by T. K. Chapin
I should have known it wasn’t an accident.
The second time was no accident at all, and I knew it. After a heavy night of drinking the night his father died, he came to the study where I was reading. Like a hunter looking for his prey, he came up behind me to the couch. Grabbing the back of my head and digging his fingers into my hair, he kinked my neck over the couch and asked me why I hadn’t been faithful to him. I had no idea what he was talking about, so out of sheer fear, I began to cry. John took that as a sign of guilt and backhanded me across the face. It was hard enough to leave a bruise the following day. I stayed with him anyway. I’d put a little extra makeup on around my eyes or anywhere else when marks were left. I didn’t stay because I was stupid, but because I loved him. I kept telling myself that our love could get us through this. The night of his father’s death, I blamed his outburst on the loss of his father. It was too much for him to handle, and he was just letting out steam. I swore to love him through the good times and the bad. This was just one of the bad times.
Each time he’d hit me, I’d come up with a reason or excuse for the behavior. There was always a reason, at least in my mind, as to why John hit me. Then one time, after a really bad injury, I sought help from my mother before she passed away. The closest thing to a saint on earth, she dealt with my father’s abuse for decades before he died. She was a devout Christian, but a warped idea of love plagued my mother her entire life. She told me, ‘What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’ That one piece of advice she gave me months before passing made me suffer through a marriage with John for another five trying years.
Each day with John as a husband was a day full of prayer. I would pray for him not to drink, and sometimes, he didn’t—those were the days I felt God had listened to my pleas. On the days he came home drunk and swinging, I felt alone, like God had left me to die by my husband’s hands. Fear was a cornerstone of our relationship, in my eyes, and I hated it. As the years piled onto one another, I began to deal with two entirely different people when it came to John. There was the John who would give me everything I need in life and bring flowers home on the days he was sober, and then there was John, the drunk, who would bring insults and injury instead of flowers.
I knew something needed to desperately change in my life, but I didn’t have the courage. Then one day, it all changed when two little pink lines told me to run and never look back.
Chapter 1
Fingers glided against the skin of my arm as I lay on my side looking into John’s big, gorgeous brown eyes. It was morning, so I knew he was sober, and for a moment, I thought maybe, just maybe I could tell him about the baby growing inside me. Flashes of a shared excitement between us blinked through my mind. He’d love having a baby around the house. He really would. Behind those eyes, I saw the man I fell in love with years ago down in Town Square in New York City. Those eyes were the same ones that brought me into a world of love and security I had never known before. Moments like that made it hard to hate him. Peering over at his hand that was tracing the side of my body, I saw the cut on his knuckles from where he had smashed the coffee table a few nights ago. My heart retracted the notion of telling him about the baby. I knew John would be dangerous for a child.
Chills shivered up my spine as his fingers traced from my arm to the curve of my back. Could I be strong enough to live without him? I wondered as the fears sank back down into me. Even if he was a bit mean, he had a way of charming me like no other man I had ever met in my life. He knew how to touch gently, look deeply and make love passionately. It was only when he drank that his demons came out.
“Want me to make you some breakfast?” I asked, slipping out of his touch and from the bed to my feet. His touches were enjoyable, but I wanted to get used to not having them. My mind often jumped back and forth between leaving, not leaving, and something vaguely in between. It was hard.
John smiled up at me from the bed with what made me feel like love in his eyes. I suddenly began to feel bad about the plan to leave, but I knew he couldn’t be trusted with a child. Keep it together.
“Sure, babe. That’d be great.” He brought his muscular arms from out of the covers and put them behind his head. My eyes traced his biceps and face. Wavy brown hair and a jawline that was defined made him breathtakingly gorgeous. Flashes of last night’s passion bombarded my mind. He didn’t drink, and that meant one thing—we made love. It started in the main living room just off the foyer. I was enjoying my evening cup of tea while the fireplace was lit when suddenly, John came home early. I was worried at first, but when he leaned over the couch and pulled back my blonde hair, he planted a tender kiss on my neck. I knew right in that moment that it was going to be a good night. Hoisting me up from the couch with those arms and pressing me against the wall near the fireplace, John’s passion fell from his lips and onto the skin of my neck as I wrapped my arms around him.
The heat between John and me was undeniable, and it made the thoughts of leaving him that much harder. It was during those moments of pure passion that I could still see the bits of the John I once knew—the part of John that didn’t scare me and had the ability to make me feel safe, and the part of him that I never wanted to lose.
“All right,” I replied with a smile as I broke away from my thoughts. Leaving down the hallway, I pushed last night out of my mind and focused on the tasks ahead.
Retrieving the carton of eggs from the fridge in the kitchen, I shut the door and was startled when John was standing on the other side. Jumping, I let out a squeak. “John!”
He tilted his head and slipped closer to me. With nothing on but his boxer briefs, he backed me against the counter and let his hand slide the corner of my shirt up my side. He leaned closer to me. I felt the warmth of his breath on my skin as my back arched against the counter top. He licked his lips instinctively to moisten them and then gently let them find their way to my neck. “Serenah …” he said in a smooth, seductive voice.
“Let me make you breakfast,” I said as I set the carton down on the counter behind me and turned my neck into him to stop the kissing.
His eyebrows rose as he pulled away from my body and released. His eyes met mine. There it was—the change. “Fine.”
“What?” I replied as I turned and pulled down a frying pan that hung above the island counter.
“Nothing. Nothing. I have to go shower.” He left down the hallway without a word, but I could sense tension in his tone.
Waiting for the shower to turn on after he walked into the bathroom and slammed the door, I began to cook his eggs. When a few minutes had passed and I hadn’t heard the water start running, I lifted my eyes and looked down the hallway.
There he was.
John stood at the end of hallway, watching me. Standing in the shifting shadows of the long hallway, he was more than creepy. He often did that type of thing, but it came later in the marriage, not early on and only at home. I never knew how long he was standing there before I caught him, but he’d always break away after being seen. He had a sick obsession of studying me like I was some sort of weird science project of his.
I didn’t like it all, but it was part of who he had become. Not much longer, I reminded myself.
I smiled down the hallway at him, and he returned to the bathroom to finally take his shower. As I heard the water come on, I finished the eggs and set the frying pan off the burner. Dumping the eggs onto a plate, I set the pan in the sink and headed to the piano in the main living room. Pulling the bench out from under the piano, I got down on my hands and knees and lifted the flap of carpet that was squared off. Removing the plank of wood that concealed my secret area, I retrieved the metal box and opened it.
Freedom.
Ever since he hit me that second time, a part of me knew we’d never have the forever marriage I pictured, so in case I was right, I began saving money here and there. I had been able to save just over ten thousand dollars. A fibbed high-priced manicure here, a few non-existe
nt shopping trips with friends there. It added up, and John had not the foggiest clue, since he was too much of an egomaniac to pay attention to anything that didn’t directly affect him. Sure, it was his money, but money wasn’t really ‘a thing’ to us. We were beyond that. My eyes looked at the money in the stash and then over at the bus ticket to Seattle dated for four days from now. I could hardly believe it. I was really going to finally leave him after all this time. Amongst the cash and bus ticket, there was a cheap pay-as-you go cellphone and a fake ID. I had to check that box at least once a day ever since I found out about my pregnancy to make sure he hadn’t found it. I was scared to leave, but whenever I felt that way, I rubbed my pregnant thirteen-week belly, and I knew I had to do what was best for us. Putting the box back into the floor, I was straightening out the carpet when suddenly, John’s breathing settled into my ears behind me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, towel draped around his waist behind me. I should have just waited until he left for work … What were you thinking, Serenah? My thoughts scolded me.
Slamming my head into the bottom of the piano, I grabbed my head and backed out as I let out a groan. “There was a crumb on the carpet.”
“What? Underneath the piano?” he asked.
Anxiety rose within me like a storm at sea. Using the bench for leverage, I placed a hand on it and began to get up. When I didn’t respond to his question quick enough, he shoved my arm that was propped on the piano bench, causing me to smash my eye into the corner of the bench. Pain radiated through my skull as I cupped my eye and began to cry.
“Oh, please. That barely hurt you.”
I didn’t respond. Falling the rest of the way to the floor, I cupped my eye and hoped he’d just leave. Letting out a heavy sigh, he got down, still in his towel, and put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, honey.”
Jerking my shoulder away from him, I replied, “Go away!”
He stood up and left.
John hurt me sober? Rising to my feet, I headed into the half-bathroom across the living room and looked into the mirror. My eye was blood red—he had popped a blood vessel. Tears welled in my eyes as my eyebrows furrowed in disgust.
Four days wasn’t soon enough to leave—I was leaving today.
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Because Of You (Click/Tap here to view on Amazon)
CHAPTER 1
HIS LIPS WERE LIKE HEAVEN on the back of my neck as I attempted to fold laundry one late afternoon in July 2011. The sun was hot that day, but so was the heat between us. We were upstairs in our bedroom, one of the two bedrooms in our split-level townhouse. We called Odessa, Texas home these days. We had moved here just over a year ago when his orders came in to become an Army recruiter. Dakota was sad to not redeploy with his unit. I, on the other hand, was elated. I was not only happy that he wasn’t deploying, but that we were finally leaving Fort Bliss. Our life over the last year had taken on the appearance of what I would call normal.
Tilting my head as I pulled my neck away from Dakota’s soft lips against my skin, I glanced over my shoulder at him. His ocean blue eyes pierced through every part of my soul, capturing the moment and captivating my heart. “I’ve got to put this laundry away before I start on dinner, Dakota.”
His hands found my waist a moment later and he pulled me in close. The towel in my hand that I was trying to fold fell away from my fingertips. His eyes locked onto mine, serenading me with his love. Even after years of marriage, he still had the ability to take me away to another world with a single look, a single touch to my skin.
In a deep, seductive voice, he said, “C’mon, Sammy. You haven’t started dinner … yet.” His eyes drifted to the closed bedroom door behind me and then over to the bed. His gaze came back to me, and a warmth crashed through me as he held my eyes and continued speaking. “I’m sure Kimmy will be napping for a while.”
His lips found my neck again, and I tilted my chin back, letting his lingering love convince me to reconsider his offer.
Music suddenly began playing. Dakota tossed his phone over to the bed and I couldn’t help but grin. It wasn’t just any old tune, but Dakota’s favorite song to sing. The one he knew I loved—Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? by Rod Stewart. The first time he sang it was back what feels like a lifetime ago when we were still dating. We were both attending Whitworth College in Spokane. It was before he dropped out to join the military. I was on my way to the mess hall for breakfast one morning before my Psych class. He and I had been dating for only a month at that point and I wasn’t sure how seriously he took our relationship. That was until he came waltzing through the courtyard one early morning with a wireless microphone in hand. His face was as red as a cherry, and fellow students stopped and gawked at his rather public display of affection. I knew right then that he loved me. Memories.
One of Dakota’s hands found one of mine. He lifted my hand up as he began to sing, then we swayed to the rhythm of the music permeating the air around us. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”
A grin broke out across my face as he shifted his feet, guiding me into a gentle twirl. My hips and feet followed with him, and I let out a laugh as I tossed my head back, letting myself soak up the moment like a sponge. Dakota was the best person I had ever met in my life. He and I were not only husband and wife but the best of friends.
We danced around the bedroom until the music was cut off by his phone suddenly ringing. He grabbed it, glanced at the screen, and then looked at me. “Work … sorry.”
As he left the room to answer it, I reached down and picked up the towel I had dropped and continued with laundry. As I folded, I strained an ear in the hopes of capturing a bit of the conversation that Dakota was having out in the hallway, but he was out of earshot. Taking my folded stack of towels, I went into the en-suite bathroom to put them away. As I shut the towel cupboard, I spotted Dakota in the doorway.
“Hey.” Dakota’s voice was gentle with a mix of concern sprinkled in, just enough to bring my eyebrows up into a questioning gaze toward him.
“What is it? Do you have to go work that silly Children’s Fair again this year? You didn’t even meet a single person last year who was interested enough to sign up and …” I saw him shaking his head as his chin dipped to his chest. Worry cut into my thoughts like a sharpened blade through an apple. Knowing the military, knowing his line of work, I dreaded the worst … expected it too. With worry edging my voice and my heart climbing up into my throat, I looked at him. “What is it, Dakota?”
He took a few steps into the bathroom, continuing until he came right up to me. My heart raced as he grabbed hold of both of my hands, smoothing his thumbs over the tops of them. I already felt the weight strapped to my neck of being tossed over the railing of the ship of good times. Before his lips even moved, I knew it. After a moment that felt like eternity passed, he peered up and into my eyes.
“I’m being deployed.”
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Available Books
By T.K. Chapin
(Inspirational Christian Fiction & Romance)
Protected By Love Series
Love’s Return (Book 1)
Love’s Promise (Book 2)
Diamond Lake Series
One Thursday Morning (Book 1)
One Friday Afternoon (Book 2)
One Saturday Evening (Book 3)
One Sunday Drive (Book 4)
One Monday Prayer (Book 5)
One Tuesday Lunch (Book 6)
One Wednesday Dinner (Book 7)
Embers & Ashes Series
Amongst the Flames (Book 1)
Out of the Ashes (Book 2)
Up in Smoke (Book 3)
After the Fire (Book 4)
Love’s Enduring Promise Series
; The Perfect Cast (Book 1)
Finding Love (Book 2)
Claire’s Hope (Book 3)
Dylan’s Faith (Book 4)
Stand Alones
Love Interrupted
Love Again
A Chance at Love
The Broken Road
If Only
Because Of You
The Lies We Believe
In His Love
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Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I want to thank God. God’s salvation through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ gives us all the ability to have a personal relationship with the Creator of the Universe.
I also want to thank my wife. She’s my muse and my inspiration. A wonderful wife, an amazing mother and the best person I have ever met. She’s great and has always stood by me with every decision I have made along life’s way.
I’d like to thank my editors and early readers for helping me along the way. I also want to thank all of my friends and extended family for the support. It’s a true blessing to have every person I know in my life.