Seventh Commandment (eBook)

CHAPTER ONE

Sandra

My name is Sandra Forester. I’m a little better than average looking, twenty-three-year-old. I live in a slightly worse-than-average apartment in a bigger-than-average Canadian city with above-average scenery. It also has a university and a hospital that are older than the country. It’s the kind of in-between city where you don’t meet somebody you know every time you go downtown. But you do maybe more often than you want to.

Two weeks from today, I’m actually going to walk down the aisle of the church my mother and her mother were married in. And I’ll be wearing a dress Grams designed and made for me. Mom calls it a fairytale princess dress, and that’s exactly how it makes me feel when I put it on. Grams has run a little dressmaking business out of her front room ever since I can remember. She loves creating original gowns. She loves making women look beautiful, and she does a fantastic job of it. She and Gramps are driving around New Brunswick right now, but they’ll be back in plenty of time for my wedding. I’ve promised to wink at her when I walk back up the aisle as Mrs. Mark Taylor.

We’re going to Los Angeles for our honeymoon. Our hotel room faces the beach, and we’ll be there for a full week. I want to lie on the beach, and I want to people-watch. I want to see everything there is to see in Hollywood. During the days, I want to walk on the sidewalks where the stars walk. It goes without saying that I have other plans for my nights.

When we get back, we’ll be living in a slightly better-than-average house, where I’ll have breakfast every morning with my much better-than-average-looking husband. Then he’ll drive me to my very average job at the university, which is on the way to his far above-average job at the hospital. I’m an order clerk in the purchasing department, and he’s a social worker. He’s five years older than me, and he’s a man. I didn’t realize it, but I’d only ever dated boys before I met him. He has a dreamy voice, he always looks so well put together, and he’s gorgeous.

I have to admit that he’s not quite as gorgeous as his best friend, Darcy Fitzwilliams. Women do more than glance at my Mark, but they outright stare at Darcy. I get a kick out of watching women ogle him. It’s as if he’s a big piece of moist chocolate cake covered in thick, creamy chocolate icing, and they’re on a diet. Being around him doesn’t fluster me anymore. I’m used to him. I’m more relaxed and not always concentrating on being on my best behaviour. The man is too perfect. Looks, build, skin, teeth, hair, manners; everything’s a little too perfect. Plus, he comes from money, and he’s a doctor. I keep trying to find a flaw in him. But I haven’t so far, except that he thinks a lot of himself. You can tell. He expects to get his own way and mostly does. I mean, he’s nice, polite to a fault, generous, funny, but judgmental, very judgmental. I don’t think he can help himself. He seems to have very high standards for himself, and he expects the same from everybody else.

I’m actually at work right now, but my boss is away today, so I don’t really have too much to do. I still need to look busy, though. So it’s the perfect time to record how I met Mark and how I feel about him. I’m not naïve enough to think that this high will last forever. I’m typing anything and everything that comes into my mind. It’ll be a letter to myself. I’ll put it in an envelope and read it on my third anniversary. I figure we’ll have a couple of babies by then. I want two, and I want them one right after the other. I figure it’s a good idea to get the sleepless nights and messy diapers over with as quickly as possible. And what’s a few extra diapers every wash?

My favourite aunt, Dad’s older sister, got divorced last year. It was a complete surprise to her. She’d organized a big do for their twenty-fifth anniversary, and he walked out two days before. She even lost her deposit on the hall. Divorce is terrible. Lawyers, money, threats, tears; it went on forever.

My sister, Jodi, and I read up on divorce at the time. Here in Canada, the percentage of marriages that end in divorce is between thirty-five and forty-two. It’s fifty-nine percent in the Yukon and only twenty-five percent in Newfoundland. We couldn’t find a reason for the differences. Jodi said it might be because they’re more isolated in the Yukon, so they get sick of each other faster. I thought they’d want to stay married, if only to keep each other warm in bed. And Newfoundlanders are known for being tolerant, close-knit, fun-loving, and easy to get along with. So we thought that statistic sort of made sense.

I read that the median duration of marriages for couples being divorced in the U.S. is around seven years. But here in Canada, it’s fourteen. So Aunt Pat’s lasted close to double the Canadian average, for whatever that’s worth.

And another study said that a decrease in the quality of married life appears twice: once after four years and again after about seven. That ties in with the seven-year itch thing. Apparently, we experience physical and mental changes every seven years. Because of our experiences, and/or personal growth, our goals can change, and those changes can make a marriage less stable and increase the probability of divorce.

So, I’m not taking any chances. I plan to capture this amazing, bubbly feeling, this feeling of happiness that seems too big to fit inside me, on paper and read it on my third anniversary. Maybe every anniversary after that too. Just in case I need reminding. I can’t imagine needing reminding. But I’m not taking any chances.

I noticed Mark as soon as I walked through the door. He must have come to the bar right from work, because he was wearing suit pants, his white shirt was open at the collar, and his sleeves were rolled up. I guessed that he had a jacket with a tie stuffed in the pocket somewhere. I found out that I was only partially right when he drove me home. His buttoned jacket was hanging, on a thick, wooden hanger, from a hook attached to the back of his headrest. But his tie wasn’t stuffed in a pocket. It had been carefully straightened, and was hanging on the bar of the hanger.

God, he looked good! But then I’ve always been a sucker for a man in a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I have a hard time not staring at thick, hairy, muscled arms partially covered by smooth, white cotton. It’s the contrast. All I can think about is the manliness hidden under the desk-sitter’s uniform.

Jodi says I’m too easily turned on. But she’s slept with eight guys, and I’ve only slept with four. And she’s almost two years younger than me. Actually, we’re both below par in that department. Most of the women we know score in the double digits.

I’m pretty sure my heart skipped a beat or two, and I stopped breathing for a few seconds when I first saw him. I also suddenly felt as if somebody had jacked the temperature in the room way up to fever levels. And I know I stopped walking because Jodi bumped into me. The first thing I did was to take an inventory of my looks, and although I didn’t give myself a failing grade, I sure didn’t rate an A. Since I was only meeting Jodi for a few games of pool, I was dressed in an old T-shirt and even older jeans. I’d just washed my wavy, blonde hair, so it was at its shiny best. But I hadn’t bothered to do any more than pull it back into a ponytail. At least I’d taken the time for a quick swipe of lipstick and mascara.

While admiring his short, thick, dark hair, not to mention his backside, as he bent over the table for a shot, I kept reminding myself that my jeans were snug enough to show off my well-toned butt and abs. I’m proud of my butt and my abs. I work hard to keep them. The C cups that were outlined by my light blue T-shirt were a gift from my mother’s side of the family. The words ‘Life is a game. Billiards is serious.’ were printed in white on my T-shirt. Poor Jodi takes after the flat-chested women on my father’s side of the family tree. She still has the body she had at fifteen. A picture of a bowling ball hitting a strike covered her B cups. Well, she says they’re Bs. I’m pretty sure they’re As.

The bar was starting a new contest. There was a big blackboard on the wall, and anybody could sign up. You entered your names, and when your game was over, the loser’s name was erased. At ten o’clock, they would count names, and the two people who appeared most often would play each other. The prize was a night of free games the next time you came to the bar. Jodi knew Pete, who was playing with, actually losing to, the perfect specimen of manhood responsible for the sudden change in my vital signs. Luckily, the table next to them was empty, so all four of us could chat back and forth while we played.

It turned out that his name was Mark Taylor, and he usually played at a bar downtown, but it had been taken over by a rowdier crowd than he was comfortable with so he was trying out new venues. He told us he didn’t play very often. None of his friends liked pool. He was a good player, but I knew I was at least as good, if not better.

We were the two left standing at ten o’clock. I almost beat him. I had the winning shot lined up. But then I remembered that men don’t like to lose to women, so, for the first and only time in my life, I shot a foul on purpose. He cleaned up, but he had this funny, determined look on his face, and as soon as it was over, he took my stick, put in in the rack along with his own, and, without saying a word, held my arm to steer me outside. When we were well away from anybody else, he turned...