Free The Best Man by Carol Hutchens Page B

steeple in front of his face.
    Joel’s face flushed with deeper color.
    Kate watched both men. She didn’t doubt Joel had suffered. He’d lived through a nightmare. Of course he had undergone some emotional reactions. But she had no doubt his trauma had resulted from his experience, not for her disappearance.
    She understood his reaction to the tsunami. But she couldn’t understand how any husband could leave the scene of a disaster without searching for his wife. That one question haunted her
    “Luke doesn’t need to tell me anything.” Kate watched color drained from Joel’s face, leaving his pasty colored skin the same as his hair and eyes. And once again, she wondered how she had ever found him attractive. “I know what you went through that day.”
    “Well…good…at least someone understands.” Joel cut his eyes in Luke’s direction, his returning temper. “It hasn’t been easy, you know.”
    Kate rejected his comment as if it were an annoying insect buzzing her head. “What you need to know…what I came to the church to tell you…is that as soon as my memory returned…I searched everywhere for you!” Her lips clamped back a sob. Luke sent her a look of concern.
    But she couldn’t let her emotional reaction show. She couldn’t back down now. Lifting her chin, she faced Joel with a determination earned by her struggle to survive the ordeal she had experienced.
    She was here because she had struggled through one day at a time. She wasn’t about to let Joel steamroll over the rest of her life.
    “I l-looked at bodies lined up like fish on the beach. I searched under tarps for any remains that looked similar to y-your clothing or body build.” Her voice quivered. “I went from one secluded beach to the other, until I couldn’t look in the face of one more dead body. W-when I finally gave up, I was so exhausted I didn’t have the strength to find my way home. I lived like a zombie, helping the villagers who had saved my life to rebuild the shacks they called homes to deaden my pain.”
    She took a deep breath. Sobs were about to escape her as she studied him. She forced another deep calming breath. Her glance darted around the room. This office was all of her father that she had ever known, and Joel had claimed it as his. She swallowed the bile filling the back of her throat and gained new resolve.
    “I finished mourning for you months ago.” Her breath hitched. Her heart pounded in her chest. “Our life together is over. That’s what I came to tell you. I want to reclaim my life, not ruin yours.”
    Kate stood on trembling legs. Silence shrouded the room echoing with her words, and she heard a gasp and turned toward the door.
    Laurel stood there, her face white, her eyes reflecting tormented emotions. “T-there’s a reporter on the phone.” Then she turned and staggered away.
    Kate felt a moment of pain. She’d lost a husband and a friend. But it was time to move forward. She had a life to live, thanks to the courage of poor villagers living half-way around the world.
    At the door, she glanced over her shoulder. Joel’s look of utter confusion pulled at her sympathy, until she remembered this was how he won his battles. This was the look he had perfected, the one he used on jurors when he was in court.
    Now she recalled, this was the look he turned on her when he insisted they should wait before having babies. 
    Kate took a deep breath to calm her jittery insides. Chalk up five wins for Joel…Oops, no, make that six. He had squirmed out of having babies, and he managed to have her declared dead after only three days.
    He was resilient, she would hand him that.
    But so was she. The new Kate, the survivor, could face down this man she had called husband.
    “I’m back, Joel. I’m taking my rightful place in this firm.” She watched his throat work. It didn’t seem possible that he could turn any paler, but he managed. “And…” she paused, wishing she’d had time to get Luke’s