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“We’re friends. I value that more than I do a passing romance,”

Jake told Joanna.

“And passing is all it would be?”

Jake looked directly into her luminous eyes. “That’s all either of us has ever known.”

“But our friendship—”

“Is something I don’t want to lose, Jo. And we will,” he said, reaching out and caressing her cheek, “if we let this happen.”

His eyes, dark with anguish, mesmerized her. She raised a hand, her fingers covering his where they touched her face.

“I’m sorry, Jo.”

She took a deep breath of reality. This was the end of whatever she’d hoped for. It felt final. Painful, but final, and maybe that was good. Jake couldn’t make his heart feel something it just wouldn’t feel.

KATHRYN ALEXANDER

writes inspirational romance because, having been a Christian for many years, incorporating the element of faith in the Lord into a romantic story line seemed like a lovely and appropriate idea. After all, in a society where love for a lifetime is difficult to find, imagine discovering it, unexpectedly, as a gift sent from God.

Kathryn is married to Kelly, her own personal love of a lifetime. They have one son, John, who is the proud owner of the family’s two house pests, Herbie the cat and Copper the dog.

Kathryn and her family have been members of their church for nearly five years, where she co-teaches a Sunday school class of active two-year-olds. She is now a stay-at-home mom who writes between car pooling, baby-sitting and applying bandages, when necessary.

Heart of a Husband
Kathryn Alexander

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The boundary lines have fallen for me

in pleasant places.

—Psalms 16:6a

This book is dedicated to Julie Stroup. Without her

precious friendship and unwavering encouragement,

I would not be a published writer today.

This is book number five! Thank you, Julie.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Letter to Reader

Chapter One

“J oanna.”

She heard her name spoken quietly from somewhere behind her as she stood speaking with a nurse in the pale blues and greens of the hospital waiting room. Her breath caught in her throat momentarily. There was no need to turn around to see who had spoken; she remembered his voice clearly. It sounded exactly as it had two years ago, when he’d said goodbye. Closing her eyes for a brief moment, she wondered what she would say. Then she turned.

A well-cut suit, the color of charcoal, accentuated his tall, lean frame, and the faded remnant of a tan stood out in contrast to the crisp whiteness of his shirt. Looking up, Joanna’s velvet-brown eyes met cautious gray.

“Hello, Jake,” she managed to say. “It’s nice of you to come.” She extended a slender hand to him.

“It’s good to see you,” he answered in a voice low and achingly familiar. He clasped her hand in a necessary handshake. “How is Mae?”

“Not good,” Joanna responded. “Dr. Eden is with her now, but you can see her in a few minutes.”

“And you?”

“Fine. I’m fine,” she responded, a little too quickly, she realized.

“Are you?” came his immediate reply. The slate-gray depths of his eyes, genuinely sad, held her gaze easily. “You look tired.”

“I’m all right,” she replied. “Tired, but okay.”

“It’s been a long time,” Jake remarked.

“Yes,” she agreed. But had it been too long? Or not long enough? The ache in her heart made it difficult to think, difficult to do anything other than feel.

“I want to help, Jo. That’s why I’m here.”

Joanna nodded her head without speaking. Dr. Jake Barnes’s help was exactly what she didn’t want. For him to show up now—kind and caring—was what she had feared. Comfort from Jake now would be more than she could endure. The memories she had spent long months pushing to the back of her mind stirred again in her thoughts. All of the forgetting could too easily be undone.

Joanna glanced toward the nearby hospital room to see Dr. Natalie Eden, Mae’s family physician, walking toward them where they stood in the lobby.

“Natalie, how are you?” Jake spoke directly to the attractive physician who smiled broadly when she saw him.

“Jake! I wasn’t sure you’d come. It’s wonderful to see you,” Dr. Eden said just as Joanna stepped away, excusing herself from the scene to return to her aunt’s bedside. A warm, welcoming embrace between these two people was more than she could handle at the moment. Dr. Jake Barnes and Dr. Natalie Eden. There had been a brief time, years ago, when they’d seemed the perfect couple in everyone’s eyes. Including Joanna’s. Until her own heart had found reason to think otherwise.

“‘To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,’” was the scripture her aunt whispered in a weak voice as Joanna entered the room. Those were the first words Mae had spoken all day.

“Yes,” Joanna agreed. “I know that’s always been one of your favorite verses.” She sank into a chair close to the bed and reached for the elderly woman’s hand. “But I’d rather keep you here with me. I’m not ready to let you go,” she added as she saw her aunt’s eyes fluttering shut again.

“Jake is here?” Mae asked in wispy words.

“Yes, he’s here,” Joanna answered.

Mae gave a small smile. “He said he’d come. He’ll take care of everything. He’ll take care of you, Joanna.”

“I don’t need taking care of,” Joanna said with a soft moan of protest. She tucked some of her ash-blond hair behind an ear. “I’m all grown-up, Aunt Mae. I can take care of myself.”

But her aunt had already drifted back to sleep, just as she had done off and on for the past few days. Joanna studied the dull gold wedding band on her aunt’s finger. What would it be like, she wondered, to love a man the way Mae had loved her husband? To remain true to him, committed to him even many years after his death? A love of that depth was rare, Joanna knew, but she believed it was as possible as it was rare.

Giving a soft sigh, she placed Mae’s cool, frail hand against her own cheek. So, Jake had decided to come back to say goodbye to Mae. That shouldn’t have surprised her, she knew. Aunt Mae had been like a mother to them both, each in different ways. Jake would want to be here. As a doctor, a friend, the son Mae wanted but never had. Jake would be what Mae needed. He was good at that. And Joanna would have to pretend she didn’t need him, too.

“Lord, don’t take her away from me yet. I’m not ready for that,” she breathed the heartfelt prayer.

It seemed a long time ago, but it had been only four years earlier—just as Joanna was starting college—that she had accepted Mae’s invitation to live with her in South Carolina. She had arrived at her aunt’s house with suitcases in hand and much hope in her heart. Joanna had been grateful for Mae’s offer after years of growing up in an adoptive home where she felt very much an outsider. Mae was the only biological link Joanna Meccord had to the past after losing her parents in a plane crash as a child. Early one spring afternoon, a cabdriver had left Joanna at the specified address, Mae’s house. And Jake was there, even that first day. Living in Charleston then, he worked at a clinic not far from Mae’s home, and had just finished having lunch with Mae when Joanna rang the doorbell. Joanna smiled as she recalled the latch on one of the suitcases Jake carried in for her breaking as he placed it next to the hallway closet. They had knelt together on the carpeting, gathering up books and belongings that had tumbled from the luggage while Joanna silently thanked the Lord that it had been this bag that had broken. Not the one holding more personal items. The breaking of the old, battered bag was inevitable, Joanna had explained quickly, and it was not worth repairing as Jake offered to have done. She remembered his smile. A half smile, not particularly disarming enough to set her heart to hammering, but it had been nice. The smile of a friend.

Those opening, awkward moments were the beginning of her life with Aunt Mae and a relationship with Dr. Jake Barnes. And their casual friendship was reinforced when days later, a present for Joanna was delivered to Mae’s front door: two new pieces of floral tapestry luggage with a card attached. It read, “Joanna, For your next move, which I hope is many years from now. Jake.”

Joanna’s friendship with him deepened throughout her college years. Jake’s curiosity about her Christian faith and their common concern for Mae’s failing health helped weave an unspoken bond between them. Not even Mae’s hints that she thought the new clinic physician, Natalie Eden, was a perfect match for Jake had bothered Joanna then. Through all this and more, Joanna and Jake remained simply friends, sharing bits and pieces of knowing each other without really knowing each other at all. Until one gentle evening when their friendship was lost in an unguarded moment. And everything changed.

Soon Jake was gone. Suddenly and unexpectedly, he moved away, and Dr. Natalie Eden was quick to do the explaining. It seemed Jake had wanted Natalie to move back to Indiana with him so he could take over his father’s private practice. He wanted to return to the home of his childhood, and when Natalie had turned him down, he left without her.

So Jake was gone, and Joanna had tried to forget—the hello, the goodbye. And everything in between.

“Jo?”

She looked up immediately at the sound of Jake’s voice coming from the doorway of Mae’s hospital room.

“May I come in?” Jake asked and watched Joanna nod her head. Her loose hair swayed gently with the easy movement. If only he couldn’t remember how soft those blond curls felt in his hands, against his face. He cleared his throat quietly and walked over to Mae’s bedside. Leaning down, he brushed a kiss against the elderly woman’s forehead as she slept. “She doesn’t want to die, Jo. She’s very worried about leaving you alone.”

“How would you know that?” she asked softly.

Jake sat down next to Mae, wishing he were anywhere but here, now, having this discussion. Joanna looked so unhappy. So distant, worried. He hated knowing that his words would only make her sadder. “Mae told me when I saw her last week.”

“You were in town last week?” Joanna repeated, her dark-brown eyes wide with question.

“I was here for a few hours,” he explained what he’d not wanted to tell Joanna. That he’d come this far, flown from Indianapolis to Charleston, but not to see her. “I visited Mae, met with her cardiologist and Dr. Eden and caught a late-afternoon flight home. I had to be back for a meeting that night.”

“But she didn’t tell me, she never mentioned it,” Joanna practically whispered in disbelief.

“I want to take her home with me, Joanna. To live.”

“To die, you mean,” she replied.

“I hope not,” he remarked.

Joanna breathed a frustrated sigh. “Dr. Eden said Aunt Mae is going to die. Soon. Why would you want to put her through the stress of traveling nearly seven hundred miles now, when it’s too late?”

“I’ve spoken with Mae’s doctors, Joanna, and I don’t think she’s getting the kind of care she needs. My partner at the office, Dr. Vernon, has a brother who is the leading cardiologist in this half of the country. If anyone can make a difference in Mae’s life, it will be him. I want her to see him, to come and stay with me for as long as it takes.”

“But Dr. Eden told me she has so little time left—”

“That’s all she’ll have if you keep her here. If she goes with me, I think she could have more. Weeks, maybe months. Or longer.”

“But, Jake, the move alone could kill her.”

“I don’t believe it will, but she’s going to die here, in this hospital, if we do nothing. I want her to come with me. Tonight,” he responded. “I’ve made arrangements for the flight.”

“You can’t take her away from me, Jake. Not now. She’s all I have left in this world. I can’t believe this would be the Lord’s will for her life…her death….”

The anguish in her voice pierced Jake’s conscience. He knew how much this hurt her. That’s why he hated the promise he’d made. “You can’t let her die here, like this…always wondering if you did all you could for her. No one wants to live with those doubts.” He paused. “I don’t want you living with those doubts, Joanna.”

“But she’s comfortable here, she’s not in any pain—”

“Give her this chance, Jo. Let her see this new cardiologist.”

“But I don’t know if she’d want to make this move, Jake. I mean, I know she was born and raised in Indiana, just like you were, but that doesn’t mean she wants to go there to die. Does it?”

Jake exhaled slowly. There was no avoiding this now. “It’s what she wants, Joanna. It’s what she asked me to promise I would do…and she’s appointed me her power of attorney,” he said quietly, reluctantly. He’d hoped Mae had taken care of explaining the matter to Joanna. Telling her himself reopened wounds he’d never intended to inflict. This would cut through Joanna like a betrayal.

“So, basically, you can do whatever you want, regardless of how I feel about it?” she asked, clearly surprised by this unexpected piece of news.

“I don’t want to go against your wishes, Jo. You have to know that. But—” He stopped.

“But you will?” she asked, her eyes glimmering with fresh tears. “Jake? You’d take her away from me? Like this?” Joanna’s hand flew to her mouth. “How could you? Don’t you care—”

“Of course, I care,” Jake answered with a heaviness settling in his chest. Why had he promised to do this? Then he reminded himself of his reasoning. There’d been logic in it, even in the midst of the heartbreak. “Your Aunt Mae is the closest I’ve ever come to having a mother in my life. I can provide a better ending for her than this.”

Joanna rose from her chair, hugging her arms close as a chill swept over her. “Money, Jake?” she asked sadly. “Is that what this comes down to? You’re wealthy so you can come in here and take her away?” Her words were filled with pain. It glistened in the murky depths of her eyes.

“It’s more than that.” Jake’s dark brows drew into a troubled frown. “It’s true I can provide better care, but I’m only trying to do what I promised I would do. Help me with this, Jo, while there’s still time. Don’t hate me for doing what needs to be done.”

“Hate you?” She almost wished she could. Then life would be simple again. Black and white. No more gray areas to wander around in. Alone.

“And I wouldn’t be taking her away from you,” Jake added before delivering what he knew would be the final blow to her shaken emotions. “She wants you to come, too.”

“What?” she asked, too stunned to say more.

Jake squeezed Mae’s hand gently before moving from her bedside. “She loves you…she needs you. She wants you with her.” He glanced back into Joanna’s bewildered gaze. “You’ll need to think it over, I know, but we don’t have much time,” he said. “I’ll leave you alone for a while.” Then he walked away, disappearing through the door, leaving Joanna standing there, her mouth open in surprise.

For a moment, she couldn’t move, couldn’t even think clearly. Had Jake really said that she should go with him? To Indiana? Had he lost his mind? Or just his memory of why that would never work? She turned on her heels to follow him out into the hallway where she found him speaking with Dr. Eden.

“Jake,” she interrupted. “I can’t go away like that. Just pack up and leave? Are you serious?”

“Very,” Jake answered, directing his attention toward Joanna. He excused them from the other physician’s presence and cupped Joanna’s elbow with a hand, steering her toward the privacy of an empty lobby. “I know you weren’t expecting any of this, but Mae asked me to promise that you’d go, too. And I did.” He glanced down at the discharge papers Dr. Eden had handed him and then back into Joanna’s panic-filled eyes. “It’s what she wants, Jo.” He paused, never so uncertain of anything in his life as he was of this. He wanted Joanna to go with him more than he dared to admit but, at the same time, he couldn’t calculate the magnitude of mistake they would be making. Still, he’d made the promise. “There’s a flight at seven—”

“Seven o’clock? Tonight?” Joanna asked.

“Yes,” Jake replied. “You won’t need to pack much. We’re having a rough winter back home. You can buy warmer clothes when you get there.”

With what? she wondered. Joanna didn’t have extra money for winter clothing. She hadn’t even had enough in her checking account to pay her school bill last semester.

Money. Joanna nearly cringed at the thought. The power of it, the need of it, the control it wielded. And all it had cost her. It was the private plane of a rich corporate executive that had crashed and taken the lives of her parents long ago. They’d been flying in inclement weather to meet the demanding schedule of a client they deemed important enough to take necessary risks for. The “necessary risk” that day took their lives when the plane went nose down into a lake.

Now, Jake and his money would be able to take Aunt Mae away to die in some strange house, in a state the woman hadn’t visited since childhood. It wasn’t fair.

“Joanna, is seven o’clock okay? I could send a cab for you—”

“No, it’s not okay,” she replied. “I need to get out of here. I want some fresh air,” she said suddenly and bolted for the nearby exit. The cool, damp weather felt good on her warm cheeks. She took a deep breath just as the doors opened behind her.

“Joanna, I know this isn’t easy for you.”

“No, it’s not.” She turned to face him, her fists clenched at her sides. “I can’t go to Indiana with you, Jake. I can’t stay with you and you know it, so why ask? Just to embarrass me?”

An honest look of surprise flashed in his eyes. “I would never try to embarrass you. What are you talking about?”

She flung her hands out in despair. “We’re not a good match. Not in any way. You’ve made that clear enough. You feel it, I feel it. I think even God feels that way about us. Putting us in the same house together for any amount of time will only lead to…to…arguments. Or worse.” A sinking feeling weighted the pit of her stomach.

Raking a hand through his dark hair, Jake turned away from her. She was right. He couldn’t dispute the truth. But, somehow, they had to get beyond it temporarily to help Mae. To keep a promise. He placed both hands on the metal railing that surrounded the veranda. “Joanna, I’m sorry. Sorry we went out alone together on your birthday, sorry about everything that happened.” He hesitated. “I shouldn’t have touched you.”

“I don’t want your apology,” she said quickly. What she wanted now, and a hundred times since that night, was to be in his arms again. And she was angry at herself for wanting this man who didn’t want her, not even when she’d foolishly been there for the taking. She watched Jake turn his head to glance at her. His wistful look tugged at the sweet ache in her heart.

“I can’t force you to come home with me, Jo. You’re twenty-two years old, old enough to make your own decisions.” He paused for a moment. “But it’s what Mae wants. It’s what she needs.”

“She shouldn’t expect such a thing of me. She doesn’t have any idea how awkward it would be.”

“You didn’t tell her that things…had changed between us?” Jake studied her restless movements as she inched a little farther from him.

“No, I didn’t,” she acknowledged. Joanna folded her arms together. “It didn’t seem right. She would have blamed you.”

“She should have blamed me,” he responded, his voice filled with regret. “I was thirty-two years old. You were barely twenty.”

Joanna shivered at the thought of that night’s misery. “When you left me at my door in tears, I felt like I was about eight.”

“I wish you had been,” he said with a sad smile, then averted his gaze to the darkening skies. “Then I could have been trusted to take you to dinner and return you home safely, with your heart in one piece.”

“I was safe with you, Jake,” she responded. Incredibly, agonizingly safe, Joanna remembered. “Only my pride was hurt.” She rubbed the chill away from her arms when their eyes met again. The tenderness in his gaze only deepened her sense of loneliness.

“I’m sorry, Jo,” he offered gently. Sorry most of all that he had unwittingly let this lovely young woman find a way into the heart he’d kept cold and silent all those years. His father’s sorrows had taught him well. How not to trust. Not to love. But with Joanna… Nothing made sense anymore.

Biting her lip, Joanna looked away. “It wasn’t something I couldn’t get over,” she lied as her pulse pounded with guilt. She wasn’t going to let him know how badly it had hurt, how badly it still hurt—even now. Maybe God would forgive her this little lie, this one indiscretion.

“There’s no need to be afraid that—”

“I’m not afraid,” Joanna stated. Indiscretion number two. She was afraid. Of them. Of all they would never be together.

Jake studied her thoughtfully before transferring his gaze to the setting sun in the distance. If she didn’t agree to go, then this would be the end of it. He couldn’t go through this again. Seeing her sad. Lovely. And so alone.

A silence fell between them momentarily that hung heavy like a cloud. When Jake spoke again, his words were gentle. “Come home with me, Jo.”

Joanna swallowed hard, feeling as if her heart had jumped into her throat. What should she do? What was the right choice? What would the Lord expect of her? Only one thing was certain. If she didn’t go with him, she might never see Aunt Mae again. Never.

“Are you sure about this, Jake? Absolutely sure it’s…the right thing…to do?” She was stalling, she knew. Waiting, wanting something more from him than she’d seen.

“Yes,” he responded with a confidence he didn’t feel. “It’s what Mae wants, and it’s what I want.” But the thin, straight line of his mouth offered no hint of the emotions storming inside him.

Joanna shivered, although the damp air was not cool enough to justify it. If she was going to make this journey, she’d need God’s guidance every step of the way. Otherwise, it would be a huge mistake. A journey she’d get lost in. One she’d regret. There’d be no relying on herself this time. She took a quiet breath as her mind raced with a crazy blend of hope and fear.

“All right,” she told him. She’d go. A risk taker wasn’t something Joanna had considered herself to be, but people could change. Especially in the face of great loss. Couldn’t they?

Jake nodded. A mixture of feelings surged through him, none of which he could voice. Everything from the satisfaction of winning an argument to the uneasiness of facing the truth of what he’d just lost. A chance to walk away from this woman who haunted his dreams. Was that what he’d wanted?

“Let’s go inside,” Jake said. They stepped off the veranda and walked back through the double doors of the hospital. “I’ll be leaving with Mae at seven.”

“But, Jake, I can’t be ready by then. There are things I need to do, people I need to call. I’ll have to notify the day care center where I work.” Excuses poured from Joanna.

“I understand,” Jake conceded. “I guess that would be a lot to ask. I’ll see about getting you a flight on another day.”

“All right,” she agreed. “I’ll get everything taken care of as quickly as I can.”

“I’ll ask my housekeeper to call you later with your flight information. That is, unless you don’t want to fly,” Jake began and then hesitated, searching Joanna’s face for the truth he expected. “I know that your parents died in a plane crash. If you’d rather not fly, I’ll make other arrangements.”

“No,” Joanna replied. “I don’t mind. I flew several times with my adoptive parents when I was a child.”

“You’re sure?” he asked.

She nodded her head.

“Okay, then, I’ll make the necessary arrangements to move Mae tonight.”

“And you’ll go with her? I mean, be right there, with her? The whole time?”

“Yes. She’ll be comfortable,” Jake explained. “Don’t worry, Jo. I’ll be right beside her bed the entire trip. You’ll see her again soon.”

“You’ll take good care of her?”

“I will,” he promised as they continued walking down the corridor. “Trust me.”

Joanna turned her head to glance into eyes she used to trust. Did she have reason to trust them no longer?

They were nearing Mae’s hospital room when Dr. Eden appeared in the hallway again, needing Dr. Barnes’s opinion on some matter. Something crucial, Joanna thought unkindly, like whether he would be staying to have dinner with her tonight, maybe? If Dr. Eden didn’t want to marry Jake Barnes when she had the opportunity, why was she now so obviously delighted to see him? A change of heart, probably, just as Joanna had always expected. The only surprise was that it had been so long in coming.

Joanna slipped into the silent hospital room to say good-night to her aunt before heading home. There was so much to do in preparation for leaving, she barely knew where to begin. But she had to start somewhere, so upon her arrival at the small house she shared with Mae, Joanna hauled her suitcases out of a bedroom closet. What a place to start, she thought as she sat down on the edge of her bed.

“Lord, what am I doing?” She sat staring at the suitcases Jake had given her when she’d been practically a stranger to him. Was she really going to fill them with clothes and get on that plane? To meet Jake in some strange city in a state she’d never seen? To move into his house? Had she lost all rational thinking?

“Probably,” she whispered. Reason seemed to have disappeared somewhere behind the shadows of her heart.