“Yeah, he’s a pretty rough taskmaster,” Teddy said. “No wonder Thomas is so tough on the football field. This farm work isn’t for sissies.”
“Darn right,” Ben agreed, and though she laughed, Mark could see the vestiges of tears in the red rims of her eyes and swollen nose.
When she looked at him though, her eyes were clear and genuinely smiling. He breathed a sigh of relief he hadn’t realized he was holding. Whatever had happened had helped. Karin had made a friend for life in him.
“So.” Karin’s voice was as tiny as her stature. “Are you giving me a ride home, Teddy, or do you have to go pull calves or something?”
“No calves to pull ’til spring.” Mark was fighting himself not to go to Ben and wrap her up in his arms, but everyone was staying light so he tried as well. “But I’ll be sure to give you a call, Teddy.”
“Yeah, and I’ll call you next time Mrs. Kennedy’s cat gets stuck in the runoff drains,” Teddy replied with a chuckle. He shrugged out of the borrowed clothes and Mark accepted them.
“I wouldn’t mind helping out Flathead Falls’s finest,” Mark said.
Ten minutes later the Williams cousins were gone, a clean barn and hopefully a more clear-headed Ben left in their wake. Mark scrubbed up in the laundry room and listened to Ben working in the kitchen. He had another half hour before he had to pick up the kids from raking leaves at church. He hoped it was enough time to feel out the status of Ben’s situation.
“It was good,” she called when he turned off the water.
He looked over his shoulder and found the doorway empty. “What’s that, honey?”
“The meeting with Karin. Before you asked, I wanted to let you know it went really well. We talked, she gave me some great resources, and we’re going to meet again if I want.”
He dried his hands and walked into the kitchen where she was washing coffee cups. There was tension knotting her shoulders, and he realized she expected him to grill her about everything. It had been his plan, but he quickly reevaluated.
“Good, I’m glad it went well.” The space between them was too much. Part of him thought she might need it, but another part didn’t care. He closed the distance and tucked his chin on her shoulder. “She seemed nice.”
“Oh, she is.” Ben’s assurance was immediate, and she relaxed under his touch. “I just don’t really want to talk about it anymore.”
“I suppose,” he said slowly, “it would be like beating a subject to death.”
“Exactly.” She relaxed deeper into his embrace, drawing his arms around her middle. “Did you know it’s okay if I stop thinking about it all the time?”
He frowned a little, not sure what she needed to hear from him. “What do you mean, baby?”
“I mean, it’s okay if I enjoy my life while I deal with this other garbage,” she explained. “Karin said I’m getting mixed up because I’ve got some really wonderful and exciting things happening, while I’m trying to recover from some ugly things. It’s okay if I don’t let the business with Don and Victoria and now the…attack consume me.”
“That makes sense to me.”
“Yeah.” She blew out a breath and turned until they were nose to nose. “It makes sense for me too. I thought there was something wrong with me because I wasn’t– I don’t know how to explain it.”
“You were worried you were dealing too well. Other than the night stuff, you’ve been doing great. I suppose you were concerned you were in denial or something.”
“Exactly.” Her relief filled the room. “I was worried I was bottling a problem for later, but I’m not. I’m just…I’m dealing with the issues at hand, but I’m happy too. It’s been a while since I was genuinely happy. I guess I didn’t recognize the feeling.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
She gave him a confused look at his exaggerated sigh.
“It is,” he insisted. “It’s good to know you aren’t a head case.”
She burst out laughing. “And were you worried I was?”
He brushed a kiss to her smiling lips. “Naw. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. And you’re smart enough to know when to ask for help.”
“I am smart enough to ask for help,” she agreed and brushed her lips back to his. “And you’re sweet enough to make sure I get it. Thanks for being so wonderful, Mark.”
“That’s not something you ever have to thank me for.”
“Sure it is. How are you feeling after cleaning the whole barn?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Might be a little sore later, but for now I’m okay. Teddy will feel it tomorrow, I’m sure.”
“Probably not.” The teasing was back and he could smile for real because she did. “Karin mentioned he does lots of weight lifting. He’s scrawny but tough.”
“Okay, rub it in already that I’m an old guy,” he said sourly.
“My old guy.” She pressed her lips gently to his.
It was one of her first shows of uninitiated affection. She never pulled away or discouraged him, but always in the past had let the first move for closeness be his. He’d been waiting for her to be comfortable enough to take the first step and it thrilled him.
“My mature, sweet, patient, wonderful man. Thanks for being all those things.”
He kissed her back, keeping the tone light and sweet. “If we’re going to make this work, then I want to be everything you need me to be. Even wonderful on occasion.”
“Just on occasion?”
“It’s the times between those occasions that will make the wonderful all that much better.”
“Okay, farm boy. I’ll take occasionally.”
Chapter 11
Victoria was angry, and angry never went well for the people around her. She looked at the latest batch of pictures on her digital camera and fought the urge to throw it across the room.
Bennie was fine. A little battered and bruised but nothing lasting. If Steven would’ve finished the job, she could move on and head for Nevada like she’d planned. But no, he’d screwed it all up because he’d acted like a little scaredy bitch in the face of some stupid kids.
For the past week they’d been hiding in plain sight, and it grated on her. There was no reason they shouldn’t have been gone. Well she gone, Steven dead, and the delay infuriated her.
She clicked the button for the next picture and Ben’s broken face made her smile a little. It wasn’t enough though. If she wanted anything done right, she had to do it herself.
But nothing short of killing Bennie herself had seemed as scarring as rape. If she’d had a pet, Victoria would have taken joy in gutting it while it screamed and adorning Ben’s apartment or, even better, her school classroom with its dead body. But no such luck. Ben hadn’t even gotten a fish since moving to Missouri.
There were so many options and facets of torture Victoria could have employed, but nothing had played out as sweetly as physical force in an intimate act. Don had told her Bennie was a virgin on their wedding night. A sweet little, untouched flower and if things had gone right, Steven would’ve destroyed her.
Now, Victoria had cleanup to do, and she despised cleaning up after other people.
“Come on, Victoria,” Steven snapped.
She rolled her eyes. The scenario they’d practiced before he’d attacked Benny had gone to his head, and suddenly he thought he was in charge. Moron.
“But we can’t leave yet.” Victoria stuck out her lip in a tiny pout. “One little thing, Steven, and you didn’t get it done. I love that you broke her leg and made her look so ugly, but you didn’t do what I asked.”
“I know what you asked. I started, I hurt her good, but I couldn’t be caught.” He eased into a fatherly, patronizing tone that grated on her nerves. “They might have tracked you from me, and I couldn’t let that happen.”
They wouldn’t have found her, no way. Cops were dumb, sheriffs were worse, and Steven would’ve held out just long enough for her escape.
“How about this, su
gar tits.” Steven leaned in close with his beefy hands on either arm of her chair, caging her in. “She’s staying at my friend Mark’s place. It’s on our way south. We’ll stop by for one final ‘goodbye’ before we disappear. How’s that sound?”
“That,” Victoria said, her mind suddenly teaming with ideas, “sounds promising. Do you still have the car equipment?”
“It’s already packed if you’d scoot your sweet ass.” He indulgently tweaked her nose, and she was too busy thinking to get pissed. “Now get your shit together. We gotta move.”
Chapter 12
“No offense, really Mark, but chickens don’t like me,” Ben insisted, hobbling behind him on her walking cast. It was the weekend after Thanksgiving, nearly a month since the incident and she hadn’t gone home yet.
She could have, probably should have, but she’d let Mark talk her into staying until her cast came off. She knew he was gearing up for his next argument when it came off in two weeks, but she couldn’t justify staying any longer.
Victoria hadn’t made any contact, hadn’t called or sent anything, so Ben agreed with the sheriff to back down surveillance in small doses. They were staying vigilant, but the immediate threat level had decreased. They believed Victoria had had her fun and moved on before getting caught. Ben wasn’t so sure, and Mark always armed the security system, so she knew she wasn’t the only one who felt like the next shoe could drop at any minute.
“Oh, damn! Those things are on my car!”
“Like they’re going to hurt it.” Mark laughed when she pointed to the chickens swarming her unused car.
No one had driven it since they’d brought it to the farm, no need. Though it was her left leg that was broken and she could drive, it proved more tedious than practical. So her car just sat there, adorned with a flock of disgusting chickens and their poop.
“What’s your thing with birds, honey?” he asked as he filled a pail with corn. “There’s no reason to be afraid of them. Especially chickens. If they’re bad natured you just catch ’em, cook ’em and show ’em what part is the nugget.”
“I don’t know. They creep me out. All birds, I hate them all. Did you ever see the Hitchcock movie about them?” She shivered at the thought.
“Oh, please.” He chuckled, and she didn’t find his amusement at all funny. “Honey, it’s just a movie about a few crows, not a big deal. Birds might poop on you, but chances are, they won’t hurt you.”
When two hens moved closer she squeezed behind Mark like the five and a half foot sissy she was. “I don’t care if they’re fluffy marshmallows on the inside. Make them go away, please. I’ll do anything.”
“Ah ha, the promise I’ve been waiting for.” He turned and wrapped an arm around her middle, thick with one of his sweatshirts. “Sending me into battle, milady? What does your brave knight get?”
“A kick in the pants if that one touches me,” she whimpered as a black rooster closed in for the corn.
“You just keep a proper reward in mind for later.” He laughed again and gently nudged the rooster in another direction. “I trust you to deal fairly with me.”
Ben stepped behind the swinging half-door of the granary when he let her loose. She watched as Mark, her hero, rounded up the chickens. It wasn’t hard; the things were evil but they were dumb to boot, so they followed the corn. The dozen on the hood of her car didn’t seem to want to move though, jumping and fluttering around as if they expected it to heat up for them like Mark’s usually did.
He whistled, shook the pail, and swore at the birds with no effect. The two border collies he’d brought from his other farm looked on with no interest, and finally he headed toward her.
He was shaking his head in disbelief, but he didn’t look aggravated. It took a lot more than some stubborn chickens to faze him. She smiled when he grabbed fishing net from the granary wall and gave her a tiny peck on her cheek. His ingenuity never failed to amuse and amaze her.
Mark made it three steps when one of the birds jumped onto another on the car. Stupid birds, she thought, she’d have to scrub her hood with bleach to get it clean.
They were fighting with each other, and Ben was about to yell at them when the hood erupted in flames, shaking the ground and toasting the chickens. She watched in horror as Mark jumped out of the range of the explosion.
“Mark!” she screamed and fought the door’s latch to get to him.
“Call the fire department,” he shouted. She thought he looked unhurt as he ran to get a hose.
Ben pulled her cellphone from her coat pocket and made the call, staring at the carnage in front of her. Chickens, those pitiful chickens, were running around with their feathers on fire, screaming in pain and terror. The car continued to actively burn. Ben couldn’t make herself look away.
The chickens were suffering, but there was nothing they could do. Mark brought the hose, but it wasn’t enough so he also used a shovel to put out the little fires that sparked and burned.
When screaming, burning chickens neared her, Ben looked away. She didn’t like birds, but would never wish such a painful demise on them. Nor would she wish the grim chore of putting them out of their misery on Mark. Thank God the kids were gone, she thought, both at friends’ houses in town, far away from this latest catastrophe.
In amazing time, the fire department arrived with two trucks. They hooked into the well and soaked down not only the car but the surrounding buildings that were beginning to smolder. Mark was a volunteer firefighter, but he let the dozen men do their jobs as he stood beside her.
When the fire was out and the car was deemed safe, the sheriff stepped in. The men looked at the car, Ben staying back in the granary at Mark’s request. It had to be tampered with. When he looked to her, his earnest face tight with fury, she knew she was right. Victoria hadn’t forgotten her.
* * * *
“Honey, you can’t know that for certain.” Hours had passed and Mark and Ben were finally back in the house sitting at the kitchen table with security armed. Mark was trying to reassure her, but Ben didn’t want to hear it. “No one knows how long the bomb was sitting in that car before it blew. Teddy was saying they’ve got a lead on a couple who match Victoria and Steven’s description in Tennessee. They’re probably miles from here.”
“Does it matter if it was a month ago or two days ago?” Ben demanded. “She wants me dead. Even if she is in another state, she can come back. What if Thomas had taken my car or you decided to move it? Or hell, what if Kira decided to play near it?”
“You just said ‘what if’ three times. ‘What if’ didn’t happen. Everyone is okay, and except for the car itself and a few chickens there is no permanent damage. Take that for what it is and be grateful. If you spend your time with what could have happened, if I spend time going over it like that, we’ll just make ourselves sick.”
“But Mark–”
“No.” His fierce denial made her jump. “No ‘but Mark’ for this, because you and I both know the most likely scenario. You would have gotten into your car, alone. You would have burned to death like those damn chickens. Then what? Thomas and Kira are looking at you like you’re the best damn thing to ever come into their lives, and Ben, what would I do? What the hell would I do without you, loving you the way I do?”
There were tears in his eyes despite the anger in his words, and those tears hit Ben like a fist to the gut. He loved her. He’d known her three months and he did, he really did.
She was devastated at the thought of him being hurt. She remembered that moment when she’d thought he was in danger from the car and she shook. Her throat was too tight to force words from. Without him, so much changed. Everything that mattered in her world changed if he wasn’t in it.
He stood and walked to the sink, leaving her alone at the table. The tension in his shoulders, in his whole body, screamed to her. Abandoning her chair, she wrapped her arms around his back. He turned and hugged her tight. Her healing ribs ached, but she didn’t mind. She finally under
stood what he meant. The initial inklings of love hadn’t been obvious, because there hadn’t been the bursting sort of moment she’d expected.
She loved him. There was more to learn about him, but there was no doubt in her mind he was hers. Life without Mark–calm, steady, messy, farm-smelling Mark–would be unbearable.
“You’re everything.” She choked on tears as he pressed kisses to her temples. “I– Mark, I don’t have the words.”
“I know how you feel about that.” What could have been a try for a chuckle was forced from his throat, but there was no humor there, only emotion. “Everything I want to say is stuck in my head, but it never seems like enough. No words are enough for what you are to me.”
“I love you.” She gripped the fabric of his shirt tightly in her fingers. “It hurts how much I love you right now.”
“I never want you to hurt, baby,” he whispered, easing his hold on her though she didn’t want him to.
“I think it’s a good hurt.” She leaned back only enough to press her mouth to his. “I want this over. I want this woman gone so I can have you, Mark, so I can be part of your family.”
“I’m not going to let her stop us,” he promised between nipping kisses all over her mouth. “I refuse to let her take this away from us. Tell me you feel the same, Ben. Tell me I matter enough to take the chance.”
“You do, and that’s why I don’t want to take the chances.” Tears leaked down her cheeks, but he kissed them away. “If something happens, and today showed it can–”
“Today showed that God’s on our side.” Mark shook his head even as he continued to press kisses to her eyes. “With Him on our side, who can be against us?”
“Lots of people can. Look around, Mark. Even if Victoria wasn’t breathing down my neck, there are other things that keep popping up. My aunt, Steven, and who knows what your family will think when they hear what’s happened since you met me. God is great, you’ll never hear me say anything different, but common sense is important too,” she replied. Mark was sweet, he was smart, but she couldn’t just let go of all of the things that kept happening around them.
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