Faithful
Praise for
Faithful
“
Faithful
by Kim Cash Tate is not only beautifully written, it is a novel that changes you, that makes you question your heart and attitudes. I can't recommend it highly enough!”
â Colleen Coble, bestselling
author of
Lonestar Homecoming
“Kim is a wonderful storyteller. As she paints the picture of the women in this book they don't seem like characters from a novel, they sound like you, like me. When they wrestle with their faith, we wrestle with them and find out, as they do, that God is always faithful.”
â Sheila Walsh, international
speaker and bestselling author
“Three friends. Two husbands. One Romeo
.
All are shaken to the core as author Kimberly Cash Tate peels away layers of lies and self-deception to reveal the rotten core of infidelity and its tragic consequences. But this novel is also about hope and healing as her well-drawn characters discover the freedom of being FAITHFUL.”
â
Neta Jackson, author of the Yada
Yada Prayer Group and Yada
Yada House of Hope novels
“Good fiction has to grab me, knock me around, and make me care about what is happening to the characters. But great fiction inspires me. Kim Cash Tate accomplishes it all in
Faithful
.”
â Marilyn Meberg, Women of
Faith speaker and author of
Tell Me Everything
“Kim Cash Tate's enjoyable novel is true to both the realities of life and the hope found through faith in Jesus. Romance meets real life with a godly heart! Hooray!”
â Stasi Eldredge, best-selling
author of
Captivating
faithful
K
IM
C
ASH
T
ATE
© 2010 by Kimberly Cash Tate
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâelectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherâexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Author is represented by the literary agency of The B&B Media Group, Inc., 109 S. Main, Corsicana, Texas 75110.
www.tbbmedia.com.
Thomas Nelson, Inc., books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Publisher's Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Scripture quotations are from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE
®
, © The Lockman Foundation, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tate, Kimberly Cash.
Faithful / Kimberly Cash Tate.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-59554-854-2 (pbk.)
I. Title.
PS3620.A885F35 2010
813'.6âdc22
2010020396
Printed in the United States of America
10 11 12 13 14 RRD 5 4 3 2 1
To Quentin and Cameron,
may you always be strongly aware
of God's faithfulness in your lives.
Contents
C
YDNEY
S
ANDERS JUMPED
at the ringing of the phone, startled out of slumber. She rolled over, peeked at the bedside clock, and groaned. She had twenty whole minutes before the alarm would sound, and she wanted every minute of that twenty. Only her sister would be calling at five forty in the morning. Every morning she called, earlier and earlier, with a new something that couldn't wait regarding that wedding of hers. Not that Stephanie was partial to mornings. She was apt to call several times during the day and into the evening as well. Everything wedding related was urgent.
Cyd nestled back under the covers, rolling her eyes at the fifth ring. Tonight she would remember to turn that thing off. She was tired of Stephanie worrying her from dawn to dusk.
Her heart skipped suddenly and she bolted upright.
The wedding is tomorrow
. The day seemed to take forever to get here, and yet it had come all too quickly. She sighed, dread descending at once with a light throbbing of her head. She might have felt stressed no matter what date her sister had chosen for the wedding. That she chose Cyd's fortieth birthday made it infinitely worse.
She sank back down at the thought of it.
Forty
. She didn't mind the age itself. She'd always thought it would be kind of cool, in fact. At forty, she'd be right in the middle of things, a lot of life behind her, a lot of living yet to do. She'd be at a stride, confident in her path, her purpose. She would have climbed atop decades of prayer and study, ready to walk in some wisdom. Celebrate a little understanding. Stand firmly in faith. Count it all joy.
And she'd look good. She was sure of that. She'd work out during her pregnancies, and while the babies nursed and sucked down her tummy, she would add weights to the cardio routine to shape and tone. As she aged, her metabolism could turn on her if it wanted to; she had something for that too. She would switch up her workout every few weeks, from jogging to mountain bike riding to Tae Bo, all to keep her body guessing, never letting it plateau. Her husband would thank her.
He would also throw her a party. She wasn't much of a party person, but she always knew she'd want a big one on the day she turned forty. It wouldn't have to be a surprise. She'd heard enough stories of husbands unable to keep a party secret anyway. They'd plan it together, and she would kick in the new season in high spirits, surrounded by the people she loved.
Now that she was one day away, she still had no problem with forty. It was the other stuff that had shown up with itâforty, never been married, childless. Now, despite her distinguished career as a classics professor at Washington University in St. Louis, she was questioning her path and her purpose and dreading her new seasonâ and the fact that she was forced to ring it in as maid of honor in her younger sister's wedding . . . her
much younger
sister.
She was still irritated that Stephanie kept the date even after their mother reminded her that October 18 was Cyd's birthday.
“Why does that matter?” Stephanie had said.
The only thing that mattered to Stephanie was Stephanie, and if she wanted something, she was going to make it happen. Like now. She cared not a whit that she was ringing Cyd's phone off the hook before dawn, waking Cyd and the new puppy, who was yelping frantically in her crate in the kitchen.
Cyd gave up, reached over, and snatched up the phone. Before it came fully to her ear, she heard her sister's voice.
“Cyd, I forgot to tell you last nightâ
stop
,” Stephanie giggled. “You see I'm on the phone.”
Cyd switched off her alarm. “Good morning to you too, Steph.” She swung her legs out from under the warm bedding and shivered as they hit the air. The days were warm and muggy still, but the nights were increasingly cooler.
From a hook inside the closet, she grabbed her plum terry robe, which at Cyd's five-nine hit her above the knee, and slipped it over her cotton pajama shorts and tank. Her ponytail caught under the robe and she lifted it out, let it flop back down. It was a good ways down her back, thick with ringlets from air drying, a naturally deep reddish brown. Her face had the same richness, a beautiful honey brown, smooth and flawless.
Stephanie was giggling still as she and her fiancé, Lindell, whispered in the background.
I can't believe she woke me up for this
. Cyd pushed her feet into her slippers and padded downstairs with a yawn to let out the puppy. “Do you do this when you're talking to Momma?”
Stephanie fumbled with the phone. “Do what?”
“Make it obvious that you and Lindell spent the night together?”
“Cyd, we are grown and will be married to
morrow
. Who gives a flip if we spent the night together?”
“Stephanie . . .” Cyd closed her eyes at the bottom of the stairs as all manner of responses swirled in her mind. Sometimes she wondered if she and Stephanie had really grown up in the same family with the same two parents who loved God and made His ways abundantly clear. Much of it had sailed right over Stephanie's head. Cyd had attempted to nail it down for her over the years, particularly in the area of relationships, but Stephanie never warmed to any notion of chastity, or even monogamy. In fact, when she'd called to announce her engagement six months ago, Cyd thought the husband-to-be was Warren, the man Stephanie had been bringing lately when she stopped by.
But Cyd had vowed moons ago to stop lecturing her sister and pray instead. She took a deep breath and expelled it loudly enough for Stephanie to know she was moving on, but only with effort.
“So, you forgot to tell me something?” She headed to the kitchen, where Reese was barking with attitude, indignant that Cyd was taking too long to get there.
“Girl, listen to this,” Stephanie said. “LaShaun called Momma yesterday, upset 'cause we didn't include a guest on her invitation, talking about she wants to bring Jo-Jo. That's why I
didn't
put âand guest' on her invitation. I'm not paying for that loser to come up in there, eat our food, drink, and act a fool. And why is she calling now anyway? Hello? The deadline for RSVPs was last month. Can you believe her?”
“Stephanie, was there a need to call so early to tell me this?” Cyd clicked on the kitchen light.
“Don't you think it's a trip?”
“Okay, yeah.”
“I know! And you know Momma. She said, âThat's your cousin. Just keep the peace and let her bring him.' I'm tempted to call LaShaun right now and tell her both of them can jump in a lake.”
Cyd headed to the crate under the desk portion of the kitchen counter. Tired though she was, Reese's drama tickled her inside. She was whimpering and pawing at the gated opening, and when Cyd unlocked it, the energetic twelve-week-old shot out. A mix of cocker spaniel and who knew what else, with dark chocolate wavy hair and tan patches on the neck, underbelly, and paws, she'd reminded Cyd of a peanut butter cup the moment she nabbed her heart at the shelter.
Reese jumped on Cyd, then rolled over for a tummy rub. Three seconds later she dashed toward the back door. At her age she could barely make it through the night without an accident. If Cyd delayed now, she'd be cleaning up a mess. She attached the leash and led her out.
“Well, what do you think?” Stephanie asked.
“About telling LaShaun to jump in the lake?” Cyd turned on the lights in the backyard and stepped outside with Reese, tightening her robe.
Stephanie sucked her teeth. “I mean about the whole thing.”
“Well, Momma and Daddy are paying,” Cyd said, since it seemed her sister had forgotten, “so if Momma doesn't mind Jo-Jo coming, why worry about it? You'll be so busy you probably won't see much of them anyway. No point getting your cousin
and
Aunt Gladys mad over something like this.”