An Honorable Man

by Darlene Gardner

  “I can’t believe Ben thinks of you that way!”

  “It’s okay, Annie,” Sierra said. “It’s nothing less than I deserve.”

  A drumroll sounded outside the tent, followed by a voice over a microphone announcing the featured act of the evening.

  “Get out of here, Annie,” Sierra said. “That band you love is about to start.”

  It took some more convincing to get Annie to leave. When Sierra was alone, she stopped trying to put on a brave face. Despite what she’d told Annie, everything was not okay. The man she’d finally admitted she loved was about to have a story published that exposed her father’s sin.

  How could Ben not associate her with the man who might have contributed to his mother’s death?

  A shadow fell over her.

  Her heart leaped, and her head jerked up. It was Chad Armstrong. Just as quickly, her heart plummeted in her chest. She felt silly for even thinking it might be Ben, for harboring the hope he could look past what her father had done and come back to her.

  She was clearly delusional.

  “Quincy sent me to help with the T-shirts.” Chad was wearing one of them, the aqua color a good match for his tan. She did a double take. Yes. His skin was lightly tanned, and his haircut was fresh and flattering. He’d always been thin, but his body looked more toned, as though he’d been working out.

  “We sold so many today the overflow can fit in a couple boxes.” She folded the garments and started packing them away. Chad pitched in.

  “You avoided me at the committee meeting yesterday,” he stated after a moment as they worked side by side.

  That was true. She’d remembered his assertion that he needed to speak with her, but she hadn’t been up to dealing with him.

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind.” She didn’t owe him any more of an explanation than that.

  He said nothing for what must have been a full minute while the rock music pulsed in the background. His voice was unemotional when he finally spoke. “You must know by now I want you back.”

  That was it. No apology for dumping her. No remorse for what he’d put her through.

  “I figured as much.” She folded another T-shirt. “The answer’s no.”

  His lower lip thrust forward. Had he always sulked when he didn’t get his way? “Does it have anything to do with that newspaper reporter?”

  Her decision had everything to do with Ben, but not in the way Chad meant. “Things didn’t work out between Ben and me.”

  “Then why?”

  “A lot of reasons. Number one being I’m no more suited for you than you are for me.” Hadn’t Ben pointed those facts out to her? Why had she argued with him when he’d been spot-on?

  “That’s not true,” Chad protested. “We’re perfect for each other. We went to high school together. We live in the same city. We both have good jobs. We want the same things out of life.”

  No, Sierra thought, we don’t. Chad aimed to have the same kind of life her father had lived, a life that at one time Sierra had viewed as idyllic. She wanted something different. Instead of telling him any of that, Sierra said, “I’m sorry things didn’t work out.”

  He nodded slowly. Sierra prepared for a rush of sadness that their years together were truly over, but it didn’t come.

  “I hope it’s still okay for me to say a few words about your father at the park dedication on Sunday,” Chad said. “You know how much I admired him.”

  Chad wouldn’t think quite so highly of her father when word got out about Allison Blaine and the cover-up. As a pharmacist, Chad would recognize the gravity of her father’s errors.

  “There isn’t going to be a dedication,” Sierra said. “It was stricken from the festival lineup.”

  She hadn’t filled Quincy Coleman in on all the details, simply relaying the Pittsburgh Tribune was about to publish a story casting her father in an unfavorable light.

  “I heard about that,” Chad said, “but you know it’s back on the program, right?”

  “That’s impossible,” she responded.

  “I assure you it’s not.” Chad acted affronted that she’d question him. “I saw an updated schedule of events a short time ago.”

  “But…but how did that happen?”

  “Nash might have had something to do with it,” he said. “I overheard him talking to Quincy.”

  None of this made sense. She’d instituted the change to the lineup late yesterday. Ben had been back in Pittsburgh by then.

  “When was this?” she asked. “Yesterday?”

  “No,” Chad said. “About an hour ago.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SIERRA SKIDDED to a stop after rushing out of the tent. A wall of people formed a perimeter around those sitting on blankets in front of the amphitheater.

  She thought she’d mumbled an excuse to Chad for why she couldn’t help him finish packing up the T-shirts.

  She wouldn’t swear to it, though.

  She was only focused on finding out what Ben’s presence in Indigo Springs meant.

  The lead singer of the rock band let loose with a melodic howl. A guitar screeched, a drum beat out a frantic rhythm and then the four-member band really got going.

  The music was so raucous Sierra could hardly think as she scanned the crowd for Ben. She spotted Jill Jacobi clapping her hands to the music on the edge of the crowd, her brother small and silent beside her. Sierra raised her vantage point, only seeking men over six feet tall.

  Chase Bradford, a forest ranger who was a patient at Whitmore Family Practice, snuck a kiss from his girlfriend, Kelly. Nearby his father, Charlie, did a decidedly un-mayorlike dance for his laughing wife, Teresa.

  A few other heads stuck out above the crowd, one of them female, most of them bobbing to the beat, none of them Ben’s.

  Maybe Chad had been mistaken about Ben’s presence in Indigo Springs. As desperately as Sierra wanted to believe Ben was in town, what possible reason could he have to return to the place where his mother had so tragically died?

  She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself, which was no comfort at all.

  A hand touched the back of her right shoulder. She whipped her head around, then gazed up into dark, soulful eyes set in a lean, handsome face with the shadow of a beard.

  The face of the man she loved.

  “Ben.” She said his name, although he couldn’t possibly have heard her above the blaring rock music.

  He moved his hand from her shoulder. Just when she thought he might let her go, he grabbed her hand.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said directly into her ear.

  She nodded, breathing in the clean, familiar scent of him, uncaring of where they went. She’d follow him anywhere.

  He didn’t stick to Main Street, veering to a side street and walking purposefully away from the town center. She couldn’t make any more sense of where he was leading her than why he’d returned.

  When the music finally started to fade and a conversation would no longer involve shouting, Sierra asked him where they were going. It was far from the question she most wanted answered.

  “You’ll see in a minute,” he said.

  It took at least two. They walked without talking up and down one of the town’s hilliest streets within a few blocks of where Sierra had grown up. The music became a distant murmur.

  “This is it.” He stopped in front of a modest, two-story house at the steep end of the street. If not for the porch light and the brightness of the moon, the place would be in complete darkness.

  “Do you know the people who live here?” Sierra noted a lawn that needed mowing, the lack of cars in the driveway and a flyer hanging from the doorknob. The owners must be out of town.

  “I used to know them,” he said. “This was my grandparents’ house. It’s where we stayed nineteen years ago.”

  She sucked in a breath, imagining the sad memories the house must invoke. “Is this the first time you’ve been back?”

  �
�The second. I drove by earlier today.” He jerked his head toward the rear of the house. “Come on. Let’s trespass. I need to show you something.”

  She didn’t hesitate, walking with him through the too-long grass, acutely aware of all the things they hadn’t said, all the questions she’d yet to have answered.

  The moon cast a soft, imperfect glow over a yard that sloped downward at a ninety-degree angle. Sierra was familiar enough with the geography of the area that she could envision the view from the house in daylight. A lush valley where pale pink mountain laurels grew in the springtime, the hillside leading to it dotted by houses.

  “Since I found out my mom wanted to divorce my dad, I’ve been racking my brain to figure out why she let me believe we were only visiting,” he said. “Then today, when I drove by this place, it hit me.”

  She didn’t prompt him to continue when he paused. She sensed he needed to tell the story in his own time, in his own way.

  “I had this memory of running down the hill over and over again, going faster and faster, challenging myself not to fall. I remember laughing even when I did fall, then getting up and doing it all over again.”

  He pointed to a deck that jutted out from the house and overlooked the yard.

  “My mom and grandma were sitting up there, watching me. I could hear my grandma telling my mom to make me stop. There weren’t any trees I could slam into or rocks where I could hit my head. But I was getting pretty dirty and banged up. I don’t know why, but I remember the exact words my mother used. Let him be happy.” He paused in his narrative. “I think that’s why she didn’t tell me about the divorce.”

  Sierra digested his poignant tale, not completely sure she understood his conclusion. “Because she was protecting you?”

  “Partly,” Ben said. “But even more because she knew the truth would hurt and wanted to delay it as long as possible. I think it’s the same reason she kept from me that she was pregnant with me when she got married.”

  “How do you feel about that?” she asked. “I know how important the truth is to you.”

  “It’s still important,” he said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come to Indigo Springs in the first place.”

  “Then clear something up for me.” She was almost afraid to continue. “I heard a rumor you got the park dedication put back on the festival program.”

  “That’s not a rumor.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. When your story comes out, everyone will know what my father did.”

  “I’m not writing the story.”

  “But…but…” She couldn’t form a coherent thought, couldn’t understand why he’d pass up the opportunity to expose the facts. “What about the truth?”

  “The truth is that ruining the reputation of a man who made a single mistake won’t make me happy,” he said. “When I told my editor there wasn’t a story to write, I had the sense my mother would approve.”

  Sierra was afraid to believe what he was saying. “How about Missy Cromartie and the promise she made to her grandmother? Doesn’t she want to see my father exposed?”

  “I checked with Missy. She says her grandmother only wanted our family to know the truth of what happened to my mother. My dad and my brothers are fine with me not writing the story, too.”

  Sierra couldn’t stop herself from asking the question. “How would they feel about a park being named for the man who covered up the circumstances of her death?”

  “They had a tougher time with that one until I explained about you,” Ben said. “They eventually understood your father did a lot of good with his life trying to make up for his mistake.”

  She wanted to make sure she’d heard correctly. “You told them about me?”

  “I had to,” he said. “They might not have heard me out if they didn’t know I’m in love with Dr. Whitmore’s daughter.”

  Her heart banged as forcefully as the drumming sound in the park. “You love me?”

  “I thought that was obvious,” he said. “There are a lot of reasons I’m not writing the story, but that’s the main one.”

  “Because you love me,” she repeated, this time in wonder.

  He anchored his hands on her shoulders and met her eyes, the glowing moon revealing the sincerity shining in their depths. “I love you.”

  Joy soared inside her, but she was afraid to believe him. “You’ve only known me a week.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’re in my heart to stay.”

  The darkness of the last few days disappeared, the brightness of their future so unexpected all she could do was gape at him.

  “I’m coming on too strong, aren’t I?” He grimaced. “You’re right. We need time to get to know each other better. You can visit me in Pittsburgh, and I’ll come see you in Indigo Springs.”

  “I’m not staying in Indigo Springs,” she blurted out, surprising herself as much as him.

  At his confused look, she continued, “I’m selling my half of the practice to Ryan. Family medicine isn’t quite the right field for me. I think I might want to specialize in adolescents or work as a hospitalist.”

  “When did you decide that?”

  “Just now,” she admitted, although the plan sounded so right it must have been rattling around in her brain for months, if not years.

  “Where are you going to relocate?”

  “Pittsburgh, I think.” She was coming up with the plan on the fly, yet nothing had ever made more sense. “Somebody recently told me it was a great place to live.”

  “You’re moving to Pittsburgh?” Shock ran through his voice.

  She nodded, more pleased with the strategy by the second. “You’re the one who said I should live in a big city. Why not the place where you live?”

  He felt his hands tighten on her shoulders and tension radiate through his body. “Are you sure? You grew up here. I know what I said, but the better I know you, the more I see how well you fit into the community.”

  “Only because you showed me there was more to life than work,” Sierra said.

  He felt his forehead furrow. “How did I do that?”

  “By stirring things up,” she said. “I would never have joined the festival committee if I wasn’t trying to find out if Quincy Coleman sent you that e-mail. I was so busy acting like the perfect doctor I became every bit as dull as Chad said I was.”

  He thought of the woman who’d stripped for him, fiercely defended her father and whooped it up at the arcade. “For the last time, you’re not boring. You just got caught in the trap of acting…conservatively. The way you thought a doctor should act.”

  “I’m done with being conventional.” She wound her arms around his neck. “I’m going to start taking chances right now.”

  “Oh, yeah.” His mouth was just inches from hers, but he couldn’t kiss her, not yet. What she had to say was too important. “What kind of chances?”

  “I’m thinking about getting my hair cut really short.”

  He ran his fingers through the silken strands. “Okay, but you should know I love your hair just the way it is.”

  “You might be able to persuade me to keep it long then,” she said, “considering I’m about to tell you I love you.”

  He grinned as joy swept over him. “That’s not taking much of a chance considering you already know I love you back.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “I am moving to Pittsburgh.”

  “Now that is taking a chance.” He moved his hands to the small of her back, enjoying the way she molded against him. She couldn’t move to his city soon enough. “Since you’re feeling risky, here’s a suggestion. Get a place with a short-term lease. That way, you can move in with me when we know each other better.”

  Her upper teeth nibbled her lower lip. “What if I move in with you immediately?”

  “You’re serious?” He’d had the same thought, but hadn’t wanted to push his luck. “You’d do that?”

  “I do love you,” she said. “And you did help me become a w
oman who takes chances.”

  He didn’t reply. That was because she didn’t give him the opportunity.

  She kissed him.

  And just like that, only one truth mattered. They were happy, and he planned to spend the rest of his life making damned sure they stayed that way.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5561-0

  AN HONORABLE MAN

  Copyright © 2010 by Darlene Hrobak Gardner.

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