The Plan Read Online Free PDF Page A

ran to the minivan, throwing the cooler onto the front seat before jumping into the back. “Anything we forget, we can buy once we get to your mom’s.”
    She walked over to the car and peeked her head in the side door. Though they hadn’t even left the driveway, all three of her kids had their headsets on and were immersed in the music on their iPods. The MP3 players had been the kids’ big gifts for Christmas this year. Claire was fastening her seatbelt as the driver’s side door opened, and Jack slid into his seat.
    â€œAll locked up,” he said, calling into the backseat, “Everyone ready?”
    â€œYes!”
    Smiling at Claire, Jack put the car into reverse and said, “Are you ready?”
    â€œYes,” she said, smiling back at him. It was hard not to smile when looking at Jack. He was just so…handsome. That’s the only word that came to mind whenever she thought of her husband. At six feet four inches, and built of nothing but lean muscle, Jack was better-looking than most of her friends’ husbands. Okay, he was better-looking than all of her friends’ husbands. And their gardeners. And their plumbers. And their local firemen. Jack was unbelievable looking. The first time Claire had laid eyes on him in college, she’d wondered if he was for real.
    â€œWho looks like that?” she had whispered to her college roommate, Gia.“I mean, in real life—not in a movie. Who actually looks that incredible?”
    The answer, of course, was Jack. And, in the fifteen years since college, he’d never become one bit less attractive.
    But it wasn’t just his external features Claire found so appealing. No, it was who Claire discovered he was inside that had made her fall deeply in love with him.
    It’d seemed to take forever for Jack to ask her out, but in reality, it was only a few weeks from the first time she and Gia had spotted him across the crowded college cafeteria. It didn’t take long for them to strike up a conversation in the library one night. (She just happened to be working in the study carrel next to Jack’s and just happened to need to borrow a pen, because hers just happened to run out of ink.) After an evening spent chatting over their respective molecular biology and educational psychology textbooks, he finally asked her out. And she was thrilled.
    Of course, a Star Wars movie at the campus discount theater wasn’t exactly her idea of a romantic evening, but the dinner that followed had been nearly perfect. The two of them found they had so much to talk about—school, families, politics, music—even their faiths and future dreams seemed to be on similar tracks. The conversation flowed easily and Claire began to wonder if she’d actually known him her entire life. Before they were served dessert, she was smitten.
    She was so completely engaged in conversation with Jack, she never even saw Gia enter the restaurant.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” she asked her roommate, slightly irritated, as Gia sat down next to her.
    And that’s when she saw Gia’s face. There’d be no dessert. Claire’s hometown police department had called her dorm room and, in Claire’s absence, relayed the message to Gia.
    Claire’s dad was dead. An apparent heart attack while driving hiscar. Fortunately, he’d been going so slowly. Hadn’t Claire always told him he drove like an old man? He hadn’t hurt anyone else, but himself. And, like her mom three years earlier, he was gone.
    If Claire had given it any thought, she would’ve assumed Jack would have quietly excused himself. After all, despite a fun movie and tasty dinner, she barely knew the man. But it was in those initial moments that Claire caught her first glimpse of the man Jack truly was. As she collapsed into Gia’s arms, he began to take charge, booking not just her flight home, but flights for himself and Gia, too. He