8 Sandpiper Way

They say the wife is always the last to know.

Except that Emily Flemming did know and she'd known for more than a week. Dave, her husband, was involved with someone else. Only Dave wasn't just Dave Flemming. He was Pastor Dave Flemming. The thought that her husband loved another woman was intolerable, unthinkable, unbearable. Dave's betrayal was bad enough, but disregarding his moral obligations to his congregation and his God--she could hardly believe it. This shocking secret was completely inconsistent with everything she knew about her husband.

Ever since the night of their anniversary dinner, Emily had carefully guarded what she'd learned. She'd been in the church office, waiting for Dave, and had reached for his suit jacket, which hung on the back of his door. When she draped it over her arm, a diamond earring had fallen out of the pocket. Later she'd discovered the second one in the other pocket. Emily had certainly never owned anything as extravagant as this pair of large, diamond-studded pendant earrings.

In the beginning Emily had assumed the earrings were an anniversary present; however, she quickly realized they couldn't be. For one thing, they weren't in a jeweler's box. But even if they had been, it wasn't possible. Dave could never have afforded diamond earrings on their tight family budget.

Emily should have asked immediately...and hadn't. She'd been afraid of ruining their special evening with her suspicions. But almost at once, other details had begun to add up in her mind. She could no longer ignore the fact that Dave so often worked late, especially since the private hour they'd shared after dinner had gone by the wayside. It might've been her imagination but he seemed to take extra long with his grooming, too.

Her suspicions doubled and tripled. She held them close to her heart, examining them over and over, trying to make sense of her husband's behavior. Whenever she asked where he'd been, Dave's answers were vague. Another warning sign...

"Mommy, when's Daddy coming home?" Mark, the younger of her two sons, asked as he looked up from his plate. He was eight and his dark brown eyes were identical to his father's.

Emily had the same question. "Soon," she said as reassuringly as she could. Two or three times a week, Dave didn't get home until well after dinner. At first she'd made excuses for him to their boys. Now she didn't know what to tell them.

"Dad hardly ever eats with us," Matthew complained, sitting down next to his younger brother.

Dave's lateness had started gradually. He used to make a point of being there for the evening meal. As she stared into space, Emily couldn't help wondering if he was having dinner with some other woman...some other family. She chased away the thought with a determination that stiffened her spine.

For the sake of her children, Emily dragged out her standard excuse. "Your father's been busy at the church."

"Every night?"

Her sons echoed Emily's own dissatisfaction. "It seems so," she returned lightly, pretending all was well as she joined them at the dinner table. They automatically clasped hands and bowed their heads while Emily recited grace. Silently she added a prayer for herself, asking for courage to face whatever the future might hold for her marriage.

"Shouldn't we wait for him at least one night?" Mark said as he reluctantly picked up his fork.

"You two have homework, don't you?" she asked, ignoring his question.

"But Dad--"

"Your father will eat later."

"Will he get home before we go to bed?" Matthew, her sensitive son, asked.

"I don't know," she said, swallowing hard.

She made a pretense of eating. Her appetite had disappeared the minute she'd found those diamond earrings. That was the start--the wake-up call she'd ignored for months. Naturally, she'd told herself, there could be any number of explanations for those earrings. She'd intended to ask him about it the very next day...and hadn't.

Emily knew what held her back. She didn't want to hear the truth; she simply wasn't ready for it. She dreaded the consequences once she did finally confront him.

She'd questioned her husband, more than once, about his late nights. But Dave brushed aside her concern and offered ambiguous excuses, mentioning people she'd never met and meetings she didn't know about. He almost seemed to resent her asking, so after a while she'd stopped.

She supposed she had her answer. Since the discovery of the diamond earrings, she had a perfectly clear picture of what was happening--what had already happened. Sadly, pastors were as susceptible to temptation as anyone else. Like all sinners, they, too, could be lured into affairs. They, too, could make irreparable mistakes.

If Emily had hoped this was just a misunderstanding, that she'd allowed it to grow out of all proportion in her mind, those hopes had been destroyed. Earlier in the week, she'd run into Bob and Peggy Beldon at the grocery store. They owned the local bed-and-breakfast, Thyme and Tide. As the three of them stood in the middle of the aisle exchanging pleasantries, Bob casually said that he missed playing golf with Dave.

As long as the weather permitted, the two of them had played weekly for the past three years. In a matter of minutes, she'd ferreted out the information she'd been afraid to learn. Dave had given up golfing more than a year ago. A year! Yet every week last summer, he'd loaded up his golf clubs on Monday afternoons and driven off, supposedly to meet Bob. Obviously he'd been meeting someone else.

Emily sighed. She couldn't continue to let her mind wander down this well-traveled path of doubt and suspicion. Half the time she acted the role of the quiet, unassuming wife; the rest of the time it was all she could do to refrain from demanding an explanation. She wanted the truth no matter how painful it might be--and yet she didn't. What wife ever did?

So far she'd remained silent. She was astonished by how good she'd become at pretending everything was fine. None of her friends suspected. What bothered her almost as much as her suspicions was the fact that Dave didn't seem to have any idea that she'd caught on. She wondered if he'd broach the subject. Maybe if he knew she'd figured out what was going on... Perhaps that was what she'd been waiting for. She wanted him to ask her.

But Dave never asked. If she managed to put on a marvelous performance, then so did her husband. Last Sunday he'd actually spoken from the pulpit about the importance of marriage, of loving one's spouse.

Emily felt like the most unloved woman in the world. She could barely stop herself from breaking into heart-wrenching sobs right there in front of the entire congregation. Naturally everyone must have assumed she'd been overcome with emotion, since Dave's sermon, by implication, had honored her. She wanted to tell them that, beautiful though his words were, that was all they were. Words.

It was hard to believe this could be happening to them. Emily had always been so sure they had a solid marriage, and that Dave was her best friend. Apparently she was wrong.

The door leading to the garage opened and to her surprise he walked into the house.

"Dad!" Mark slid out of his chair, running toward his father as if he hadn't seen him in a year.

"Hey there, little man, how's it going?" Dave reached down and swung their son into his arms. Mark was too big to be picked up like a child, but he craved the attention from his father