Golden Vows Read Online Free Page A

as she did. His face was unrevealing, his attention focused on the highway and his hands sure and confident on the steering wheel. If he had shared any of her apprehensions, it didn’t show.
    She turned her head and stared out the window, unable to deny her own disquiet. Her mother and father had accepted the news with concern, insisting that Amanda come home to them to think things through. But she had refused, knowing that their home was no longer hers and that she couldn’t bear their solicitous advice. Dane’s parents had offered their standard, pessimistic, “We’ve been expecting something like this to happen” answer.
    But Martha.
    Amanda felt a sigh catch in her throat. Telling Martha would be one of the harder consequences to face.
    Martha Pemberton had been friend, family, and surrogate mother to Dane since his childhood. Amanda had been surprised and at first, even a little jealous of his respect and love for the elderly woman. But Martha had soon stolen her heart as well, and there had never been any doubt about the love that overflowed from Martha to Dane and expanded to include Amanda. Over the years of her marriage Amanda had grown to feel as comfortable with Martha as she did with her own parents and infinitely more comfortable than she had ever felt with Dane’s.
    Brushing at an imaginary wrinkle in her navy cotton slacks, Amanda frowned. If only Dane had let her come alone.... But she knew, as well as he did, that Martha would expect them to face her disapproval together. Even though she herself had never married, Martha was a staunch believer in the institution of marriage, of couples working to make one last, and she wouldn’t be reticent about voicing her opinion.
    Amanda could imagine the fierce disappointment that would alter Martha’s usually amiable expression and roughen her already gruff voice. It was all too easy to imagine the look in her green eyes—a look that said they were naughty children in need of a scolding. And she would take it as her right to scold them.
    But in the end, she would accept the inevitable and love them both as unconditionally as she always had.
    Pressing her lips into a tight line, Amanda focused on the passing landmarks. Divorce. Was there no end to the guilt? She had wrestled with her conscience during the last few days, struggled with the reality of what she’d done. Leaving her marriage wasn’t a decision she’d reached overnight. It had been building inside her for months, but now that it was almost a fact, she was plagued by doubt. It was the right decision, the only logical thing to do.
    So why did it feel so wrong?
    She glanced at Dane’s familiar profile. How had they come to this? When had their love changed from the lighthearted give and take to this heavy feeling that there was nothing left to give? And when had the ordinary quarrels inherent in marriage changed to resentful, angry attacks that undermined the roots of their relationship? And when had the suffocating politeness begun?
    Amanda knew she could search her memory for the rest of her life and never pinpoint the beginning. Maybe it had started with the divergent course of their careers. As his architectural designs began to gain an appreciative audience, Dane had spent more and more time at the office and away from her. His business trips came more frequently and always at an inconvenient time for her. Finally he’d stopped asking her to accompany him. She had invested more of her energy in her own career as an interior design consultant, but that hadn’t satisfied her longing for a family.
    Maybe it had started when they decided to have a baby ... and couldn’t. Maybe it was Dane’s gradual forming of new friendships that never really included her. There could be a dozen maybes that sparked the beginning, she thought with a rueful sigh.
    Hurried meals, hurried conversations, a life-style that left them little time for each other. It had all spelled trouble, but she had been naively