Redemption Read Online Free PDF Page B

teeth as he climbed out of the car and went inside. She wasn’t in the front room. He dried the palms of his hands on his pants legs, his throat so tight he could barely speak. “Kari?”
    What he was about to do would be the hardest part. She would cry and carry on, and in the process he might even shed a tear or two. The truth was, he still cared about Kari. And he’d miss her like crazy when he was gone.
    Images of Angela came to mind, and his heart rate doubled. Okay, so he wouldn’t miss the bondage of being married. But he’d miss seeing Kari at the breakfast table, miss the way she looked with her hair messed up in the mornings before she took a shower and the way she hummed to herself when she worked around the house. Of course, he wouldn’t miss her busy schedules, the way she made room for everyone and everything but him. The way their intimate moments had dwindled to little more than simple routine.
    The truth was, Kari’s life was full. Modeling, teaching Sunday school, church choir, her volunteer work at the museum, the time she spent with her family. In the long run, when the shock wore off, she’d be fine.
    This was the kindest thing he could do—no matter how much he would miss her companionship. It was something he should have done months back, when he thought a few afternoons and evenings with Angela would cure him of his attraction to her.
    Had he ever been wrong about that.
    “Kari?” He set his bag down. His palms were sweaty again. He shoved his hands deep into his back pockets and exhaled hard. With every new development of his relationship with Angela he’d found a way to justify his actions. After all, his heart wasn’t involved at first. That hadn’t happened until the end of the summer.
    Tim thought about how slowly, how insidiously his relationship with Angela had developed. He’d been attracted to her from the first day—it was hard to ignore somebody built the way she was—but that didn’t signal an alarm. Dozens of attractive coeds had dotted the course of his career. Then he’d read her writing samples.
    If he was honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he’d fallen in love with Angela less because of her physical beauty than because of the way she could write. The combination of intelligence and emotion that poured from her text was striking, brilliantly so. And after spending a semester in his class, Angela had taken to crediting him with making her a better writer.
    That had done unbelievable things to his ego. Even then, their relationship had been nothing more than admiration and desire until she returned from summer break in the middle of August.
    On the first day of classes, they had shared lunch together—as they’d often done through the previous spring. But after a summer apart there was no denying that they both wanted more, needed more than a shared meal. After lunch they went to her apartment, and in the course of the next two hours Tim knew his marriage to Kari would never be the same again.
    A week later his entire outlook on life had changed, and he was all but certain he wanted a divorce. Something about being with Angela made Tim feel better than anyone else ever had, even Kari. It was as if he was addicted to everything about his new love—the way she looked, the way she made him feel. Angela was aware of the effect her looks had on men. She was cool and self-possessed by day in her role as college student.
    But by night . . .
    Tim sucked in a slow breath. There were no words to describe the way she—
    Footsteps sounded from down the hallway. Okay. Get it over with quickly.
    Kari entered the living room through a side door, and Tim felt his words hit a logjam somewhere in his throat. There were streaks on either side of her face, and her eyes were red and swollen. Yet her beauty still caught him off guard. Pure, wholesome beauty, the kind that no longer excited him.
    For a long moment they stayed that way, their eyes locked. No words were