THE HUSBAND SHE COULDN'T REMEMBER

by Maggie Shayne

  "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 Datsun, 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 here. 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 i
t 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.

  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 grated his teeth and 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 I. 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 were 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, gymlike 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?"

  "It was no act. Yo
u 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 were 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—"