Emerald Fire (Christian Romance) (The Jewel Series) (4 page)

“Barry, I don’t know what to do. Charles –” Her breath had hitched and she’d squeezed her hands together almost painfully gripping his. “He’s married and he is really angry with me right now.”

The roaring in his ears had distracted him. He’d had a hard time understanding what she was babbling about. “So you know who the father is, at least.”

“Don’t be nasty.”

He had simply raised an eyebrow. “Asking kind of a lot right this second, aren’t you, darling?”

“I said I was sorry, Barry.”

She’s sorry. That makes everything better.
His voice had sounded icy even in his own ears. “And the father of your only begotten soon to arrive bundle of joy is angry, apparently.”

Good thing someone’s allowed to be angry
, he thought.

Jacqueline had nodded. “Yeah. He thinks I should get rid of it. He won’t have anything to do with me until I do. I just don’t know what to do.” She then stepped forward and put her hand on his cheek. “Can you help me?”

He’d thought, Help her? HELP her? Is this God’s sick way of saving my marriage?

Barry had cleared his throat and stared down at his wife of eighteen years. His wife. His responsibility. Was God punishing him for not covering her? Not husbanding her? Leading her? Anger, betrayal, hurt, and deep humiliation warred with duty, honor, forgiveness, and love. He’d managed to strangle out, “Exactly how is it that you want me to help you, Mrs. Anderson?”

“Couldn’t we just, I don’t know, go back to the way it was?”

“The way it was?” he’d prompted.

“You know. Before we started fighting all the time.”

“You mean like that time when we vowed in front of God and a church full of witnesses that we would love, honor, and cherish each other until death us do part?” He’d pushed her away. “Is that how far back you want to go?”

Jacqueline had buried her face in her hands and sobbed. “You’re right,” she’d wailed. “I’ve been awful. But can’t we just put all that behind us for the sake of the baby?”

For the sake of the baby. Of another man’s child. A married man, at that.

“I’m just not sure –”

Jacqueline then fell to her knees in front of him and grabbed the hem of his shirt. “Please, Barry. Please don’t abandon me. Please. You’ve always wanted this. You’ve always wanted me to love you again. I’ll do anything. Just don’t make me go through this alone.”

She was right. He desperately wanted nothing more than to have his wife back. But at this cost? At the cost of raising another man’s child?

Maybe. With God’s help, maybe he could.

“How long have you known?” His massive arms crossed across his broad chest. He’d felt his heart beating like a stampede beneath his forearm and he strained to keep his breathing even.

“I found out a week ago.”

He’d snorted in disgust and wasn’t even ashamed that he had audibly expressed his disdain. What frustrated him almost entirely was a very unexpected realization. Truth be told, no matter how bad things got, no matter how angry or ashamed or disappointed he felt, the ferocious and inescapable fact was that he loved his wife.

He’d felt the Holy Spirit telling him that he needed to keep her close, make her feel secure, help her feel safe. A tiny little part of him, a dark little part he wasn’t exactly proud of, wanted to hurt her back and ignored the divine voice in his heart. She had pushed him away for a decade, belittled him, disrespected him, shunned him, and ultimately betrayed him. In the space of a heartbeat, Barry had surrendered to an overwhelming impulse to push her away and let her feel some of that same insecurity and uncertainty she had inflicted on him for years.

“Jacqueline, I need some time to think about all this.” He’d tried to unclench his jaw and speak very calmly. He then bent down and helped her to her feet. “I need to process it. You’ve had a week. I need more than a few minutes. How about you go somewhere else. Give me some space so I can think about all this.”

So it came down to trust. If she was sincere about a fresh start, she would have to prove it to him. He was going to give her a week or two of insecurity and see if she ran back to her married boyfriend or came back to her husband.

“Barry, I …”

At the sound of her voice, the fear and desperation, he’d taken a little bit of pity on her. “I’m done talking for now. I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk again. Don’t be here when I get home. I will call you, Jacqui.” With that little bit of hope for reconciliation stated aloud, he’d turned and left the room, leaving his pregnant wife, his tea, and his Bible behind.

He had hoped and he had prayed for the last month and a half. The result? This morning, he set his tea cup atop the Bible he hadn’t opened in weeks, snatched up his mobile phone, and headed to the office leaving his empty house behind.

THE
Grand Ballroom of the Viscolli hotel in downtown Boston stood empty, a clean slate ready for whatever the half-sisters, Maxine Bartlett and Sarah Thomas, could throw at it. They stood together in the center of the room, one of many huge chandeliers directly above them. Maxine idly tapped a fingernail against her lips as she spun in a circle.

Sarah, a fresh
cum laude
nursing school graduate and the newest member of the obstetrics team at St. Catherine’s hospital, wore her surgical scrubs and clasped hairpins in her teeth while she twisted her mass of strawberry blonde curls into some semblance of order.

Maxine stood next to her clad in a camel colored suede suit, the long skirt falling just to her calves and brushing against the tops of her brown leather boots. With the heels on the boots, Sarah barely came up to Maxine’s shoulder.

“You know,” Sarah said as she pinned the last pin, “most people do the planning before the day of the event.” In twelve short hours, the room would fill with hundreds of people, friends and acquaintances of their elder sister, Robin Viscolli, and her husband Tony, all in celebration of the impending birth of the couple’s first child. Tony, a self-made entrepreneur, owned this hotel along with many other businesses in Boston and beyond.

“I selected and ordered all the food and flowers, I just never worked it all into the room.” Maxine glanced at her watch. She couldn’t believe it was already seven in the morning. “I think the day snuck up on me. I’m going to blame Cassandra. She’s the event coordinator here.”

“Hard for her to sneak anything by Tony in his own hotel. Besides, the last time she tried to help you, you shot her down. I bet she figured you’d let her know what you needed.”

“What makes you say that?”

Maxine turned to look at Sarah, who smiled a very sarcastic, sweet smile. “Because that’s what I do.”

“Yeah? What have you done for this party?” Maxine teased, knowing exactly how hard Sarah had worked.

“I mailed 500 invitations and logged RSVP’s. Quite a bit more labor intensive than deciding between yellow roses or Gerbera daisies for the centerpieces.”

Ignoring Sarah’s sarcastic jab, Maxine checked her phone. “I still haven’t heard from Jacqui.”

Sarah frowned. “How are we going to run the games if she isn’t here?”

“Maybe we just won’t have games,” Maxine said. “How were we going to do it with 500 people, anyway?”

“We ordered the supplies she needed, and we have the game instructions, so we’ll just have to do it for her,” Sarah said. “It’s a baby shower. You have to have games. That’s what you do.”

Maxine spotted Derrick DiNunzio coming through the far door. “Derrick!” she called, waving her hand.

She crossed the carpeted floor with long, graceful strides. Sarah followed, almost at a run compared to Maxine’s fast walk. Derrick nodded and lifted his hand in greeting. By the time they reached him, Maxine felt a huge grin on her face. She loved Derrick and had since the first day she met him.

Three years ago, Derrick had shown up at Tony’s office with a worn business card in hand, following up on an employment promise Tony had made him. As good as his word, Tony took Derrick in and made him his protégé. At present, Derrick was finishing up college. Surrounded by the luxury of the Viscolli ballroom, wearing a thick cream colored sweater and navy slacks as easily as he wore a quiet inner strength and outer confidence, Maxine could not pick out anything about Derrick, his demeanor, his accent, or his countenance, that suggested he hadn’t grown up surrounded by anything other than love and riches.

Though Derrick made eye contact with Maxine first, and though Maxine reached him first, it was Sarah to whom he first spoke with an ironic lift of a single eyebrow and an undeniable teasing tone in his voice. “Hiya, sweetheart.”

After Robin and Tony’s wedding, Sarah and Derrick had lived under the same roof with Tony and Robin for a full year while Sarah finished nursing school. Even so, instead of treating each other like acquaintances, they barely tolerated each other. Maxine watched in fascination as her younger sister’s lip curled in unfeigned loathing, astonished by the force of her sister’s reaction this morning. Sarah’s increasing vehemence toward Derrick never ceased to amaze Maxine. The way Derrick invited it – nicknaming her petite half sister “sweetheart” for example – also presented a perpetual puzzle.

“I told you not to call me that.” Sarah’s voice came out low and laced with loathing.

Derrick appeared utterly oblivious to Sarah’s venom. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.” Before Maxine could give much more thought to the interplay between them, Derrick’s grin grew wide and his eyes danced with genuine mirth as he took in the sight of her. “Maxi! You look like a hundred bucks.”

Maxine laughed at his teasing and explained, “I’ve only had one cup of coffee so far.”

Derrick’s eyebrow quirked and he said, “We’ll have to fix that.”

Maxine opened her mouth to enthusiastically agree when Sarah unexpectedly piped up, “As if you could fix anything. Where’s Cassandra?” Sarah crossed her arms and glared at Derrick from beneath her strawberry curls. Rather than making her appear threatening, her stance comically transformed her into a Little Orphan Annie double.

Instead of reacting, Derrick insinuatingly winked at Sarah before turning his attention back to Maxine. “I have an army of help ready to place tables and chairs where they need to go. I also have confirmation of a flower delivery at noon, and Chef Armand called up from the pastry kitchen to let you know that the cake is ready for you to view.”

Maxine looked at her watch again and mentally structured her day. “Okay. I have a nine-thirty meeting in the restaurant here, so hopefully I can get everything organized and still be able to put in a couple of hours this afternoon at the office.”

“My shift starts at eleven,” Sarah said, pulling her phone out of her pocket to check the time. “So I can help until ten. My roommate is going to cover for me this afternoon, so I should be able to be back by four.”

Derrick reached into the pocket of his slacks and pulled out several sheets of graph paper. “I knew you hadn’t met with Cassandra yet, so I sketched a few possible ideas for layout of the room.” As Maxine took the sheets from him, he looked at Sarah. “How many people RSVP’d?”

“Four eighty-six,” she said, “but there was also an announcement made at church. I’d count on at least fifty more.”

“Maybe we should plan for six hundred.”

“Maybe we should plan for five-forty,” Sarah sneered. “Otherwise, you’re going to end up with a bunch of empty tables.”

“I think you’re going to get more than fifty from an open invitation at a church that size.”

“Why? Because the Viscollis are so amazing?”

Maxine watched Derrick’s eyes look Sarah’s petite body up and down. “Someone certainly is,” he observed.

Sarah gasped as Derrick turned his attention back to Maxine once again. “Well?”

“Let’s split the difference,” she said. “Five-seventy?”

Derrick nodded and pulled a two-way radio from a clip on his belt. “Rubert? Five-seventy, as we discussed yesterday.”

“As you discussed?” Maxine laughed.

Derrick waited for the confirmation from the catering department’s head sous chef before turning the volume down on the radio and re-clipping it. He shrugged. “I guessed.”

“Hotel and restaurant management was a good major for you to pick, then.”