Eleven

April clutched her Bible to her chest like a shield as she walked up to a stone house with no front yard. Next to the shiny red door with a brass kick plate, a burnished bronze plaque declared it to be on the Historic Registry of Homes. April touched the bottom of the antique door knocker but couldn’t make herself use it.

She didn’t want to be here. But not showing would have raised too many questions. If she could just shut out the picture and her mother’s voice until she got home and had time to sort this through. Her brain felt as though she’d head butted an electric fence. After the jolt had come the fuzzy numbness that wouldn’t allow her to formulate a concise thought, let alone a rational next step.

Confront him. That’s what she needed to do. But when? And how? If she hadn’t taken out a fraction of her agitation on gunning her engine and turning the radio up full blast, she might have done exactly what she wanted to do: march into this house and slap Seth Bachelor’s square hypocritical jaw.

How was she going to sedate these emotions and act normal? How was she going to ignore the conversation that kept replaying in her brain?

The picture is right in front of me, April. I e-mailed you a copy.

Maybe he’s divorced, Mom. Would that have made her feel any better?

Don’t you think I thought of that? There’s no record of a divorce.

What if his wife died? Why would he hide something like that?

April Jean, give me some credit for being a thinking human being. I checked the death records.

Still not convinced, she’d run home to check her e-mail before coming to the study. There was the picture. . .Seth in a long-tailed tuxedo, the new Mrs. Bachelor, née Brenda Cadwell, in a scoop-necked dress.

Seth is married. The words became a refrain to every thought. No wonder he’d seemed vague about why he was in Pine Bluff. He was hiding out. Did Mrs. Brenda Bachelor even know where he was? Or maybe they were still together, and he was living a double life. Were there children involved? In three years, they could have had two children. Was he sending child support?

It was all too easy to imagine two little children with Seth’s dark hair and dimples. Two little girls, maybe, sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for food that didn’t exist, finally rummaging in empty cupboards and a bare refrigerator until they found a half-empty package of stale soda crackers and the remains of a jar of grape jelly.

A car door slammed behind her, zapping her into the present. She tapped the brass knocker against the door.

❧

They’d saved a seat for her, right between him and Yvonne on the extra long couch. Why hadn’t she taken it? During introductions, her smile had made the rounds, landing on each person to Seth’s right, hopping over him, and continuing with everyone to his left. He’d seen her talking to Yvonne before the study began, so she wasn’t avoiding her. She was avoiding him.

Seth stared across the room at April, sitting cross-legged on the braided rug by the Franklin stove. Her rust-colored blouse brought out the reddish tones in her hair and reflected in spots of color on her cheeks. Not once in the fifteen minutes since she’d walked in had she made eye contact with him. What had he done now?

He sifted through what he remembered of the couple of times they’d talked since their breakfast at Sunrise and couldn’t come up with anything she might have misconstrued. Had he inadvertently said something to make her mad? Was she simply losing interest? Had she really ever been interested? Why did women have to be so multifaceted? Just when you think you’re getting to know one of them, a whole other side pops up that you didn’t know existed. He forced his focus back on Pastor Owen, who was asking them to turn to the thirteenth chapter of Second Corinthians while he read aloud.

“ ‘Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?’ ”

A test. That’s what he needed. An MMPI for every woman he met. Hi, I’m Seth Bachelor. Glad to meet you. I’d like you to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory before a single word comes out of your mouth.

That’s the only way he’d be sure of finding someone who really was what she appeared to be. He’d let himself believe that April Douglas wasn’t like so many of the women he’d met. She was a straight shooter, not a game player. If she didn’t like something, she said so. So what statement was she making by sitting across the room and avoiding eye contact? He’d never been good at reading signals. He needed words. And he’d drag them out of her as soon as the study was over.

Things between them had been precarious right from the start. So what was it about her that made him keep coming back? She was good at letting him talk about himself, asking just the right questions at the right times. But that could be nothing more than her reporter training. She was funny, in the subtle kind of way he loved. Her compassion for others was genuine. He’d seen nothing in her that he’d label egotistical or vain. That alone was worth a ton of points.

He’d felt a bit off balance since the moment they’d met. . .and it wasn’t all that bad a feeling. The sudden realization surprised him. In the past, he’d hated unpredictable relationships. The last few weeks had felt a lot like tracking an F5 tornado.

And he was loving it.

Looking down at his open Bible, he willed his mind to stay on task. Pastor Owen was reading verse eleven.

“ ‘Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.’ ”

A holy kiss. . .it had crossed his mind more than once in the past few days. Apparently he wouldn’t be obeying that command any time soon.

He studied her, the way she toyed with the tassel on her bookmark, the uncomfortable-looking straightness of her posture. She’d glued her attention on Pastor Owen and his wife Audrey, appearing to be soaking in every word they uttered. Looking closer, he could tell that her glazed eyes weren’t focused. Clearly, her mind wasn’t on Second Corinthians.

At least they had that in common.

❧

There was a reason why April had participated in forensics rather than drama in high school. She could give an extemporaneous speech that would make a vegetarian order prime rib, but she was lousy at pretending to be someone else. Her broadcast classes had taught her to tuck her emotions into the cubbyholes of her psyche, but apparently that only worked in front of a camera or a microphone. Her training wasn’t coming through for her now.

She realized too late that sitting across the room from Seth was a huge mistake. The thought of sitting close enough to smell his aftershave and feel his body heat had made her woozy. She’d opted for a spot on the floor, but now she was in his line of vision. Though she managed not to look directly at him, her peripheral scanning kept tabs on him. She was pretty sure his eyes hadn’t left her face for an entire hour.

So she’d been right to distrust him in the beginning. No wonder the man had anger issues. Sure, there had been teases of the kind of man she’d always dreamed of—attentive, understanding, patient, creative—but none of that mattered now. Unless. . .what if he hadn’t really deceived her? What if his wife had died in a different state? Her death certificate wouldn’t be filed in Minnesota then, would it? Would the same be true of divorce records? Or what if, even now, Brenda Bachelor lay in a permanent coma, brain-dead from an accident? Maybe an accident that was Seth’s fault?

But he would have told her something like that. Or Yvonne would have told her. It’s not the kind of thing he’d hide from his church friends, his support system.

No imagined scenario gave him an easy out. The man had been—apparently still was—married.

At least she’d found out the truth before any real feelings for him had taken root. As it was, she might lose a night’s sleep, but she refused to lose any tears.

Her neck and shoulders ached from sitting in the same rigid position. She had to move, but it had to be calculated. When her gaze left the front of the room, she couldn’t let it sweep across Seth. She leaned back against the freestanding fireplace and turned her head to the left, away from Seth. At that angle, she was staring directly at Trace and Sydney McKay, newlyweds who somehow managed to hold hands while flipping through their respective Bibles.

As director of the chamber of commerce, Sydney collected rent checks from Yvonne and April every month. Over the course of a year, April had gotten to know her well. Just weeks after Caitlyn died, Sydney had announced her engagement. Though they were at very different seasons in their lives, they’d formed a bond, following the apostle Paul’s words: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” April thought back to Trace and Sydney’s wedding. Candlelight, a flowing dress encrusted with crystals, pale peach orchids, a wedding cake covered in chocolate and lacy white icing. And the groom, waiting at the altar with misty eyes. . .

April blinked, shocked by the sting of tears.

She looked down at her open Bible and forced herself to read and reread chapter thirteen of Second Corinthians. Verse eight jumped out at her. “For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.” Lord, grant me the strength to speak the truth.

Lost in outlining the speech that would corner Seth into the truth, April was startled by the sound of her name. Yvonne was talking about her.

“. . .Remember that we prayed for her after her sister died, and I’m sure a lot of you have heard her radio program, Slice of Life, on Saturday afternoons. She’s fulfilling a list that she made with her sister, experiences that celebrate life, I guess you’d say, and she’s sharing her adventures with her listeners. Anyway, she’s organizing a day hike on the Superior Trail for a week from Sunday. Anybody here interested in going?”

Heat flooded April’s face. Not now, Yvonne. This time, her training came to her rescue, and she smiled and nodded like the cool, calm professional she didn’t feel like. “I’m thinking of doing a five-mile loop, starting at Gooseberry Falls. It’ll be a slow pace, so even if you’re not an experienced hiker, it shouldn’t be difficult. If you’re interested, just e-mail Yvonne, and I’ll get in contact with you.” Now shift the focus to someone else, please.

“Let’s see a show of hands. Who thinks they’d like to go?” Yvonne looked around the room as she asked.

Yvonne’s hand lifted slowly, tentatively in reply to her own question, prompting April’s mouth to open spontaneously. “You’re going?”

Yvonne almost pulled off the look of offense. “I like the outdoors.” The circle burst into laughter. Obviously, they knew her well. “So who’s going to join us?”

Five hands rose. One of them was Seth’s.

Trying her hardest to concentrate on the closing prayer, April found it impossible. Her mind painted pictures of what could have been. . .climbing the rise to Gooseberry Falls, her hand in Seth’s, picking their way across the river on lichen-covered rocks, falling into his arms when her foot slipped. . . . The prayer ended, and the room buzzed with a dozen conversations at once. April stood, frantically searching for someone to talk to while she regrouped her resolve. But it was too late. She’d barely gotten to her feet when Seth crossed the room and stopped a foot in front of her. “Can we go outside for a minute?”

This wasn’t the way she wanted the scene to play. She’d planned on being the one to say, “We need to talk.” She’d planned on being in control. Setting her Bible on an end table, she nodded.

❧

“What’s wrong, April?” He leaned against the seat of a pale blue and shiny black motorcycle, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his chest, tightening the sleeves of his dark blue T-shirt. He scanned her face, patient once again.

What happened to the fury that she needed to carry this through? Why did her spine turn to Jell-O around this man? She took a deep breath and blew it out, puffing wind into her own sails.

“I think I should be asking what’s wrong with you. What’s wrong with a guy who’s living a lie—or a double life?”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“Isn’t there some little detail you failed to tell me before you asked me out?”

Seth’s brow creased. “April, I’m sorry. I have no clue what you’re getting at. Spell it out.”

Her hands clamped on her hips. “My mother found your wedding announcement.”

He stared at her, but she wasn’t falling for the blank look. He wasn’t even going to defend himself or try lying his way out? Her indignation returned with a vengeance. “Let me jog your memory. You get married, you take a picture, you put it in the paper. . . .” Her voice amplified with each word, but she didn’t care. The tears she’d vowed not to shed teetered on her lashes.

Of all the expressions she would have expected from him, a smile was not one of them. Slowly it spread, deepening his dimple, forming little river deltas next to his eyes. April felt heat creep from her solar plexus to her temples. Could blood actually boil?

His hand reached for her shoulder. She jerked away. The infuriating smile didn’t fade.

“But sometimes, if your fiancée’s best friend works for a newspaper, you pose for the picture, you put it in the paper. . .and you don’t get married.”