Grabbing the portable again, he dialed Mary’s number, hoping Alex would pick up the phone. And hung up immediately when he heard his ex-wife answer. He could pretend to be selling something or doing a survey, but she’d recognize his voice in an instant. At least she wouldn’t be able to figure out who’d called, even if she had caller ID. He’d requested an unlisted number when he moved to Shelter Valley.
“We could take a road trip,” he told the dog, who was busy untying the lace of his tennis shoe. “Sit outside the house until I see a chance to get Alex alone.”
And if he was caught, his chances of being squeaky-clean and out of trouble were nil. If he was caught, he’d lose his own credibility. The authorities might even be persuaded to believe the bastard was right—that Ben was just trying to make trouble for his ex-wife’s new husband.
The dog jumped up, paws braced against Ben’s stomach, and tried to lick his face. Lucky for Ben, Buddy’s tongue wasn’t that long.
“No kisses, Bud,” he said in the uncompromising tone he’d learned at obedience school the previous week.
No kisses, Ben, he thought to himself, remembering the day before, in the library. He hadn’t planned to kiss her. But it had felt so good. Like something inevitable, just waiting to happen. And she’d responded, no question about that. He’d been stunned when she started fighting him, and when she’d run off, he’d simply let her go.
And then he’d spent the entire night speculating about possible explanations for her actions.
Down on the floor, Buddy stared up at him.
“You think it was just a lack of desire for me, don’t you?” he muttered to the dog. “You think I don’t turn her on, but you’re wrong.” Buddy wagged his tail.
“Her reaction was too violent,” Ben said aloud, although he was no longer looking at his dog.
Christine had secrets. Serious ones. And Ben couldn’t rest easy until he knew more about them. Until he did everything possible to help her. Much as he’d like to believe he could walk away, Christine had become far too important to him. He’d been missing her like crazy since school had ended. Missing her, because he had no idea when he’d see her again.
And now he couldn’t be sure, if he happened to run into her, that she’d even speak to him. Just when he’d been thinking he’d finally gotten through to her, that he could feel confident of her friendship.
And just when he needed her the most, needed to tell her about Alex, needed a second rational mind to depend on.
All in all, it had been one hell of a rotten couple of days.
“CAN WE TALK?”
“Of course.” Phyllis put down the book she was reading and patted her bed. “You’ve had a rough weekend, huh?”
Sitting on the bottom corner of the still-made bed, one leg up, the other braced on the floor, Tory nodded. It was early Sunday evening, and Tory hadn’t had an hour’s peace since she’d run out on Ben Friday afternoon. She’d tried to handle this on her own. To escape back into that place deep inside where nothing touched her.
“I hope I haven’t been keeping you up,” she said. She’d tried to be quiet during her mostly sleepless nights—would’ve just left and opened up the Mustang on the empty Arizona roads if she hadn’t still been jumpy from the encounter with the Jeep.
“You didn’t.” Phyllis fluffed the pillows propped behind her as she spoke. “But you’ve been even quieter than usual.” She smiled gently. “And the shadows under your eyes were a bit of a giveaway.”
Tory smiled back, although the gesture was without any real humor. “I’m losing my edge,” she said. “Getting soft.”
“And that’s bad?”
Looking down at her hands against the soft cotton of her black sweatpants, rubbing one thumb against the other, Tory shrugged. “It is if I’m going to survive.”
“Survive? As opposed to what? Live?”
Tory glanced up. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked angrily.
“You’ve been surviving for years now, Tory. Isn’t it time you started to live?”
Tory didn’t know what to say. Her anger fled, but she had no response. She knew what Phyllis meant…and yet she didn’t. Tory shook her head helplessly.
“What brought this on now?” Phyllis asked. Her legs were stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankles.
“I don’t know,” Tory said, unable to tell Phyllis what she so desperately wanted to tell her. “This whole town, I guess. People talk to me when I go into a store. I know them.”
“And that’s bad?” Phyllis repeated her earlier question.
“No.” And that was the problem. “Yes. It scares me.”
“Why?”
Tory, meeting Phyllis’s direct gaze, shrugged, not answering right away. “Because it’s not real,” she said at last. She spoke slowly, trying her best to release the furor inside. “I’m not real.”
“Of course you’re real, Tory! You’re a living, breathing, feeling human being just like everyone else.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes,” Phyllis said, “but just because you have problems, difficult ones, doesn’t mean you aren’t as real and alive as the rest of us.” Her hands, never still for long, gave emphasize to every word. “We all have problems of some sort.”
Tory would have liked to accept that philosophy. “It’s Christine they know and like, not me.”
“You’re the person they know. Only the job is Christine’s.”
But the job was a big part of the person they knew. The job earned their respect. Earned Ben’s respect.
“I’m starting to care about them,” she ventured quietly. “Becca and everything she accomplishes. I loved wrapping those presents, contributing something. And I like Martha. My students. Mr. Weber and his quaint little department store. The people at the diner.”
“Yeah!” Phyllis leaned forward. “That’s the best news yet, Tory. Don’t you see? You’re starting to heal. To be able to feel normal things. Shelter Valley is working its magic.”
“And what happens to me when I have to run? How do I survive when I’m all alone again?”
Folding her legs beneath her, Phyllis continued to lean toward Tory. “The running is over.”
Tory shivered, in spite of the sweatshirt she’d pulled on earlier when the sun had gone down.
“I think Bruce is having me watched.”
Phyllis froze. “Why? Since when? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m not sure.” Tory played with a string on the hem of her pants. “I keep thinking maybe I’m just being paranoid.”
“It’s possible.” Phyllis nodded, but her voice was cautious. “Tell me about it.”
Tory stumbled through the three occasions she’d thought she was being followed, ending with Friday’s Jeep incident. She waited for Phyllis to calmly assure her that she was imagining things. That her fear was simply a normal, instinctive reaction to a life on the run.
“If it’s Bruce’s men, they must still think you’re Christine,” Phyllis said.
Tory’s stomach knotted. “You think there’s a chance I’m not imagining this?”
“Maybe,” Phyllis said, her elbows on her knees.
“What I do know is that we don’t want to underestimate anything.” The look in her eyes was dead serious. “We thought Bruce might keep an eye on Christine for a while. If he is, we’ll just have to make sure that Christine is the person he sees.”
“And how do we do that?”
“By doing exactly what we’re doing. You’ve got a new life now, Tory, one you’re settling into amazingly well. Everyone here believes you’re Christine Evans. That alone should convince anyone who’s spying on you—because people see what they expect to see.”
“And what happens if Bruce comes here himself? What happens if he discovers it’s me?”
Phyllis’s gaze held Tory’s for a long moment, and then dropped, her fingers clasped in front of her.
“Then I have to be abl
e to survive running again,” Tory said.
“He’s not going to find you.” Phyllis looked up.
“His men are going to report the fact that Christine is an academic, just as she was in Boston, and he’s going to be assured that everything is as he knows it to be.”
That had been the plan from the beginning.
“You have a new life, Tory,” Phyllis said urgently. “Don’t let him ruin it, too.”
Did she have a new life? Or was her time in Shelter Valley just another trap, like the one she’d been living in for years—sometimes safe but never free?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“YOU’VE MADE FRIENDS here in Shelter Valley, Tory. People who really care about you.” Phyllis was still trying to persuade Tory, almost as though she could read her doubts.
But Tory was afraid to believe. Because she needed to so badly, and because believing would only make things that much harder if she had to leave.
“Who cares about me?”
“Becca and Will Parsons, for starters.” Phyllis stretched out her legs, although she was still sitting forward. “There was a message for you from Becca yesterday. You’re invited to the Parsonses’ annual Christmas party, and of all the people in Shelter Valley, all the people Will knows at Montford, there are only about fifty on that list.”
Tory tried not to let herself feel too good about that. “You’re on it.”
“Yeah, well, that’s because I met Becca and Will at a very precarious time for all of us, and we kind of bonded. It stuck—like instant glue.”
“Who else is going to be there?”
“Becca’s family, of course. You’ve met Sari, and she has two older sisters, Betty and Janice. Her mother, Rose, is a bit of a character. She lives in a world of her own, loves gossip, yet hardly knows what’s going on, even in her own daughters’ lives. And she always wears vintage getups, with flamboyant colors and these wild hats.”
Tory smiled. “She sounds like fun.”
“Will’s family will be there, too,” Phyllis added. “You might have met Randi. She’s the women’s athletic director at Montford, and Will’s little sister.”
“I don’t think I have.” Tory shook her head.
“How old is she?”
“Thirty.”
Four years older than Tory and a “little” sister. “She’s married?”
Phyllis shook her head, frowning. “Nope, and I can’t figure it. She’s a knockout, with short blond hair and the same big brown eyes that Will has. She’s got a great sense of humor. She’s fun. Terrific at her job.”
“Maybe she’s not friendly,” Tory said, envious of a woman she’d never met.
“She’s one of the friendliest people I’ve ever known,” Phyllis said, dispelling that hope. “People just gravitate toward her. She’s got lots of friends, male and female.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting her,” Tory said. She propped her hands behind her on the mattress, leaning on them. Randi Parsons sounded intriguing, and if Tory could attend that party and just be herself, she’d probably enjoy her company.
“Martha will be there. She was Becca’s maid of honor back when they were in college. And probably Will’s friend, John Strickland. He’s the architect doing the new signature classroom building at school. He lost his wife a couple of years ago, and I think Becca said he’s spending the holidays with her and Will.”
“Have I ever met him?” New people made Tory nervous. Bruce’s spies were everywhere, could infiltrate any situation, as she well knew.
“No. He’s not from Arizona, but he’s been here a lot since last spring, when he first started working with Will.”
Since last spring. Before Christine had even applied to Montford. He was okay then.
“Becca said she also invited Ben, because she’s expecting the Montfords.”
Ben. The subject Tory had been trying to avoid since Friday afternoon. The subject that had driven her to Phyllis’s room tonight.
“He kissed me,” she blurted out. Then cringed.
“He did!” Phyllis scrambled onto her knees. Smile fading, she asked, “Did you kiss him back?” Her voice was hesitant.
Tory nodded. Sort of. She licked her lips. Swallowed. Made herself go on. “I’m so confused I’m going crazy,” she confessed, her gaze meeting Phyllis’s.
“Because you like him?”
Tory shrugged. “I miss him a lot, I know that much.”
“I understand.”
Her hands back in her lap, Tory studied them.
“So did you like his kiss?” Phyllis’s question was soft, coaxing—yet oddly respectful.
“At first, I was in shock,” Tory admitted. “But he was so patient and gentle, and before I knew what was happening, I started to respond. I wanted him to keep right on kissing me.” She paused, looked up at Phyllis. “I really felt honest-to-goodness desire, for a few seconds, anyway.” She blinked, trying to dispel the tears that were gathering in her eyes.
“What happened?” Phyllis asked.
“He put his arms around me and I freaked.”
Phyllis nodded, and Tory felt a little relieved. Her friend didn’t seem shocked or disgusted…or despairing.
“Suddenly I felt trapped and I panicked. I shoved him away from me and ran like a bat out of hell. I didn’t stop until I was safely locked in my car.”
“How did he react to that?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen or talked to him since.”
“When was this?”
“Friday afternoon.”
“Have you told Ben anything about your past?”
Tory stared at Phyllis. “Of course not! We can’t talk about that.” And then she had a horrified thought. “You haven’t told anyone, have you? Because if you do, Bruce is going to find out. I don’t know how, but he will.”
“Relax,” Phyllis said, placing a gentle hand on Tory’s. “Of course I haven’t said anything. I didn’t mean to imply that you should tell Ben about Christine or any of that.”
“Then what—”
“I just wondered if you’d told him about your stepfather’s abuse or your ex-husband’s. Without mentioning names or divulging details.”
Shaking her head, Tory looked away, brought one knee up to her chin.
“Don’t you think maybe you should?”
“No.”
“You care about the man, Tory.”
She glanced over, intending to deny Phyllis’s statement, but meeting her eyes, she couldn’t do it.
“And it’s pretty obvious he cares about you, too.”
No. He didn’t care. He couldn’t. Tory felt suddenly chilled. And warmed at the same time.
“He needs to know enough about your past to understand that when you react like that, it’s not him you’re reacting to.”
“Why?” What was the point? Tory wasn’t living a real life, couldn’t move toward a future based on the fallacy she and Phyllis had created.
“So you don’t hurt him, for one thing,” Phyllis said. More softly, she added, “and because he’ll be able to help you, Tory. You care about him. You’re attracted to him. This is your chance to heal.”
“I think Friday was proof that I’m incapable of normal male-female interaction.”
And it was killing her. In spite of the fact that any feeling she might have for Ben could go nowhere, in spite of the fact that she might never be free to live a normal life, embark on a normal relationship, she needed to believe that, if the opportunity ever arose, she could.
“On the contrary,” Phyllis said. “It proves exactly the opposite. You were with a man you care about. A man you trust and feel safe with, and because of that, you were able to feel desire. That’s the best news we’ve had yet.”
“But what about the rest of it?”
“It’ll come with time, honey,” Phyllis promised her. “With understanding and patience.”
“I don’t know…”
“Maybe Ben will have to adjust his technique at
first, learn to touch you without confining you, but if he cares about you the way I suspect he does, he’ll welcome the opportunity to do whatever it takes to help you through this.”
It all sounded far too good to be true. Tory had a hard time believing such a person even existed. At least in her world.
“He probably doesn’t want anything to do with me after what I did on Friday.”
“He deserves to know why you reacted with such fear. You have to see that.”
“What I see,” Tory said passionately, “is that I have no right to start anything with anyone when I can’t even tell him who I really am. You think Ben cares about me and…and maybe he does, but he doesn’t even know my name!”
“Tory…”
“And I can’t tell him,” she continued, “because if I did I’d probably get all three of us killed.”
ON MONDAY, Ben lost the battle with his self-control. Either he got himself some help or he was going to Alex. Who knew what could be happening to her while he sat safe and sound in his little apartment with his loyal sap of a dog, waiting.
We need you to be squeaky-clean… The nurse’s words came back to him.
“Alex, honey, I’m trying,” he said, startling Buddy out of his morning nap.
He was trying. But it wasn’t working.
Grabbing his keys, Ben strode out to the truck. Alex needed him squeaky-clean. And he needed help if he was going to manage that.
He hadn’t been back to Christine’s house since Thanksgiving.
They’d added Christmas lights, red bows and a Santa with a sleigh to the picture-perfect yard.
Parking his truck out front, he paused long enough to wonder if he should be there. If, after last Friday, there was anything for him to find inside that house. He paused, but didn’t stop.
There were some things he didn’t understand about Christine, secrets she held close, but that didn’t stop his strange compulsion to be near her.
There were some things that, while unspoken, were strangely understood.
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