Through the Sheriff's Eyes

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Not Ben. She hadn’t called him Ben in weeks.

  “No,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. I only stopped by to be sure you’re all right, and that you haven’t heard from Hardesty.”

  A shadow passed over her eyes, as if a cloud had blocked the sun from a lake’s surface. But after a moment she shook her head. “If I could tell you how to find him, don’t you think I would?”

  No, he wasn’t sure at all. He was very much afraid that Faith still had mixed feelings about her ex-husband. Despite what that scum had done to her, she was the kind of woman who believed in redemption and who wanted to forgive.

  Granted, ultimately she’d divorced him. But Ben had asked himself, what was to say she didn’t still want to believe that the man she’d married—and presumably once loved—was really a decent guy, somewhere deep inside? Ben had seen a photo of her taken at the hospital after the brutal beating. The mere idea of Faith, battered and bloodied and bruised, made a tide of violence rise in him.

  She would only withdraw further from him if she knew what he was thinking, though, so all Ben could do was say, “Yeah. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t left a message or sent you some kind of little reminder.”

  If he hadn’t been looking closely, he might have missed seeing her flinch. She suppressed it quickly and managed to stare straight at him.

  “I’ll let you know if I hear from Rory.”

  God damn it. She did know something.

  But he only nodded brusquely. “All right.” He cleared his throat. “Are you still getting some time in at the gun range?”

  “Yes, but not as much.” She made a helpless gesture. “I’m…pretty busy.”

  Yeah, that was one way to put it. She was working full-time as a teacher and running a business, too. Not to mention caring for her father. She looked more worn down every time he saw her. Sooner or later, he was afraid, she’d break.

  The thought made him feel sick and helpless, and roughened his voice. “Do you keep the gun with you?”

  She nodded. “It’s in my purse behind the counter.”

  He had mixed feelings about the idea of her owning a handgun at all. Like most cops, Ben would have been happiest if no civilians were armed. In Faith’s case, he was far from convinced that she’d have what it took to shoot her ex-husband. On the other hand, twenty-four-hour-a-day protection for her wasn’t an option, and if Ben knew one thing, it was that Hardesty would be back. His attacks had escalated. He wasn’t done.

  Ben frowned. “It would be better if you had it on you.”

  “I don’t have enough cleavage to tuck it in my bra,” Faith snapped. “Sorry.”

  No, she didn’t have big breasts, but he liked what she had just fine. More than fine. She was long and limber and sexy.

  He was very careful not to let his gaze drop to her body, although he was painfully aware of it and how little she wore. The summer heat wave had persisted into October, and it was too damn hot in here for her to wear an overshirt to conceal any kind of holster. The snug-fitting cropped chinos she wore with a cap-sleeved T-shirt that barely touched the waistband of her pants left nowhere to hide anything.

  He thrummed with the effort it took not to look.

  “Rory wouldn’t dare attack me in here, anyway,” she said, and Ben realized she was blushing. He wondered what she’d seen on his face.

  “The time he walked in here and your sister ordered him off the property, she thought he’d have hit her if Gray hadn’t come in.”

  Gray Van Dusen was another sore point for Ben. He was the mayor of West Fork who had hired Ben as a big-city cop to keep this small town safe. Gray had been enraged when Ben had failed to prevent Charlotte from being attacked and hurt—it so happened that Mayor Van Dusen was deeply in love with Charlotte Russell.

  Ben didn’t have many friends who weren’t cops, but he’d thought Gray might be one. No chance of that anymore. The tension between them hadn’t yet gotten in the way of their working relationship, but sooner or later it would if not resolved.

  “I’m rarely alone for more than a few minutes,” Faith said. “And I promise you, if I see Rory walk in I’ll head straight to the counter and grab the gun.”

  “What do you do at night?”

  “I put it under my extra pillow.”

  He hated the idea of her having to snuggle up in bed with a Colt .38. His voice had descended to a growl when he said, “I suppose you can’t carry a handgun at school.”

  Faith looked shocked. “I hope you wouldn’t seriously suggest that!”

  He reached up and kneaded the taut muscles in his neck. “No. You should be safe there, anyway.”

  “You know, he might have given up. Or…shocked even himself, when he saw what he’d done to Charlotte. That’s what—” She stopped so abruptly, his eyes narrowed.

  “What?”

  Her pupils dilated. “I was just going to say, that’s what I think.”

  Uh-huh, sure she was. Damn it, had she talked to the scum and wasn’t admitting it? Why?

  “I saw the pictures that were taken the night you came into Emergency,” he said flatly. “I’ve seen damn near everything, and those shocked me. Seems what he did to you didn’t shock him. Don’t kid yourself—all he’s doing is lying low.”

  She stared at him for a stricken moment, then turned and walked away.

  Swearing under his breath, Ben followed. “Faith…”

  Radiating anger and pain, she spun to face him. “Why are you here?”

  To see you. To know you’re okay, if not happy.

  “I’m doing my job.”

  “Scaring me? Trying to intimidate me? That’s your job?”

  He willed his expression to go blank. “I have never, and will never, try to intimidate you. Scare you, yes. Until you’re willing to admit Hardesty is capable of really hurting you…”

  A shudder ran through her, and then she was screaming at him, “I believe it! I saw what he did to Charlotte! I know what he did to me!” She swallowed. Ended in a whisper. “Do you think I wasn’t there?”

  He couldn’t stand it. Ben reached out to pull her against him.

  Faith backed away so fast she bumped against one of the stools behind the counter. When he took another step toward her, she whipped behind the stool and gripped it with both hands as if she was prepared to brandish it like a lion tamer to hold him off. Her eyes were wild.

  “I want you to leave.”

  “I didn’t mean to…”

  “Now.”

  God. Feeling as though his chest was being crushed—as if he’d been the one under the tractor, not Don Russell—Ben backed away.

  “I’m sorry, Faith,” he said, throat feeling raw.

  She didn’t say anything, only stared at him with that same angry ferocity. He’d been right; she didn’t like him any better than she did her ex-husband.

  No, Ben realized, as he made himself turn away and walk toward the open barn door, right now she hated him even more than she did Rory Hardesty. She still had a habit of softening sometimes where Hardesty was concerned. Pretty clearly, she’d be happiest never to see Police Chief Ben Wheeler ever again.

  That, he thought grimly, was one thing he could do for her. Stay away.

  Unless he could bring her the news that Hardesty was behind bars.

  Or until a 911 call came in some night after Faith’s ex-husband returned to make sure no one else could have what he couldn’t.

  Ben didn’t look back. He got in his patrol unit and sat behind the wheel while he calmed himself enough to drive without killing someone.

  He was scared in a way he didn’t ever remember being before. Scared that the next time he saw Faith Russell, she’d be lying battered and bloody on a gurney—or dead, being fitted into a body bag.

  It was a good five minutes before he could back out and drive away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FAITH MADE IT THROUGH the day, and the next day, on sheer willpower alone. She didn’t know why Ben Wheele
r’s visit had shaken her so badly, but it had.

  He had.

  From the minute she’d seen West Fork’s new police chief, she’d tumbled hard. It would be silly to call what she’d felt love, but it was more than lust. Maybe it was most accurate to say she’d known right away that she could love him. The shocking thing was, she’d never felt anything so potent and next-thing-to-painful for Rory. Rory and she had dated for over a year before he’d asked her to marry him. She’d liked him, felt comfortable with him. He’d felt right, as if he fit into the life she wanted.

  Ben, Faith had known from the first moment, could blast her life as she knew it to smithereens.

  In fact, he’d hurt her right away by asking Charlotte, not her, out to dinner. For all the troubles that lay between Faith and her twin, jealousy over a man had never been an issue. That night, while her sister was out with Ben, Faith had sat at home and burned with envy.

  She still didn’t quite know what had happened between them, only that Char had said there weren’t any sparks. She’d been convinced that Ben was really interested in Faith and not her. Sometimes, Faith thought that, too. The night when Rory had tossed the cherry bomb through the window, Ben had seemed to have eyes for no one but Faith. He’d cradled her on his lap while the medic plucked shards of glass out of her flesh, and he’d rushed her to the hospital himself. His tenderness had made her feel safe.

  But it seemed as if every time he held her and comforted her, he regretted that he had. She’d never seen a face close down tight the way Ben’s could.

  Either he felt nothing for her, or he didn’t like what he did feel and refused to act on it. Either way, seeing him hurt.

  She might have told Ben about Rory’s last phone call if only he wasn’t always so irritated with her, so scornful. She knew he didn’t understand any more than her own father and sister did why she had endured three years of marriage to a man who was abusing her. She despised herself enough, thank you; she didn’t have to spend time with a man who believed she was so spineless, he had to bully her into defending herself from Rory.

  That was why she’d bought the handgun, why she’d spent a total of thirty-six hours to date shooting at the range. She would defend herself, and Daddy and Char, too, if they were in Rory’s way. Faith still felt queasy every time she picked up the Colt .38, but her hands were steady when she lifted it and aimed, and she could rip the heart out of the target.

  Char was always the one who’d been adventurous, strong. Faith was the timid twin, the compliant one. The one easily wounded.

  The perfect sucker for a man like Rory Hardesty, she knew now.

  The worst thing about seeing Ben this time, she thought, was that she’d had to lie to him. Rory had called, a couple of weeks after he broke into the house and slashed Charlotte with the knife thinking she was Faith.

  During the phone call, he’d sounded relieved to hear that Char had recovered. He claimed that he wouldn’t be moving back to West Fork. He’d sounded truly sorry for scaring her, and for what he’d done to Char.

  The only thing was…his tone had changed at the end of the conversation. He’d asked if he could come see her if he was back in West Fork visiting. She told him no, and to add weight to her refusal said she was in love with someone else. His voice had changed after that.

  “What about your wedding vows?” he’d asked. “Do you ever think about what you promised?”

  She’d clutched the phone, thinking about all the times she’d forgiven him. About how close she had come to dying at his hands, which would have released her from her vows in a final way. And she didn’t say a word.

  But he did. “I don’t like the idea of you with anyone else, Faith,” he’d told her, and she recognized the anger simmering in his voice.

  She’d tried to convince herself it wasn’t anger, that it was really grief for what he’d been foolish enough to throw away, but she hadn’t quite succeeded. It had sounded like a threat to her.

  Right after Rory called, Faith hadn’t been able to bear even the idea of seeing Ben again, of having to submit to his questions, of having to remember the horrible years of her marriage. Of giving him even more grounds to pity poor Faith Russell, too weak to stand up to a bully. Anyway, what good would it do to tell him? They already knew Rory was a threat. Ben, especially, was convinced he would be back.

  So she hadn’t told him about the call, and she wasn’t going to now. There wasn’t any point, and she had a right to defend herself against Ben as well as Rory.

  But he’d known she was hiding something, which brought out the aggressor in him. Faith could tell he’d been determined to make her bare everything to him, every doubt, every fear, every weakness. She’d had no choice but to order him to leave and not come back, even though he meant well in his own way.

  She could count only on herself, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Faith had spent a lifetime trying to clutch her twin sister close—so close, she’d driven Char away. And once she had lost her identical twin, she’d grabbed for Rory instead, enduring too much because he was all she had.

  Well, she wasn’t the same woman now. She and Char had come close to healing their breach, and Faith was truly grateful for that. She wouldn’t repeat the mistakes that had alienated them in the first place. Char was mostly living with Gray now, their wedding planned for November. Faith wouldn’t let herself lean on her sister. And Daddy was still convalescent—the idea of him trying to protect her really frightened Faith.

  Saturday, she decided, she’d see if Char could work for a few hours, freeing her to drive to Everett to get in some practice at the gun range. She hadn’t been for nearly a week now, and to stay strong and confident she needed to shoot often. Handling the gun should become second nature.

  Thinking about it, Faith picked up the phone and dialed her sister’s cell-phone number.

  “Sure, Saturday morning is fine,” Char said, after being asked. “I was just thinking about you. Any chance you want to go swimming at the river tomorrow after you get home from school? Maybe Marsha could stay a couple of extra hours.”

  Faith hesitated; even the meager salary she was paying the nice woman who worked Tuesday through Friday at the farm ate into their inadequate profits. But it didn’t seem as if she and Char ever had time to do fun things, only the two of them. Gray was such a big part of Char’s life now, and Faith couldn’t leave Daddy on his own for very long yet, either.

  “I’d love to. It’s supposed to be hot again tomorrow,” she said. “You want to come by and get me?”

  “Okay.” There was a muffled voice in the background, which Faith assumed was Gray’s. Char laughed, then said into the phone, “See you about four?”

  “Four,” Faith agreed.

  THE SIGHT OF HER SISTER in a bikini shocked Charlotte. Faith had lost weight. Too much weight.

  Since their late teens, Charlotte had been the skinny one. She’d always had more nervous energy and not much appetite. Later, she’d deliberately lost weight—part of her strategy along with dying her blond hair dark—to ensure that she and Faith couldn’t be mistaken for each other. She had hated being an identical twin, having another person who looked so much like her. Some of her earliest memories were of throwing gigantic temper tantrums when their mother tried to dress them the same. Too much of her life had been consumed by her near-frantic need to separate herself from her sister.

  When she’d come home almost two months ago, Charlotte had realized that next to her sister she looked bony. Urban angular, she’d convinced herself. But, darn it, the food was better here at home. Corn fresh from the field, real butter from a local dairy, bacon and eggs for breakfast instead of a hasty bowl of cereal. She’d been gaining weight ever since, while Faith, stressed almost past bearing, had been losing it.

  Charlotte just hadn’t realized how much, until now.

  She had the sense not to say anything. Faith had reason to be scared. Reason, irrational though it would seem to most anyone else, to be driving
herself so hard to try to save the family farm. With the fabric of her life so torn after Mom’s death four years ago, the failure of her marriage and now Rory’s cruel and terrifying attacks, Faith had to hold on to the one solid piece of her life that she could: home. The heritage they’d both grown up taking for granted.

  Daddy, Charlotte believed, was ready to let the farm go. Neither of his daughters could imagine what he’d do if it was sold and carved up into a housing development, but Charlotte could tell he was uneasy with the theme-park kind of farm Faith had created and with the retail business that brought in most of the income. No matter what, Don Russell would never be a real farmer again. He was tired. Once he’d have bounced back quickly from the kind of injuries he’d suffered when the tractor had rolled on him. Fifty-nine years old now, he was struggling with the pain and the limited mobility and the indignity of having his daughters have to care for him like a baby in the first weeks.

  Because she understood her sister, Charlotte was doing her best to help. She had accepted a job with an Eastside software company in part because she could do a fair amount of the work from home. She was putting in several hours every evening so that she could fill in a few mornings a week at the farm. Gray didn’t mind, overwhelmed as he was with his part-time mayor, part-time architect gigs, which he said felt more like full-time mayor, full-time architect. He often worked evenings, too.

  Charlotte knew that she could help her sister and father only so much, but she should have noticed how Faith’s weight was plummeting. Instead of just helping out at the farm, maybe she should have suggested more fun outings. Did Faith ever have fun anymore?

  As always, they had made their way upriver, over a tumble of boulders and under the railroad bridge, to a favorite spot that was private and offered a pool deep enough to allow them to cannonball off a rock into the water. The river was running even lower than it had been the last time they’d been here, she noticed as they waded in. Winter had been unusually dry this year, so there wasn’t much snowmelt to run off.