Reborn

2

As the door closed, Carol slumped against the stove and held back the tears. That performance had been the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.

But it's going to work. It has to!

She hadn't slept a wink last night. Hour after hour she had lain awake planning how to handle this confrontation. Should she cry, beg his forgiveness for throwing the journals out, and make a thousand promises to make it up to him? Or should she simply apologize, admit she was wrong, and leave the rest up to him—put the ball in his court, so to speak?

Her heart had pulled for the easy way, urging her, in fact, to run out to the crawl space and bring those damn books back inside. She hadn't wanted the confrontation she knew the morning would bring. But she had to face it. This was too important to back away from.

She had chosen the second. And it hadn't been easy. The hurt and betrayal she had seen in his eyes had required every ounce of her will to keep her from blurting out where the books were hidden. But she had held on, resisting the urge to take him in her arms and coo to him and whisper that everything was going to be fine. Instead she had kept pushing him, almost goading him, to take the control of his life back into his own hands.

Would it work? She hoped so. She prayed she hadn't made the wrong choice.