by Natalie Dean
“Yeah. He does call her that. If I make you uncomfortable, I can get one of my brothers, but then you might be late.”
“No!” she objected a little forcefully and seemed to even surprise herself. “I mean, no, it’s fine. I’m sorry if I reacted poorly. You’re just possibly the last person I expected to see. Thank you. I really do appreciate this.”
She gave Ben a sheepish sort of look and it was hard for him to keep his heart from melting at the sight. How her dark eyes could always convey so much emotion still amazed him. They were far too easy to drown in, so he just tipped his head down, so he didn’t have to look at them.
“Apology accepted.”
Mrs. Parker leaned out of her seat between Ben and Chastity, looking amused. “Are we going to get on the road for these silly tests that I don’t really need, or just lollygag in the street all day?”
“Sorry, Mom. Just having a chat. We’ll be leaving shortly.”
“I don’t think we need to go at all. I’m just humoring you because I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Chastity’s gaze flicked to Ben in embarrassment, and he asked in a whisper if her mom really was sick. She nodded, giving him his answer. Well, that was that. He went to go to the driver’s seat, but paused for a moment, wondering if he should help Chastity into the back seat like he had aided her mother into the front, but Chastity was in the car before he could come to a conclusion.
At least that much hadn’t changed. Even from a young age, Chastity had always been independent.
Ben supposed that was why they ultimately went their separate ways.
Shaking that thought from his head, he went back around the truck and got in. As the engine came to life, it made him feel better. If anyone tried to draw him into a conversation, he could just comment that he needed to concentrate on driving.
He headed toward the main road and out of town when he heard Mrs. Parker begin to address him.
“You look familiar, young man. Do I know you? And more importantly, do you know my daughter, Chastity? She’s single, you know.”
“Mother!”
Ben couldn’t help when the corner of his mouth curled into a smirk at first. It seemed that it was a mother’s job everywhere to humiliate their children. But then another part of her statement sunk in. Did she not recognize him? He was aware that he had grown taller since his high school days where he would spend hours studying on their couch, but he was sure that he was distinguishable as Benedict Miller.
“Don’t you remember me, Mrs. Parker?”
She blinked at him, clearly confused. “Why would I recognize a cab driver?”
“A cab dri—” Ben cut himself off, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror to glance at Chastity. Her face had gone pale, and her eyes were firmly set upon her mother.
Oh.
It seemed she really was sick.
A sinking feeling filled Ben’s stomach as he realized what the situation might be. He fervently hoped and prayed it wasn’t the case, but he remembered when Auntie McKenzie’s mind started to go. It had been a terrible process, and in the end, she only recognized one of her daughters. He hated to think of Chastity having to go through that.
Lord, please let it be something curable by these doctors, he prayed to himself.
“This is Ben Miller,” Chastity said slowly, as if she wasn’t sure that she should be correcting her mother at all or letting her stay in whatever reality she had at the moment. “You remember him from my high school days, right?”
“Ben? Ben Miller… I…” Mrs. Parker seemed to think about it, and then her eyes lit up. “Ah yes! He was the boy that you used to be head over heels in love with and the two of you were planning on running away together, right?”
Because of course she would say that.
The truck was silent for a moment with Mrs. Parker just blinking expectantly, like she didn’t understand what she had done. Ben wasn’t about to touch that with a ten-foot pole, so after what felt like a full minute, Chastity cleared her throat.
“Yeah. Used to.”
For some reason, those three words stung much more than they should have.
10
Chastity
Chastity wrung her hands as the highway whipped by, her mind seemingly everywhere at once.
Of course, it was Ben who would come and get her. Because that’s what life liked to do to her. And of course, her mother would have a moment of lucidity concerning the man where she would remember that they had once been an item.
It made far too many memories and feelings pop up. Ones that she had long stuffed deep down in her heart or shoved to the back of her head in her desperate march to pay the bills while constantly being broke.
When she was younger, she had been such a hopeless romantic. It had taken a decade in the city to hammer those tendencies out, but now she found them rising to the surface again. How ridiculous! She was a grown woman, but she was letting herself get butterflies over a man who—until very, very recently—she had assumed she would never see again.
Thankfully the conversation lulled for the rest of the ride, her mother instead humming ditties along with the radio. While the quiet gave Chastity too much time to think, at least it didn’t force her into conversation with the man who had almost managed to keep her from following her dreams—the dreams that weren’t exactly panning out like she had hoped.
Ben parked and went around the car like a gentleman, opening Chastity’s car door first but thankfully not physically helping her out. That he saved for her mother, whom he gently assisted out of his tall truck and onto the ground.
It seemed that much hadn’t changed. She remembered watching him with newborn lambs or little chicks. He always had such a gentle spirit to him despite his rugged cowboy ways.
Her gaze flicked to his hands as he guided his mother gently inside of the doctor’s office. She remembered those hands on her back when they were younger. They had always tried to play things carefully and honor God by not passing over a certain line, but they had certainly made out like there was no tomorrow. What an awkward thing to think while her mother was tottering into a strange doctor’s office.
Thankfully, those thoughts fell off as they headed inside, and she helped her mom check in. She wanted once again to accompany her mother to the room, but once more was told by her mother that she didn’t need Chasity to go in with her. Since she wasn’t documented as being unable to take care of herself and was lucid at the moment, Chastity found herself relegated to the waiting room.
She sat down in a chair, her leg bouncing, and Ben sat several seats away from her. It wasn’t as harsh as plopping himself down on the opposite side of the room, but it spoke to just how far apart they were now.
She shouldn’t have to feel guilty for following her dreams. Her parents had never really believed in her, with old fashioned ideas about how she should be married and have kids because that was the best destiny a woman could hope for. The ultimate fulfillment of her design as a female.
It wasn’t that Chastity hated the thought of marriage or kids or any of that stuff, but she resented the fact that her parents thought that was the pinnacle of her potential. She could touch the moon, discover new planets, cure cancer, anything really, but they didn’t seem to believe or care about that. Her father had even gone so far as to tell her that taking all of those advanced classes was a waste of time and the only need to go to college was for her “Mrs.” degree.
So, of course, she had to get away. She had thought that Ben understood that and would come with her. Sure, maybe they would return to his ranch later and help run things, but they would experience all of the things that weren’t in their small town. They would go beyond the borders that so many people set for themselves.
But he hadn’t wanted to.
She didn’t get how he couldn’t understand how much that hurt her. He framed their breakup as something caused entirely by her and her wanderlust, but he had promised
her that he’d come too. As far as she was concerned, it was Ben who had broken his word.
Her eyes flitted to him, taking in his profile as he quietly read a book. He was tall, broad, and whipped into a fine shape that seemed to come from eating hearty, homecooked meals and doing labor-intensive work all day. His sandy-blond hair was a bit longer than he used to wear it, just slightly developing a curl to it. She remembered how shaggy it used to be in high school and how she would run her hands through it.
The truth was, she’d always had a bit of a thing for sandy-blond hair, and when the guy with almost that exact shade of hair at the school, who also happened to be handsome and popular, suddenly started talking to her, she had thought she was dreaming.
But it wasn’t a dream. Just like how this wasn’t a nightmare. No, this was her life now. Her awkward, uncomfortable, spiraling life.
There was only so much wallowing in her own misery that she could do, however, and so Chastity forced herself to take a deep breath. She should at least try to be an adult about things. After all, she was going back home in a month or so, provided her mother was all right, and Ben had been kind enough to give them a ride. He certainly didn’t have to do that.
In truth, she almost wished he hadn’t.
Getting up from her seat, she crossed to him and sat down. He lifted his head from his book but didn’t quite turn his neck to look at her. Instead, he stared straight ahead at the wall—like he was afraid to look at her.
“Are you enjoying that?” she asked, having no idea how to start a conversation with the man that she had secretly been comparing all other men to since she was young.
“Enjoying what?” he asked, clearly surprised by the sudden conversation.
“The book.”
“It’s all right.”
The corners of her mouth went up in a slight smile. It seemed that Ben still had his knack for short, simple answers. While he was a man of few words, when he did speak, it made people listen that much more.
“I read it about a year and a half ago, I think. I enjoyed it. I thought the writer had great imagery, and I’m a sucker for a bit of banter.”
Now it was his turn to smile ever so slightly. “You always have been fairly silver-tongued.”
“Oh, when you say it that way, it makes me sound a bit nefarious.”
“Does it?” he replied innocently, his smirk increasing the tiniest bit more.
She turned, giving him one of her signature looks that she chronically employed at the diner where she worked between acting gigs. “If anyone is aware of the possible implications of their words, it’s you.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” he said, impressively still holding his neutral tone. “I’m just a dumb cowboy after all.”
Chastity almost snorted at that. “Anyone who thinks you’re dumb is in for a rude awakening. I’d want to be there to see it when you totally cut the legs out from under them.”
“Really? You think it’d be some sort of grand affair? I figured I would just talk to them if I wanted to prove them wrong.”
Now she physically turned in her seat to look at him. It was so easy to slip into conversation with him, all their awkwardness from before fading to the background as the banter started to flow. “You like to pretend that you don’t have a flair for the dramatic, but I know better than that.”
He put the book down and glanced at her, his green eyes sharp and intense enough to make her heart skip a beat. “Oh, do you?”
She nodded, feeling excitement well up in her belly. “I can see it now. You’d play along, all taciturn and agreeable, until the perfect moment when you would suddenly reveal that you knew that they were trying to dupe you all along. There would be other people there too, so they could witness the realization as it swept across your victim’s face.”
“Uh-huh. And just who are these nefarious people whom I’m exposing?”
“Hey,” she said, pointing a finger toward his face. “Don’t go stealing my word.”
“I’m pretty sure you didn’t invent the word ‘nefarious.’”
“How would you know? You’re just a dumb cowboy.”
Finally, his smirk grew into a full-blown smile. “I see. So, you’re the bad guy.” He leaned in ever so slightly, his warm breath ghosting over her face. Suddenly, she was keenly aware of just how…there he was. His broad shoulders, his calloused, tanned hands. All she needed to do was reach out and touch his—
No.
That was not good.
That was really not good.
Emotionally, she backpedaled and realized she was following a path that she couldn’t be on. Swallowing hard, she said something she knew would stop whatever magnetism was pulling them together.
“That’s how you’ve been painting me all these years, isn’t it?”
She felt the hitch in his breath, and he sat back up. He didn’t say a single word and instead picked up his book again.
Oh dear. Now Chastity felt guilty. She swore she didn’t know if she was heads or tails with this man. All she knew was when she looked at him, it was so easy to feel like a young woman again, still fresh and free from all the bitterness handed to her while on the relentless treadmill of life. Back when anything was possible.
But that bubble was popped long ago. It would do her well to remember that, lest she run into the same problems she always had.
She’d dated, sure, but of the three relationships she’d had since she left Blanche Creek, none of them had panned out. The first had been madly in love with her, but she couldn’t feel the same way back. It was like her heart was somewhere else, outside of her body, and while she did enjoy his company, she never felt much else.
The second, she’d had more hope for, but then she found out he was hooking up with one of her friends. Apparently, he found her reluctance toward sex ridiculous, saying it was bizarre that she was nearly thirty and still a virgin.
It wasn’t like she was so devoted to God that she’d taken a vow of chastity—hah, the irony of that. In fact, her faith had wavered multiple times in the city. It was just that she never felt close enough to anyone to do anything more intimate beyond kissing. It was like there was a level of trust that she couldn’t reach.
Maybe she was broken.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, looking down at the ground. She could feel a wave of emotions coming on, and she was desperately trying to cut them off. She was strong and would get through this. She was letting the situation get to her far too much. “That was uncalled for.”
“It’s the truth,” Ben said with a shrug. “For years you’ve been the girl who broke my heart, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t resent you for abandoning me.”
“Abandoning you?” Chastity repeated. “You’re the one who abandoned me.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“Then you’re remembering it wrong.” It was a struggle to keep her voice calm, but somehow, she managed. “It happened in senior year after school between rehearsal breaks. You came to visit me, and we went outside to sit on the bleachers and complain about the director. You were wearing that blue turtleneck that I loved and had just cut your hair.”
She closed her eyes, picturing it all.
“I can remember it like it was yesterday. I told you how I was going to go to Broadway and have my name in lights. I told you that I would prove to the director that I wasn’t some chubby character actress and that I could be an ingénue.
“I remember distinctly that I paused and said I would work out some way to come visit you every month, Broadway or not, and you looked at me with those big, green eyes of yours, with all those lashes and starshine that comes with teenage love, and you said you would come with me.”
Chastity tried to hold back the tears welling in her eyes.
“I don’t know how you forgot that, because it’s burned into my memory like the sun. I held your face in my hands, asking if you meant it, and you promised that you did. We kissed and kissed and kisse
d until I was dizzy, and then you tightly held my hand as we walked back inside.”
Chastity could feel him staring at her, his mouth in a tight line for several moments. It took a lot of willpower to return his glance, and she was surprised to see guilt written across his features.
“I guess I had forgotten about that,” he said, his voice almost too quiet to hear. “But I remember it now.”
“How fortunate,” she retorted less than gracefully. “Only twelve years later.”
“I’m s—”
“Ms. Parker?”
Chastity’s head snapped to the door to see a nurse standing there. It was déjà vu from the other office, but she stood immediately. She had an idea of what was happening.
“Yes?”
“Your mother has requested that you meet with the doctor as her power of attorney.”
“Right.” Chastity looked to Ben, not wanting to leave things how they currently were, but not seeing much of a choice. “I’ll be back.”
She followed after the nurse, and once more was led into the back to an office.
A doctor was there, a tall woman with short blond hair and an intense expression. She smiled briefly when Chastity entered and gestured to a chair.
“Have a seat, please.”
Chastity complied, and soon the doctor started talking.
“So Mrs. Parker requested that I talk to you because she was feeling confused. She gave me permission to explain the situation to you, is that okay?”
Chastity nodded. Was her mom having another one of her spells? Chastity hadn’t really been around long enough to know if this was a thing of grief or the beginning of a long-term memory problem.
“Yes, please.”
“Thank you.” The doctor’s face turned even more serious. “The earliest of our tests won’t process until tomorrow, and several will take about four weeks to confirm any sort of diagnosis. But I do believe that your mother is displaying signs of dementia. It’s too early to classify what kind it is—”