She blinked up at him. "You haven't?"
"How could I? I loved you." He stroked her hands, then her face. "I still love you."
Closing her eyes, she asked him, "Even if I never remember?"
"Even if you never remember," he told her.
Her eyes opened, and she smiled, though her lips trembled. "I'm glad. But, Ben … I remember," she told him. "It's all coming back to me. All of it. Everything we had. Our wedding day…"
He squeezed his eyes tight to prevent his tears from spilling over, lowered his head and pressed her hands to his brow.
"But … but it's not going to change me, Ben. I'll never be that weak, dependent, sick wife who left you two years ago."
He brought his head up slowly. "That woman never would have survived this," he told her. "But you did. You and your girl-detective ploys. You led us right to you, Penny. You know that?"
"I don't care about that."
The medics started to wheel her toward the waiting ambulance. But she held up a hand, and they stopped. "Please, give us just one more minute."
The men in white exchanged glances, nodded and moved away to where Barlow sat, handcuffed, in the grass on the other side of the car.
Penny licked her lips. "I need to know, Ben … can you ever … can you love me as much? I mean, me—the woman I am now. Not the one I was before … before all this. Because if you can't, then you might as well tell me now. I know it might take time, but—"
"Shh." Ben pressed a gentle finger to her lips. "The woman you are … honey, don't you know that's who I fell in love with in the first place?"
She frowned in confusion.
"Penny, this is you. This is who you always were. That disease … that's what turned you into someone else. You were diagnosed so young … you never had a chance to become the woman you were supposed to be. Instead you grew into a patient … a terminal patient."
She bit her lip. "I know. I was … I was hopeless. Already dead inside, I think."
"It took me a while, honey, but I see it now. You're not different. You're exactly who you would have been if that damned HWS had never happened. The adult version of the girl you were before we found out. I loved that girl. I kept on loving her when she got sick. I still love her. I love her more than ever."
"Do you mean that?"
Tears were flooding her eyes, and a smile teased her lips. Ben leaned close, kissed her tenderly. "I mean it, Penny." He searched her face, drinking in her beauty and thinking he must be the luckiest man in the world.
"Then it's complete," she whispered. "I have my life back … all of it."
Ben smiled down at her. "We have our life back," he corrected her gently. "And what a life it's going to be."
"I love you, Ben. I love you—and I never stopped. Not really."
Ben closed his eyes and drank in the sound of those precious words he'd thought he'd never hear again. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out her wedding band. "Promise me," he said as he slipped it onto her finger where it belonged, "you're never going to take this off again."
"I won't," she told him. "Not ever."
* * *
Epilogue
« ^
Six weeks later
Penny sat on the porch swing thumbing through the textbook for the course she'd be taking at the university this fall. Private Investigations 101. Olive lay in the huge doggy bed Ben had bought for her, nursing her four bulldog pups, all of whom resembled piglets more than they did puppies at this point. Jessi had to deliver them by cesarean section, a turn of events she'd assured Penny was not uncommon in bulldogs. The pups' heads tended to be huge.
Penny smiled and thanked the fates that she had such a wonderful family.
Ben came out to sit in the swing beside her. He patted Olive on the head as he passed, then slipped his big arm around Penny's shoulders and gently kissed her cheek. "Here," he said. "Put the professional-snooping book down for a second, and take a look at this."
She glanced at the newspaper he held, then dropped her book and took it from him. The sensational headline screamed Mad Doctor Provides Keys To Curing Rare Disease.
"Is this true?" Penny asked as her gaze eagerly skimmed the lines of text.
"Sure is. Barlow turned over all his research," Ben told her. "He's cooperating fully from the psych hospital where they put him."
"That's wonderful!"
"Paper says that with a bit of fine tuning, his treatment program is going to eradicate HWS for good."
Penny sighed. "Thank God. You know, the man is a genius. He just … he just cared too much, I think. Losing his mother when he was so close to finding a cure … it just pushed him over the edge."
"I wanted to kill him," Ben said softly. "But I'm grateful to him at the same time."
"I know. It's odd, isn't it?"
Ben nodded, kissed her again, then leaned back on the swing as Penny snuggled closer to him. "Ben?"
"Mmm?"
"You remember that collection of Nancy Drew books I had?"
He smiled lazily as she tipped her head to look up at him. "How could I forget? You insisted on moving them in with you when we got married. They took up half the space in the bedroom closet."
She laughed. "Don't you dare complain about Nancy. Her methods saved my butt."
"Who's complaining? Nancy should be sainted."
Olive lifted her head. "Mrruff."
"See? Even Stubby agrees," Ben said.
Penny stroked Ben's chest and closed her eyes. "Are they still there?"
"The books?"
She nodded.
Ben's hand ran gently over her hair. "Do you think I could bring myself to get rid of anything that was yours, sweetheart?"
"Then you kept them?" she asked.
"Yeah. They're the reason that top shelf in the closet is buckling in the middle. Why?"
She drew a deep breath, sat up and took his hand in hers. Gently she pressed his palm to her belly. "I thought our baby might enjoy reading them someday."
"Sure, someday when we—" He stopped talking, sat up straighter and gaped at her. Olive did likewise, tilting her head to one side and cocking her ears. "Are you saying … we're having…?"
Penny nodded. "We're having a baby, Ben."
Ben leaped to his feet, hollering at the top of his lungs until a half-dozen Brands spilled out of the house to see what was causing such a commotion. He scooped Penny out of the swing, right up into his arms, and kissed her long and hard as Olive jumped out of her bed and danced excitedly around his feet. The four pups peered out, blinking fuzzily and wondering where their lunch had gone.
"What in the Sam Hill is going on out here?" Adam asked, looking from Ben to Penny and back again.
"I'm gonna be a daddy, that's what!" Ben shouted, and his face practically glowed as he gazed down at Penny. "I'm gonna be a daddy."
"Hallelujah!" Adam shouted, yanking off his hat and slapping his thigh with it.
"Hot damn!" Garrett yelled, hugging his wife.
"Congratulations!" Chelsea said, sniffling.
"We're gonna need a bigger house," Elliot observed thoughtfully. But then he grinned ear to ear and let out an earsplitting "Yee-haw! I gotta call Jessi! And Wes, Wes is gonna want to know about this!"
Olive jumped and spun in circles and barked with unconcealed excitement. Even Old Blue came to the front door to check out the revelry, peering through the screen with his brows raised in question.
Penny gazed at the smiling faces of all those Brands, and felt them sharing her joy. Chelsea was crying already, for heaven's sake.
Then she faced her husband once more. "If it's a girl," she said, "I want to name her Nancy."
Ben frowned for just a second. "Well, then I surely hope she's a girl."
"Why?"
"'Cause if she's a boy, we're gonna have to name her Reginald."
Penny tilted her head to one side. "Reginald?"
All the other Brands frowned at Ben and chorused, "Reginald?"
<
br /> Ben shrugged. "It's a long story."
Then he smiled down at his wife again, and Penny rested her head on his shoulder and knew she was home. Surrounded by love, no matter where she looked. She'd never leave this place, or these people. The family she'd nearly lost … the man even amnesia couldn't make her forget … the love of her life, a love that could not be defeated.
Tears in her eyes, she looked deeply into his, and saw dampness there, as well. And it touched her soul. "I'm so happy," she whispered.
"And I'm gonna make sure you always are, Penny. Just this happy. Always."
* * * * *
THE HUSBAND SHE COULDN'T REMEMBER Page 21