Read Online The Sooner the Better by Debbie Macomber - Free Book Online

Now that she was with him, she wanted to know the truth with an urgency that left her trembling. For more than twenty years her mother had lived under false pretenses, and Lorraine had to find out why. She couldn’t imagine what would drive her parents to do something so drastic. Honesty had been the very basis of her mother’s character. At least that was what she’d thought….
    â€œMom loved you, too…all that time. She wouldn’t talk about you, especially once I got older. Whenever she did, she’d start to cry.”
    â€œI know…I know.”
    Tears spilled from Lorraine’s eyes. “She told me you’d died of leukemia.”
    The merest hint of a smile touched his mouth, raising one corner. “We concocted that story together.”
    â€œBut you’re alive!” She needed the truth, and quickly, while she was strong enough to bear it. “Please—tell me…”
    â€œIt began in Vietnam,” he said, his voice falling to a whisper. “In many ways, the man I was meant to be died there.”
    â€œBut you were a decorated hero! Mom said the thing she regretted most about the fire was that your medals were lost and—”
    Thomas’s head snapped up. “She told you that?” His expression was sober. Regretful. “I was far from a hero, Lorraine. I deserted halfway through my tour of duty. I couldn’t take the killing any longer, the death….”
    Lorraine didn’t want to believe what she was hearing. It couldn’t be true. Any of it. “But—”
    â€œI returned to the States and joined a militant antiwargroup. They helped me hide out. From the moment I turned my back on the army, I made it my mission, my goal in life, to keep other young men from dying pointlessly on foreign soil. I wanted to save them from watching their friends blown to bits for reasons that had nothing to do with us or our country.”
    â€œBut surely you could come back now—even if you were a deserter. There was an amnesty, wasn’t there?” All her life she’d viewed her father as a hero. This lie her parents had lived made no sense, and she found Thomas’s story confusing.
    â€œI did much more than desert.” He broke eye contact and lowered his head to stare at their clasped hands. “As I said earlier, I joined a militant antiwar group. A number of us decided to blow up the ROTC building at the University of Kentucky. We didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt…. The security guard wasn’t supposed to be anywhere close to the building.”
    â€œHe died in the explosion?”
    Her father nodded. “Two of our group were picked up almost immediately when they tried to cross the Canadian border. José and I knew it was only a matter of time before we’d be arrested, as well.”
    â€œJosé?”
    â€œJosé Delgado, a friend, a good one at the time. The two of us made our way into Mexico before an arrest warrant could be issued.”
    â€œWhat happened to him?”
    â€œJosé? We bummed around the country for a while, then he found another cause. We argued and split up—I haven’t seen him in years. The last I heard he was part of a guerrilla group somewhere in Central America.”
    â€œBut couldn’t you come back now? That was thirty years ago!”
    â€œNo,” Thomas said with a sadness that couldn’t be disguised. “There’s no statute of limitations on murder. The minute I cross the border, I’ll be arrested for murder and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Raine, I want you to know I was involved with the group, but I was against the bombing. I never believed violence was the way to get our message across. But I didn’t have the courage to stand up to the others. That was my greatest sin and one I’ve paid for dearly in the years since.”
    â€œWhat happened to the two who were arrested?”
    Again