Seeing the shocked faces, he finished by saying, “That means somewhere out there, the four of you have a brother.”
CHAPTER 3
Jeremiah and Thea
Thea awoke to the sound of rain pounding against the windowpane. When she shifted in bed, she noticed the spot beside her was warm but empty. Adjusting her eyes to the darkness, she scanned the room and saw him. Her husband of ten months was sitting in the new recliner his kids had given him for Father’s Day. Carrie had said it was time to retire the one he’d had for years. Although she’d known Jeremiah hadn’t wanted to get rid of it, to save the peace, he’d gone along with it. After all, the new recliner had been a gift from the kids he loved.
Her husband did love his kids, and she knew he loved her girls as well. And he definitely had a soft spot for Haven, the granddaughter of his cousin Dora, who’d moved into the area after college. Even though, at twenty-four, Haven was old enough to look out for herself, Jeremiah still watched out for her. It was something his cousin Dora, whom he had always been close to while growing up, had requested of him in her final hours. Taking care of people was who he was, and she wouldn’t want him any other way.
Easing out of bed, she walked over to where he sat in the recliner, gazing out the window at the rain. “I woke up and you were gone.”
He opened his arms, and she slid into them to join him in the chair, sitting on his lap. She loved this. Their cuddle time. Jeremiah had taught her that a couple was never too old for certain things. If their kids knew about their very active sex life, they would probably be horrified. He said he was making up for lost time, and she was doing the same.
The husband she had lost in a car accident a few years ago had been a career military man who hadn’t been demonstrative with his affections and hadn’t wanted Thea to be with hers. Jeremiah was just the opposite. He loved to hold her hand when they went places, and he loved kissing her. When they were alone, it was a full-blown, curl-your-toes kind of kiss that was almost always the prelude to other things. Around others, it would be a peck to the cheek or a brush across the lips. And he told her often that he loved her. She hadn’t realized just how much she had missed and yearned for that part of a marriage relationship until Jeremiah gave it to her unabashedly and freely.
Once she settled into his arms, with his chin resting on the top of her head, he asked, “How do you think things went today, sweetheart?”
She also appreciated the terms of endearment he often used. “Considering everything I know, I think it went fairly well.”
He had told her all about Edwina Montgomery before they had married. Some of it had brought her to tears, especially when she learned what Carrie had gone through. Thea had three daughters and had fiercely protected them, sometimes a little too much. But she knew no other way. She and her girls were very close, mainly because they had never understood their father’s often rough, strict military ways thatwould often extend to how he handled them and her. He’d loved them and was a great provider, but he never knew how to show that love.
“It didn’t surprise me that Carrie and Lance would feel the way they do, or that Lyle and Logan would hesitate to say too much,” she said. “Edwina hurt all your kids deeply. They’re probably looking at this as her, trying to take the easy way out to get through the pearly gates. The problem is, after all she’s done, they don’t believe she should be anywhere near those gates.”
She paused for a minute and then said, “But my concern is with you, Jeremiah.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. She hurt you, too. Badly. You waited almost five years for her to return before filing for a divorce. You would have taken her back because you loved her that much. Not too many men would have forgiven their wives for running off with another man.”
“That was another time and a different Jeremiah. When she hurt my kids, she hurt me. For years, I doubted I could ever forgive her.”
“But you have,” Thea said.
It was a statement and not a question. “Yes, because I want to get through those same pearly gates. It took a lot of prayer and counseling…and soul-searching, but I got there. Still…”
She twisted to look at him. “Still?”
“Still, there are times, like today, when I feel that, after all she did, Edwina doesn’t deserve anyone’s forgiveness. Especially not her children’s.”
“Is that why you didn’t push back on Lance and Carrie’s bitterness?”
He drew a deep breath. “I meant what I told them. Any decision they make regarding Edwina will be theirs. Just like any decision I make will be mine. As you may have noticed, Lance and Carrie deliberately left their letters here, on the coffee table where they threw them. I will put them up somewhere in case one day they have a change of heart.”
Thea didn’t say anything, but she had come to know this man she loved and had married. For her, he’d been a gift from heaven, who had appeared one day when she had been stranded with a flat tire. Bigger than life, tall, handsome, and a perfect gentleman to boot, he was everything she’d ever wanted in a man. Things had fallen into place so well after that day that it seemed unlikely to be a mere coincidence, but rather some divine intervention.
“Is it bothering you, Jeremiah, that you’re thinking about not going to see her either?”
She knew her question probably surprised him. But after years as a military wife, she’d learned how to pick up on someone’s moods. Instead of denying it, he nodded. “Yes, it’s bothering me. I should set an example of forgiveness for my kids to follow. I’m a deacon at the church, a trustee, and I teach Sunday School… I shouldn’t let old grudges resurface.”
“You’re also human, Jeremiah. We’re not perfect. Just like your kids have some soul-searching to do, so do you. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Thank you,” he said, giving her a squeeze.
She raised up a little and looked at him, studying his handsome features. “Why are you thanking me?”
“Because I think you understand me better than I understand myself at times.”
“And I think the same thing. Especially when I tell you about how I worry about my girls. Danielle, in particular,” she added. Her youngest daughter was a source of constant concern. She was thirty-one, still single and living in San Francisco.
