From This Day Forward

“Yeah. I know.”

But that didn’t stop you before.

She didn’t have to say the words. Sam heard them anyway. His neck grew warm, and his mouth settled into a grim line. “There isn’t anyone else, Liz. There never really was.”

“Right.” Without giving him a chance to respond to her sarcasm, she continued. “So what kind of living arrangement do you have there?”

“What do you mean?”

“House, apartment, condo?”

“House.”

“Good. Okay, here’s what I’m thinking. Cara needs somewhere safe to stay for a while, far away from the city. If you have room for her—and I mean that literally, as in a private room of her own—I think a small-town atmosphere in the heartland would be a perfect place for her to recover. But the last thing she needs is for someone to make her feel that she’s imposing. Nor could she handle anger—for any reason. She needs understanding and security and safety.”

Turning toward the window, Sam stared out into the darkness. Twelve years ago, when he and Cara married, he’d planned to give her all those things. But the image of her white, shocked face and shattered expression on that fateful night sixteen months ago reminded him how badly he’d failed. It was seared into his brain, the memory still powerful enough to clench his gut. To leave the bitter tang of regret on his tongue. To compel him to find a way to fix the damage and start anew, just as his skilled hands had once given his patients new life through surgery.

Maybe this was his chance.

“I can give her those things, Liz. And more.”

His quiet, intense response seemed to surprise his wife’s best friend. “Okay. I’m already going to be in the doghouse for calling you. I can live with that if my idea helps her. But not if I end up sending her to a situation worse than the one she’s in.”

Although he knew Liz had a poor opinion of him, that comment rankled. “I’m not a monster. And despite what you might believe, I still love Cara. Yes, I made some mistakes. Bad ones—which I’ll regret as long as I live. But people do change. I promise you that while Cara is here, I’ll do everything I can to help her recover. No one wants that more than me. I have three bedrooms, and one of them is empty. She’s welcome to stay as long as she wants to.”

“If you can convince her to come. And that’s a big if.”

“I’ll find a way.”

His conviction seemed to impress Liz. A slight, almost imperceptible warmth crept into her voice. “I hope you do, Sam. Good luck.”

With a troubled expression, Sam hung up the phone and pushed through the screen door to his back porch. The warmth of the early June evening was pleasant, with none of the mugginess that characterized typical Missouri nights later in the summer. A clear sky promised a fair tomorrow, the stars bright overhead, the moon full. The scent of honeysuckle wafted through the still night air, sweet and fresh. At the back of the property, a slight breeze whispered in the woods, and the faint echo of a steady whistle sounded as a distant train moved purposefully toward its destination.

The peaceful setting did little to calm Sam’s roiling emotions, however. An hour ago, as he’d driven home through the dense night, he’d been no closer to a solution to his dilemma with Cara than he had been more than a year before, when she’d left him. Now an opportunity had been dropped in his lap.

But at Cara’s expense.

Closing his eyes, Sam forced himself to take a deep, steadying breath as he tried to sort out his feelings. He could identify anger in the volatile mix. Directed at the perpetrator of a crime that had cost one man his life and scarred his wife psychologically. Guilt was jumbled in there, too. If he hadn’t messed things up, he would have been there for Cara during this crisis. And there was also a healthy dose of compassion. No one understood the horror and trauma of the situation Cara had experienced better than him. He’d been there. He could empathize, and he wanted to help.

But the main reason he wanted her to come to Missouri was far simpler than that. He still loved her. As far as he was concerned, that alone justified her visit.

Yet Liz was right. Convincing Cara of that wasn’t going to be easy. They’d had almost no direct communication since the night she’d left him, nor had he seen her. The sale of their condo had been handled by a real estate firm, business and financial matters by lawyers. When he’d tried to call her, he’d always gotten her answering machine. The flowers and cards he’d sent in the first few months had gone unacknowledged. It was clear that she wanted no contact with him.

And Sam didn’t have a clue how to change her mind. His surgical skill had been almost intuitive. He was far less able when it came to matters of the heart. As the months had slipped by, his hopes for a reconciliation had dimmed. Yet he’d clung to them as fiercely as a drowning man clasps a life preserver, unable to accept that his marriage was over.

He’d been desperate enough to even consider asking God for help. But whatever tenuous connection he’d once felt with the Almighty had been severed by the tragic events that had robbed him of the career he prized and the woman he loved. In the end, turning to God for assistance hadn’t been an option.

But now that an unexpected opportunity had been dropped into his lap, he wasn’t going to let it slip away. If he couldn’t convince Cara by phone to come, he’d fly to Philadelphia and camp on her doorstep. According to Liz, she needed help. And he intended to give it to her.

Nevertheless, he acknowledged the validity of Liz’s final comment. He would need a lot of luck to pull this off. And maybe something more.

Maybe he needed God after all.

It had been years since Sam had prayed with any real conviction or sincerity. When he and Cara had married, his faith had been a matter of going through the motions. He’d been arrogant enough in the old days to think he didn’t need the Almighty. Given his past conceit and lack of piousness, he doubted he was even on the Lord’s radar screen anymore.

But this might be the only chance he got to reconnect with his wife, and he was going to need all the help he could get—not only to convince Cara to come to Oak Hill, but to help restore a sense of normalcy to her life. He couldn’t blow it. Raising his gaze to the star-studded sky, he sent a silent plea heavenward.

Lord, if You’re listening, I want You to know that I’m not asking for Your help for me, but for Cara. Please show me how to reach her. Open her heart to my invitation so that I can help her overcome her fear and regain her trust. Much as I want to rebuild our relationship, it’s more important right now for her to heal. And if that’s all I can accomplish, Lord, then please…help me put aside my own selfish needs and accept that it’s enough. But if You can see Your way to let me win back her love, I would be forever grateful.

Chapter Two

“Cara, if you’re there, please pick up. It’s important.”

Shocked, Cara stared at her answering machine. Although Sam hadn’t identified himself, nor had he called in quite a while, years could go by—decades, even—and she’d recognize his mellow, resonant voice. She’d always liked the way it sounded first thing in the morning, husky from sleep and oh-so-appealing.

And it was definitely first thing in the morning in Missouri, she confirmed, checking the clock on her kitchen counter. Six o’clock, in fact. He must have rung her as soon as he got up. Not that the early hour mattered. Sleeping at night was next to impossible. Every little sound seemed magnified—and threatening—in the dark.

“Cara, are you there?”

With a start, she realized that he was still on the line, waiting to see if she’d pick up. Well, he’d find out soon enough she wasn’t going to. Let him leave a message if it was that important.

“Okay, I’m hanging up. But I plan to keep calling until we connect.”

As the line went dead, his last word echoed in her mind. Connect. How ironic that he would use that term, Cara mused, her shoulders collapsing in a weary slump as she leaned back against the countertop. They hadn’t connected in years. Not since their careers had taken off and their lives had gone in different directions.

And she was as much to blame for their drifting apart as he was, she acknowledged. She’d been just as ambitious as Sam, just as driven to excel at her profession. She’d worked until late at night. He’d been gone when she got up in the morning. Weekends, when he had a few spare minutes, were her busiest days. So he filled them with more work. And little by little he’d become more distracted as the demands of his surgical career mushroomed and his prestige grew. Busy with her own career as a chef, Cara hadn’t noticed the widening gulf between them—until the year he’d forgotten their anniversary. Worse, he hadn’t seemed to care.

His indifference had hurt. And it had served as a wake-up call for her. After praying about it and considering a number of options, Cara had waited for a night when Sam came home early. Once she’d had his attention, she’d laid her proposal on the table: She would take a job with more reasonable hours in a lesser-known restaurant if he would reduce his patient caseload to allow them to spend more time together. While such a radical change would require sacrifices, she’d been convinced that it would be worth it to save their marriage.

Not only had he refused to consider her suggestion, he’d plunged more deeply into his work.

That was when she’d known they were in big trouble.

In time, perhaps she would have found another way to salvage their relationship, Cara reflected. But then tragedy had struck, leaving Sam crippled in both body and spirit. Told he would never operate again, he’d made her the target of his bitterness. Sustained by prayer, she could have endured even that, clinging to the hope that a brighter day would dawn. But when confronted by the evidence of his ultimate betrayal, that hope had died. Devastated, she’d tucked the fragments of love that remained for him deep in her heart and moved on with her life. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d coped.

Until a month ago.

Closing her eyes, Cara drew an unsteady breath. Thank God, she’d had Liz! Every time fear had started to choke her, Liz had helped her breathe. Every time the world began to crumble beneath her feet and she lost her balance, Liz had held out a steadying hand. Every time a panic attack gripped her, Liz had talked her through it. In the past month, her friend had changed her plans for Cara’s sake more often than prices fluctuated at the gas pump.

Yet despite Liz’s support, and much to Cara’s surprise, it was often Sam who crept uninvited—and unwanted—into her thoughts. For the past month, the memories of their early days together had been vivid in her mind, days when a mere touch of his hand or one of his warm smiles could chase away her problems. And despite her best efforts, she’d been unable to squelch a powerful yearning for the secure, sheltering haven of his arms.

How odd that he would call now, when she felt more fragile and vulnerable than ever before. It was also dangerous, she warned herself. Sam wasn’t the answer to her problems. He’d been the problem in the past. Rekindling the ashes of their long-dead relationship was not an option.

Pushing thoughts of the past aside, she reached for a mug from a hook above the counter. But as she grasped the cool ceramic handle, the sudden ringing of the phone startled her and her hand jerked. The mug slipped from her fingers, shattering on the unforgiving tile at her feet.

“Cara, it’s Sam again. I’m going to keep calling until you answer. I need to talk with you. Please pick up.”

Glancing from the jagged shards strewn across the floor to the clock, Cara struggled to regulate her breathing. He’d only waited ten minutes before calling back. Did he plan to keep this up all day? Please, God, no! Her nerves couldn’t take it.