“Are you kidding? You don’t get it, do you? Rob would love to divorce me. If he finds out about this, he’ll file for divorce.”
“I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“No, it’s not what I want.”
She was so adamant, he was hurt. “I’ll talk to him then.” He hoped Rob didn’t have a gun.
“Oh, great. Just great. And say what? You couldn’t help yourself? He’ll know what’s been going on. He’ll know.”
What had been going on? He’d never seen Sheila like this before. “I’ll figure out something, Sheila. I’ll—”
“Shut up, would you? Just let me think! All you can do is make things worse.” The face Paul had thought so beautiful was now twisted and ugly. She glared at him. “What are you staring at?”
“You. I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“Like what?”
Raging, foul-mouthed, black-eyed with malice. Contemptuous. He had the feeling he was seeing the real Sheila for the first time. “It’s all been a game to you, hasn’t it?”
Her eyes flickered. “No. Of course not.”
Anger came up from a deep well inside him. “You’re lying.”
“I’ve never lied to you about anything!”
He saw the bigger truth she tried to hide.
“All right, but all I ever wanted was to have a little fun. Rob is so boring.” She gathered her things. “Don’t look at me like that. You were willing to play along. Don’t pretend otherwise. You’ve been having a good time.”
“You harlot!” He was so mad he could have used his fists on her. “A pastor, was that it? I was a challenge to you. That’s all.”
Her eyes flashed. “A challenge? Don’t flatter yourself.” She snatched her purse from the floor. “Your guilty conscience was beginning to bore me anyway.”
“Get out of here.” Whatever he had felt for her was gone, burned away with the firestorm of discovery. “If you say anything about this to anyone, I’ll tell them my part of the story.”
She turned on him, the innocent, wounded facade she’d worn for months gone. “Oh, you mean the part where you seduced me?” Her sarcasm ripped into his confidence.
“I did not!”
“I came to you for help, Pastor Paul. Remember? And you used me.”
“That’s a lie!”
“So what?” She laughed at him. “Do you think people won’t believe me? People always want to believe the worst. Don’t you know anything?”
“They know me.”
“Not as well as I do, and I’d only have to convince a few.”
How could he ever have thought he loved this woman? What had he ever seen in her? She was conniving, vicious. He felt compassion for Rob Atherton for the first time since he’d begun counseling Sheila. “Do you think you could convince your husband?”
She paled, her eyes darting. “I don’t want a divorce any more than you do.” She looked toward the door, then at him. “Look, I’m sorry, Paul. I never meant to hurt you.” Her eyes narrowed. “All you have to do is convince little Goody Two-shoes you’ve repented, and swear you’ll never look at another woman again. She’ll forgive you. Women like her always do.” She hurried out.
Paul felt his life crumbling. He couldn’t go tearing out of here after his wife without having people talk. What was he going to do? He needed to give Sheila time to drive away before he could leave. He had to make everything look normal before he went down the corridor and out the door. If anyone saw him, they’d know something was wrong.
He could feel the sweat beading. He yanked the curtains open. What an idiot he’d been! What a stupid, gullible fool! He took his wallet, car keys, and cell phone from the top desk drawer. He’d talk to Eunice. He’d make her understand it was all a mistake. He’d lost his head. He’d say he was sorry. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt his ministry. Anything she did to hurt him would hurt her, too. She was his wife, after all. People might want to know why he’d had to turn to another woman for love.
Thank God, Reka had been on her way to the printer’s when Eunice walked in.
He’d make it up to Eunice. He’d tell her he loved her. He’d tell her it had all been a mistake, that it would never happen again. He’d always been able to make her listen. And with so much at stake, she surely would listen this time as well.
Eunice dumped her empty suitcase on the bed and flung it open. She wouldn’t take everything. Just enough to get by for a week. Or two. She had to get away. She had to think. Sobbing, she fumbled through her clothing. Wherever she was going, she’d need a dress for church. Which one? Which one? She picked a pale green one and snatched it out. The hanger fell to the floor. Eunice stooped and picked it up. Abby had crocheted the covering for this hanger. She fingered the pretty rosebuds around the base of the metal hook, her eyes tearing up. How many hours had her dear friend spent making this gift? Every Christmas, Abby had given her two more.
Jamming it under her arm, Eunice yanked out dress after dress, letting them drop to the floor as she tucked hangers under her arm. She didn’t stop until she had every one that Abby had made for her. With shaking hands, she arranged them carefully in her suitcase, folding one dress over the top. She packed Timothy’s picture inside a sweater. Pulling a dresser drawer open, she dug for the small jewelry box that had belonged to her mother. Opening it, she took out the small heart locket Paul had given her on their fifth anniversary. Inside was a picture of her handsome husband, smiling, looking so young and confident. With a cry, she flung it across the room and packed her mother’s jewelry box.
“What are you doing?” Paul said from the doorway.
She jumped at the sound of his voice. “What does it look like I’m doing?” Her heart began pounding. “I’m leaving.”
“Don’t leave me, Eunice. Please. I love you.”
He loved her? Did he think she was stupid?
“Please, Eunice. Listen to me.”
“I need to get away. I need to think.”
“You can think here. Let’s sit down and let’s talk this over.”
“Don’t use your counselor’s voice on me! Save it for Sheila!” She started to cry again, great heaving sobs of anguish and fury.
“Honey . . . ” He tried to approach her, but she backed away. She hated him. She could smell Sheila’s perfume in her bedroom. “Sheila’s out of my life. Let me explain what happened.”
“I don’t want to hear—”
“Okay. Okay. Not right now. But we’ll work things out.”
“You work things out.” She yanked another drawer open and reached for her nightgown. She’d slept with Paul in that nightgown. He’d touched her when she was wearing it. She left the nightgown where it was and shut the drawer. She spotted an embroidered Twenty-third Psalm in a glass frame. Her mother had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday. She took it off the wall.
“It wasn’t as bad as it looked, Eunice.”
She glared at him through tears, and then turned back to the suitcase she had tossed on the bed. What was his definition of bad? What could be any worse than finding him in the arms of another woman? It hadn’t been a friendly peck on the cheek this time. She remembered a time when he’d kissed her the way he was kissing Sheila Atherton. Not that she would ever let him kiss her that way again. Oh, Father, shut it off!
Paul caught her arm. “Will you please stop packing long enough to hear me out?”
“Let go of me, Paul.”
His fingers loosened enough for her to pull free. “Doesn’t our marriage mean enough to you to hear me out, Euny?”
“If our marriage meant anything to you, I wouldn’t’ve found you on the floor with another man’s wife!” His face turned red. He should be embarrassed. He should look ashamed. She brushed past him and took a few more garments out of the dresser.
“You could at least give me a hearing before you play judge and jury. It wasn’t entirely my fault. Sheila came to me for marriage counseling. She was miserable. She said her marri
age was disintegrating. Rob was too busy with other things. He was distant, consumed with his work, traveling a lot.”
“So it’s Rob’s fault you’re having an affair with his wife.”
“No. I’m not having an affair. Not exactly.”
“What would you call it?”
“None of this would’ve happened if Rob had bothered to be some kind of husband to her. He didn’t even bother to show up after the first appointment!”
She could tell him what Rob had told her. She could tell him a lot of things she’d heard and not put together until today. She turned away, fighting the impulse to spill others’ secrets.
Paul came around to the other side of the bed. He stared at her. His beseeching look. She’d seen it before. “I knew Sheila was getting too attached, so I encouraged her to see one of the other pastors. She refused. She said she didn’t trust anyone but me. I guess I was flattered. It was nice to have a woman need me for a change.”
“I needed you.”
“You never showed it. You always had places to go and people to see.”
“And you always had a counseling appointment.”
He blushed again. “You were distant, Eunice. You can’t deny it. I’d come home in the evenings and you’d hardly say anything to me. Ever since Timothy moved in with my mother, you’ve been punishing me. If you’d been any kind of wife to me, none of this would have happened!”
His attack hurt unbearably. Was that true?
Paul came around the bed. “You know things haven’t been right between us. And I’ve been under pressure you can’t even imagine.”
Think! I’ve got to think! “You have three associates, a wonderful secretary, and a legion of volunteers.”
“But I’m the one in charge.”
“I thought God was in charge.”
“You know what I mean!” He was angry, defensive. “Ever since I removed you from the music ministry, you’ve had something negative to say about every one of the programs I’ve laid out. How do you think that’s made me feel? As a man? as your husband?”
Hot tears burned. Her throat ached. She could see where he was going with this. Where he always went. “You’re telling me it’s my fault you had an affair.”
“I never slept with her.”
She saw the way his eyes shifted when he said it and knew it was all semantics. Sleep was the operative word. “No, that’s true. You weren’t sleeping with her in your office today, were you?” She remembered the night he came home after two in the morning. She remembered other evenings. How long had he fought the temptation before giving in? Had he fought at all? She remembered telephone calls he had to take in his office. “ ‘I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ ”
“Don’t quote Scripture at me!” His face was red, with anger this time. “I know Scripture better than you do!”
“You know it. You just don’t live it.”
His face hardened. “I’m trying to tell you I’m sorry.”
“Sorry you were caught.” She knew what was really worrying him, even if he didn’t.
“What do you want me to do? Grovel?”
His sarcasm made her shrivel inside. She closed and locked her suitcase with trembling hands. “I want you to speak from your heart, not your head. I want you to understand that lame excuses and a halfhearted apology aren’t enough.” As she hauled her suitcase off the bed with two hands, she looked up at him through her tears. “I want you to understand that I need to get away from you. I need time to think about what I should do.”
He blocked her way. Oh, he was afraid now. But not of losing her. “I’m not going to let you leave me, Eunice. Please. Think what you’re doing! Stay here and think. I’ll leave you alone. I swear it. I’ll sleep in the guest room. I’ll tell everyone you’re not feeling well on Sunday.”
So there it was—what really worried him, and it wasn’t the disintegration of their marriage. “I don’t want to be in the same house with you.”
Paul swore at her and wouldn’t let her pass. “You’re not just any man’s wife! You’re my wife. And I’m the pastor of a big church! I’m responsible for the lives of three thousand people. If you leave, everyone will want to know why. You know how little it takes to start gossip. You’ll destroy my ministry! You leave me and you’ll tear down everything it’s taken me years to build! Is that what you want?”
“At this moment, yes.”
He paled. “And what about all the people you love? What about them? What do you suppose will happen if you start talking about me and Sheila? Do you want to be the one to tell Rob Atherton his wife’s been cheating on him?”
“Stop it!” She dropped her suitcase and covered her face. “Stop it!”
“It’s all in your hands what happens to Valley New Life!”
Did this man know her at all? “I’ve never been the one to start gossip, and you know it.” Neither had Reka. Oh, Lord. Poor Reka.
“Sheila isn’t going to say anything. She doesn’t want a divorce. She’ll do everything she can to stay married to Rob.”
“I don’t think everything will be enough.”
Paul gripped her shoulders tightly. “You can’t say anything, Eunice. You can’t do anything. We have to stay together. I know I’ve hurt you. I know you’re angry with me. I understand. Don’t you think I’ve disappointed my-self? I never thought I could be taken in by some little hussy.”
Everything was always about him. She jerked away and reached for her suitcase.
“I love you.”
“No, you don’t.” She choked on a sob. “I wonder if you ever did.” She tried to step around him.
He yanked the suitcase from her. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to step aside and let you destroy the church. You’re in no state to think rationally. If you run out on me now, you’ll regret it tomorrow. I know you. You’ll be eaten up with guilt over the trouble you’ll have caused. And it’ll be too late. The damage will be done. And there won’t be anything either one of us can do to fix it.”
“You aren’t protecting the church, Paul. You’re protecting yourself!”
“I am the church, Euny, and you know it. People come to hear me preach. They come to be part of what I’m building.” His tone softened. “I know you want to hurt me right now. You’d like to annihilate me.”
He didn’t know her at all.
“But I want you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and think of the people you’d hurt. Think about the people who’ve supported us through the years, and how they’ll feel if you say anything. Think of all the people who’ve believed in us.” Setting the suitcase down, he cupped her face and forced her to look at him. “You want to know the first thing that will come into their minds? Why I had to turn to another woman for love.”
If he’d had a knife he couldn’t have stabbed her more deeply.
The telephone rang. She watched him struggle. The battle was over in seconds, and she lost.
“I’m sorry, Marvin. I forgot. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes. Have Reka make you some coffee. Oh. She isn’t?” He hung up and glanced at his watch. “Reka’s late getting back. And I forgot I had a meeting with Marvin.”
Eunice didn’t know whether to believe him or not. For all she knew, Sheila was calling and telling him to hurry back to church so they could pick up where they left off.
“Something’s not right with the budget. And Reka’s not back yet. She must have a dentist appointment or something. I’ve got to go.”
Paul leaned down to kiss her. She turned her face away. He caressed her cheek. “I love you more than you know.”
But not enough to do any good.
Paul crossed the room, took her purse, and dumped the contents on the dresser.
“What’re you doing?”
“Taking your car keys. You’re in no state to drive.”
That wasn’t the reason and both of them knew it.
He came back and p
icked up her suitcase. “I’ll give it back to you this evening. I won’t be gone long. We’ll talk some more when I get back.” He closed the door behind him. Fortunately for her, the lock was on the inside.
Eunice knew if she stayed nothing would ever change.
CHAPTER 18
SAMUEL WAITED until seven in the evening before he called the Hudson residence. The moment Paul answered, Samuel knew something was wrong.
“She’s not in this evening, Samuel. Sorry. I think she had a meeting. Do you want me to check her calendar?”
If everything was all right, Eunice would’ve called him. She would never have left him hanging after telling him there was an emergency involving Paul. It wasn’t like her. “Was everything all right at the church this morning?”
“This morning? What do you mean?”
He’d never heard Paul sound so nervous. “Reka called Eunice and said you needed her at the church.”
“Reka called her?”
Samuel wished he hadn’t mentioned names. “Eunice was planning to stop by for tea this morning.”
“Yes, I know.”
And clearly wasn’t happy about it. Samuel let the hurt go. “Euny called and said you needed her. She was going to let me know that everything was okay.” He waited. Silence. “Is everything all right, Paul?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?” Anger had replaced impatience.
“I don’t know. You could tell me.”
“Everything’s fine, Samuel. Take my word for it. Our numbers are way up. Have you heard?”
Samuel knew something was wrong—very wrong. Paul’s bravado was forced, his confidence shaken. “Numbers aren’t everything, Paul. How are you?”
“I’ve never been better.”
“If you say so.” Samuel was too old for a dogfight, and backing Paul into a corner wouldn’t help Eunice.