by Harry Kraus
He carried the watch, knowing that anyone who saw would know that I was his love. Leave it to Henry to preserve my dignity in the public eye. He knew me so well.
“I’ve changed, Henry,” I spoke softly. “I’m not the same girl who wanted to run away.”
That’s when the irony struck me in force. Rather than expose me as unfaithful, he allowed everyone else to see something on the surface that would look right to the world, knowing all along that on the inside, I was hiding a life of sin. Ultimately, Henry had died to cover our shame. Right as I was coming to grips with my façade, Henry had used it one more time to protect me.
I was tempted to despair, drawn to wallow in the guilt that had become my copilot. But I knew this was the way of the old Wendi. I knew I was guilty. But I also believed that someone had paid the price for my sin in the ultimate sacrifice. Because of the cross, I would never again look upon my failures as a stimulus to run away from God. Because of the cross, I could face my sin, and run to the source of grace.
I took a deep breath and started to pray.
CHAPTER 31
A month later, my life had fallen back into a predictable hum. Rene decided to stay at my urging, at least until her baby was born, and then, I thought, who knows? I’d begun to consult again. Chris Black even seemed to be interested in my opinion, and I let the memory of his accusations drift away, covered by the miles we’d traveled as friends before my fateful week of misery.
I was about to leave the house, on my way to investigate an accident near Harrisonburg on I – 81. A truck carrying a kabillion Rocco turkeys had overturned on an entry ramp. My doorbell rang just as I reached the front door.
I opened it to see Jack Renner. His hair had begun to grow out, leaving him looking younger, a military recruit with a sheepish grin. “Hi.”
My surprise must have shown. I hardly knew what to say. There was too much personal history with Jack, the down-and-dirty stuff I knew about my behavior towards him that had been blotted out in his accident. I cleared my throat.
He held up his hands and blurted, “Surprise,” as if it might be a question.
I shook my head. “Oh, I wasn’t expecting anyone. I was just on my way out and there you were.” My words tumbled out in a rush, one on top of the other, like the words of a schoolgirl when she stumbles into the captain of the football team.
“I don’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, no,” I said, feeling heat in my cheeks. “Don’t be silly. Come in.”
He came in and walked to the piano, taking a seat on the bench. I sat on the couch and folded my hands in my lap.
“I heard about Henry,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He paused. “He saved my life.”
I nodded. According to the mail, apparently Henry had saved half of Charlottesville.
Jack swung around and faced the keyboard and began playing something I’d heard him play a dozen times. It was jazz. Or something Jack called jazzoid. It was a term I think he made up himself, meaning jazzlike music that he felt free to embellish with his own soul. His music always lifted me. I sat beside him on the bench and immediately flashed back to a day I’d love to forget.
He looked at me, smiled, and kept playing, letting his song rise and fall, doing the communicating for him. It was a happy tune, a frolicking melody with lots of little trills around the edges of the chords. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, stopping suddenly by collapsing his hands with a crash on the keys.
“Thinking,” he said slowly. “Of going to Jamaica.”
“J-Jamaica?”
He looked at me and I felt my stomach tighten.
“W-why Jamaica?”
He shrugged. “White sand. Warm sun. Cool water. I’ve never been. A friend invited me once, but something came up.” His eyes bore in on mine. “So I never went.”
“Don’t play games with me, Jack. Tell me what you remember.”
“Everything,” he said.
I looked down, ashamed. “Everything.”
“Well I didn’t exactly remember everything. To remember implies that there was a time when certain events were forgotten, or at least set aside.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I remember our last piano lesson,” he said. “There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t held your words in my heart.”
“But you said you didn’t remember.”
“I said a lot of things. Stupid stuff. Stuff like not knowing my fiancée. I’d been trying for weeks to break up with Yolanda without knowing how. I didn’t want to hurt her. Amnesia was a convenient way to drop her softly, without her feeling like I didn’t love her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you remembered what I had done?”
“I didn’t think it was too reasonable for me to remember that and not remember Yolanda.”
I wanted to slap him. He must have seen it in my face. He held up his hands. “I’m not proud of what I did.” He paused. “Perhaps it was the craziness that came with the head injury. Perhaps it was the zany idea that my fantasy of being with you could come true.” He stood up, backed away, putting distance between us. “I’m ashamed, Wendi. What I did was wrong.”
I started pacing. I hadn’t anticipated this. I had confessed my unfaithfulness to God, but not to Jack, as I thought he had no memory of it. I started to speak twice, but both times the words lodged in my throat. I started again after clearing my throat.
“What is it, Wendi?”
“I was so wrong to treat you the way I did. I was a married woman. I owe you an apology. I should never have behaved the way I did.”
He nodded. After an awkward silence, he spoke again. “You stopped coming to see me.”
“I had to. Once I thought you knew nothing about my crazy proposal, I decided that God had given me another chance to get things right with Henry. Continuing to see you was too painful.”
A smile teased at the corner of his mouth. “I saw you in church on Sunday.” He chuckled. “But you weren’t sitting in your normal spot.”
“You noticed? I decided the back row wasn’t the place for me anymore.”
“What’s happened?”
“Everything.” I sat back down on the piano bench and clasped my hands in my lap. “For the longest time I acted my way through life, pretending to be a Christian, but never really believing. Everything that has happened to me, your accident, being suspected in a murder, almost being killed, losing my husband . . . well God used all of it to make me take a hard look at the fake life I was living. The bottom line,” I said, “is that I’ve come to understand God’s love for me just as I am. I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not.” I held up my hands. “That’s it.” I squinted at him. “So is this why you came, to tell me you faked the whole amnesia thing?”
“Pretty much.”
“Ugh!” I said, covering my face. “And all along, I thought my disgraceful behavior was only known to me.”
He laughed at me.
I smiled in return. Getting my secret out in the air felt better than I’d thought.
“Now that I’m on my feet again, shall we resume your piano lessons?”
Now I laughed. “I don’t think so, Jack. I think we both know I’m hopeless in that area.”
He shuffled his feet. “I, well, I’d like to grab a Starbucks with you sometime.”
I looked at his face. That perfect face with the perfect smile. “Jack, I — ” I halted. “I can’t.”
His smile faded.
“I’ve got another new relationship I need to work on just now,” I said, picking up a leather-bound book from the coffee table.
His eyes lit up before he nodded in understanding, perhaps with a little regret. “I’d better go.”
I walked him to the door. He was halfway to his car when I called after him. “Jack.”
He turned.
“Are you up for any landscaping jobs yet?” I hesitated as he shrugged. “I want you to move those golden willows. They’re going to block my view of
that steeple soon, and I won’t have that.”
He smiled with me. “I’ll check my calendar.”
All I’ll Ever Need
Harry Kraus, MD,
Bestselling Author of
Could I Have This Dance?
The grueling past months finally seem about to blossom into a happy future together for Dr. Claire McCall and her fiancé, John Cerelli. But their wedding plans are interrupted by circumstances so devastating they threaten everything Claire holds dear: her medical career, her relationship with John, and quite possibly her freedom.
Working through the turmoil caused by a near rape, Claire has sought a counselor to help her untangle her emotions. What the counselor uncovers is shattering, but things are about to get worse. The man who assaulted her escapes from jail—and then, to top it off, Claire is accused of euthanizing a terminally ill patient.
But the next death is the one that could shake Claire’s world to its foundation.
How can so much be happening so fast—unless someone is choreographing this lethal nightmare? In this exciting sequel to Could I Have This Dance? and For the Rest of My Life, nothing may be as it seems. Not the present. And not the past.
Softcover: 978-0-310-27283-0
Pick up a copy today at your favorite bookstore!
Could I Have
This Dance?
Harry Kraus, M D
You can’t dance this dance unless it’s in your blood. Claire McCall is praying it’s not in hers.
Claire McCall is used to fighting back against the odds. Hard work, aptitude, and sheer determination have helped her rise from adverse circumstances to an internship in one of the nation’s most competitive surgical residencies. But talent and tenacity mean nothing in the face of the discovery that is about to rock her world.
It’s called the “Stoney Creek Curse” by folks in the small mountain town where Claire grew up. Behind the superstition lies a reality that could destroy her career. But getting to the truth is far from easy in a community with secrets to hide. As a web of relationships becomes increasingly tangled, two things become apparent. One is that more than one person doesn’t want Claire to probe too deeply into the “Stoney Creek Curse.” The other is that someone has reasons other than the curse for wanting Claire out of the picture permanently.
Somewhere in the course of pursuing her career as a surgeon, Claire lost touch with the God who called her to it. Now she realizes how desperately she needs him. But can she reclaim a faith strong enough to see her through this deadly dance of circumstances?
Softcover: 978-0-310-24089-1
Pick up a copy today at your favorite bookstore!
For the Rest
of My Life
Harry Kraus, M D
The riveting, emotional sequel to the best-selling Could I Have This Dance?
Claire McCall, MD, is haunted by the question: Does she have the gene for Huntington’s Disease, the disease that disabled her father? This exciting sequel picks up with Claire moving back to Stoney Creek to work as a family physician and help her mother care for her disabled father. She rekindles her relationship with John Cerelli and—just before she’s going to find out if she carries the HD gene—discovers an engagement ring hidden in his car. When John fails to “pop the question” before learning the results of the test, Claire believes he is only interested in marrying her if she does not have the HD gene. She runs away from him without learning the results of the test, or the strength of his love.
Claire copes with her romantic disappointment by plunging into her work. But a brutal rapist attacks three of Claire’s patients, just as each young woman is recovering from a recent accident or surgery. When Claire has surgery for appendicitis, she herself is attacked. Only her trust in God can keep Claire safe.
Softcover: 978-0-310-24978-8
Pick up a copy today at your favorite bookstore!
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