She was the only patient ever to recover.
He had to know why. And maybe, once he explained to her that she could help him cure hundreds of others, she’d be willing to come away with him. Maybe she’d understand that it didn’t matter whether he was breaking the law, or using unapproved methods, or lying to the families of his subjects. Nothing mattered except the end result. Finding a cure.
He’d been watching her, following her, but everywhere she went that oversize cowboy was at her side. Until now.
He watched her go slipping into the alley, and he went to the car she’d left on the roadside. He tried the rear door, smiling to himself when he found it unlocked. Pulling the door closed quietly behind him, Dr. Barlow crouched down in the back seat and waited.
Chapter 11
Ben let Kirsten cling to him until her tears subsided. It turned out to be a long time, but it didn’t much matter. He thought about his own pain and rage and the incredible feeling of betrayal. He had as much to work through as she did. Although, he thought, her demons were a hell of a lot more dangerous than his own. He might hurt, but at least he’d survive. She might not.
Finally he eased her away from him just a little bit, and searched her face. “I don’t like this,” he told her. “Not one bit. I think we should tell Garrett—”
“I’m handling it. My way. I want your promise you’ll stay out of it, Ben.”
Ben saw the determination in her eyes. She’d been one of his best friends before all this crap went down. She and Adam, and Ben and Penny had been inseparable for most of their lives. “If Adam knew—” he began.
“Adam can’t know. Besides, now that I’ve seen this ugly side of him, I’m thinking I might be better off alone. He hates me, Ben. It wouldn’t make a difference.”
“But you’re not alone. You’re with that—”
“I’m where I have to be. Promise me you’ll keep my secret, Ben. I only told you because…because I couldn’t stand the way you were looking at me. I wanted you to know how much more there was to my decision to get Penny out of here. She was getting too close to the truth, Ben. If they’d have caught on, she might have died for real. And even though I knew she was dying anyway—I didn’t want it to be like that. Not violently. Not horribly. But safe and comfortable in a place where she’d be cared for…a place where I thought she’d be cared for. I was wrong, Ben, and I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “But Penny didn’t know that she was in any danger,” he said softly.
“No. Penny didn’t know. She went along for one reason and one reason only. Because she loved you more than she loved living, Ben. More than anything else in the world. She couldn’t bear the thought of you watching her waste away like that.”
He lowered his head, shook it. “If she loved me, she’d have trusted me with the truth. She’d have known I’d want to be there for her.”
“Ben—”
He held up a hand. “That part’s between Penny and me. As for the rest of this cloak-and-dagger bull you’ve got yourself mixed up in—”
“It will all be over very soon. You’ll keep my secret, won’t you, Ben? You won’t tell Adam why I really jilted him—why I had to marry Joseph Cowan?”
He searched her eyes, realizing now that the polish and the coolness were just a part of her elaborate act. The same old Kirsten was still there, inside. He could see her in those eyes. He nodded toward her designer handbag. “You carry a cell phone in there?”
“Yes.”
“Put me on speed dial. I want your promise that you’ll call at the first sign of trouble.”
Kirsten nodded. “I promise.”
Against his better judgment, Ben conceded. “Then I’ll keep this to myself…for now.”
“Thank you, Ben.” She searched his face for a long moment “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really am. I never wanted to cause you or Penny any more pain. Just the opposite, really. I just went about it all wrong.”
“I know.”
“You going to be all right?”
He averted his gaze and shrugged. “Only time’s gonna tell me the answer to that one.”
“Do you still love her?”
He lowered his head. “I reckon if I didn’t, this wouldn’t hurt so much.”
Kirsten reached up to ruffle his hair. “When you remember all your hurt, Ben, do me a favor. Remember hers, too. She gave up everything—her home, her family, the love you two shared—just because she thought it would be easier on you that way.” He said nothing and Kirsten sighed. “You’ll get through this,” she said.
He nodded, but secretly he wished to God he’d get through it soon. All his joy at finding Penny again, at learning she was well, cured, looking forward to a long, healthy life—all of that had turned to a heartache bigger than Texas. It was getting worse all the time. And part of him knew he probably shouldn’t be angry with her for things she didn’t remember. But knowing he shouldn’t feel the emotion did nothing to actually keep him from feeling it. And Kirsten’s rationalizations did nothing to ease it, either. How could Penny do this, and then expect him to believe she’d done it for his sake?
She’d deceived him, betrayed him, lied to him and pitched him headfirst into two long years of hellfire. Torture like nothing he’d ever known. Night after endless night of reliving that accident in his dreams. Seeing his beautiful wife trapped in a steel inferno, fists pounding impotently against the glass. He’d heard her anguished screams a thousand times, his imagination concocting the most horrible scenarios for the way in which she’d died. He’d seen her hair burning, her translucent skin melting, her tears boiling in his mind’s masochistic eye.
When all the while the body that burned in that car had already been dead. And the woman he’d mourned to the point of madness had flown away without looking back.
And just how was he supposed to get over that?
“You’re torturing yourself, Ben,” Kirsten told him. “You have to let the past go, get rid of it, or it just keeps on hurting you.”
“The way it does you, right?”
She bit her lip to prevent it, but the tears came again anyway, spilling over her cheeks. Ben held her, and though he loved Kirsten like a sister, he wished to God it was his wife in his arms right now. But he was beginning to wonder if he’d ever hold Penny this way again.
Penny yanked the car door open, gritted her teeth, closed her eyes. “So what am I gonna do, run away and let her have him?”
A sigh of fury gusted out of her, and she slammed the car door hard. “No way in hell, not this time I’m not.”
She whirled around in her tracks and stomped all the way back to the dojo. And she didn’t take her time about it this time, didn’t let her gaze linger on the ornate, exotic design on the door or let her mind dwell on the faint memory of how much her husband had loved her once. She was far too angry for any of that.
Instead she wrenched the door open, flicked on the light switch right beside it and stood there staring at the faithless pair as the door banged closed on its own, echoing from the walls of the hollow, gym-like room.
They both stiffened, pulling away from each other. And when they saw who it was standing there, they both began talking at once.
“Save it,” Penny said.
And they both fell silent.
“So this is the husband whose heart I broke, and the best friend who’s been praying for my return, is it?”
She walked forward slowly, her steps echoing from the ceiling. “Is it?” she asked again.
“Penny, this isn’t what it looks like,” Ben began. “There’s nothing going on between me and Kirsten.”
“Nothing but a few passionate embraces, you mean?”
He came forward, gripped Penny’s shoulders and stared at her from harsh eyes. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“If you didn’t want me back, Ben, why didn’t you just say so? Why this big act, where you’re the injured party and I’m the lying, scheming wife who did you wrong?”
&
nbsp; “It was no act. You did me wrong and you know it.”
“Bull.” She jerked her shoulders, but his grip only tightened. “From the looks of things, Ben, I did you a huge favor.”
“Dammit, Penny!”
Ignoring him, she shot a glance Kirsten’s way. “So tell me, was I ever really a part of this plan at all? Or did you cook up the whole thing just to get me out of the way so you could move in on my husband?”
Kirsten’s lowered head came up slowly. She was pale, her eyes round and wounded. “Penny…honey, you know better. I would never…”
“No wonder you didn’t want me to suffer a lingering death. Better to get it over with, right? Just get me out of the way.”
“No, Penny,” she whispered, shaking her head. “No, you’re wrong. God, you’re so wrong.”
“It looks it.”
“But you are—”
“I need some money.”
Ben blinked as if he was in shock. Kirsten only stared blankly.
“Adam says you married some kind of millionaire, Kirsten. Hell, you want my husband, my life, I ought to get something out of the deal. Enough to get so far away from here you’ll never be bothered by my presence again. Tell me, Kirsten—tell Ben. How much is it worth to you to get rid of me?”
With everything in her, she willed Kirsten to confess, to lift the burden of what she had done from Penny’s shoulders.
Ben suddenly clasped her closer, held her almost fiercely, pressing her face to his chest. His hand clenched and relaxed in her hair, and his arms closed around her so tightly she could barely breathe. “Stop it, Penny. God, just stop it. You’re not going anywhere.”
“The hell I’m not,” she managed to say, though she was speaking with her face crushed to his chest. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going anywhere broke.”
“Penny—”
“Come on, Ben, it’s not like you love me or anything.”
He released her suddenly, blinking down at her and looking as shocked as if she’d just slapped him. “You know that’s not true—”
“The hell I do. I only know what I see in front of me, Ben, and what I see is you and Kirsten all alone in the middle of the night in this dark hole, so close you couldn’t fit a toothpick between you. If that’s how you love me, Ben, then you can keep it. I don’t need it.”
She stepped away from him as he stared at her, saying nothing.
“I’m leaving,” Kirsten said softly. “You two don’t need me here for this. Penny….” She searched Penny’s face for a moment, then shook her head and sighed in exasperation. “Hell, I don’t know what to say to you. You’re wrong. You’re going to throw away the best thing that ever happened to you if you don’t wake up.”
She strode past them both and out the door.
When it banged closed again, they were alone. Penny’s fury was spent, and now she only felt exhaustion. Emotional, physical, mental, bone-deep exhaustion. She paced away from Ben to where a soft mat lay on the floor, and then she sat down on it. She didn’t want to leave. She wanted him to beg her to stay.
“What you saw here was nothing, Penny.”
“Oh, hell, don’t tell me it was nothing. Nothing doesn’t look like that, Ben. I lost my memory, not my eyesight.” She sat with her legs bent, elbows resting on her knees, head in her hands. “Besides, it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s over between us. It was over the minute you found out the truth.”
Ben walked across the gym and stood looking down at her. “It was over,” he whispered, “the minute you decided to lie to me the way you did.”
She lifted her head very slowly. “It wasn’t me. It was a woman I don’t even remember, a stranger. That’s who lied to you, Ben. And don’t forget, will you, that if she hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t be alive right now.”
He blinked as if those words hit him hard.
“But like I said, it doesn’t matter. You can’t love me because I’m not her. Yet you manage to hate me for her crimes.”
Ben sat down slowly. “You are the same woman, Penny. You’ll know that when you remember.”
“I might never remember. And to tell you the truth, Ben, I’m not real sure I want to.”
“What?”
Penny got slowly to her feet, pacing the gym in quick, agitated strides. “She sounds so weak to me. Giving up when she got sick, taking to her bed, running away.” She stopped walking and faced Ben. “That’s not me. I wouldn’t do the things she did. When I came back here, I thought…I thought maybe you could learn to….” Pushing a hand through her hair, she turned in a slow circle. “But you don’t even want to get to know the woman I am now, do you? You just want your wimpy, sickly, de-pendent wife back. Well, I’m sorry, Ben, but she’s gone. I can’t find her, no matter how I try. And I’ve just decided to give up the search.”
He looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language. “If that’s what you think I want, Penny—”
“It’s what you think you want, Ben. And if you can’t have it, you’ll take Kirsten, because I’m just too poor a substitute for the sainted Penny you remember.”
“No!” He reached for her, but she ducked his grasp and brushed tears from her eyes. “Penny, listen. Kirsten was just trying to explain why she helped you. She was just asking a dear friend to forgive her, that’s all it was.”
“Yeah? Well, tell me something, Ben. Did you do it? Did you forgive her?”
He stood where he was. Slowly he nodded.
“Then why the hell can’t you forgive me?”
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”
Penny stared at him for a long moment before she finally turned away. She walked out, battling tears all the way. And then she got into the car, slipped the key into the ignition and started the engine.
She should give up. She should go back to that ranch and pack up her dog and her clothes and get as far away from that big, dumb cowboy as she could go.
Penny closed her eyes and leaned her head against the steering wheel. Against her will, she recalled the joy she and Ben had shared yesterday. The thrill, the warmth, the closeness between them. The way it felt to make love to him.
She still loved him. She might not remember loving him in the past, but the feeling was still alive and well inside her. Maybe stronger than before. And it hurt that he didn’t love her back. That’s what she was running away from. The hurt. Not the man.
“I made him love me once,” she whispered to herself. And somehow she knew she was twice the woman now as she had been then. “No, dammit, I’m not running away. I’m going to make him see me for who I am, not who I was. I’m going right back to that ranch and I’m going to win my husband back.”
“No, darling,” a deep voice whispered from behind her. Her heart jolted, and she opened her mouth to scream even as she saw the dark shape in her rearview mirror and felt a cold hand close over her mouth. “I’m afraid there’s been a change of plans. You’re not going back to that ranch after all. You’re coming with me.”
She twisted frantically, glanced once back toward the gym and even saw the front door opening. But Barlow reached past her to shift the car into gear, and she felt the sting of a hypodermic piercing her throat “Drive,” he whispered, “unless you want me to depress the plunger…it’ll be fast but lethal, I promise.”
Swallowing hard against the pain and the fear welling up in her gut, she drove.
“Dammit, Penny, wait!”
Ben slammed out the front door just in time to see her taillights fading. Looked like she’d borrowed Chelsea’s car. Damn. He’d messed things up, but she hit him so hard and so fast and on so many levels he could barely keep up. He didn’t know whether to try to explain about Kirsten, or to try to tell her how wrong she was about her assumptions. She always had jumped to conclusions quicker than a cricket on a hot griddle. But she was wrong. She was flat-out dead wrong.
She wasn’t different from the Penny he’d adored all his life. That same spunk, that same temper, that same
fire in her eyes had always been there, along with an insatiable curiosity and a suspicious nature—those things had been a part of her all along. They’d only vanished when she’d been diagnosed with HWS. And dammit, he’d missed them! If Penny thought he preferred the sick and beaten woman she’d become over the true hellfire-and-brimstone woman who’d somehow been born again, she couldn’t be more wrong.
He wanted her. The woman she was now—the girl she’d been before the illness. Memory or no memory. But he also wanted the pure and perfect love he’d thought they’d had. The love he’d believed in. And that love had been an illusion. It must have been. If it had been real, she’d have never been able to lie to him the way she had.
Or maybe he was being a pigheaded fool.
She still cared. And as he stood there watching Chelsea’s car disappear into the night, he thought maybe she loved him, too. Because she’d seemed awfully upset to find him with Kirsten—far more upset than a woman who didn’t care about him should be.
All right, he had to tell her. Talk to her. Tonight. She wasn’t more than a minute ahead of him, and he’d catch up easily. He turned and ran to his pickup, and then he stopped and stood there cussing.
One of the front tires was utterly flat.
“Pull over, right here,” Dr. Barlow instructed, and since the needle’s point was still embedded in her neck, she did as he said.
Barlow nodded. “Good girl.” Then he depressed the plunger. Penny screamed in stark horror as she felt the cool liquid spreading through her, chilling her neck and creeping lower. A wave of weakness swamped her, and when Barlow pulled the needle out she couldn’t even lift a hand to rub the sting away.
He got out of the car, then opened her door and hauled her out, as well, pulling her up and over his shoulder. “Are you frightened, Penny? Do you think you’re dying now?”
“P—please,” she whispered. There were crickets chirping madly all around, and she was dizzy. He walked through deep grasses at the roadside, then knelt and lowered her into them. The tall stalks surrounded her and took on forestlike proportions looming overhead.
Long Gone Lonesome Blues Page 17