Page 6 of His Loving Wife

Andrew’s features turn stiff. “There’s no point in worrying them. They’ll feel safer believing he’s behind bars.”

“But they’re not safe. Paul could get them, and they don’t even know to keep an eye out for him.” My breathing hastens. “It feels like we’re lying to them. We think we’re protecting them, but what if we’re not?”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Andrew holds me tighter. “He can’t get us here.”

“He got usthere,” I whisper.

“If we’ve ever needed more time as a family, it’s now. I did this because I thought it would make you happy.”

“And it does. I am so happy. I guess I was just preparing myself to getting back and facing everything head-on. Now we—”

“Now we live,” he interjects. “We don’t let that asshole take anything else from us. I won’t let him.”

Andrew is trying. This is what I’ve been wanting.

“I love you,” he says, pulling me in for another hug.

“I love you, too.”

I say the words. I feel them. I mean them. But there’s something else, hidden beneath every conversation, an emotion neither one of us will dare voice.

Fear.

Chapter 4

11 Months Ago

Memories from that night ambushed Kate, confronting her at the most random moments. When her SUV was queued at the car wash, rivulets of pink soap splashing across her windshield, she’d suddenly recall the pain in her lower back when the intruder knocked her to the ground. When she opened the freezer door in the grocery aisle, she’d think of the panic she felt when he tightened his hands around her throat. When she was in the middle of lecturing her students about themes and motifs, she’d remember the soul-stopping sound of Willow’s scream.

“Kate?”

The voice belonged to Mary Richardson: married, mother of four, her neighbor from two doors down. Kate had been staring out the window, watching as the mailman deposited letters in the mailbox, reminiscing about the cool night air clammy against her skin when she finally rushed out of the house.

She cleared her throat and turned in Mary’s direction. “I’m sorry. What did you ask?”

“Would you be willing to make brownies?”

“Brownies,” Kate repeated, wondering how long she’d been checked out this time.

“For the back-to-school fundraiser.”

Kate looked around the room, at the half-dozen other mothers staring back at her. Most of them were neighbors, all of their children attended Hidden Oaks Middle School. This was the first Fundraising Committee of the new school year, the first time she’d been around most of these women since the attack. She wondered if they noted this the same way she did.

“Right,” she said, giving an assured nod of the head. “Yes, I can make brownies.”

“I think that’s everything,” Mary said, holding her notebook vertically and tapping it on the table. “You’ll let us know about using the community pavilion, Sarah?”

Kate was standing and already in the foyer before Sarah answered. She couldn’t wait to get out of there. She’d been dreading this meeting for over a week. It was the first in a series of formalities she’d have to endure; she could no longer languish in the lazy fog that had enveloped her since that night. Andrew was back at work. The kids were back in school. Her own classes would resume next week. Their responsibilities continued, there was just a layer of anxiety at the base of it all.

Dana Smith-Peters, Kate’s closest friend in the neighborhood, followed her out the door. She tapped Kate’s shoulder. “You okay?”

Kate exhaled and shook her head. “Yeah. Sorry. I just zoned out in there.”

“No one can blame you for that,” she said, walking beside her on the sidewalk. “Mary’s meetings are always a bore.”

Kate laughed at that. Most of the other parents used the Fundraising Committee as an excuse to at least offer tasty food or potent drinks. Mary was all business. Kate remembered she was scheduled to host the November meeting, and a new wave of angst washed over her. She hated being in her house, knowing what had happened there, and now she had to invite others in; she wondered what her neighbors would think.

“Everything else good with you? Happy to have the kids back in school?”

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