“Doc told her…how it was going to be when the end got close,” Kirsten said, looking at Ben. “That she’d…that she’d slip into a coma that might last a very long time.” She looked past Ben, meeting Penny’s eyes. “It made you crazy, Penny. You were driving yourself nuts going over it all, again and again. Talking about how Ben would suffer, how he’d have to watch you lying there like a vegetable, wasting away. You said you couldn’t do it to him.” She closed her eyes. “I thought you were going to try suicide, just to save him from watching you die slowly that way. I was scared to death for you, Penny. The symptoms were getting stronger, more frequent, and you knew it wouldn’t be much longer. You were so desperate not to put Ben through all of that…I just didn’t know what you might do if I didn’t help.”
Penny nodded slowly. “I can see why you would have been afraid for me.”
“So I wanted to help. I wanted to give you a way out.”
Ben watched Kirsten, saw the torment in her eyes. “What did you do, Kirsten?”
“I…I helped,” she said softly. She looked from Penny, to Ben, to Adam, and then lowered her eyes. “My…husband…has connections. I knew some of them were less than…scrupulous. He…suggested a name, a lawyer he’d worked with in the past, and I contacted the man. He…he was willing to help Penny and I…set up the accident.”
Everyone was silent for a long moment. Adam looked stunned. He shook himself. “Hell, Kirsten, what kind of a man did you marry?”
“Not the kind I wanted to,” she whispered, but Adam couldn’t possibly have heard from where he stood.
Ben heard her, though. He also heard the hiss and crackle of his heart freezing over. “You’re saying my wife…” he glanced at Penny, but only briefly. He couldn’t look at her. Not now. “…faked her own death? Let me believe she’d crashed? Let me think she’d been trapped in a car that became a blast furnace—trapped there until her body was so charred it was….” His throat closed off. He had to close his eyes to try to shut out the memory, but even then the vision remained. It had torn him apart to see those blackened remains and believe them to be hers.
It was Penny who spoke then, her voice dull, lifeless. “Whose body is in my grave, Kirsten?”
“I don’t know. The lawyer said it was an unclaimed body from a morgue out of state. I realize Garrett and the medical examiner have been trying to identify it, but I imagine they’re wasting their time. I don’t know how he got it here, or who it really was. A vagrant who’d died on the streets and wouldn’t be missed, he told us. It didn’t matter. He took your car and your wedding ring, and said he’d take care of everything. We never saw the body—or the accident.” Kirsten turned to Ben. “We didn’t know how it was going to be. I swear it, Ben. We never would have—”
“How did you think it would be?” he asked her. “Hell, Kirsten, how did you think they’d fool me into believing that corpse was my wife unless they burned the body beyond recognition?”
Kirsten shook her head. “We just…we just didn’t think.” She sighed. “Maybe we didn’t want to think.”
Anger welled up inside Ben like hot lava, bubbling dangerously near the surface, ready to boil over. “And the clinic?”
“The lawyer set that up, as well. He said it was a hospice, the best one in the world, set up specifically for people with HWS. He said she’d get the best of care there.” She closed her eyes. “Penny was on a flight out of the country by the time her car went into that ravine and exploded.”
Adam swore.
“It killed me to see you suffer, Ben. But it was for the best…or we thought it was at the time.”
Ben only nodded, fury eating at him, gnawing in his belly like battery acid. Penny said nothing. What could she say? She’d deceived the man she’d claimed to love in the worst possible way. Denied him the chance to be with her when he’d needed to be with her most. Lied to him. Let him believe she was dead. God!
“When I tried to contact her later, to be sure she made it there all right,” Kirsten went on, “the people at the clinic told me she’d slipped into a coma right after she’d arrived. They said she’d be dead within a month, and that we’d done the right thing. They told me not to contact her again, for her sake, and for yours, Ben. They said if I did, someone might find out. They told me to let her go. And I did…God help me, I did.” She searched Penny’s face, tears rolling down her own. “I’m so sorry, Penny.”
Penny said nothing, just stared at her as if she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing, or hearing, or how to process this new information.
“I want the name of this lawyer,” Ben said, containing his anger—just barely.
“So you can get him disbarred? No, Ben. I’m sorry, but I won’t tell you who he is.”
“She’s protecting her own interests, Ben, you can bet on that,” Adam snapped. “Dammit, Kirsten, how could you do this to my brother? My family? How much did you pay that sleazy mouthpiece to set all this up, anyway?”
Kirsten shook her head, got to her feet a little unsteadily. “I’ve told you everything I can, Ben,” she said softly. “We were so close once…I hope someday you can forgive me. I truly thought I was doing what was best. For you, and for Penny. Truly.”
Looking back at Penny, she said, “I’m glad, God, I’m so glad you’re well again. And back home. I hope…I hope….” She bit her lip, tears flooding her eyes, and ran out of the house, leaving the front door wide open behind her.
A second later Ben heard Kirsten’s car spinning its tires as it sped out the driveway, and Adam cussing under his breath, referring to Kirsten in less than flattering terms as he stood in the still open door, watching her go.
When Adam turned, his face was a mask of fury. But it softened when he looked at Penny, sitting as still and pale as a marble sculpture, and then at Ben. “Ben, listen….”
Ben held up a hand. “Take a walk or something, okay?”
Adam bit his lip, glanced Penny’s way once more and finally nodded. “Okay. You two need to talk this out. But…just don’t blow it, Ben. Not now—”
“Get out, Adam.”
Nodding, Adam turned and left them alone.
Ben stood very still. The fire he’d started gained strength, licking up the logs, devouring them bit by bit. The way his wife’s lie had destroyed him little by little over the years. And maybe now it was about to finish the job once and for all.
When he could manage it, he looked down at Penny, sitting motionless in the rocking chair. “How the hell could you do that to me?” he asked her.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember any of this, you know that.” Her voice was lifeless.
He searched her face, feeling as if he was seeing her for the first time. “I thought you loved me. I thought no two people on the planet could ever be closer than we were. I thought there was nothing you couldn’t share with me. God, Penny, was I that blind? Was I the only one who felt that way?”
“Ben, I—”
“I was, wasn’t I? All those years, Penny, I thought…but I never really knew you at all, did I?” He turned toward the door, but Penny lunged after him, gripping his arm.
“Ben, wait. You can’t just walk away—we have to talk about this.”
“Don’t touch me.”
Her hand fell away. She lowered her head. “I thought,” she whispered, “I thought….”
“Oh, come on, Penny. It’s not like you’re in love with me now, is it? You’ve been trying, I’ll grant you that. But it’s like playing house to you, isn’t it? You had nowhere else to go, so you thought you’d play the devoted wife. But you never felt a thing. For all intents and purposes, I’m a man you met a few days ago. A stranger to you. So don’t try to tell me you feel anything for me.”
“You’re wrong!”
“I’m only surprised it took me this long to realize it.”
“But I do feel something for you…. Ben, wait!”
He didn’t wait. He couldn’t. He walked out, feeling as if his heart had bee
n ripped from his chest and stomped on. He left her standing there, alone.
“He hates me now.”
Several hours had passed since Ben had stalked out of the house. No one seemed to know where he’d gone or what he might be doing. Moreover no one seemed to want to find out. Garrett and Elliot kept saying he needed some time alone. That everyone should just relax and let him be. Then they’d gone about their business, but Penny didn’t fail to notice that their glances her way were chilly, or that their words were clipped. The warmth had left their eyes from the moment they had learned what she’d done. They were angry with her. Both of them. And they had every right to be. But they’d also had a right to know the truth. They’d mourned her bogus death—they deserved to know how she’d betrayed them.
Adam had seemed more understanding, but he hadn’t returned to the ranch yet, either.
Chelsea seemed to be her only ally. She refilled Penny’s teacup, and ran an encouraging hand over hers. Elliot and Garrett had finally gone upstairs, and the two women had retreated to the kitchen.
“He can’t hate you for what you did back then. You don’t even remember it,” Chelsea said gently.
“That makes sense from a practical point of view.” Penny sipped the tea, then set the pretty china cup carefully into its matching saucer. “But Ben’s thinking from an emotional one at this point. I hurt him terribly.”
“He’s not thinking at all right now. Men never do when they’re hurt. He’s just feeling. But eventually he’ll realize it and get control of his anger.”
Penny shook her head. “He’s angry at a woman who doesn’t even exist anymore.” Then she glanced out the nearest window at the darkness lying like a blanket over the ranch. “I’m worried about him.”
“Then why don’t you go to him?”
She blinked, glancing sharply at Chelsea. “Garrett and Elliot said to leave him alone. Besides, I don’t even know where he is.”
“Garrett and Elliot should mind their own business. If you want to go to him, you should darned well do it. You’re his wife.”
Penny went still, shaken by the quiet, matter-of-fact way Chelsea dropped those words. As if they were as true and as natural as saying “It gets dark at night.” It made her throat go dry and sandy. Made her head throb a little.
“It’s true, Penny. You’re his wife. You don’t have your memory, but you still have your marriage, until and unless you or Ben decide to change that. You have every right to go to him, talk to him and insist he listen.”
Slowly Penny nodded. “Maybe once,” she whispered. “But I think I lost that right when I did what I did.”
“You have to try.”
“Do I?” Penny rubbed at her watery eyes. They were getting sore now from so many tears.
Chelsea shrugged. “Depends. Do you want to save your marriage? Maybe you’d rather just let him go. Maybe now that you have a long, healthy life to look forward to, you’d rather start over, fresh, without the past dragging you down.”
Penny lowered her head. The thought of a long, healthy life without Ben…without this family…seemed more bleak than the prospect of an early death.
“You’ll probably find him at the dojo,” Chelsea said. She reached to the center of the table where her key chain lay, and gave it a shove. It slid to a stop in front of Penny. “You can take my car if you want.”
Penny nodded and closed her hands around the keys.
“Wait a minute,” Chelsea said. “You do remember how to drive, don’t you?”
For the first time in what felt like a long time, Penny smiled. It felt weak and watery, but she managed it. “I did okay with the stolen Toyota, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, outran the cops and everything. Do me a favor, Penny? If you see a flashing light behind you, quell those urges of yours and just pull over.”
“Promise,” Penny said. She clenched her fist around the keys in her hand. “You’re being awfully kind to me, Chelsea. I’m grateful.”
“You’re a Brand,” Chelsea told her. “These guys are so fond of going on about how when one Brand gets into trouble, the rest are right there to help them out of it. I figure it applies to Brands by marriage as much as by birth.” Chelsea winked. “You go get your man now, Penny.”
And Penny went. But she was uncertain, far from confident and pretty much disgusted with her old self for pulling what she had on Ben. Although she could certainly see why she would have done it. She could also see why Ben was angry.
Just as Chelsea had predicted, Penny spotted Ben’s pickup outside the dojo in town. She’d spied on him there before. And she couldn’t help but remember coming here with him yesterday and watching him with all those small children. His haunted blue eyes had looked almost happy as he spoke to the kids.
She parked Chelsea’s car and got out, then she stood there, staring at the red door, with the fierce dragon writhing brilliantly from top to bottom. Should she go in? Would it be an unforgivable intrusion? Maybe…maybe she should just look inside first, as she’d done before. Maybe she should make sure he wasn’t meditating very deeply or whatever it was he did in there, before just bursting in unannounced.
She drew a breath and, feeling like a television sleuth, she crept around the side of the building, glancing up and down the sidewalk casually before ducking into the alley. There was a memory tickling at the edges of her consciousness, and her head began to pound harder.
She’d been in this alley before. Not when she’d first come back here and looked in on the man who believed her dead. Before that. And the memory slipped up on her without warning.
Ben was acting awfully funny today, she thought, when he stood there digging up the dirt with his boot heel and asking if he could walk her home.
“We always walk home together, Ben,” she told him, frowning. “What are you asking permission for?’’
He looked at his toes. “I don’t know.”
He was fifteen then, and she’d gone from hero worship to full-blown adoration. Of course, she’d sooner be hog-tied and horsewhipped than admit it. He was her friend. He’d probably puke if she told him how she really felt.
Then he reached over and took her books, adding them to the stack he already carried.
“What’d you do that for?” she asked him, really curious now. “Ben, are you feeling okay?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure.”
“You never carried my books before.”
“Maybe I should’ve.” He tucked the books under one arm, and casually grabbed hold of her hand.
Penny blinked at their joined hands in shock as they walked along like nothing unusual was happening. He was holding her hand. She closed her eyes and prayed her palm wouldn’t start sweating! He’d never want to hold hands with her again.
She figured her heart was going a hundred miles an hour by the time they turned into the alley that ran between the feed store and the warehouse in town, a well-known shortcut they used every day. But today was different. The whole gang wasn’t with them today, the way they usually were. And he was holding her hand.
And then he stopped walking, midway through the secluded, dim alley, and he turned to face her. Penny stared up at him, so scared and excited and all wound up she thought she might die. Then he leaned close, still holding her hand, and he kissed her. A really gentle, slow, lingering kiss. She cursed her chapped lips and wondered if her breath was fresh…and then forgot everything except that place where his lips touched hers. Her eyes fell closed, and her heart melted into a warm, bubbling puddle.
Ben lifted his head away. He cleared his throat, and he looked right into her eyes and said, “I love you, Penny Lane.’’
“Oh, Ben,” Penny whispered as the memory faded. But the feeling it invoked remained. That had been their first, innocent kiss. And the first time he’d ever said he loved her.
Ben had been wrong when he’d said she felt nothing for him. She did. She felt a great deal, more than she understood or could begin to explain. And maybe it was the memory of
him making its way back into her conscious mind. Slowly but surely. The memory of loving him—that was alive inside her heart. It had been all along. And the more she remembered, the stronger it became.
Was it love she felt for him—or just the memory of love? Or were they one and the same?
She had to talk to him, had to make this all right somehow….
She moved up to the window, eager to see him for some reason she couldn’t even name. And she peered through the glass.
Ben stood inside his dojo, holding a beautiful woman in his arms. She clung to him as if for her very life, and he held her back just as hard. His eyes were closed as he held her, and it was only an instant before Penny recognized the woman who’d claimed to have been her best friend. Kirsten Armstrong.
The sight of the two of them wrapped tight in one another’s arms, hidden away in the dojo after hours, hit Penny so hard she staggered backward until her back smacked into the building next door. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions. She knew better, didn’t she? Then again, she’d been away for a long time. Did she really think her husband had lived like a monk all that time? Could she have expected him to?
But the biggest question was why did she feel as if a knife had just been cleanly inserted between her ribs? Why did she feel hot lifeblood seeping away and leaving her as lifeless as if she’d just been hit by a truck?
Was it because that love she’d once felt for him was alive and real and not just a memory after all?
It was so confusing! But it was obvious she wasn’t wanted there. Much less needed. She’d been worried about Ben. Well, Ben was safe. Kirsten was taking very good care of him.
He finally had his opportunity. Dr. Barlow had no idea how much Penny had told the Brands about him or his clinic. But it didn’t matter what they knew. He’d moved everyone, hired a new staff, set himself up a new identity. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been prepared for the day he’d have to move on. It wasn’t as if it hadn’t happened before.
They would never trace him now. But he needed Penny. Needed her desperately! She was the one success he’d achieved in all his years of research and study.
Long Gone Lonesome Blues Page 16