Tender Absolution

by Lisa Jackson

  “Ben, I didn’t know—”

  “You knew a lot, Carlie,” he said, his lips curling into a sneer of disgust, his gaze suddenly dark and menacing. He grabbed her by the shoulders, his eyes fierce, his expression haunted. “He loved you, Carlie. We both should have known it, but we didn’t want to. We were too wrapped up in each other to care about someone else. I rationalized everything—he was dating Tracy so it was okay for me to start seeing the girl that he couldn’t forget.”

  “You’ve got it all turned around,” she said, but she remembered the day on the dock when Kevin had surprised her and professed his love. She’d conveniently forgotten how wounded he’d been.

  “Do I?” Ben snarled, his face flushed in anger, his hands clenching and stretching in frustration. “Why didn’t you tell me about the letters, Carlie?”

  “The letters?” she repeated. “What letters?”

  He offered her a smile that chilled her to the bones. “You know the letters. The ones that Kevin wrote to you.”

  “I didn’t get any—”

  “Liar!” His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her upper arms. “We found some of the letters he hadn’t gotten around to sending to you and they were pretty explicit about your relationship.”

  “There was no relationship!” she said. “I’d broken up with him, if you can even call it that. There wasn’t even a reason to break up. We only had a few dates and I just told him I couldn’t go out with him anymore.”

  “But those dates…they were powerful, weren’t they?” he said, his hold punishing.

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Ben.”

  “I know about the baby.”

  Her heart stopped suddenly and she hardly dared breathe. “What baby?”

  “The baby you wouldn’t have. Kevin’s baby.”

  “Kevin’s baby? What are you talking about? I never had a baby….” Her voice failed her as her heart tightened in painful knots.

  “Because you wouldn’t,” he snarled in disgust. The look he sent her was pure hatred.

  “Oh, Ben, if you only knew.”

  “I do know. You were too selfish—”

  “Hey wait a minute!” She shoved hard on his chest. “You don’t know me, Ben Powell! Not at all. You didn’t stick around long enough to find out, did you?”

  “I know you wanted to get rid of the baby.”

  “I didn’t want to get rid of any baby,” she said, her throat closing as she shook her head in misery. Anger rushed through her veins. “You’ve got everything all twisted around. You think I was pregnant with Kevin’s child and…and that I had an abortion?”

  Horrified at his accusations, she watched the play of emotions contort his face. He was serious! He really believed this insane bunch of lies. He didn’t say a word, but condemnation sizzled in his gaze and she died a little inside. If only she could reach out, touch his hand, explain…but the censure on his face was devastating.

  Her knees nearly gave way when she thought of all the wasted years. All the lies. All the pain. Leaning against the wall for support, she shook her head. “I didn’t…I never…Kevin and I…we didn’t ever get that far.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Carlie. It’s too late.”

  “You should know better, Ben,” she said, fury taking hold of her tongue again. Eyes shimmering with unshed tears, she inched her chin up a notch and pinned him with her furious gaze. “You are the one man who should know the truth!” Her heart shredded a little. It wasn’t Kevin’s baby she’d wanted all those years ago, it was Ben’s. She’d hoped for a miracle, that though they’d made love only one night, that she would become pregnant. At the time, she’d wanted desperately to bear his child, and she’d been ecstatic when she’d skipped her period. But her euphoria had been short-lived. Though she’d taken an in-home pregnancy test that had showed positive, within weeks, she’d miscarried. Alone. The doctor had kept her secret and she’d never felt more miserable in her life.

  A tear drizzled down her cheek, but she sniffed hard before any other traces of her regret tracked from her eyes. “Don’t you remember?” she demanded, pride stiffening her spine. “I couldn’t have been pregnant, Ben, because when I was seeing Kevin, I was still a virgin.”

  He had been reaching for his toolbox, but he froze.

  “That night on the lake. In the rain? That’s the night I lost my virginity, Ben!” she said, wounded and furious all in one instant. “And I didn’t give it to Kevin. I gave it to his brother.” And I got pregnant. With your baby. Our baby!

  He stared at her in disbelief and she shook her head. “I don’t know why you want to believe this ridiculous story—”

  His face drained of color. “You were a—”

  “Too bad you weren’t paying attention,” she said bitterly. “You could have saved yourself a whole lot of time and trouble hating me for something that was so obviously a lie!”

  “I don’t believe—”

  “I don’t care what you believe,” she said in righteous fury. “You can think what you want! But the truth of the matter is that I gave my virginity to you, Ben, and if I’d been lucky enough to get pregnant it would have been with your child!” It had been with your child!

  “But—”

  “Kevin never touched me!”

  His jaw clamped tightly together.

  “I can’t believe that you let some lie and your own guilt twist things around so that you hated me for all these years. Why didn’t you come to me, Ben? Why didn’t you let me explain rather than set yourself up as judge and jury?” Trembling inside, she motioned to the door. “You’ve always been wrong about me. You were wrong then and you’re wrong now. I think you’d better go,” she said firmly. “This is my place—my private place—and I don’t want you here.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She smiled bitterly. “Then you’re a fool.”

  His lips curled and she thought he might grab her and shake her, but he muttered something under his breath, snapped his jaw shut, grabbed his toolbox and strode past. The door slammed behind him with a bang that rattled the old timbers of the house and caused the suspended light fixture to swing from the ceiling.

  Carlie collapsed on the couch. Ben had thought she’d been pregnant with Kevin’s child and then had aborted the baby? She let her head fall into her hands and the tears she’d held at bay ran from her eyes. How could he have believed that she could have been that heartless? Shuddering, she drew an old afghan to her neck. God, what a mess! She wished she could stop the cold that settled deep in her soul. She’d loved Ben, believed he’d loved her and yet he could be swayed by such vicious lies. And he didn’t even know the truth. She supposed that he never would.

  So why would he believe such horrid lies?

  Because his brother died and he felt guilty. But he didn’t have the right to believe the distortions of Kevin’s letters. The least he could have done was face her.

  Closing her eyes, she remembered all the guilt, all the pain that had seared through her soul. She’d felt somehow responsible for Kevin’s death because she hadn’t loved him, because she’d never felt for him what he’d sworn he felt for her, because she’d fallen in love with his younger brother.

  Though Kevin had left no suicide note, the general consensus in town was that Kevin had killed himself. He’d been unhappy and troubled for years. Some final straw had caused him to drive into the dilapidated garage of his tiny house, close the door and leave the Corvette running.

  Carlie had gone to the funeral hoping to speak with Ben, but the Powells had kept their distance from the rest of the mourners and the icy glares she received from Ben’s parents kept her from approaching the grieving family. Donna had returned from the Midwest to bury her son, and George, looking pale and wan, had made his wishes clear: no one was to bother the family. E
specially not Carlie Surrett.

  Carlie hadn’t wanted to intrude; she’d just wanted to talk to Ben. She’d seen him in the funeral parlor and again at the grave site but he’d never so much as glanced her way. Standing still and straight, like the soldier he would soon become, he’d stared at a point far in the distant hills while Reverend Osgood had given a final blessing over the coffin.

  The entire town had been stunned by Kevin’s unfortunate death. Gold Creek was a small community and the loss of one of its young citizens was a shock. Friends, family and acquaintances had come out in droves, paying their respects and grieving. For weeks after Kevin was buried people had spoken of the Powells’ “tragic loss” while shaking their heads.

  Carlie had tried to see Ben, before and after the funeral, but he’d refused her calls, and sent back her letters, unopened. Desperate, she’d even plotted to go to the Powells’ home on the outskirts of town where Ben was rumored to be staying with his father and demand that he see her.

  Rachelle had tried to talk her out of it. Brenda had advised her to let time go by. Her parents had told her that the Powells deserved their privacy in their time of loss.

  So Carlie had waited, working up her nerve, planning what she would say to Ben. By the time she’d found her courage and was ready to tell him that they were going to be parents, Ben had already taken off. She heard through the grapevine that he’d left town for the army. “That’s what Patty Osgood says,” her friend, Brenda, had told her three weeks after the funeral. They’d been seated at the counter in the drugstore and sipping lemonade. Brenda had swirled her ice cubes with her straw. “I usually take what Patty says as gospel, if you know what I mean. She hears all the gossip in town in church, y’know. If I were you, I’d forget him.”

  But he’s the father of my child, Carlie had wanted to scream and had held a protective hand over her abdomen.

  The rumor that Ben had joined up had proved true and Carlie had been left trying to mend her broken heart, hoping that Ben would call or write.

  She’d started cramping the day after she found out that he was gone. The bleeding, just a few drops at first, followed. She’d lost the baby that one night and her romantic dreams of Ben had turned out to be the foolish wishes of a girl caught in a one-sided love affair: she’d never heard from him again.

  “Oh, Lord,” she whispered, refusing to shed any more tears for a past that could never be changed. “Stop it, Carlie! Get a grip, would you?” Angry with her runaway emotions, she shoved herself upright and walked to the kitchen where she found a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass of Chablis.

  “Not a good sign,” she told herself as she took an experimental sip and felt the cool wine slide down her throat. “Not a good sign at all. Drinking alone.” But she didn’t care, not tonight, and she wasn’t going to sit here in the dark crying over Ben Powell or his ridiculous accusations. Let him think what he wanted. It didn’t matter.

  So why couldn’t she convince herself?

  Her stomach rumbled though it was barely five o’clock and she remembered that she’d missed lunch. The photography shop had been busy and during the noon hour, she’d driven to the hospital and visited her father. Later, there hadn’t been any time to grab anything to eat.

  Still, food wasn’t appealing. Without a lot of enthusiasm she fixed herself a small dinner of crackers, cheese and apple slices. Sipping her wine, she ate the less-than-exciting meal and didn’t taste anything, not realizing how the time was passing as she wasted the evening thinking about Ben, the man who had sworn he’d never wanted her. Not then. Not now. Not ever.

  * * *

  WRONG? HE’D BEEN wrong about Carlie? For long over a decade? Ben drove through the rain-washed streets and swore under his breath. He couldn’t trust her, of course. She was probably lying again, but the anguish in her clear blue eyes had nearly convinced him. She might be lying but she believed her lies!

  “Damn,” he muttered, his eyes narrowing against the rain drizzling down his windshield. Could he have been so stupid not to realize that Carlie had given him her virginity that night so long ago? Had he been deluding himself, wasting time hating her for a decade? Not that he’d had all that much experience himself and he’d been so caught up in his own passion that he hadn’t been thinking clearly. She hadn’t said anything and he hadn’t asked.

  Later, upon finding the letters in Kevin’s house and reading between the lines, thus learning of Carlie’s pregnancy, Ben had felt as if a hot knife of betrayal had been twisted in his heart. The thought that she’d made love to Kevin had burned like acid in his gut and he’d thrown up. What had been so special between them suddenly seemed dirty and incestuous and ugly. His blossoming love for her had withered quickly into hatred, a hatred his family had helped nurture.

  So why was he half believing her and second-guessing himself? Because he wanted her. Even though he professed to hate her, he couldn’t help remembering the feel of her body against his, the way her lips rounded when she moaned, the curve of her neck when he held her close. His fingers clenched hard over the steering wheel and he nearly missed stopping for a red light. At the last minute he slammed on his brakes. A furious horn blasted from behind him.

  “Damn,” he said under his breath.

  Another impatient honk warned him that the light had changed yet again, and he tromped on the accelerator, the back wheels spinning on the wet pavement. At the next corner, he wheeled into the parking lot of a gas station and cut the engine.

  He climbed out of the cab and waved to the attendant, Joe Knapp, a man who’d gone to school with him years before. Joe had been captain of the football team way back when and after school, when he’d had his leg crushed while working in the woods for Fitzpatrick Logging, Joe’s dreams of a career in football had been destroyed, as well. Kind of like Kevin. Only Joe had survived, married a hometown girl, Mary Beth Carter, and seemed happy enough with his wife and kids.

  Scowling to himself, Ben shoved the nozzle of the pump into the gas tank and listened as the liquid poured into his truck.

  He couldn’t trust Carlie. Couldn’t! Oh, but a part of him would love to. That same rebellious part that still wanted to kiss her senseless and make love to her forever.

  That thought caused him to start and he nearly let the gas overflow.

  “You’re losing it, Powell,” he growled to himself as he turned off the pump. With thoughts of Carlie trailing after him like a shadow, he walked inside the small Texaco station that had been on the corner of Hearst and Pine for as long as he could remember. The building had changed hands, but it still smelled of grease and stale cigarette smoke and oil.

  “Good to see you around here again,” Joe said as he took Ben’s credit card in his grimy fingers. “I thought you’d said adios to Gold Creek forever.”

  “So did I.”

  Joe flashed him a toothy smile as he ran Ben’s card through the verification machine. “So you feel like the prodigal son?”

  “Nope. Just the black sheep.”

  Joe laughed and Ben signed the receipt. The conversation turned to football. The usual stuff. If the 49ers were going to the Super Bowl the following season, or if L.A. had a better chance. As if it mattered.

  Later, as Ben drove away from the station and through the heart of town, he couldn’t remember any of the conversation. Retail buildings gave way to houses that bordered the eastern hills, but he didn’t notice any of the landmarks that had been a part of his hometown.

  Because of Carlie. Damn that woman! Why couldn’t he get her out of his head?

  Ben liked things cut-and-dried, clear and to the point and structured. That’s why he’d felt comfortable in the army, working his way up through the rank and file, and that’s why he’d planned to come back to Gold Creek, start his own business, settle down with a sensible small-town girl and raise his family. His future had seemed so
clear.

  Until he’d seen Carlie again.

  And until he’d listened to her side of the story. Her lies. Or her truth?

  “Hell,” he growled as he turned into the drive of his little house that wasn’t far from the city limits of Gold Creek. Ben had rented the place from an elderly woman, Mrs. Trover, who lived at Rosewood Terrace in an apartment just down the hall from his father. Ben promised to keep the house up, including minor and major repairs, which he could deduct from the monthly rent. It wasn’t much, two bedrooms, living room, single bath, kitchen, laundry room and a basement that leaked in the winter, but it had become home and he was certain, when the time was right, he could probably buy the house, outbuildings and half acre of land from Mrs. Trover on a contract.

  He turned off the ignition and sat in the pickup for a second. The cottage needed more than a little repair—“TLC” he’d heard it called, but Ben knew it was just plain hard work. Even when it was brought up to code, the house wouldn’t be ritzy and Ben couldn’t picture Carlie living here with a tiny bathroom and a kitchen so small, only one person could work in it. Rubbing his jaw, he wondered why he kept trying to picture her in his future. She was all wrong for him. Kevin had told him as much long ago.

  He should have listened. Maybe then Kevin would still be alive and Ben wouldn’t walk around with a load of guilt on his shoulders for falling for his older brother’s girl.

  Trying to shove Carlie and all the emotional baggage she brought with her from his mind, he grabbed the sack of dog food he’d purchased earlier in the day and hauled the bag to the back door. “Honey, I’m home,” he said as he unlocked the door.

  Attila growled from the darkened interior.

  “Well, at least you still have your sweet disposition.”

  A deep-throated bark.

  “Come on, get out of here and do your business,” Ben said leaving the outside door open as he walked into the kitchen and found a mixing bowl. The dog padded after him, hackles raised, but not emitting a sound. “Go on. You don’t have to follow me around.” He sliced open the sack, poured the dry dog food into the bowl and set it on the kitchen floor.