No, what Cathy felt guilty about, what she had had great difficulty admitting to Dr. Milton and to herself, was that she had never loved her husband. She had married him not loving him, and although she had tried to convince herself that she loved him, she hadn’t. She had cared deeply for him, had respected and admired him, but she had never been able to feel for Mark that deep, passionate love a woman should feel for her husband.
“Do you want to stop by J.B. and Mona’s to see Seth?” Lorie asked.
“No, not yet. I’m supposed to have dinner with them and Mother tomorrow, after church. I’ll wait until then.”
“J.B. and Mona may not give Seth up without a fight.” Lorie inserted the key into the ignition. “I took the liberty of hiring Elliott Floyd to represent you, just in case Mark’s parents aren’t willing to turn your son over to you now that you’re well.”
Gasping softly, Cathy snapped her head around and stared at her friend. “I don’t think a lawyer will be necessary. But thank you all the same. Seth is my child. I appreciate all that J.B. and Mona have done for him since Mark’s death, but you can’t possibly believe that they would try to take him away from me.”
Lorie shrugged. “You never know what people will do. If for any reason the Cantrells think you’re unfit to—”
“I’m fit,” Cathy said. “I believe that I’m better prepared to be a good mother to my son now than ever before, and I was a damn good mother in the past.”
Lorie eyed Cathy with speculative curiosity. “You are aware of the fact that you just said damn and didn’t blink an eye, aren’t you?”
Cathy smiled. “Surprised?”
“Shocked.” Lorie laughed. “Know any other forbidden words?”
“A whole slew of them. And sooner or later, you’ll probably hear me say all of them.”
“I want to meet your Dr. Milton one of these days,” Lorie said. “I want to shake his hand and thank him for releasing the real Catherine Nelson Cantrell from that holier-than-thou prison she stuck herself in trying to please her husband and her mother and her in-laws.”
“The days of my trying to please everyone else are over. I’ve come home to start a new life, not to rebuild my old one. I owe it to myself and to Seth to be strong and independent and live the rest of my life to the fullest, and that’s just what I intend to do.”
Nicole Powell dreaded going home to Griffin’s Rest. She and her friend, Maleah Perdue, had been gone a week, just the two of them alone in a Gatlinburg cabin in the Smoky Mountains. They had eaten out a few times and done a little shopping, but mostly they had kicked back at the cabin and done little or nothing. They had watched chick-flick DVDs, soaked in the hot tub, taken long walks on the nearby hiking trails and pigged out on the array of bad-for-you food they had purchased at a local grocery store.
The past year had been difficult for Maleah. Her older brother, Jack, had been critically wounded on his last assignment in the Middle East. She had spent weeks at his bedside, hoping and praying that he would survive. He had, but at a great cost. He had undergone several surgeries to his face and neck to rebuild what the explosion had ripped away.
During their stay at the cabin, Nic and Maleah had confided in each other, sharing things that they wouldn’t or couldn’t share with anyone else. In the two years that Nic had been married to Griffin Powell and had been co-owner of the Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency, she had become acquainted with all of their agents. Only a handful of their employees were women, and of those few, Nic had bonded with only two, Maleah and Barbara Jean Hughes.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do? Are you going to talk to Griff and tell him how you feel?” Maleah asked as Nic pulled her Escalade up in front of the huge iron gates at Griffin’s Rest. Two massive stone arches, with bronze griffins implanted in the stone, flanked the entrance.
Nic rolled down the window and said her name. The identification security system instantly recognized her voice and activated the Open function on the gates. This voice-ID system was new here at the Powell compound.
Once they were inside the estate and the gates closed behind them, Nic glanced at Maleah. “I can talk to him and try to explain, but he won’t understand.”
“He might. You won’t know until you—”
“I know. Believe me. He will not understand. I can’t ask him to choose between Yvette and me.” She could, but she was afraid to ask her husband to make that choice, because deep down inside she wasn’t completely certain that he would choose her.
“It’s not a matter of choosing between the two of you,” Maleah said. “Not really. It’s a matter of making him understand how you feel.”
“I feel jealous, and Griff doesn’t understand why because Yvette is his friend, because she’s like a sister to him, because he owes her his life. He’s not in love with her. He’s in love with me, but…”
“But recently you feel that he is putting her first. You’re his wife. You have every right to expect him to always put you first.”
Nic heaved a heavy sigh. “Griff has become so involved in whatever it is that Yvette is doing with that project of hers, that school or laboratory or sanctuary or whatever the hell it is, that he has all but turned over the running of the Powell Agency to me.”
“I still don’t see why you won’t take my suggestion and get involved in Yvette’s project yourself, if for no other reason than to find out what’s going on. And it would give you more time with Griff.”
“I suppose if I insisted, he’d ask Yvette to include me, but she’s been so secretive about the whole thing, and whenever she comes for dinner and I mention the project, she clams up.”
“Look, none of this is my business, except that you and I are friends and you’ve shared your concerns with me,” Maleah said. “But you’re Griff ’s wife and co-owner of the Powell Agency and of Griffin’s Rest. You have every right to know what kind of operation Yvette Meng has going on in those buildings that Griff had built for her less than a mile from your home.”
“I just don’t want to come off sounding like a jealous wife, even if that’s what I am. But if I don’t get some of this off my chest pretty soon, I’m going to explode, and that won’t be good for me or my marriage.”
“So talk to Griff. Talk to him tonight.”
Nic nodded. Maleah was right, of course. These feelings had been growing gradually, beginning with the day Griff told her that he would be constructing a housing complex for Dr. Yvette Meng at Griffin’s Rest, a place where some of her gifted “psychic” students would be safe and protected from the outside world.
But when Yvette had arrived six months ago to oversee the project, Nic’s concerns had escalated, and not without foundation. Even though she didn’t doubt Griff ’s love for her, she couldn’t shake the suspicion that neither he nor Yvette had been totally honest with her about their past relationship.
She trusted Griff as she had never trusted another person in her entire life. She loved him so much that sometimes it frightened her. That combination of love and trust was now being tested.
He did not deserve to live. He was like the others, pretending to be good when, in his heart, he was evil.
I have to punish him.
That’s what You want me to do, isn’t it, God?
Yes, yes, I hear You. I accept that it is my purpose in life to rain hellfire and brimstone down on the false prophets.
I will do Your bidding, Lord. I will seek out those who profess to do Your work and instead are in league with the devil. The liars. The blasphemers. The adulterers. The most vile of all sinners, those who transgress against Your holy word.
I didn’t understand completely, not at first, but I do now. I cannot wait for them