He put his long arms around her. “You went and spied on Mr. Murphy after I told you it was a bad idea, didn’t you?” he asked her, his voice almost teasing.
She nodded.
“He see you?”
“I don’t know. I think so.’’
And his arms tightened around her a little bit more. “It’s okay, Penny. I’m not gonna let him hurt you, you know that. I’d never let anyone hurt you. He comes around here, I’ll swear you’ve been with us the whole time. And my brothers’ll back me up, won’t you, guys?”
His brothers nodded. Those Brand boys sure stuck together. And little Jessi yelled, “Me, too! I will protect you, Penny!”
Ben tousled his sister’s hair, but his eyes were staring real deep into Penny’s. “Don’t you worry,” he told her. “I’ll make it okay.”
She knew it was true. And she felt an odd little melting sensation in her heart, one she’d never felt before.
Penny blinked slowly as the memory faded. But when it left her, it wasn’t gone. Not entirely. It remained in her mind, where she could pull it up and look it over at will. And something else remained, too. That melting sensation in the vicinity of her heart. That feeling she’d had for Ben in the memory…she could feel it again, exactly as it had been. He had never let anyone hurt her. He’d been her protector, always, even when she’d insisted she didn’t need one. And suddenly she knew that running to him when trouble loomed was something she’d always done. No wonder her instincts had guided her to run to him when she’d come out of that coma. No wonder she’d been so driven to come back here, to find this place. To find him.
She was still in Ben’s arms. He was holding her tight, rocking her slowly from side to side, and she knew with everything in her body and soul that he’d been telling the truth. He’d protect her. She’d always known that, never doubted it.
She swallowed hard, battling tears that had nothing to do with the fact that she was dying. Maybe they had more to do with the knowledge of what her dying would do to a man who’d vowed he would always keep her from harm. She meant so much to him. He must feel so helpless.
He was stroking her hair now, speaking softly. “I understand why you’re afraid to go out, Penny,” he said. “But I’ll be with you. That bastard isn’t gonna get within a mile of you with me there, I swear it.” He stepped back slightly, brushed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “Hey, you can wear the huge hat and sunglasses if you want. Consider yourself undercover.” And he winked at her.
She managed to smile through her tears. And her heart twisted in her chest. What had she ever done to make this man love her so much?
“All right,” she told him. “We’ll go. I guess seeing Doc is too important to let some lunatic frighten me out of it.”
“That’s my girl,” Ben said. And the words made her want to laugh and cry all at once.
Chapter 9
Adam was rattling around in the kitchen when Ben and Penny came down the stairs. Ben carried Olive, since they’d discovered that she was physically incapable of walking down a steep set of stairs. Being a bulldog, her front legs were shorter than her back legs, and most of her weight was in her chest. She’d attempted it once, and Ben had caught her just before she’d flipped head over heels. So from then on they carried her. And she seemed to like that solution very well. She had her rubber bone in her teeth, waiting for someone to try to take it away from her, and rode in Ben’s arms looking as if she thought she was royalty.
Ben set the dog down in the kitchen. Adam grinned at him, his white teeth flashing in his tanned face, as if he knew exactly what had happened between Ben and Penny last night. Then again, Ben figured, it would hardly be a secret. Probably the first one who’d popped into Penny’s room to find her and her stuff gone, had alerted the rest of them. They were an efficient bunch of snoops.
Not half as efficient as Penny, though.
With time to kill before Doc would even be in his office, Ben pulled out a chair for his wife and, as she sat down, he took a careful look at her, falling back into the old habit without even realizing it. He remembered all too well the bad mornings they’d gone through together in the past. He used to be able to predict her worst episodes before they happened, just by watching for the signs in her face. Her cheeks would be ashen, her eyes dull, with dark circles underneath. Her neck would look puffy, and her hair always seemed to go limp. Ben had taken to inspecting her for signs of impending disaster each morning. And toward the end, he’d seen them more often than not.
She was glowing this morning. Glowing in a way he hadn’t seen her do since high school—at least, not until she’d come back to him. And in the deepest, most secret place inside him, he nurtured a fragile hope that he knew was all but impossible. He was hoping for a miracle, he realized. He’d only end up more devastated in the end. He knew that, and yet the hope remained.
Adam finished washing his hands and waved Ben away when Ben reached for the coffeepot. “Sit your butt down, brother Ben. It’s my turn to do breakfast.”
Ben capitulated, and tried to pretend he hadn’t noticed the gleam in Adam’s eye. “Fine. Just don’t poison us, okay?”
“You take all the fun out of it.” Adam filled three coffee cups, setting two of them on the table, and keeping one on the countertop where he’d been working. “So what’ll it be this morning? Eggs Benedict? Belgian waffles? Fresh berries with clotted cream, or maybe some gourmet bagels with sorbet?”
Ben made a face. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “This ain’t New York City, Adam. Let’s have a Western omelet chock-full of peppers and onions, dripping good ol’ sharp cheese and mushrooms, sausage on the side. And toast with real butter and some home fries.”
“You eat like that and you’ll die young.” Adam slammed his mouth closed on the words, but too late. Ben saw him grimacing and cursing himself, saw Penny flinch and go a little pale.
Then Adam went to her, knelt down in front of her chair, taking both her hands in his and squeezing them gently. “I’m sorry. I could kick myself.”
Penny seemed startled. She glanced quickly at Ben. Ben shrugged. Adam said, “Ah, hell, he’s not gonna get jealous. You’re my sister.”
“You…keep saying that, and I’ll start believing it.” She blinked rapidly as Adam got to his feet.
He smoothed one hand over her hair. “You’re a Brand, Penny. You may not have had any family left before you married this lughead over here. But afterward you got more than most. It doesn’t matter if you’ve forgotten that. We haven’t.”
Ben could see how deeply his brother’s words affected Penny. She nodded a little too quickly, sniffed once or twice. “Thank you for that, Adam.”
“Forgive me for being a thoughtless fool?”
She smiled then. “If you’ll make those Belgian waffles for me,” she said. Then she glanced down, and when Ben followed her gaze it was to see Olive, lifting a plaintive paw to Penny’s knee. “Right,” Penny said. “And one for Ollie, too, please.”
“You got it,” Adam said. And he proceeded to make them a meal fit for royalty.
By the time he finished flexing his culinary muscle, the rest of the family had wandered in, and the oblong kitchen table was filled to capacity. Ben could see Penny just taking it all in, the noisy chatter, dish passing and elbow bumping that epitomized mealtime at the Texas Brand. He knew she was wishing she could remember having been a part of it. He was wishing the same thing.
Bubba sat in his booster seat, studiously eating the cream without touching the waffle. Naked bits of waffle on his plate, white fluff on his lips, he looked at his mama. “Mo cweam?”
“Eat the waffle first.”
“I like cweam.”
“Eat your waffle, Bubba,” Garrett told him, and the little boy pouted but ate.
“Where are the home fries, anyway?” Elliot asked.
Penny and Adam exchanged glances, and Penny said, “Adam and I discussed it and decided they were bad for your health.”
&
nbsp; “‘Course they are,” Elliot countered. “That’s why they taste so good.”
“It’s your turn tomorrow,” Adam told his brother. “You can make home fries if you want to.”
“Good. Who’s on grocery detail? I want ham, and some of those big Spanish onions.”
“I think that must be me,” Ben said. Then he glanced down at his plate. “I’m afraid I’ve been slacking off, keeping up with my share around here lately.”
“Don’t worry about it. You have more important things to do,” Garrett told him, with a smile at Penny.
“I’ll pick up those groceries today, all the same. Penny and I will be heading into town anyway this morning.”
Chelsea looked up, curious. “Oh?”
“I’m seeing the doctor,” Penny told her. The smiles around the table seemed to falter. “It’s time, you know?”
Chelsea nodded. “Then the last thing you’re going to feel up to doing is grocery shopping.”
“No, I want to.” Penny drew a breath and lifted her chin up. “I mean, what else am I going to do, head back up to my room and brood? Ben and I will get those groceries. I want to feel like…a part of things around here.”
Garrett sent Penny an admiring smile. Elliot reached past Ben to clasp Penny’s hand for a moment. “You don’t know it, sis, but you’ve been a part of things around here for as long as most of us can remember—even while you were gone.” He grinned at her as he released her hand. “But I should’a known you’d be back. Don’t they say a bad Penny always returns?” Elliot winked and went back to eating.
“No one told me I was bad,” she said, her tone lighter.
Ben was grateful for Elliot’s constant levity for once. It eased the tension.
“Yeah, well, you aren’t asking the right people,” Elliot went on. “Now, old Mr. Murphy would probably tell you just how bad you were. And he’d be likely to claim his rose bushes are still recovering from your shenanigans.”
Ben shook his head, remembering. “You really did make a mess of them.”
“Hey, she had probable cause,” Garrett put in. “She was investigating a murder, after all.”
“Yeah,” Adam said. “Only nobody was actually dead.”
“Well,” Elliot put in, “nobody except those roses.”
Everyone laughed at that, but Ben’s eyes were only on Penny, shaking her head in disbelief.
“You mean I actually went back there and dug them up? Even after he scared me so bad when…” Everyone went silent, and turning her gaze inward, Penny said very slowly, “When…he caught me peeking in his windows…” She blinked, lifting her head, facing Ben.
“You remember that?”
Licking her lips, she nodded. “I…I kind of remembered it last night. But I wasn’t sure if it was real….” She shook her head slowly. “It’s like someone else’s memory, playing out in my mind.”
Ben clasped her hand in his. “That’s incredible. Honey, you remembered. It’s going to come back to you, all of it. I know it is.”
Lowering her gaze, she whispered, “I hope so. Then maybe I’ll know how I ended up leaving this place.” Then, looking around the table at each of them in turn, she went on. “Because I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to.”
Adam cleared his throat, and Ben thought he was probably feeling a little homesick himself. He’d been living in New York, only home for short visits, and Penny’s words might have touched a nerve with him. “I think we’ll get the answers to that even before you get your memory back, Penny. I think Kirsten knows exactly what happened.”
Penny nodded. “I got that feeling, too. I’m going to talk to her soon.”
“Right,” Ben said. “But first we see Doc. Speaking of which….” He tapped his wristwatch with a forefinger.
Penny took a deep breath and set her jaw. But he could see the fear in her eyes. She was dreading this. “Time to go, huh?” she asked him. When he nodded, she popped the last bite of waffle into her mouth and pushed away from the table, attempting a brave smile that probably didn’t fool anyone in the room.
Having that huge breakfast with the family had made the time pass more quickly. And it was a good thing, Ben thought, because if Penny was anywhere near as nervous as he was, she’d make herself ill. He felt like he’d developed an ulcer himself. He talked to God inside his mind, as they sat in Doc’s waiting room. At least don’t let him tell us she only has a short while left, he thought. Let her have a few years, please. Just a few years. Is that so much to ask?
He was afraid to even think about what he really wanted to hear. That the disease had miraculously vanished. That Penny was his, now and forever and…
“Penny Brand?” the nurse called.
Ben saw Penny’s head come up. Her eyes were damp, her skin pale. Facing this, hearing it from a doctor instead of from him, God, it must be driving her mad.
He closed his hand around hers, held on tight and got to his feet. She managed to do the same, and they walked together into the examining room, probably looking like a pair of convicts walking up to the gallows.
He wanted to scoop her off her feet, turn around and run from this place. He wanted to take her where they’d never have to face anything like this again. Problem was, there was no such place.
The nurse pointed Ben to a chair in the corner, and he sat down, fidgeting, while Penny was weighed and her blood pressure and temperature were taken. “Okay, good,” the woman said, not looking at either of them as she scribbled on a chart. She dropped a paper gown on the exam table. “Undress and put that on. The doctor will be in soon.” And then she left.
Ben drew a breath, rubbed his arms. It was cold in here. It was always so cold in doctors’ offices. “You’re going to freeze in that paper gown,’’ he said.
“Yeah.” But she started to undress, and Ben quickly got to his feet to help her. He took her clothes from her, folded them up. When she was in the paper gown, he lifted her up and set her on the exam table. “That nurse’s bedside manner left something to be desired.”
Small talk. They were skating around the reason they were here as if it was a thin spot in the ice.
“Made the nurses at the clinic look downright bubbly—and they were probably criminals.”
Ben tried to smile. He paced some, but thought that was probably making Penny more nervous. So he sat down again, and read the posters on the walls. One was about oral hygiene, and another showed a diagram of the inner ear.
The door opened. Doc came in. His face like shoe leather, silver hair gleaming. The women loved him, and Ben always thought it was due to his Ricardo Montalban voice. His black eyes when they fell upon Penny…were stunned.
“Penny,” he said softly. And then he stepped inside the rest of the way and hugged her very gently. “Ben told me, but even then I could not quite believe….” Releasing her, backing away, he studied her face. And slowly a frown deepened between his salt-and-pepper brows. “But look at you!”
He pulled her lower eyelid with his thumb, whipping a light from his pocket to stare into her eyes. “No discoloration.” Then he dropped the light, and poked underneath her chin. “The glands, they are not swollen.” Then he stopped. Just stopped and stood there, staring at her. “Penny, what is going on here?”
She licked her lips. “I don’t know. I truly don’t.”
“She’s lost her memory, Doc,” Ben said, getting up from his chair to stand beside the table and his wife. And he told Doc all he knew about what had happened to Penny, which wasn’t much. And as he did, he realized that in all of his joy at having her back, and the renewed sorrow at knowing he would soon lose her again, he’d really let the whys and wherefores fall by the wayside. He’d put his questions on hold. But it would soon be time to go looking for the answers.
A little ball of foreboding formed in his stomach. It was like he knew already that those answers were not going to be pleasant ones, sensed it somehow. He’d almost rather not know.
Doc was silent for
a very long time. Then he pursed his lips, shook his head and opened the door to call for a nurse. While he awaited her, he returned to his poking and probing of Penny.
“Yes, doctor,” the nurse said when she arrived.
“I want you to draw some blood. Two vials, yes? Take a drop or two and prepare a slide for me.” He looked at Penny, smiled encouragingly. “It won’t hurt, I promise. Not much, anyway.” Then eased her back until she was lying down on the table, while the nurse pulled a plastic case full of instruments from a cupboard.
The deed was done in no time, and the nurse was on her way out with the vials while Penny sat with her elbow bent and a wad of cotton trapped there.
Doc pulled up a tall stool and sat down, taking Penny’s hand and looking her in the eyes. “Now we talk,” he said slowly. “Penny…Penny, I delivered you. Did you know this?”
“Yes. Ben…Ben told me.” She glanced his way, and he put his arm around her.
“So you know that you can trust me. I have nothing in common with this Dr. Barlow person you and Ben have been telling me about. I would not lie to you. Do you believe this?”
She drew a breath, nodded. The nurse returned with the slide, slipping it into place beneath a microscope that rested on the counter. Doc patted Penny’s hand, and went to it, leaned over it, peering through the lenses for what seemed like a very long time.
When he straightened, he rubbed his eyes. And Ben wondered if it was from looking so hard for so long, or for some other reason.
“It is good that you trust me, Penny. Otherwise you might not believe what I have to tell you. I’m not sure I believe it myself.”
Long Gone Lonesome Blues Page 14