Where You Least Expect It

by Tori Carrington

“So are you coming, or not?” Cole asked.

  A part of Aidan wanted to tell him to close the door. He didn’t want to cause Penelope any problems.

  Another part told him he would seal his own fate if he didn’t accept this opportunity.

  He walked out, his mind crowded with possibilities and ideas…and fear for the woman who had just pointed out her existence to the man who could hurt them all.

  Penelope stumbled to her feet from where she’d been sitting next to her grandmother on the front bench, trying to prevent the woman from saying anything that would find her behind bars alongside Aidan. Given her past history with the sheriff’s office, Mavis wasn’t shy about sharing her feelings about them. Actually, considering Gram’s fountain activities, Penelope was beginning to suspect that her grandmother wasn’t shy about much of anything anymore.

  But after tonight’s crying jag, she also knew Mavis was as soft as a Moon Pie inside and that her soul had been bruised irreparably when her daughter took her own life.

  “Shh,” Penelope said, sensing something was happening. Everyone in the office turned as Cole came from the back. She curled her fingers into her palms as Aidan followed after him.

  The room was so quiet, she could hear her heart beat. Especially when Aidan gave her little more than a brief, hard glance and passed her on his way down the street.

  Penelope’s throat tightened to the point of pain. She seemed to be frozen to the spot, incapable of hearing anything beyond the crash of blood past her ears. Somehow she managed to force her legs to move and she stumbled out of the office after him, blind to everything else around her.

  “Aidan?” she said quietly.

  He strode purposefully down the dark street away from her.

  “Aidan!” she called.

  He turned to face her, and they both stood as still as the lampposts that illuminated the night.

  “Why did you lie, Penelope?”

  She blinked at him, confused, then glanced toward the glass front of the sheriff’s office. Mavis and Mrs. O’Malley were watching through the window, along with the sheriff and the others gathered. She managed to move the short distance that would put her out of their line of sight.

  “I don’t understand…” she whispered.

  Why would her convincing the sheriff to let him go until arraignment the following morning upset him?

  A brief shadow of sadness moved over his features. But it was gone too quickly for her to respond. She could only think of her first impression of him—that he looked sadder than any man she’d ever seen.

  “You risked yourself for me,” he said evenly. “I don’t ever want you to do that again.”

  Her knees felt strangely elastic. “I’d do anything to help you.”

  “And if I had committed those crimes?”

  “You couldn’t have,” she said.

  “Who says?” he asked, his dark brows raised ominously. “You? Do you think you really know me well enough to say that I’m incapable of such an act?”

  Suddenly he had moved and was standing directly before her, his presence both menacing and reassuring. She swallowed hard.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  He grasped her arm roughly. “You think so, do you? You think you know me, Penelope?” He leaned in close so that his hot breath swept over her cheek. She shivered in excitement and a hint of fear.

  “I know your heart,” she said firmly.

  His gaze flicked over her face and that sadness again entered his eyes. His fingers released her, but she still felt his touch.

  She knew this man’s soul as well as she knew her own. Inside and out. And the man she knew could never, would never, have committed the crimes he was accused of.

  “What you know can get you hurt,” Aidan murmured.

  She stared at him.

  “You didn’t know that, did you?”

  She slowly shook her head. “You’d never let me be hurt.”

  “And if I couldn’t prevent it?”

  Her mind went blank but for one thought. “Well, then, that’s my decision to make, Aidan. Not yours. Not the sheriff’s. Not anybody’s but my own.”

  He tore his gaze from hers and appeared ready to step away. She quickly reached out and touched him. “Please. I don’t know if I can help. But I want to try.”

  The sadness in his eyes disappeared, replaced by a brutal void that made her shudder.

  “Nobody can help me, Penelope. Not even you.”

  A lesser woman would have been gone with his first comment. But not Penelope. Never Penelope. Despite her lack of self-confidence, when it came to others she was there, no questions asked.

  Half an hour later Aidan considered Penelope where she stood in Edith O’Malley’s foyer along with Edith and Mavis. He paused where he had just descended the stairs, clutching his suitcase tightly and thinking that a lesser woman never would have lied on his behalf.

  He’d returned to the bed-and-breakfast with one intention and one intention only. To leave so he wouldn’t involve Edith in what was about to happen.

  “You’re going?” Penelope said hoarsely.

  “I’m checking into the motel on the opposite side of town.”

  He waited to see her relief. When he didn’t, he realized that she hadn’t expected him to leave. And that having her belief verified merely strengthened her resolve to help him.

  “But why should you leave here? Leave this house?” Edith asked, shaking her head and making her curlers rattle. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  Mavis snorted. “None of us do. And he’s—” she pointed a craggy finger at him “—too stubborn to fill us in on any of it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mrs. O’Malley said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Penelope stepped away from her grandmother and met him at the foot of the stairs. “Aidan?”

  God, she was beautiful. Not just aesthetically. Oh, no. While Penelope Moon had model-caliber good looks, she didn’t try to cash in on them. But that’s not what her made beautiful. She was a woman who stood by her family and friends, no matter what. She was strong in her convictions and not about to let anyone sway her from them. He’d watched her with her grandmother, a woman who could be as insufferable as she was lovable. Without blinking an eye, Penelope let Mavis know she would always be there. Always.

  She’d also be there for Aidan.

  A dull ache began in the pit of his stomach. He recalled thinking of the many reasons why he shouldn’t become involved with Penelope. Why he shouldn’t give himself over to his attraction to her, his need. And every one of the reasons came back to haunt him now.

  When Penelope Moon loved, she loved all the way. There was no halfway for her. And he knew with all his heart that she loved him.

  Just as he knew with all his heart that he loved her.

  Which was the reason he had to go.

  He wasn’t leaving town. No. He’d resolved to stay and see this through to the end, once and for all. But he had to do it alone.

  “Here,” Mrs. O’Malley said, hurrying up the hall. She held out a large brown paper bag for him. “Just some leftovers and stuff. You know, so you don’t live off that fast food. It’s not good for you.”

  Aidan accepted the heavy bag. “Thank you, Mrs. O.” He kissed her cheek.

  He met Penelope’s expectant gaze.

  “Goodbye,” he said. And then he did one of the hardest things he’d ever done in his life. He walked away from her.

  Chapter Eleven

  How was Penelope supposed to carry on with life as usual when everything was so far from normal?

  In the back of her shop the following day, she absently wrapped the hand-milled bars of lavender soap she’d made two weeks ago in purple tissue paper, then tied them off with purple ribbon. It was Monday and she’d been open for an hour, but she had yet to receive a single customer. No doubt everyone was as preoccupied with the news of Aidan’s arrest as she was.

  Of course, she was also the only one who knew
there was no way he could have done what he was accused of. She didn’t need to know his exact whereabouts at the time of the crime to know that.

  Spot jumped up onto the counter, sniffed the covered soap, then twitched her tail at Penelope. Penelope reached out and patted the overfed, black-and-white cat, then put her back down on the floor. Maximus lifted his mammoth head to take in the move, and then laid it back down again. Penelope considered him. If she didn’t know better, she would think that the dog had empathetically tuned in to her somber mood and was emulating it.

  “What’s the matter, boy?” she asked, crouching down to scratch the back of his furry ears. “Not feeling up to par this morning?”

  She sighed, thinking she could relate.

  The problem was that she didn’t think she’d feel up to par ever again.

  It was more than just Aidan’s shocking predicament. It was his one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turnaround in their relationship. She stood up, absently rubbing the side of her neck. Wasn’t it just two nights ago that she’d bared her body and her soul to him and that he’d stroked both with his gentle passion?

  Now…

  Now he looked at her as if she were a stranger. No…she was more than familiar with that expression, having grown up in Old Orchard as the odd woman out. Rather, he looked at her as if he regretted ever laying eyes on her.

  A shiver ran over her skin, then seemed to wiggle under it, making her feel like ten kinds of fool.

  And twenty kinds of woman in love, unwilling to accept the object of her affection’s blatant rejection.

  The bells on the store door rang. Penelope lethargically stacked the wrapped soaps, wiped her hands on a towel, then went out to greet her first customer of the day.

  She froze when she saw that it was Elva Mollenkopf, pretending to look at a display of dried herbs, then moving on to the shelves of books on metaphysics, astrology and yoga.

  Penelope forced her bravest face. “Good morning, Elva,” she said quietly, taking her place behind the cash register and popping open the drawer. “I’m surprised to see you here. Have you run out of face cream already?”

  Elva openly glared at her. “No. What I bought should see me through three months.” She stepped to the counter. “I came by to ask whether or not you were involved in Mr. Kendall’s illegal goings-on.”

  Penelope felt like she’d been slapped. “Pardon me?”

  Elva seemed to take great pleasure in her uneasiness. “I told you there was something ‘off’ about that man. Sneaking into town the way he did. No one knowing where he comes from.”

  “The east.”

  Elva’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I thought he was from Oregon.”

  Penelope’s face burned at how easily she’d shared information that only she had known, with a woman who would like nothing better than to hurt Aidan.

  “Elva, do you have a family history of depression?”

  The woman looked genuinely shocked. “What kind of question is that?”

  “A valid one, I think, given your consistent sour behavior.”

  “Sour?” she sputtered.

  Penelope nodded. “Yes, I think sour about covers it. Tell me, do you sit up all night imagining the ways you can hurt people? Or does it come naturally to you?”

  Elva’s shock morphed into something far darker. “You’re a fine one to talk, missy. You and your weird family doing Lord-knows-what on the outskirts of town. I’ve heard that the neighbors’ small animals go missing at certain times of the year, and later the bones are found.”

  Penelope had never heard that one but wasn’t surprised. “I wonder who it is that started that rumor.”

  She stared at the woman evenly, then turned to search through her stock of herbal teas. She settled on St. John’s Wort. “Are you on any medication, Elva?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” She put the box down on the counter and shoved it toward the annoying woman. “If you’re not, I’d strongly suggest you drink a cup of this tea every morning.”

  “I’m not buying—”

  “It’s a gift. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to part with a penny of your precious money. The squeak would probably shatter my delicate eardrums.”

  Elva’s chin went up, she made a sound between a snort and a sigh, and then she stalked toward the door, clutching her purse but without the tea.

  The bells rang again as she left. Then silence settled over the shop like a death knell.

  Penelope took a deep breath and briefly closed her eyes. She’d never spoken remotely like that to anyone in her entire life. And she wasn’t too sure how she felt about having done so now. She eyed the packaged tea, wondering if she should mail it to the nasty old woman. She stacked it back on top of the others, then stared at the door. Pulling Max’s leash from the hook on the wall, she went in the back and attached it to his chain collar.

  “Come on, boy. We have some unfinished business to tend to.”

  She turned the Closed sign around on the front door and let Spot precede them out. Then she locked the door behind herself, closing the shop for the day for the first time in five years.

  Aidan hadn’t slept for the past thirty hours and the effects were beginning to show. His eyes felt as dry as the salt mines in nearby Perrysburg. His movements were slow and small as if anything more demanding would completely sap him of whatever energy he had left. He leaned back in the uncomfortable motel room chair, trying to read the computer screen without the words running together. Nothing. Nothing at all on his brother Davin and his possible whereabouts.

  Of course, Davin was just as good at using computers as he was, so he wasn’t surprised that his brother wouldn’t leave an electronic trail.

  Which made him wonder if he inadvertently had.

  Leaning forward, he minimized the screen search for his brother’s name, positioned the cursor over the browser’s search box, then typed in his alias: Aidan Kendall.

  With a bleep, one result immediately popped up.

  He clicked on the link and stared as a picture of him filled the screen. He read the caption underneath: “New Teacher Gains Praise from Students and Parents Alike.”

  The photo was one shot taken at the end of the school year—a month ago while he was talking to the parents of the Jones boy. He hadn’t even been aware that the photo had been taken, much less that it had appeared in the Old Orchard Chronicle.

  He pressed the print button, then drew in a deep breath. Well, that explained how Davin had found him. High up on the list of search parameters for him was likely “new teacher.” And a glimpse of the photo was all it would take to put Aidan Kendall together with Allen Dekker.

  He snatched the printed page out of the hopper and stared at the grainy black-and-white photo. It had taken him two trips to move everything from Mrs. O’Malley’s bed-and-breakfast to the motel. And he’d been working on the computer ever since.

  Ominous that instead of finding anything on his brother, he’d found something on himself.

  He squinted hard at the photo. But why wouldn’t Davin just alert authorities? Publicly make the link between Aidan and Allen?

  He is playing with me. The way a cat toys with a mouse before moving in for the kill.

  Aidan put the printout down and pushed himself out of the chair. The information made him uneasier still.

  He’d figured out early on that if he was to stand a chance against his brother, he had to try to think like Davin.

  He’d also figured out that he was ill-equipped for the job. How did one go about rationalizing what his brother had done? Explain the motivation behind the ruthless efficiency with which he was deconstructing every part of his twin brother’s life? They’d shared a womb together, even a single egg. But from then on, they’d taken completely different paths. Aidan couldn’t begin to imagine the road his brother traveled, much less crawl into his mind or his black heart.

  Aidan stood stock-still, realizing he was no longer alone in the motel room.

>   He swung around, half hoping it was Davin.

  Instead, he found Penelope standing in the doorway. He’d just opened the door to allow in some fresh air.

  She looked better than any one woman had a right to.

  Penelope glanced from him to the desk and back again. “I guess you do know how to use a computer.”

  Penelope breathed a little sigh of relief—because for a brief, unguarded moment she’d seen in Aidan’s eyes what she’d seen there before last night. Before the world had come crashing down around her ears, refusing to make sense. Before he’d shut her out.

  Along with the relief came a vanishing of her resolve.

  Her exchange with Elva had left her determined to take forward steps rather than to remain in the dark. But now that she stood in front of Aidan, saw how tired he was, saw how glad he was that she was there, no matter how hard he tried to hide it, she forgot about everything but her growing need for him on every level.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She hesitantly held up a bag. “I asked Trudy at the diner to make an exception to the no-breakfast-after-ten-thirty rule and make you something.” He didn’t move to take it, so she put it down on the desk next to one of two computers. “You look awful,” she said.

  “I’ve felt better.”

  Outside the door behind her, Max barked at something. She tugged on his leash and fastened the end to the open door handle. He whined at her, then settled down to watch the goings-on outside.

  That done, she was forced to confront her fears and Aidan, the two interwoven. “Tell me what’s going on, Aidan.”

  There was a brief hardness to his features, but he didn’t appear in any condition to back it up. He sank to the edge of the bed, looking irresistibly handsome and undeniably tired.

  “I can’t.”

  “You can’t, or won’t?” she asked, turning his words back on him.

  “Both,” he said after a long silence.

  She slowly crossed the room and sat down next to him; the casual intimacy made her heart kick up a notch, even though the way things stood between them, they could have been continents apart.