loved you, Jade.”

  The hours had slipped away, and Jade felt like Cinderella. Midnight was approaching, and it was time to return to reality. Time for stolen moments from the past to be put behind them forever.

  “We shouldn’t have …” Jade couldn’t bring herself to voice the words, but she pulled back and caught her breath.

  “I know.” He stood up and reached for her hands, pulling her gently off the sofa. When they were both standing, he wrapped her in his arms and held her close. Her body screamed for him, and she was certain he felt the same way. There was something between them, a physical chemistry, an attraction that was stronger than either of them. It was the same feeling that had caused them to veer off God’s course in the first place. Now life had moved on without them, and Tanner’s plane was set to leave in ninety minutes. “I gotta go.”

  Jade pulled away from him and crossed her arms in front of her. “Are you going to talk to your mother?”

  Again anger flashed in Tanner’s eyes. “How can I forgive her for what she did? She made up her mind I wouldn’t marry you, and she did everything in her power to devise a plan that would keep us apart. A plan that worked. I’ll struggle with that as long as I live.”

  “But you’ll forgive her, Tanner.” Jade’s voice was gentle. Much as she wished Tanner could hate his mother for what she’d done, Jade knew that was impossible. Tanner loved God too much to hold a grudge of bitterness and hatred. “You’ll forgive her. You couldn’t live with yourself otherwise.”

  Tanner sighed. “Being with you tonight has made me doubt a lot of things.” His eyes held hers, but she kept her distance. “My ability to forgive is one of them.”

  Tanner made his way to the front of the house, and Jade trailed close behind. He opened the door and turned to her once more. “We still have a lot to talk about regarding the hearing. It’s in a week, and I’ll probably be back up here at least once before then.”

  Jade nodded. “It’ll be different.”

  “Yeah, I suppose it will be.”

  She looked in his eyes, and though she kept her distance, she allowed her fingers to find his face once more. “I’m sorry, Tanner. I wish …”

  His face grew serious, and fresh grief filled his eyes. “If only you’d believed me …”

  She blinked and two tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

  Her apology settled over him, and she could see something change in his eyes. He forgave her. No matter that she’d doubted his intentions and believed horrible things about him. Regardless of the fact that she’d married someone else less than a month after his departure, he forgave her.

  “At least we’re not enemies anymore.” Tanner leaned toward her and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. “Good-bye, Jade.”

  She pulled away. “Bye.”

  He left then, and she allowed her eyes to follow his car until it disappeared at the end of the street. Why had she ever doubted him? So what if the pictures had looked like Tanner? Hadn’t she known him better than that? Hadn’t she believed his love for her?

  In that moment, with the damp breeze blowing through her hair and Tanner headed for the airport, she knew that had there been a way to go back, she would have found it. If it meant swimming the ocean for days on end or climbing a hundred mountains; if she had to walk the desert floor ten years straight, she would do it. Whatever it took. If only she could go back a decade in time and live life over again.

  If she could, she would question everything Doris Eastman said instead of taking the awful things she’d spoken about Tanner as gospel. She would search out the letters Tanner had written from wherever her father had hidden them. Then she would wait for Tanner the way a drowning man waits for his next breath.

  As though nothing in life mattered more.

  Thirty-one

  DORIS EASTMAN WAS ALONE IN HER CONDOMINIUM, CHASING away invisible monsters in the night and praying for relief. Perched on her lap was an open copy of the Bible. Anxiety had plagued Doris before—terrifying, suffocating anxiety—but it had never driven her to read Scripture. It was the chest pains that had done that. Persistent, relentless stabbings somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. Doris was about to turn sixty-six, and in the past week the thought had dawned on her that perhaps this problem wouldn’t be cured with diet and exercise.

  Perhaps she was dying.

  Doris had never actually considered death. It was an opponent she did not fear because as far back as she could remember she was certain she would live to be a hundred. She wore a seatbelt, had annual checkups, ate well and walked a mile each day. Death didn’t happen to people like her. It happened to people like Hap who—cheeseburger after cheeseburger—built a gut around their midsection and refused to see the importance of exercise.

  But now, though Doris had taken every precaution, though she was clearly the picture of health for her age, she had the distinct feeling she was no longer bulletproof. The chest pains were a constant reminder.

  Doris had been to the doctor, and he’d given her a concerned look. Her blood pressure was high, and she seemed short of breath. He’d scheduled a treadmill test for the following week and sent her home with nitroglycerin tablets and medicine to control her blood press
ure. She’d been taking both drugs for three days, but they brought little relief from the pain.

  And no relief whatsoever from the fear.

  Doris tidied her condominium while voices raged against her peace of mind. Repent! Remember the height from which you have fallen! Woe to you blind guides.…

  Even with classical music blaring through her home and the washing machine running in the next room, Doris could not block out the incessant warnings. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m a Christian woman, for heaven’s sake.

  But the silent echoes of Scripture she’d long since forgotten screamed in the foyer of her mind: Broad is the road that leads to destruction and many find it.… And on that day he will separate the sheep from the goats.… Anyone whose name was not written in the Lamb’s book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.…

  “Stop!” Doris shouted as she flipped off the bedside stereo. “Enough!”

  She clutched at her chest and winced as she made her way across the room to her bathroom sink. She flicked on the light, poured herself a glass of water, and took two sips. Silence; that was what she needed. Time to reflect on the strange Scriptures that played constantly in her head. What are you trying to tell me, God? I’m not the one you should be hounding. What about Jade? She’s the one who tricked Tanner into sleeping with her. I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances.

  Woe to you … remember the height from which you have fallen.…

  Doris squeezed her eyes shut and sank onto the nearest sofa cushion. From what height had she fallen? Show me, God.

  A memory began to take shape. Doris was twelve, maybe thirteen years old sitting on the bank of a creek in Williamsburg, Virginia. Her parents had been churchgoers, but they never actually discussed their faith. And that day Doris had found the family Bible and taken it with her to the quiet spot along the water. For three hours she sat there soaking in Scriptures, seeing her faith in a new light. Making it her own.

  Though more than fifty years had passed, she could see herself clearly, hear her sweet, young voice as she prayed aloud asking Jesus to be with her always, to walk with her and talk to her and hold her close. It was that day that Doris realized faith wasn’t the picture that had been modeled by her parents. It was a relationship with Christ. There on the creek bank she promised God that a day wouldn’t go by without her meeting him the way she had that morning. They would meet together, talk together, and in time she would know the Bible by heart.