by Anna Sugden
“Could it have anything to do with your past? I know, that’s probably a stretch, but could whoever did this have known about, you know, what happened to you?”
Delia gripped her hands together, expecting him to refuse to answer just as she would have if he’d starting digging into her past. Some burial grounds were just off-limits.
“I don’t think so.” He shook his head as if convincing himself. “It was sordid enough to make for an entertaining news story, but that’s it. And, yes, the suspect could have known. Nearly everybody at the post knew.”
Not everybody. She and Trevor Cole hadn’t known. Had it been a surprise to anyone else?
“That wasn’t even the first time my family made the news. Just the first time in a long time. People love to learn about other people’s tragedies.”
“It makes them feel better to know that somebody has it worse than they do.”
“And, for a while, anyway, my family had it pretty bad.”
For a hell of a long time, as far as she could tell.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She had no right to ask him to confide in her when she’d never shared anything that mattered with him. Yet, she needed to hear his story, whether it would be useful to the case or not.
The side of his mouth lifted, but a stark vulnerability remained in his eyes. “It isn’t a great conversation starter when you first meet people. Like, ‘Hey, I’m Ben, and this is my sad story.’”
That she understood. The difference between them was that he’d eventually become comfortable enough to open up to some people, even if she wasn’t one of them. Still, she couldn’t imagine ever sharing like that. With anyone.
She waited, but when he didn’t answer, she added, “I understand if you still don’t want to—”
“My dad wasn’t even unique, as convicted felons go,” Ben said before she could let him off the hook. “A two-bit criminal. He burglarized homes and then robbed a convenience store to feed a drug habit. Even his armed robbery wasn’t all that imaginative. He pulled a toy gun—mine—on a store clerk. He’d already served the minimum sentence for that one. Six years.”
“During your childhood?” she asked to keep him talking. When had it become so important for her to know and understand him?
“From just after my fourth birthday until I was ten. When he was released he’d sworn he was clean. Rehabilitated. I didn’t trust him at first. Didn’t want her to trust him.”
He took a deep breath as if the rest was hard to tell. “But old habits are hard to break. She’d always given him another last chance. No matter what he did. She couldn’t help herself. Eventually, neither could I. We were so desperate to believe our lives could be normal that we pretended they were.”
Delia’s eyes burned as an image of a little boy with glasses invaded her thoughts. A child trying to shield himself and his mother from more pain. Failing on all counts.
“I know what that’s like.”
She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Ben’s gaze shifted her way. She sat, frozen, while he watched her as if expecting her to explain herself. Something she just couldn’t do. “I mean I can imagine what that must be like.”
“Oh. I see.”
But did he? Could he even guess that as much as she wanted to know more about his tragic past, she was just as tempted to share more about hers? She couldn’t let herself be that vulnerable. Especially with a man. She couldn’t let that happen. Ever again.
“Mom and I had managed not to see a lot of things,” he continued finally. “A few painkillers popped after he’d injured his shoulder cutting wood. Or after repairing the water softener. The cash that was disappearing as fast as Mom could make it.
“So I don’t know why I sensed there was something more wrong than usual that last day when we climbed in the car to go for a picnic in the park. But I did. Mom was too excited to notice, though. We were having a family outing, the kind that other families took for granted.”
Delia couldn’t bear to hear more, but the knot in her throat was so large that she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t beg him to stop. Like being stalled on a train track, she knew what was coming but was powerless to stop it. She held her breath, bracing for impact.
“We never made it to the park. It was one in the afternoon, and my father was so high that when he swerved off the road, he never thought to hit the brakes. Rammed into a tree. Old car. No passenger-side air bag. You can guess the rest.”
“Oh, God, Ben. That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t remember anything after that. I woke up in the hospital with cuts and a broken leg.”
Absently, he stretched his neck and traced his fingers over an inch-long scar just beneath his jawline. With all of the time she’d spent watching him, how had she never noticed that?
“Mom was gone,” he continued. “Dad broke his arm but went straight from the hospital to jail. The next time I saw him was in court. Driving under the influence of drugs causing death. Maximum sentence. Twenty years.”
Delia had been staring down at her hands as the story grew heavier, but now she couldn’t help but look up at him. The stark emotion in his eyes tore straight through her heart. She couldn’t imagine that little boy’s heartbreak, but her heart ached as much for the man, who still carried around scars from that tragedy. Outside and inside.
“I’m so sorry. You lost both parents that day.” She cleared her throat. “The, uh, newscast said your father died in prison.”
“About five years later. A body can only take so much drug use. He died in his cell one night. Heart attack.”
“So you said your grandparents raised you.”
“Mom’s parents,” he clarified. “Instead of enjoying their retirement, they took on an angry eleven-year-old, moving me from Indiana to Michigan.”
“That house,” she said, understanding now. “No wonder you didn’t want to change anything about it.”
“They were great.” He smiled at some faraway memory. “They forgave my father and encouraged me to forgive him, too.”
“I bet that was hard.”
“Not as hard as it was living with all that anger.”
He couldn’t really mean that, could he? How could he have forgiven that kind of betrayal, the self-centered slaughter of a future? No one could. As if her shock amused him, he smiled.
“My grandparents were all about teaching big life lessons. Like that we should try to build a better future rather than spend time crying over the past.” He shook his head as he stared down at his folded hands. “And that we can all accomplish more with the help of others than we ever could by ourselves.”
He looked up from his hands then, trapping her with his gaze. The unspoken message about the lesson she’d failed to learn hung heavily in the air between them. She could see now where he’d first learned his teamwork credo, but she wouldn’t mention it and give him the chance to turn the conversation on her.
She chose the cowardly way out, returning to his history instead. “When did they...uh...” She twirled her hand to have him fill in the blank.
“They lived long enough to see me graduate from Ferris State and then the academy, but not too long after that.” He turned his head, suddenly interested in one of the patrons sitting at the bar. “I buried them just three months apart.”
“That just doesn’t seem fair.”
His gaze moved back to her. “Fair? Sure, some of it stunk, but I was lucky. Not everyone has the chance to experience unconditional love in his lifetime. I had it from three different people.”
Delia could only stare at him. He had as much reason to be angry as she did over the cards he’d been dealt. His childhood had been ripped away from him as surely as hers had been stolen from her, and even the silver lining to his dark cloud had been trimmed away. Yet with all of that, he didn’t hold a grudge. He forgave and accepted in a way that no real human could. She suspected that even if they figur
ed out who’d targeted him now, he would still forgive.
How would she ever understand a man like him when her own anger had been the one thing that had helped her to survive and escape? How could he be as valiant when the chips were down as he’d been when the cameras were rolling? But a bigger question than those two remained: Why was she wishing she could be more like him?
CHAPTER EIGHT
“SORRY WE GOT so far off track tonight.”
Ben pushed open the bar door for Delia as they stepped out onto the sidewalk. Her strained expression made him smile, but at least she didn’t jerk the door out of his hand. Of course, Ben was pretty sure that chivalry wouldn’t sit well with her. She would never see it as just common courtesy. She probably would have preferred to open doors for him. Or even carry him through them.
She buttoned her coat all the way to her chin though they’d already bundled up, even pulling on gloves, before braving the outdoors. It was still cold, with a few falling snowflakes glistening in the light from the street lamp, but at least the wind had died down.
“It wasn’t off track, really,” she said as they walked along the cleared sidewalk toward the parking lot. “As we said, we can’t rule out anything yet, no matter how small.”
Though Ben doubted that details from his childhood tragedy had any bearing on this case, he didn’t force the issue. At least he wasn’t the only one who seemed uncomfortable tonight. He’d been on edge from the moment Delia had stepped into the bar, appearing laughably out of place. And almost unbearably hot.
He couldn’t explain why he thought so. She’d been wearing more clothes than most of the women in that bar. Yet he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off Delia. He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed her, either. What was it about her oh-so-proper turtlenecks that made him want to yank them over her head?
Even that simple ponytail she’d worn had driven him crazy. Why had she picked tonight to loosen up and skip that tight bun of hers? It had been all he could do not to pull off the band and sink his hands into that mass of dark hair. He still itched to do that though she’d covered her head with a snowflake-dotted stocking cap.
The funniest thing was that she probably thought her questions were what had made him uncomfortable. He’d been uncomfortable, all right, but for different reasons entirely. Specifically, it was her creamy skin that begged to be touched and a mouth that promised the kind of kisses that could warm a man through many lonely nights that had unnerved him. Though her questions had stirred painful memories, they’d come as a relief, offering a break in the constant stream of electricity from the other side of the table.
“Did you park in the lot or on the street?” he asked her as they reached the parking lot.
“The lot.” She pointed toward the back. “It was packed. I was lucky to find a spot.”
“Yeah. I’m on the street. I got here a few minutes before you did and nearly had to wrestle someone for a table.”
“That I would like to have seen.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Ben caught her smiling. She was only joking, but the thought of demonstrating his best wrestling moves for her had him tightening in all the wrong places.
“She was about seventy, but I could have taken her,” he somehow choked out.
When her eyes widened, he grinned.
“Are you always this gullible?”
She shook her head. “I’m off my game lately.”
“Rule breaking doesn’t sit well with you.” He didn’t bother posing it as a question. As hard as she’d tried to maintain her distance, he shouldn’t know her so well, but somehow he did.
“Guess not.”
He touched her coat sleeve, pretending not to notice her arm stiffening beneath his touch. He stuffed his hand in his coat pocket again. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“That’s all right.” Her chin lifted. “I’m fine.”
“Come on. Just let me go with you. It’s common sense. The same thing we tell other women every day.”
“I’m not ‘other women.’” She took a few steps into the lot, the snow crunching beneath her feet.
No, she wasn’t. She was the most overly independent, untrusting and exasperating woman Ben had ever met. And he couldn’t get her out of his mind.
“Let me do it, okay? For my own peace of mind.”
She stopped and turned back to him. “Well, if it will make you feel better...”
“It will.”
“Fine.”
He didn’t touch her again as they tromped toward her car in the far corner of the lot. It was the darkest corner, with a burned-out street lamp perched above it.
“This is the spot you picked?”
“I told you it was the only one left.”
“Probably would have been safer on the street.”
“I’ll remember that the next time I come here.”
He caught her grin before the shadows of the darkened area overtook them both. She was about as likely to become a regular here as she was to throw a house party and invite the whole Brighton Post team.
“You still haven’t said much about it.”
He studied her darkened profile. Did she really want to know more, or was she trying to keep him talking so he wouldn’t leave? His first thought was probably the right one, but he couldn’t help wishing it was the second one.
“I told you I don’t remember much more about the accident.”
“I’m not talking about the accident. I mean the incident at the bank. You know, besides what’s in the report. And besides the monster masks.”
This time he stopped, his stomach tightening, and she slowed next to him.
“What do you want to know?” His voice didn’t sound right in his ears, so she probably heard it, too.
“Tell me about it. Maybe something you say will be important to the case.”
He doubted that. He couldn’t figure out why she’d been asking the questions any more than he could understand his impulse to answer every one of them. Why did he want her to know him when she obviously didn’t want him to know her? Though he’d been filleting himself like a salmon all night, she hadn’t shared a single thing about herself. Judging from the articles he’d read today about the scandal involving her sleazy politician stepfather, Lloyd Jackson, she likely had some stories to tell herself.
“Or maybe you’re just being nosy.”
She chuckled. “There’s that, too.”
He took a deep breath and started talking again, sharing even more of his story with Delia. “I was standing in line like all the other customers. The line was longer than usual. I was annoyed about that. Wasting too much time on my day off.
“Everything that happened after that seemed to move in slow motion. Or maybe that was just my reaction time.” His chuckle filled the air, but she didn’t join in.
He cleared his throat. “The two suspects rushed through the door, wearing those gory masks and heavy coats. Everyone started yelling. Whimpering.
“One of the suspects had a handgun, but with the coats they were both wearing, it was hard to tell if they were armed with other weapons. The one with the gun waved it around and told the customers and employees to get on the floor. He shouted, ‘Do you want to die today?’”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
Ben blinked. Though he’d expected some sort of reaction to what he’d just said, that wasn’t it.
“All of that stuff was already in the police report.”
“You read it?”
“Just trying to be thorough.”
“Oh. Right.” He searched his memory for something he hadn’t included in the report. Only one thing stood out. “I would love to tell you that my training kicked in, and I reacted the way we were taught in those computer simulations in the academy, but it didn’t work out that way.”
“Why? What happened?”
“The training is supposed to make your reaction so automatic that you forget to be scared. It didn’t. I was
scared to death.” He shook his head even though he knew she couldn’t see him doing it. “Actually, that’s an understatement. I was terrified. I had this moment of utter panic when I couldn’t remember if I had strapped on my ankle holster.”
“We’ve all done that, Ben. We’ve all had times when we’ve made a quick trip out and have forgotten to wear our weapons.” She cleared her throat audibly. “Or have chosen not to.”
“I just don’t know what would have happened if I’d forgotten that time.”
“But you didn’t forget.”
“Luckily, no. The ankle holster scraped against the side of my calf when I lowered to the floor, so I knew it was there. Then I was scared that I would mess up and get my weapon taken away, and it would be used on one of the other hostages.”
“None of those things happened.”
“I guess not. Anyway, the rest is in the report. All I know is that I used the guy’s own mask against him, pulling it over his eyes when he was taking our cell phones. While he was wrestling with that, I got lucky and knocked his gun out of the way and then somehow pinned him to the floor. When the other guy stepped in, I withdrew my weapon and aimed it at him.”
“I did read that part. It sounds amazing.”
“The whole thing probably looked like a Keystone Kops comedy in black and white.”
“The other hostages called you a hero. I saw their interviews on Channel 3.”
“I’m not...a hero.” He hated that he couldn’t even say it without wincing.
“Come on. You’re getting a commendation.”
He shook his head hard. “Believe me, I’m not. I just got very lucky that no one got hurt.”
“It was more than luck—”
“Look.” He breathed out a frustrated breath. “I was too terrified at that moment to ever think of myself as a hero.”
Delia was quiet for so long that he wondered if she would respond at all. Did she think less of him now that he’d told her the real story? He didn’t bother saying that it didn’t matter what she thought. It mattered. A lot.
“Isn’t that the very definition of heroism? Not to never deal with fear, but to be truly afraid and then to act in spite of it.”