Where You Least Expect It

by Tori Carrington

  “There,” she said, pointing to a spot to the right. “Pull into the driveway.”

  He downshifted with some effort, flicked on the blinker although there was no one else on the two-lane rural road, and pulled into the gravel driveway that ran a ways before coming to a stop next to the Jenkins place.

  “Stop here.”

  They were halfway up the drive to the house. Aidan silently questioned the move, but did as she asked.

  Damn, but she was beautiful. The sunlight bounced off her shiny black hair, and her dark eyes were alive as she looked over the small structure twenty yards or so ahead of them. She blindly reached for the door handle and gave a yank; the door opened with a loud groan. She slid down to stand outside, her gaze glued to the house.

  Aidan shook his head and switched off the engine, then got out on his side of the truck.

  “It’s pretty, isn’t it,” she asked quietly.

  The smell of freshly cut grass filled Aidan’s nose as he looked over the manicured lawn. Likely the realtor’s office saw to the upkeep of the place. It almost looked as if Violet Jenkins still lived there.

  Penelope slowly stepped up the drive, stopping every couple of feet or so as if seeing something the previous vantage point hadn’t allowed. Aidan followed her gaze. The simple house was in good shape, the black roof was new, the cream-colored vinyl siding and white trim neat. There were curtains at the windows, and he suspected the place probably still held the Jenkins’ furniture.

  “It’s too far to walk to town, isn’t it?” Penelope asked.

  He looked at her. “Pardon me?”

  She looked behind them toward the truck. “I’d have to get a car. Something trustworthy.”

  “A car?” Aidan tried to make sense out of her words.

  Penelope reached out and rested her hand against the white mailbox with hummingbirds and morning glories painted on the side—for show, because the true mailbox sat at the edge of the road.

  Then it dawned on him. Penelope was thinking of buying the place.

  His legs froze beneath him.

  Her asking him to take her there… Her wide-eyed wonder as she took in the place… Her odd comments…

  Why hadn’t he caught on?

  Perhaps because he hadn’t wanted to.

  He ran his hand slowly through his hair, turning from the house and from Penelope and squinting into the sun. He pretended to consider the surrounding farmland. Well, what had he expected? That she would be the same woman she’d always been? Wasn’t he the one who had pressed her to get out, to participate more in the community? He’d even asked if she had ever considered moving from Mavis’s house.

  Then last night he’d forgotten who he was. He’d given in to his desire for her, accepted the special gift she’d offered up and tried to give back as much as he could.

  And for a short stretch of time he had wanted to make himself deserving of that gift. Of her love. Pushing aside that he never would be.

  “Aidan?”

  He stiffened his shoulders, refusing to look at her. Because when he did he got himself—and now her—into all kinds of trouble.

  She stood next to him, gazing out at the landscape.

  “It would need more trees,” she said. “I could plant a row up the property line here…and over there. Then maybe a stand out back. A few fruit trees, maybe. Pears, cherries, apples.”

  Aidan clenched his teeth as she fell silent again.

  It was only natural that she would want more. Want to live like a normal woman. Have the same dreams other women had. He hadn’t thought…

  He hadn’t thought, period. That was the problem. Sure, he’d considered the impact of getting involved with her. But it had been her uniqueness, the fact that she wasn’t like other women, that had caught him off guard. Drawn him in a way no other woman had—his late wife included.

  His gut clenched. It was the first time he’d thought of Kathleen in those terms. In the past fourteen months she had remained his wife. Not his late wife. Not the woman who had been ripped from his life in a way that had nearly destroyed him. Not the woman he would never see again.

  He felt Penelope’s light touch on his arm. “Aidan, are you all right?”

  His chaotic emotions collided with her tenderness and nearly sent him mentally careening over the edge.

  “Fine. I’m fine.” He looked at her, purposely keeping his face blank. “Are you ready to head back into town? I have some things I need to do.”

  The shadow of pain in her eyes was obvious as she hesitantly took her hand back.

  “Sure.”

  Later that night, the sun but a smear of color on the horizon, Penelope sat on the front porch alone, trying to squelch the odd sensation that things had changed between her and Aidan.

  She swallowed hard and reached for another sheet of the fluorescent purple tissue paper that she was fashioning into makeshift stars. They would be hung along with white lights from the trees along Lucas Circle for the Midsummer Night’s Dream celebration. She finished with the ten-inch-round ruffled star, then attached several stretches of clear piping to the core and tied smaller stars to the ends. She’d worked mindlessly for the past two hours straight and had nearly used up the supplies she’d picked up from Mrs. Noonan the day before. Now she was trying not to think about Aidan and where he was at this moment and what, exactly, had made him so distant from her at the Jenkins house.

  A rustling came from the direction of the bushes on the east side of the house. She glanced that way, then at Max, who lay asleep on the opposite side of the porch, Spot curled up next to him.

  Another sound. She looked that way again. A small animal? Probably. But that didn’t explain the way her scalp itched as if someone were watching her.

  A crash sounded from inside the house.

  “Gram?” she called.

  There was no answer but for several carefully chosen curse words.

  Penelope put the completed star down next to the others and got up from the swing. Through the open doorway she watched Mavis crouching to sweep up glass from a broken picture frame. Then, suddenly, it all appeared to be too much for her, and she stopped, falling back from her crouched position to land on her bottom. Penelope watched helplessly as her grandmother’s shoulders shook and a deep sob seemed ripped from her very chest.

  Penelope went to her instantly and knelt on the floor next to her. “What? What is it? What’s the matter?”

  The Moon family had never been particularly demonstrative. Oh, sure, they could help you interpret your dreams and choose you a good mate based on your chart, but ask them for a casual hug and they would be dumbstruck, incapable of such a simple action.

  Now Penelope found herself reaching for her grandmother’s too-thin shoulders, lightly touching them.

  The older woman turned her tear-filled eyes toward her granddaughter. “Sometimes I just miss her so much,” she said.

  The comment knocked the breath from Penelope’s lungs. Neither of them ever outwardly talked about Mavis’s daughter, Penelope’s mother. Heather Moon had always been a ghost of sorts that seemed to hang in the house, between them, forever present.

  Mavis leaned back against Penelope, surprising her further. She engulfed the older woman in her arms and gently rocked her. “Shh,” she said softly, smoothing her grandmother’s hair back from her face in a way she distantly remembered her own mother doing for her. “I miss her, too.”

  “You know, I ask myself over and over again if I could have done something differently. Said something. Asked for help. Maybe then… Perhaps if…” Her voice broke on a sob.

  Penelope tightened her embrace. “It’s going to be all right.”

  “It’s never going to be all right, Popi. Don’t you see that? Don’t you understand? Nothing is ever going to be all right again.”

  Her grandmother’s words frightened her. Partly because Mavis had never voiced such a thought before. But mostly because Penelope was afraid she was right.

 
Chapter Ten

  Penelope was jarred awake by a loud banging in the middle of the night. It had taken her a long time to find sleep, and then her dreams had been filled with images of Aidan drifting far away from her, nothing she did bringing him closer.

  She snapped upright in her twin bed.

  Gram.

  It had to be.

  She couldn’t be sure how long they’d sat in the middle of the living room floor rocking each other, but by the time Penelope had finally let go and stood, her legs had been stiff and she’d had to help her grandmother up. She’d seen Mavis off to bed, tucking her in in much the same way Mavis used to tuck her in. The move had seemed so strange, yet so very right.

  Another round of banging. And this time a voice drifted through her closed door along with it. “Miss Moon? Miss Moon, are you here?”

  Penelope threw the top sheet from her legs, grabbed her robe and ran into the living room to face the figure standing in the open doorway.

  “Mrs. O’Malley? Is that you?” Penelope whispered, holding her robe tightly around her.

  Her heart beat triple time as her mind raced through the multiple reasons Edith O’Malley might be paying her a visit in the middle of the night. But only one emerged clear.

  Aidan.

  Penelope was distantly aware of Mavis stumbling into the living room behind her.

  “What is it?” Penelope asked the obviously overwrought woman.

  Mavis lit a couple of candles and came to stand next to Penelope.

  “It’s Aidan,” Mrs. O’Malley said, her face looking older than Penelope had ever seen it look. “I’m sorry to come out here so late—it’s just that I don’t know if Aidan has family, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to contact them, and seeing as the two of you have been spending so much time together lately…”

  Penelope realized the older woman was also in her nightgown and a robe and that her hair was up in tiny curlers. On the road behind her sat a beige sedan, the engine still running, the headlights slicing through the darkness like search beams.

  Penelope reached out and touched the woman’s arm. “What about Aidan, Mrs. O’Malley? What’s happened?”

  Edith shook her head a couple of times, as if trying to remember where she was. “He’s been arrested.”

  Ten minutes later Penelope sat in the sedan beside Edith, after throwing on a cotton dress and a pair of sandals. In her lap she clutched her purse containing her savings passbook. Behind her, Mavis was buttoning up a blouse, having insisted on coming along.

  “I didn’t know what was happening,” Edith said, her eyes overly bright as she focused intently on the road into town. “I still don’t know what happened. I heard this ominous knocking on the front door, you know? It reminded me of when Sheriff Bullworth—he was sheriff ten years ago—came by to tell me my Harry had had a heart attack while driving back from Toledo and had died.”

  She gave a visible shudder as Penelope tried to make sense out of what she was saying.

  Mavis poked her head between the two seats. “Aidan Kendall, Edith—what happened to him?”

  “Oh. Oh! Yes—”

  She swerved slightly, and Penelope was glad that there was no one else on the road at this hour, which according to the green digital dash clock was 3:06 a.m.

  “Anyway, it was the sheriff again. Only, this time Sheriff Parker. And he said he wanted to speak to Mr. Kendall. I asked him if it couldn’t keep until morning, you know, because this is no time for someone to want a casual conversation. He told me it couldn’t wait. When I turned to go get Aidan, he was already dressed and standing on the stairway.”

  She stopped speaking. Penelope thought it might be because she needed to take a breath. Her blood surged through her veins as she waited.

  Edith looked at her. “That’s when Sheriff Parker arrested him.”

  “Just like that?” Mavis asked, incredulous.

  “Just like that. He read something from this little card, the Miranda rights I think they’re called, you know, that stuff you used to see on Matlock about the right to stay silent.”

  Now Edith went silent.

  Penelope had always loved the familiarity of Old Orchard. But as she looked out at the dark, deserted streets now, she felt a foreboding.

  She quietly cleared her throat. “Do you know what the charges were, Mrs. O’Malley?”

  She shook her head. “No. No, I don’t. I didn’t even think to ask. Because, because…” She looked directly into Penelope eyes. “Because all I could think about was why Aidan didn’t seem surprised. It was almost as if he had expected the sheriff, you know, given the way he was already dressed and everything. And he calmly turned around and offered his hands to be cuffed.” She gave a visible shiver. “Then he said something like, ‘it’s about time,’ and then they were gone.”

  “‘It’s about time’?” Mavis repeated, clearly as surprised as Penelope. “What kind of thing is that to say?”

  Penelope shushed her, wishing she could have convinced her grandmother to stay home. It was taking every ounce of self-discipline she had not to shake.

  “He’s all right, Mrs. O’Malley?”

  “All right? He’s been arrested.”

  “I mean, did he seem like himself?”

  Edith shook her head. “He didn’t even look like the same man who’s lived under my roof for the past year. The man who ate dinner with me almost every night. He looked like someone else entirely.”

  The car slowed. Penelope peeled her gaze from the older woman’s pale face and stared at the sheriff’s office. The front window was brightly lit, as it always was, and inside she could make out at least a dozen Old Orchard residents she was surprised to see up this late. She reached for the door handle, clutched her purse, then was out of the car as Edith parked.

  Inside the sheriff’s office, she sought Cole Parker, who grimaced when he spotted her.

  “Penelope. What are you doing here?” asked the sheriff.

  Her grandmother and Mrs. O’Malley entered after her.

  “I understand you have Aidan in custody,” Penelope said.

  The sheriff’s intelligent eyes took in the three women, and he straightened his shoulders. “That’s correct.”

  “May I ask what the charges are?”

  “You may, but that doesn’t mean I have to answer.”

  Mavis pushed by Penelope. “What, are they a state secret or something?”

  Penelope opened her purse and fished around for her checkbook. “Tell me how much the fine is.”

  “Fine?” Sheriff Parker asked.

  Penelope found a pen, uncapped it and began filling in a check that didn’t include the amount. “For whatever he’s done.”

  Amos McCreary snorted. “He’s robbed the General Store, missy. I don’t think any check can cover that.”

  Penelope’s hand froze, and the shaking she’d been so good at controlling since she’d first spotted Mrs. O’Malley on her front porch began in earnest. “What?” she whispered.

  Sheriff Parker frowned at the other man. “I’m afraid Amos is right, Penelope. Aidan Kendall has been arrested on suspicion of armed robbery. Two counts.”

  “Two?”

  He nodded, then glanced away from her as if unable to continue while looking at her. “That’s right. The General Store and Smythe’s filling station.”

  It took her three attempts to shove her checkbook back into her bag, her fingers were trembling so badly. “But…”

  The sheriff stepped toward her as if to steer her away from the small crowd. “I know this must come as a shock, Penelope. I swear, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the security camera tape.” He stopped walking. “It’s him. He did it.”

  “When?” she asked.

  He blinked at her. “I don’t see—”

  “When?” she demanded again. “Did it happen tonight? At what time?”

  He scanned her face and sighed. “Tonight. Or rather, last night, now that it’s three a.m. That’s all I�
��m going to say.”

  “Was the store still open? It was, wasn’t it? Which makes it before nine p.m.” She swallowed hard and lifted her chin. “If that’s the case, Sheriff, then you have the wrong man. Because Aidan was with me.”

  Aidan’s instincts had been right all along. His past had caught up with him. Right here in Old Orchard.

  Aidan sat with his forearms resting on his thighs, his head in his hands, trying to make sense out of everything that had led him to where he was right now. Accused of two counts of armed robbery. One at the gas station. The other at the General Store. Perpetrated by a man who looked remarkably like him.

  Davin.

  His twin brother. A man who resembled him in so many ways. A man who was like him not at all.

  A man who wanted to make Aidan suffer.

  Correction, make Allen Dekker suffer.

  A door opened and keys jangled. Aidan absently noticed the sounds without acknowledging them. He’d crawled deep inside himself, trying to figure out what he had done to make his brother hate him so—

  “I’m letting you out on your own recognizance.”

  Aidan lifted his head and stared at Sheriff Cole Parker. “What?”

  “You heard me.” Cole unlocked the cell door, not looking too pleased with his decision.

  Aidan rose unsteadily to his feet. “Why?”

  Cole caught and held his gaze. “Penelope Moon insists you were with her at the time of the crime.”

  Penelope…

  Aidan moved purposely forward and grabbed the cell door.

  Cole’s eyes narrowed. “I figure she’s not telling the truth, but she’s not budging an inch.”

  Aidan raked his hand through his hair, wondering what could have compelled Penelope to step forward on his behalf. He looked back at the cell and considered the past two hours he’d spent there. The lifetime he would spend in a similar cell if Davin had his way.