Slowly Maggie shook her head, trying desperately to restrain her tears. “No,” she replied brokenly. “No, Jake, I don’t. I thought…well, I know we haven’t actually said the vows yet, but I thought, in our hearts, we’d already made a commitment. For life. For better or for worse. What if this had happened six weeks after the wedding instead of six weeks before? Would you have walked out then, too?”
Jake cringed, and he felt his neck grow hot. He deserved that. It was more or less the same question his father had coldly asked. Though his mother had been less vocal in her disapproval, he had seen the look of disappointment in her eyes, as well. But if the vows had actually been spoken, he would have stuck it out.
“You know better, Maggie.”
She looked at him, suddenly skeptical. “Do I? I’m not so sure anymore, Jake.” She shook her head and gave a short, mirthless laugh. “But I guess it was a lucky thing for you it happened now. You won’t be put to that test. You’re free to walk away.”
God forgive him, but he’d thought that very thing. That he was lucky this had happened before the wedding. He felt like a heel for even thinking it, but he couldn’t deny that he’d been relieved.
Maggie watched his face, realized that though her words had been spoken harshly, they did, in fact, mirror his thoughts. Her stomach clenched even tighter. Until this very minute she’d half expected him to rethink his decision and do what she considered the honorable thing. But as her gaze searched his eyes, she knew he wasn’t going to bend, and a powerful wave of fear suddenly crashed over her.
When she spoke again, her voice was tinged with desperation. “Jake, I—I don’t want to lose you. I don’t know why the Lord gave us this burden, why He’s testing our commitment like this. I wish I did. I wish there was an easy answer to this problem. But I can’t see any other option. Can you?”
He stared at her helplessly. There was only one other option as far as he could see: put the two bereft sixyear-olds into the hands of a foster family. But leaving them in the care of strangers would be wrong, and he knew it. That was why he hadn’t asked her to choose between that or him. After much soul-searching he had decided that the best solution was for him to break the engagement. He didn’t feel particularly noble about it, and his father’s few choice words about duty and honor were still ringing in his ears, but in the end he had to make his own decision. And as much as he loved Maggie, he feared that if he went into this marriage feeling trapped, it would lead to resentment and, ultimately, heartbreak.
But now, sitting here with her ice-cold hands in his, her vulnerable eyes pleading with him to reconsider, he wondered if this was any better.
“Maggie, are you sure Charles didn’t have any relatives who might take the girls?” he asked, already knowing the answer. They’d been over this before.
She shook her head. “He was an only child, born late in life. His parents died years ago. There isn’t anyone else, Jake.”
With a sigh of frustration, Jake rose and strode restlessly across the room, stopping at the window to stare unseeingly into the night.
Maggie watched him, frantically searching for words that might change his mind. She couldn’t lose Jake! Since her sixteenth birthday, all she’d wanted out of life was to be Mrs. Jake West. Maybe modern women were supposed to want a career and independence. But those things paled in comparison to being Jake’s wife. What better “career” could she find than spending her life loving Jake, first traveling with him all over the world and then creating a home for him and their children? Her throat tightened painfully, and she choked back a sob.
“Jake…maybe we should just postpone things. Maybe if we give it a little time…”
Her voice trailed off as he turned to face her. There was a tightness to his jaw, a sudden resolve in his face, that made her realize there was something he hadn’t told her yet, something that she knew intuitively was going to seal their fates.
“That’s not really an option, Maggie. I…” He paused, and she could see the struggle on his face as he searched for the words to tell her the thing that was going to make her world fall completely apart.
“Jake.” The panic in her voice was obvious, even to her own ears. She didn’t want to hear what he was going to say. “Please, can’t we think about this a little more?”
She heard him sigh, saw the sudden sag in his shoulders, watched with trepidation as he walked slowly back to the couch and sat beside her again. More than anything in the world she wanted him to pull her into his arms and tell her that everything was going to be all right, as he had on so many other occasions through the years. But she could see that wasn’t his intent. He kept himself purposely at a distance and made no attempt to touch her.
Jake lifted a hand and wearily rubbed his forehead, then drew in a deep, unsteady breath. When he spoke, his voice was gentle but firm. “Maggie, I joined the navy. I leave in five days.”
Maggie stared at him blankly, her eyes suddenly confused. “Leave?” she parroted. “You’re leaving? You joined the navy?”
“Yes. I signed all the papers this morning. I’ve known for a week I was going to do it, but I just couldn’t seem to find the words to tell you.”
“But…but why?”
“It’s my chance to see the world, Maggie. It won’t be the same as if we were going together, I know, but with my advanced degree I should get plum assignments. That’s what they told me at the recruiting office, anyway. I go directly to officer training school. It’s a great opportunity.”
“But…but you have a job already.”
“I know. But it’s just a job, Maggie. In two years the most exciting thing I’ve done with my engineering skills is design hydraulic systems for elevators. I don’t want to do that the rest of my life.”
“But…but why the navy?” she asked, still trying to make sense of this unexpected twist.
Because I knew if I didn’t do something irrevocable like that, I wouldn’t be able to go through with the breakup, not when you look at me like this, he thought in silent anguish. But he couldn’t say that.
He studied her now, this woman he loved, as he debated how to answer. From the first time he kissed her, Maggie had been the only woman he ever wanted. They’d played together as toddlers, hung around as teenagers and fallen in love that one magical day on Maggie’s sixteenth birthday when he’d suddenly begun to realize that she was growing up. For the first time, he had really looked at her—the way a man looks at a woman who attracts him. Maggie wasn’t exactly a great beauty, with her wavy, flyaway red hair and turned up nose. But those attributes were more than offset by her gorgeous, deep green eyes and porcelain complexion. Suddenly she wasn’t just a “pal” anymore, but a woman who brought out unexpected feelings and responses in him.
And as time went by, he’d begun to notice other things, too. Like how close to the surface her feelings lay, how transparent they were, clearly reflected in her expressive eyes. And he’d noticed something else in her eyes, too—a maturing passion, flashes of desire, that set his blood racing. But she had a discipline he could only admire. For, in an era of questionable morals, she made no apology for her traditional Christian values, believing that the ultimate intimacy should be reserved for marriage, expressed only in the context of a lifetime commitment. He’d always respected her for that.
Yet despite Maggie’s strong faith, she had a certain air of fragility, an aura of helplessness, that always brought out his protective instinct. And it was this latter quality that he knew would do him in tonight unless he had an airtight out, an ironclad escape—like joining the navy.
And