Page 22 of The Perfect Illusion (Jessie Hunt #39)

Caroline Walters was trying not to speed.

But as she pulled off the main street and into her residential neighborhood, she slowed down some.

People walked their dogs here. Parents pushed strollers.

Kids rode bikes. She didn’t want to accidentally hit someone because she was trying to get her mint chocolate chip in the freezer before it melted.

Not that Frank would care. Unlike her ex, who had a real temper and could be incredibly controlling, her current spouse was a teddy bear.

Caroline had some suspicions that he might not be all sweetness and light at work, but he had an excuse.

As a renowned heart surgeon, he dealt with life and death situations on a regular basis.

If he was short with folks in the operating room, he deserved a little understanding.

Caroline slowed at a stop sign and took half a second to glance at herself in the rear-view mirror.

She was happy that she didn’t look as frazzled as she felt.

Though her modeling days were now well behind her, she thought that she still looked fairly desirable, even after a day like today.

Her dirty blonde hair still had bounce and her light blue eyes hadn’t lost their sparkle.

No one would have believed that Carrie Madrona—as she was known back in her college modeling days—would prefer being in jeans and a plaid button-down shirt as opposed to a fancy dress, especially when the jeans had paint and dried spaghetti sauce on them.

But that’s what the modeling was for in the first place.

Carrie always wanted to teach elementary school, specifically kindergarten.

And the modeling that she took up in high school and continued through college allowed her to get her degree without any student debt.

But once she got her current position with the kids at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, there was no need to keep doing all those time-consuming photo shoots.

Her previous spouse wasn’t happy that she quit modeling. Carrie suspected that they liked the cachet that came with being married to a model. Maybe that was one of the reasons the marriage didn’t work out, although Carrie thought that there were other, more serious issues.

The divorce left her flush so that she didn't have to return to modeling to help pay the bills.

But she'd never really been a person who put an emphasis on money, so her life didn't change that dramatically.

Her joy came from helping those little kiddos with their little hands, the ones that accidentally spilled paint on her jeans and, today at least, intentionally threw a handful of cafeteria pasta on her.

Carrie pulled onto her own street as she marveled at how different her life was from just months ago.

Back then, she was a recent divorcee, still working as a kindergarten teacher but living in a one-bedroom apartment.

Now she lived with her surgeon husband in a chichi part of town in a mansion that had multiple bathrooms which were bigger than her old bedroom.

But she was still a teacher, and that’s what mattered most, though that might change soon. For a while now, she and Frank had discussed her "retiring," as odd as that sounded for a twenty-five-year-old woman. It was his idea, actually.

His pitch was two-fold. First, he’d made it clear how important travel was to him. He loved to check out exotic parts of the world, and he loved doing it with her. But her school year schedule only gave them a limited window in the summer to explore the globe.

The other part of his pitch was more sensitive.

Frank, at 53, was more than double her age, which hadn’t been a barrier to them falling in love.

More of an issue was his concern that if they had kids—which he badly wanted—he wouldn’t be able to play with them on the floor if they waited too long.

Or worse, not make it to their high school graduation.

Carrie thought he was being unnecessarily morbid but she didn’t say that. After the interpersonal coldness of her last spouse, Carrie was happy to be with someone who could express their vulnerability. And she knew that if she insisted on continuing teaching, he’d make his peace with it.

So they’d come to an agreement. Carrie stipulated that she wanted to teach for at least two more years.

She loved the kids too much to put a stop to it so soon after starting.

Then she’d switch over to being a substitute so that they could travel more and hopefully get pregnant.

She teased him that if he stayed in shape, he should still be able to get on the ground with an infant without too much trouble.

But she had one more request—which was really a politely worded demand.

Once she transitioned out of full-time teaching, she wanted him to help her bankroll a foundation that would help underprivileged children with an emphasis on two major priorities: providing nutrition and early reading assistance in public schools like the one where she worked.

He agreed before she’d even finished explaining the idea.

Carrie pulled into the driveway and popped the trunk.

She had four bags of groceries, so she'd need to make two trips. She grabbed the first load and headed for the front door. After fumbling with the keys for a moment, she got the door open and headed into the house to drop off the bags on the kitchen counter. Then she’d go back for the rest.