Redemption

What Readers Are Saying about Karen Kingsbury’s Books

“I just finished reading
Redemption
. I couldn’t put the book down! I won’t regret my lost sleep; the book was worth every minute!”

—Cathy

“
Redemption
is a great book! I read it within two days, finding every moment when I could. I have been through a divorce and could feel Kari’s grief. I can’t tell you how much women need these types of stories to keep them walking with God and bring them hope when so many relationships are falling apart.”

—Linda

“Just when I think Karen Kingsbury can’t top her last book, she does!
Redemption
is her best so far.”

—Cassie

“I just finished reading
Redemption
, and I just had to write and tell you how much I enjoyed the book. I feel as if I know the characters. . . . I was pleasantly surprised to see the book end how real life ends. Thanks again for making the Baxters so real.”

—Debra

“I only started reading Christian fiction a short while ago. The clerk in the store recommended your books above all others. So glad she did! I started reading with
Redemption
, then
Remember
, and can hardly wait for
Return
.”

—Barbara

“Since reading [Karen’s] book, my husband and I have both been different. Our life together has been more like it used to be many years ago. My husband is so much warmer toward me. We love [Karen’s] books and can’t wait to read the next one. I have never read books like hers. Keep writing, and we’ll keep reading.”

—Karen and Fred S.

“With the Redemption series I’ve been encouraged to continually give my marriage to God so that He can be the center of it.”

—Karen

“[Karen has] been such a wonderful godsend. Her books have brought me to God, and have led my husband and I to remarry after a bad divorce.”

—Kathy

“I recently found your books and have been devouring them ever since. Each time God has spoken into my life through them.”

—Rosemary

“Until this year . . . I never could get into reading. . . . Well, girl, I love your book with Gary Smalley. I am recommending your books to ALL of my friends and family. All I can say is WOW. Keep up the good work.”

—C.P.

“Your books changed my life. Thank you for helping me to find God again. I read your last one in one day and bawled like a baby all night and all day today. GREAT, AWESOME BOOKS. I cannot wait for the next ones to come. I am off to read the Bible. Thanks again, Karen. I found GOD!”

—Kelly

“I have never read an author like you before: You make me laugh and cry within pages of one another!”

—Sarah

Visit Tyndale’s exciting Web site at www.tyndale.com

Visit Karen Kingsbury’s Web site to learn more about her Life-Changing Fiction at

www.KarenKingsbury.com

TYNDALE
and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Baxter Family Drama
is a trademark of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Redemption

Copyright © 2002 by The Smalley Publishing Group, LLC, and Karen Kingsbury. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph © 2002 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Cover illustration © 2002 by David Henderson. All rights reserved.

Karen Kingsbury photo copyright © 2009 by dandansphotography.com. All rights reserved.

Gary Smalley photo copyright © 2001 by Jim Lersch. All rights reserved.

Cover designed by Jennifer Ghionzoli

Interior designed by Zandrah Maguigad

Edited by Anne Christian Buchanan and Lynn Vanderzalm

Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920, www.alivecommunications.com.

Most Scripture used in this book, whether quoted or paraphrased by the characters, is taken from the
Holy Bible
,
New International Version
®
. NIV
®
. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Some Scripture quotations are taken from the
Holy Bible
,
New Living Translation, copyright ©

1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Scripture quotation in chapter 23 is taken from the New King James Version
®
. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Lyrics on page 344 are taken from the hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” by Thomas O. Chisholm. Copyright © 1923, Ren. 1951 by Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product

of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the authors or the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smalley, Gary.

Redemption / Gary Smalley, Karen Kingsbury.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-8423-5622-0 (sc)

1. Married people—Fiction. 2. Adultery—Fiction. I. Kingsbury, Karen. II. Title.

PS3569.M33 R43 2002

813′.6—dc21 2002002544

New repackage first published in 2009 under ISBN 978-1-4143-3300-7.

Authors’ Note

The Redemption series is set in Bloomington, Indiana. Some of the landmarks—Indiana University, for example—are accurately placed in their true settings. Other buildings, parks, and establishments will be nothing more than figments of our imaginations. We hope those of you familiar with Bloomington and the surrounding area will have fun distinguishing between the two.

Chapter One

From the front seat of his beat-up Chevy truck, Dirk Bennett stared at his girl’s third-story apartment. He watched the shadowy figures of two people come together and stay that way.

A minute passed, then two. Then the apartment lights went out.

Dirk’s fingers trembled, and his heart ricocheted against the walls of his chest. He glanced at the revolver on the seat beside him and shuddered. What was wrong with him? He was a nice guy from a nice family. People like him didn’t carry guns, didn’t lose sleep at night hating a guy for stealing his girl.

Maybe I’m going crazy.

Or maybe it was the pills. They could do that to a person, couldn’t they? Make you crazy in the head? No, that was paranoid. Dirk calmed himself down. The pills had nothing to do with the way he felt. They weren’t even steroids—not exactly. And they
were
working. He’d packed on ten pounds in the past six weeks—ever since he doubled his regular dosage. Ten pounds of muscle.

Dirk gripped his forehead and tried to remember what his trainer had told him when he sold him the bottle.
Get the formula right. Too little and the lifting would be worthless. Too much and . . .

Rage, depression, irrational behavior.

Was that what this was, this constant buzzing in his head? Too many pills? Dirk tapped his fist against his forehead. It was impossible. The pills were completely natural; that’s what everyone said. Half the guys at school were on them, and no one else was having any kind of reaction.

He stared at the gun again.

It’s what anyone would do.
He wasn’t going to hurt Professor Jacobs, after all—just scare him. Then Dirk and Angela Manning could be together the way they should have been all along.

He had known from the beginning that Angela was the one, the only woman he could ever love. She’d felt it, too, at first, before she met the professor. Dirk shifted his gaze to Angela’s apartment. What could she possibly see in that guy? He was at least ten years older than she was, with thinning hair and gray in his beard and the beginnings of a paunch.

Besides, Professor Jacobs was married.

Dirk had seen the man’s wife up in the journalism department a time or two, a beautiful, dark-haired woman who laughed and smiled and seemed to be in love with her husband. The whole thing didn’t make sense—an old man like the professor with
two
gorgeous women. Dirk bit the inside of his lip. That part would change soon if he had anything to do with it.

In the glow of a streetlight he glanced at his watch and saw it was after ten o’clock. If he wanted to pass history, he’d better get home and write the paper on Civil War generals. It was due tomorrow. Dirk worked the muscles in his jaw as he grabbed the gun and tucked it underneath his seat.

He’d have to scare Professor Jacobs another time.

Then, just as he started his engine, he got an idea—an idea so sound and strong it caused a surge of hope to rise in his heart. Maybe he wouldn’t have to use the gun. Maybe there was another way to scare the professor into backing off his girl.

He chuckled out loud as he pulled away from the curb.

Ten minutes later he sat on the floor of his Indiana University dormitory room, staring at a single entry in the Bloomington white pages as his fingers began punching the numbers.

Not many blocks away, Professor Tim Jacobs lay awake in his girlfriend’s off-campus apartment, wondering what was happening to him.

He was used to the guilt and insomnia. But the tears were something new.

Since he’d begun violating his wedding vows, there had been too many times when he was supposed to be at work reading student papers or at one conference or another but instead had been sharing a bed with Angela Manning, possibly the most promising student ever to grace Tim’s advanced newswriting class. She was young and idealistic and achingly beautiful, and Tim knew their affair was more than a passing distraction.

Sometimes the realization caused the guilt to grow so loud that it almost took on a voice—a voice that kept Tim awake even when he was dead tired.

The voice was not audible, but many nights it woke him all the same. Tim would be nestled against Angela, intoxicated by the kind of sin he’d never even dreamed about, when from out of nowhere the voice would come.

Repent! Flee immorality. I stand at the door of your heart and knock! Flee . . .

Tim would roll over, hoping to find his way back to sleep, to the imaginary place where his wife, Kari, would not be waiting at home alone, trusting him to be faithful. But the voice of guilt would come again and again—persistent, relentless, tirelessly calling him home regardless of his lack of response.

His lack of worth.

Tim shifted onto his side, trying not to waken Angela. He stared at her plain white apartment wall, and a memory came to mind—the day Angela Manning first visited him at his office and made her intentions clear.

They had talked for fifteen minutes, teasing and laughing and sharing sentiments of mutual admiration while Tim twisted his wedding ring, hiding it behind the fingers of his right hand.