face, and the narrowing of those blue eyes, stopped her.
His jaw was clenched tight. “My life turned out better than I could ever have hoped when I came to live with the Campbells,” he said, an odd note of emotion gone before she could identify it.
“But I will never understand how a mother—any mother—can give up her child.”
A chill of foreboding washed over her. He was deadly serious. She could barely breathe. How could she marry him and keep the secret? She couldn’t lie, not to him, not about this.
A marriage built on a lie was set down on a foundation that would in the end crumble and hurt many people. Lies festered and boiled inside a person like an open wound.
Yet the alternative was to tell him and see the look of disgust on his face. He would call the whole thing off. She would not get to be a mother to the children. She would not be able to repay Sara for the friendship and the love she had shown her. Please God, she prayed silently, don’t let this fall apart now.
Her heartbeat accelerated. Her hands began to tremble ever so slightly and she realized why Lewis had suggested she not tell Jared about her past.
“You make adoption sound like the easy way out.”
“Isn’t it?”
The elevator pinged and opened for them. She pushed the button for her floor and waited, watching him, her breath lodged somewhere in her throat, her palms sweating.
“I look at Sara’s children and I know I’d die for them. I’m not even related by blood. How can a mother who gives birth to a child not have those same feelings…even stronger ones?”
The words were out of her mouth before she even thought about it. “There are cases, like Caroline’s for example, that are horrifying, but there are women out there who do it out of love for their children.”
She continued on, not even realizing how it might sound to him; she just said what was in her heart. “Giving up a child you love, never to see him or her again, is one of the most difficult decisions a woman in that position has to make.”
His gaze locked with hers instantly and Annie knew this was the moment to make her choice…to tell him and end it now or to keep silent about her past, about Toby, and try to live with the guilt she knew would compound day by day.
“I’ve watched television programs on adoption, read books written by woman who have gone through it…I even know a woman who did it,” she said quietly, swallowing the half truth and hating the aftertaste.
His expression remained as dark as it had been since the discussion was started. “But still they hand their children away like consolation prizes in a raffle.”
“I think you would find most mothers try to find a loving family who can give the child everything she isn’t in a position to.”
“Or doesn’t want to be bothered with.”
Annie wondered if his jaw would actually break, it was clenched so tight. Then he looked down at her, his blue eyes a darker shade than before, his mouth set in a grim line.
“We aren’t ever going to see this from the same side of the fence, Annie, so you had better know that now…before we go any further.”
If she told him about her past he would turn and walk away. If she stayed silent about her past, Annie would have to reconcile it within herself and deal with the consequences the lie would bring…and they would come.
With a prayer in her heart, she made her decision, already feeling the first tentacles of guilt wrap around her. “Then I guess we had better make it one of those topics we agree to disagree about.”
“You won’t ever change my mind on the subject.” His tone told her it would be a waste of time trying. “Tomorrow is Friday. I’d like to pick you up and take you back to Guthrie for the weekend. I’d bring you home Sunday. You need to meet the kids, spend time with them. I can’t really make a decision before I see you with them in their environment.”
Annie swallowed all her reservations and concentrated on why she was doing this. For Sara and James. For three children who were a family.
“Friday sounds fine.”
He ushered her out of the elevator as they came to her floor. “I almost forgot.” He extracted three wallet-size photographs from his pocket. “These were taken at Sara’s birthday party a week before she…died.”
“Thank you. It was thoughtful.”
He nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon about four? We can be home for the dinner my mother will no doubt cook.”
“I’ll be ready and waiting.”
“Be sure to pack a pair of sturdy boots and maybe a pair of jeans, too. The kids like nothing better than playing outside. I’ll be seeing you.”
Annie went inside her apartment and shut the door. Kicking off her shoes and tossing her purse onto the sideboard, she looked down at the photograph that was on top.
Caroline was beautiful even at age nine. Hair so blonde and eyes so blue she would one day have some man wrapped around her little finger. Luke’s dark hair was curly and his big brown eyes were filled with life. His smile shone through…infectious and wide. He was seven.
Annie hesitated as she came to the last photograph in the pile, turned facedown. She put it right side up.
She had counted every day of the last eighteen months. In the silence of her apartment, her heart hammering like a runaway freight train, she sat and stared into the beautiful face of the little boy who was her son.
The son she’d given to her best friend to raise.
Chapter Two
“Has she changed very much?”
Jared loved his mother dearly, but just the fact that he was entertaining the thought of getting married—and to Annie—had her smiling every time she saw him these days.
“She’s older.”
Eve placed her hands on her hips. “Very funny.”
“Don’t go getting mushy.”
“My son shows the first sign of interest in a woman in more years than I care to count and he expects me not to be happy about it?”
Jared sipped the coffee she’d poured for him, the homemade chicken pot pie settling warmly in his stomach.
“I was honest with Annie,” he told her. “She knows what kind of marriage this will be if we decide to go along with it.”
Eve came back to the table to sit opposite him. She reached over and touched his hand. “I want you to be happy. Life is…so short.”
Since the tragedy they had all leaned on each other a little more, drawn their strength from their faith, from God and the love and closeness of family.
He’d never seen his father cry until the
