PROLOGUE

Twelve years ago

            David’s pacing fueled his anger with each passing moment.  He had no illusions as to his wife’s whereabouts.  Two hours before, he had seen her locked in a lover’s embrace with another man outside the very restaurant his father had made reservations for lunch.  Had they not been there at that moment in time, he would have remained unaware of her true nature.

            Holly, the love of his life, was unfaithful to him, unfaithful just as his mother had been to his father, the one person who had warned him that he would regret rushing into a marriage with someone he hardly knew, a fact now proven.  Questionable absences, unexplained, secretive phone calls, the times when she seemed to choose her words carefully, as if she were holding something back.  He snorted a disgusted, mirthless chuckle. Oh yeah, she’d been holding something back all right, but not from the man she’d held in her arms that afternoon.

            His anger grew exponentially with each passing moment, so that by the time she entered the house and called his name he was more than ready to confront her.  He sat down in the chair by the window and waited for her to enter the room.  Her face glowed with excitement as she hurried through the door.

            “Oh, darling, I’m so glad you’re home early.  I have wonderful news,” she bubbled, but paused as if sensing his mood.  “What’s wrong?”

            David stared out the window for a long moment working to control his emotions.  She moved across the room toward him as he turned.  “I’m going out of town overnight,” he said in a tight voice.  “My plane leaves in just under two hours….”

            “No!” she exclaimed, her voice giving a good imitation of distress.  “Do you have to go?  Can’t someone else go this once?  I have something really important to tell you,” she continued, the smile back on her face as she lowered herself to her knees beside the chair where he sat and lay a supplicating hand on his arm, but he shook it off and stood.

            His voice, cold and harsh even to his own ears, spoke words he hadn’t even known that he was going to say until they left his mouth.  ”I can’t think of anything you would have to say that could possibly interest me.  In fact, I want you gone before I get back!”

            “What?”  Holly’s look of hurt confusion did wonders for his ego.   She got to her feet, swaying slightly.

            “How long did you think you could get away with it?” he asked, facing her.  The look of guilt wiped away any lingering doubts he had.  “If someone had told me about seeing you necking outside a restaurant in broad daylight, I would have told them they were crazy and laughed it off.  But that is exactly what I saw this afternoon, with my father and half of downtown Chicago looking on.”

             “Necking? Restaurant?”  Holly echoed, frowning.  Suddenly she smiled, her puzzled expression clearing and the look of guilt erased.  She stepped forward to take his hand and opened her mouth to speak, but he swiftly stepped out of reach and hammered her with sharp, angry words. 

“I cannot tell you how much I loathe your touch, how much just looking at you disgusts me.  You are no better than my mother.  Pretending to love me, like she pretended to love my father, while carrying on with another man behind my back.  I thought you were different.”

            Holly backed away from him, the earlier glow gone, her sea green eyes now tearing.  She searched his face as she spoke,” “I…I can explain.”

            “How? How can you explain, except with more lies?  Spare us both the effort!  I don’t think you have the brain power to come up with anything good enough to explain away what I saw,” he stated with derision.

            “The truth might convince you,” she said softly.  His sound of disbelief caused her eyes, which had become flat and emotionless, to flash with sudden anger.  “That’s it?” she questioned.  “Tried and convicted, no defense allowed.  Fine!  I’ll be out of here by this evening.  But before I go there is something you need to know….”

            “”Nothing you have to say interests me in the least,” he said, lifting his overnight bag to his shoulder and quickly walking out the door and down the stairs.  Once at his car, he tossed the bag across the seat and got in.  The engine roared to life, as he pointedly ignored the white-faced woman who followed him from the house.  Before he roared down the driveway and into the street, he heard her shout,  “I will always love you.”  Though he tried not to look, his last glimpse of her through the rearview mirror showed her walking back up the steps into the house, a defeated slump to her shoulders.

            Once on the plane, his temper cooled and his thinking cleared.  Her final words echoed through his mind, adding to the questions and doubts that made their way into his conscious mind as he replayed the scene in front of the restaurant over and over again.  With sudden shocking clarity he came to the realization that there had been no passion in that embrace.  Things just didn’t add up, he concluded, remembering the tears on her face when she’d said she could explain. 

By the time his plane landed, he’d made the decision to get a return flight as soon as possible.   He would also call Holly the moment his plane landed and beg her to stay until he got back so they could get things cleared up between them.  With that decision the weight on his chest lightened. 

            An hour later he listened impatiently as the phone rang repeatedly.  His heart sank as the answering machine picked up.  Had she already left, or was she screening calls?  God, he hoped she was screening.  He wouldn’t let himself believe it was too late.  “Holly, if you’re there pick up the phone!  Holly!  Come on, baby, pick up!”  Realizing that she wasn’t going to pick up, he said,  “Look, baby, we need to talk.  I’m taking the redeye flight back tonight; please don’t leave before I get there.  Please, Holly, wait for me!”

            Flight delays put him into the Chicago airport hours after he should have arrived.  Her car was in the driveway. Hope soared as David rushed to their suite of rooms and saw that Holly’s clothes were still hanging in her closet instead of packed in a suitcase, as he’d feared. Thinking she might be having breakfast, he ran down the stairs to the dining room and found his father lingering over his morning coffee and newspaper.

            “David, what are you doing here?” Robert asked, leaping to his feet in surprise.

            “Where’s Holly?” David asked without answering.

            “She’s gone, son.  Left last night before I got back from my dinner party.  Mrs. Shore said that friend of hers came to get her about nine o’clock.  Took her bags and left without saying a word.”

            “But, her clothes are still here.”

            His father frowned.  “Probably going to send for the rest of her things later,” he suggested.  “I guess you had it out with her yesterday….” was all David heard as he rushed back up the stairs, taking them two at a time.  A quick search told it’s own story.  While everything in their suite looked the same on the surface, all the things Holly had brought with her were gone.  What remained were the things he had given her. The ivory and silver brush, mirror and comb set, the jewelry box and its contents, the expensive perfumes in their decorative bottles, all there in silent testimony to her feelings.  The message was clear--she wanted nothing from him.

            As he scanned the rooms again, a sealed, white envelope leaning against the answering machine caught his eye.  It was addressed simply “David” in her neat, rounded handwriting.  The envelope’s location was not lost on him.  He opened it and began to read.

  “Since I was given no opportunity to defend myself, then I offer no defense except to say that while I have not been totally honest about some things, things I had hoped to discuss with you this evening, but since our marriage is over, they no longer concern you.  Regardless, the one thing I have been totally honest with you about are my feelings for you and our marriage.  I realized today that your mother’s leaving affected you far more than even you realize and has skewered your ability to trust.  Your mother’s infidelity is eating at you.  Would you have reacted in quite the same way if you mother had simply died?  Would you have given me a fair hearing?  You’ve only heard your father’s side of what happened back then, but that isn’t the whole story.

  I was here when you called and heard your message, but I won’t be waiting when you get back.  I’ve decided it ends here.  If we were to make up, and we would if I were to explain about what you saw today, how long would it be before something similar happened?  It would happen again, you know, again and again until you learn to trust.  David, I couldn’t bear to hear that dead, cold tone in your voice as you lash out at me with your distrust, as you did today. Without that fundamental element our marriage is a mockery.

  Even if I were allowed to explain about this afternoon, I would not.  It would be like begging for your love and trust.  I shouldn’t have to do that, David.

  To love is a wonderful thing, and I will always love you, but you see, now, I no longer trust you not to hurt me again.  Each incident like today would eat at our love until either or both of us would be filled with such bitterness—like Robert still feels toward your mother.  She’s been dead a very long time.

  I’m pregnant, David. That was the wonderful news I was going to tell you.  But I will not bring a child into a household where its parentage is questioned.  I will contact you when our baby is born. (A teardrop marred the page).  I hadn’t planned on telling you like this, but circumstances being what they are, I think you can understand.  Then again, you probably think I’m trying to pass off another man’s child as yours, like your father accused your mother of doing.

  Holly Jenkins is not my legal name.  The reason for not using my legal name is water under the bridge.  The fact remains that Holly Jenkins is the name I used on our marriage certificate and I have it on good authority that this may invalidate our marriage.  I’m sure your father’s lawyers can look into it.

  I know you’ve never believed that your father disliked me or that he wanted me out of your life.  Well, tell your dad that the ‘penniless, crippled nobody’ is gone for good.  And, while you are at it, ask him how he knew which restaurant I was going to today.

  The only thing I am taking that you gave me, besides the baby, is my wedding ring because in my heart I will always and forever be your wife,

                   Holly.”

            He reread the note several times.  Yes, he had questions about what she had written, but the two points that stood out were that she loved him and she was having his baby.  Nothing else mattered.  He had to find her—them.  His heart tripped with joy.  A child, they had both wanted one from the start, but during their year of marriage they hadn’t conceived until now.  He closed his eyes, remembering how that look of joy and love had been wiped from her face as he spoke the words that had effectively ended their marriage.  He would have a great deal to atone for when he found her and he would find her, he vowed.  He had to find her because without her he was incomplete.  As he sat there formulating a plan to find his wife, his father knocked on the door.  He opened it and stepped in at David’s command. 

            “David, I know how hard it is for you right now…” Robert began.  David cut him off.

            “Do you really?” David asked, looking at his father with new eyes.  “Just out of curiosity, how did you know Holly was at that restaurant?”

            Taken by surprise, his father said, “Mrs. Shore told me.”

            “Ahhh!  The ever faithful servant,” David’s droll comment hung in the air.  What a fool he had been, he berated himself, remembering the times he had told Holly that she was wrong about his father.  Thinking back, he could see that Mrs. Shore had kept him apprised of Holly’s movements.  How many times had this man said, “Why don’t you call Holly and invite her out for lunch.” only to express surprise that David hadn’t known his wife whereabouts?  Robert’s subtle comments of her not liking him when Holly had chosen to stay with her friend Marabella rather than at home, while he was away on company business, took on new meaning as he realized his father had probably done everything in his power to make her feel uncomfortable enough to leave.  Well, two things were going to change before Holly came back, David decided, their place of residency, and his employment.

            “Mrs. Shore has always been a person I can count on when I have need, unlike someone in this room that I might mention.  The Foxworth contract….”

            “We both know the Foxworth account was only a means of getting me out of town before I changed my mind.  Well, guess what, Dad?   It worked.  The ‘penniless, crippled nobody’ is gone…” he paused, gauging his father’s reaction.  The reddening features told the story.  He continued, “taking my child with her.”

            “What!   Holly is pregnant?” his father roared.  “Get her back!  She can’t take my grandchild.”

            “Your grandchild, father.  How interesting for you to say that now when you have tried in everyway to convince me that she has been unfaithful.  As to finding her, I don’t know where she is.”  David stated, “but even if I did, she wouldn’t come back here, and neither will I.”

            “Call that friend of hers—that Marabella person,” he ordered as he hurried to the door.  David knew the exact moment his words penetrated because his father stopped in mid-stride and swung around, nearly tripping in the process.  “What do you mean?”

            “Holly and I won’t be living here after this.  In fact, I’m having our things put into storage and when I find her, I’ll let her decide where we’ll live.”

            “We’ll see about that,” his father blustered, angrily.

            “Dad, don’t dig a deeper hole than you are in right now, as far as our relationship is concerned.  If it comes to a choice between you and my wife, I choose my wife.”

            Father and son looked at one another for a long moment, gauging each other’s reaction to this change in their relationship.  The veracity of David’s statement was written on his face.  There would be no turning back.  For the first time in his life, his father acquiesced by leaving the room without another word.  A moment later, he exited the house and got in his car.  David heard him leave, but offered no farewell.

            For the next hour David typed out a letter of resignation, made arrangements for storing his and Holly’s things, and after several attempts to reach Marabella by phone, was preparing to leave when Marabella roared up the driveway.  She was out of the car before David reached the door.  Tears streamed down her face.

            “Oh, David, tell me it’s not true.  Oh God, tell me she’s not gone.”  She gripped his arm with a strangle hold.

            “She isn’t with you then,” he stated.  “I was hoping she was.  Where did she go?”

            “Oh God, you don’t know!”  Marabella’s anguished eyes held pity as she said,  “David, it’s all over the news.  Holly’s plane crashed in Denver.  I know it’s her flight because I made the arrangements and took her to the airport myself.”  David stared at her with stunned disbelief.  He barely heard Mrs. Shore telling him there was an urgent phone call for him.