“You haven’t been drinkin’, have you?” Warren asked, the insinuation as obvious as his disgust. “Maybe downed a few, one thing led to another…”
Anger raced through Hank, threatening to swallow him whole. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Here he’d saved Gwen Foster’s life, risking his own to do it, and had brought her back home simply because it was right. In exchange, he’d gotten this. Hank hadn’t expected them to give him a medal, but he sure as hell hadn’t counted on being accused of having a hand in what had happened to her.
Pete’s death is like a stone tied to my leg, dragging me down…
“Now, wait a second!” he growled. “I didn’t—”
“Stop it, the both of you!” Meredith shouted from where she still knelt beside the divan; both Hank and Warren turned to look at her. “I don’t care how it happened,” she continued. “All that matters now is Gwen. We need to get her upstairs to her room and out of these wet clothes.”
Hank knew that Gwen’s mother was right. But when he moved to help lift Gwen off the sofa, Warren stepped in front of him, blocking his way. “Give me a hand, Kent.”
At the sound of his name, the other man finally stirred, nodding his head. “Right, right,” he mumbled, then hurried over, positioning himself at Gwen’s shoulders.
“Doc Held needs to be called,” Hank suggested.
“I’ll do it,” Samantha said, and headed for the telephone. As she passed Hank, she touched his arm and whispered, “Thank you,” leaving him grateful that not everyone in Gwen’s family suspected the worst of him.
Meredith led the way up the staircase. Kent carried Gwen’s upper half, his hands beneath her arms, while her father lifted her feet. Hank drifted at the rear of the procession, drawn to follow out of genuine concern. But then, just before they reached the landing, Warren noticed him. He stopped and asked, “What are you still doin’ here?”
“I want to make sure she’s all right,” Hank answered.
The baker shook his head. “This ain’t none of your concern,” he spat. “You’ve done more than enough.”
“Someone might need to—”
“I want you out of my house!” he barked, his face a dark red.
“But, Warren…” Meredith soothed.
Turning his attention from Hank, Gwen’s father nodded to Kent. “Let’s get her to her room,” he said.
Hank watched them leave. From downstairs, he could hear her parents doing all they could to help their daughter. Just then, the memory of Gwen lying in the moonlight on the bank of the swollen river unexpectedly sprang to his mind. This time, Hank didn’t chase it away, but instead reveled in it, remembering how surprised he’d been to recognize her, how beautiful she was…
Slowly, Hank shook his head. He was a fool. He didn’t belong here; Warren had made that clear enough. It was time to leave.
The sooner the better.
Just as Hank turned the knob of the front door, preparing to step back out into the night, a voice called out to him. “Wait!” He turned to see Kent hurrying down the stairs toward him, occasionally looking back over his shoulder as if he was worried about being discovered sneaking away.
“I’m glad I caught you before you left,” he said when he reached the foyer, taking another glance up the stairs. “I wanted to thank you for rescuing Gwen.”
“I only did what was right,” Hank replied modestly.
“You have my gratitude all the same.”
Up close, Hank could see that the other man had recovered from his initial shock. He still looked a little harried, his forehead dotted with sweat, his eyes unsettled, though he was trying hard not to show it. His clothes were expensive, cut from rich fabric, every stitch flawless, every button shining; compared to Hank in his soggy attire, he was dressed like a king. The man struck Hank as the sort most comfortable being in control, smiling brightly as he went around a room, enthusiastically pumping every hand. The more Hank looked at him, the more the man reminded him of the attorney he’d met with just after Pete’s death.
“I’m Kent Brookings,” the man said, extending his hand. When Hank took it, he added, “I’m Gwen’s fiancé.”
Hank faltered, if only for a moment. Kent’s comment had caught him off guard, although Hank had no idea why. It shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that a beautiful young woman like Gwen Foster would attract the attention of someone as clearly successful as Kent. An uncomfortable pang lit across his stomach; realizing that it was jealousy made him feel like an even bigger fool.
“Hank Ellis,” he replied halfheartedly, taking the man’s offered hand. Kent’s grip was far softer than his own. He resisted the urge to squeeze hard.
“I’ve never seen Warren so out of sorts,” Kent said, hazarding yet another backward glance. “What is it about you that set him off like that?”
The last thing Hank wanted was to explain why everyone in Buckton thought he was worth less than the debris floating in the Sawyer River. He especially didn’t want to tell this man who rubbed him the wrong way. Besides, Hank knew that as soon as he left, the Fosters would explain every sordid detail.
“It’s a misunderstanding,” he answered.
Fortunately, Kent let it go. “Whatever the reason, I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t be grateful to you for saving Gwen’s life. I certainly am.”
Hank believed Kent’s sentiments were genuine; he seemed legitimately thankful, even relieved that his wife-to-be was safe.
But then he went and ruined it.
“As a matter of fact, I’m so appreciative of what you’ve done that I’d like to offer you a reward,” he explained as he pulled out his wallet; opening it revealed a thick swath of green, more money than Hank had seen in one place in an awfully long time, if ever. Fishing out two twenty-dollar bills, Kent held them out to Hank. “For a job well done.”
Working as a woodcarver made Hank money. He was skilled enough to keep his business going and a roof over his head, and to buy food, clothing, gas, all the necessities of life for him and his father. But it wasn’t easy. Some months he wondered if he’d make it. Forty dollars would go a long way.
But he wouldn’t have taken those two bills from Kent’s hand if they were both hundreds, even if there were a fistful of them.
Hank hadn’t jumped into the swollen river, risking his own skin to rescue Gwen, for money. He had done it because it was the right thing to do, nothing more, nothing less. Even praise felt uncomfortable. If he accepted the bills Kent was offering, he felt like it would cheapen things, as if he’d lessen himself. No matter what Warren had said, if he could go back to the bridge, Hank wouldn’t have changed a thing.
He shook his head. “I can’t take that.”
Kent seemed as shocked as when he’d first seen Gwen’s unconscious body. He looked down at his hand as if wondering whether he held something other than money. Hank suspected he was questioning whether he had offered enough. His eyes narrowed, turning his expression quizzical.
“But you deserve this. You’ve more than earned it.”
Hank looked over Kent’s shoulder and up the stairs. “Knowing she’s all right is more than enough for me.”
The other man regarded him for a moment longer, then put the money back in his wallet. “Even if you won’t take a reward,” Kent said, “I’m sure that everyone in Buckton will want to know what you’ve done.”
Hank’s stomach fell. “I’d rather they didn’t.”
“Whyever not? You’re a hero!”
Before Hank could say more, Warren called from Gwen’s bedroom, “You can come back now.”
“They were changing her clothes,” Kent explained, then leaned in, his voice lowering conspiratorially, and said, “The only gentlemanly thing to do was leave, though I wouldn’t have minded a peek.” For emphasis, he added a wink and a slap on Hank’s shoulder, as if the two of them were old friends sharing a laugh.
Hank tamped down the urge to slug the man.
“I’d better get ba
ck,” Kent said, oblivious to the distasteful feelings he was inspiring. As he’d done before, he stuck out his hand. Hank took it, but a bit more reluctantly than before. “Thanks again.”
Watching the man go, Hank understood that he and Kent came from completely different worlds: while one was dressed smartly, his hair combed just so, the other looked exactly like someone who’d just fished himself out of the river; where one was sophisticated, articulate, capable of charming a room full of strangers, the other was shunned, an outcast, someone most others were glad to see leave; and while one had a bright future with a beautiful fiancée, a family to create, the other felt destined to remain alone, paying penance for what he had done.
Stepping onto the porch, Hank paused. Thinking back on the night’s events, one thing was painfully clear.
Because of his actions, because of his brother’s death, no matter how heroically he acted, he was always going to be the villain.
Chapter Seven
TRY NOT TO BLINK and don’t move your head.”
Gwen stared straight ahead as Grant Held shone a light in each of her eyes, moving it to one side and then the other. The doctor had come when called the previous night, then returned before Gwen had woken to the early afternoon sunlight streaming through the curtains of her bedroom, and performed a series of tests. He checked her pulse, then moved her joints, trying to determine if any damage had been done by her unplanned swim in the swollen, churning river.
“Now open your mouth, my dear,” he said.
Surprisingly, given what she had endured, Gwen felt pretty good. Her muscles ached from fighting the Sawyer’s current, there was a bruise the size of an apple blossoming on her hip, and she was so tired that she had trouble staying awake, but she knew that it could have been much worse.
She could be dead.
And I would have been, too, if it hadn’t been for the stranger…
All morning, as she’d drifted in and out of sleep, Gwen had thought about the man who had saved her. She could still faintly hear his voice saying her name, his face undistinguishable, the sky over his shoulder lit by the moon. She had tried to ask her mother about her rescuer, wanting to know who he’d been, but the words never seemed to come out right, a mumbling mishmash that likely made no sense.
“Have you had any headaches?” the doctor asked.
“No, I haven’t,” Gwen answered, her voice having grown stronger and clearer with every passing minute.
“I’d expect to feel that way for several days.”
“She’s going to be all right?” Meredith asked from the doorway, where she was wringing her hands nervously.
Dr. Held nodded. “I’d keep her in bed at least through tomorrow, let her have plenty of rest, and call me immediately if she takes a turn for the worse.” Patting Gwen’s hand, he added, “You were quite lucky, my dear.”
While her mother showed the doctor out to his car, Gwen sat up against her headboard, smoothing the soft fabric of her nightgown and thinking about everything that had happened since she’d returned to Buckton. Only the day before, she’d been worried about how Kent would get along with her parents, thinking about old friends and other mundane things. Since then, she’d been blindsided with a proposal of marriage and then had nearly drowned.
Things hadn’t gone the way she’d expected they would, not in the least.
When Meredith returned, she crossed the room and began pulling down the blinds, stopping them halfway down the window, reducing the light without eliminating it altogether. “This will help you sleep,” her mother said.
“I’m not feeling tired,” Gwen lied. The truth was that she would have loved to put her head back down on her pillow and gotten more rest, but now that she was finally alone with her mother, she wanted answers. “I was hoping we could talk about what happened last night, about who pulled me out of the river.”
Meredith didn’t answer, continuing to fuss with the blinds.
“Mother, did you hear me?” Gwen asked. “I want to know who rescued me.”
Her mother forced a smile and waved her hand in the air. “Oh, that’s not really important,” she said. “What matters is that you’re safe and sound.”
“It’s important to me. I want to know.”
Meredith sighed and almost imperceptibly nodded, seeming to realize that it couldn’t be avoided any longer. “It was Hank Ellis.”
Gwen thought for a moment, the name swimming through her memory before finally touching ground. “Pete’s older brother?” she asked.
Her mother nodded. Her expression looked pained.
Gwen hadn’t known the older Ellis boy well. Pete had been closer to her age when they were growing up, but she still had a few memories of Hank: him sitting at the drugstore’s soda counter, swiveling back and forth in his seat, drinking a cherry Coke; horsing around with his friends outside the movie theater; throwing a baseball against the back of the post office again and again. Hank Ellis had always been nice to her, though their interactions amounted to little more than a smile or a friendly word here and there. But last night, he’d unexpectedly reentered her life.
“I want to see him,” Gwen declared.
Her mother’s face soured until she was frowning. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“He saved my life. The least I can do is thank him.”
“Hank Ellis isn’t the sort of man you want to be spending time with.”
“Why not?”
Meredith paused. “Because he killed his brother.”
Gwen’s jaw fell open in shock. Her heart began to pound. “Pete?” she managed to ask. “What…what are you talking about?”
Her mother crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed beside Gwen, then took her daughter’s hand in her own.
“A couple of months ago, back in April, there was an accident…” Meredith began.
Late one night, Chief Palmer had been called to the scene of an accident near the Ellis home. When he arrived, he found their family’s car smashed into an enormous oak tree, its front end crushed like paper, every window shattered, and two of the wheels blown off. Hank Ellis was pacing back and forth beside the wreck, distraught, screaming at the night sky, his clothing smeared with blood. Hazarding a quick look inside the car, the police chief discovered Peter Ellis. Instantly, he knew that the boy was dead. An empty liquor bottle lay on the floorboard, miraculously unbroken. Hank had reeked of alcohol. It hadn’t taken long for the lawman to piece it all together. Hank had been drunk, had gotten behind the wheel with his younger brother in tow, and on the way home had driven straight off the road. There were no skid marks on the pavement, indicating that Hank had never tried to slow down. While the crash had claimed Pete’s life, his brother had been spared with no wounds, at least not on the outside.
“Ever since then, the whole town has shunned Hank,” Meredith finished. “Peter was such a wonderful boy with a bright future ahead of him, all stolen away because his brother was a fool. I feel so bad for Myron.” She paused. “It’s a horrible thing to say, but I wish their fates had been reversed.”
Gwen couldn’t believe that Pete Ellis, a boy she’d known for so long, was gone. They had been friends growing up, their lives following similar paths; sitting in the same classrooms, running down the same streets, watching the same movies. But now she would never see him again. Slowly, Gwen began to understand that death was closer than she’d imagined. While she had managed to survive her time in the river, Pete hadn’t been so lucky.
“It was an accident,” Gwen said, still reeling from what she’d just heard.
Meredith shook her head. “It happened and it was all Hank’s fault. Everyone in town was devastated, including your father,” she explained. “Peter had been working for him at the bakery, doing odd jobs after school for a little money. He said he was saving up to go to college. Warren adored him.”
Vaguely, Gwen remembered something about this, a snippet of a phone conversation drifting around in her head. Still, sh
e wondered why she was only now hearing about Pete’s death. She suspected that her mother had been trying to protect her, or maybe she’d been too upset herself.
“That’s why your father acted the way he did last night.”
“What are you talking about?”
Again her mother paused. “He shouted at Hank to get out of the house.”
Gwen gasped. “But he saved me!” she exclaimed. “Hank risked his own life, brought me home, and to show his gratitude Dad threw him back into the storm?!”
“It could have been worse,” Meredith said. “At one point, Warren insinuated that Hank might’ve been responsible for what happened to you.”
“It was an accident!” Gwen argued.
“But we didn’t know that at the time.”
As soon as Gwen had woken, her mother had been at her bedside, asking questions. Still woozy, Gwen had done her best to answer, staying mostly truthful. She explained that her notebook had been blown out of her hands and she’d made an ill-advised trip into the water to retrieve it. Gwen neglected to mention her reason for being out in the stormy night in the first place, that she and Kent had argued, and that she still didn’t know whether she wanted to accept his marriage proposal.
“I would have died if Hank hadn’t seen me. He’s a hero,” she argued. “Doesn’t that make a difference?”
“Not to your father,” Meredith answered, grim-faced.
“What about you? Can’t you forgive him?”
Meredith stiffened. “It’s different when you have children of your own,” she explained. “Whenever I think about Peter, I imagine how horrible Myron must feel. The poor man. First his wife gets sick and then his son is taken from him. Worst of all, he has to spend every day with the person responsible for Peter’s death. Someday, when you have a family of your own, I expect that you’ll better understand why I can’t forgive him.”
Without letting Gwen have a chance to argue further, Meredith got up and went to the door. Before leaving, she turned back. “Stay away from him, Gwendolyn,” she warned. “Hank Ellis is nothing but trouble.”
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