by Dana Pratola
His head remain cocked, attuned to any movement I might make as I snailed toward the front door. Going inside might not be a good idea anyway since I’d heard Ben say he’d be back with groceries—though he’d already searched—but I didn’t want to miss one word of what Josiah had to say.
“I want to thank you,” he said.
A ball of nerves squeezed in at the sides of my throat.
“I know you called for help.”
My eyes overflowed with fresh tears as I instantly recalled images of finding him.
“I might have died if not for you,” he said after some time. “Just want to let you know I appreciate it. I know you risked being found and…. Thanks.”
I had to sniff then, or else have my nose run down my face. I did it slowly, as quietly as I was able. Not quietly enough, his head jerked in my direction.
“Hey, why don’t you come closer? You don’t have to say anything. It would be nice to know I’m not crazy though. How about three knocks if you understand?”
Okay, that wasn’t fair. He’d been through so much already, I did not want to be the cause of him questioning his sanity on top of it.
“I know you’re afraid,” he said, after another long moment passed. “I get it. But you have nothing to fear from me, I won’t turn you in.” He chuckled. “To who? I’m the one who lives here.”
Fighting a surprising temptation to rush to him, my feet stayed planted on the porch.
“Suit yourself,” he said. “I guess you’ll come in when you’re ready. Still trusting you not to kill me.”
He disappeared into the parlor. Minutes passed as I considered my options—or lack of—and counted the reasons I would eventually have to go inside. One: what little food I had was stashed under the bed along with all my other things. Two: I had work tomorrow and would have to change. Three: I would have to use the bathroom at some point. Four: the cold. That one was pivotal. I had little tolerance to the cold. I just wasn’t built for it.
Only two things weighed against my first checklist. One: if Ben stayed, how would I sneak out in the morning without being seen or heard? Two: I had to close my bedroom door!
Josiah hadn’t made a sound in a while, and teetering in the doorway in full view of the road wasn’t helping my situation, especially when Ben might drive up any minute. I held my breath, braced my hands against the wood frame, and took a giant step inside, letting my foot ease ever so slowly on the floor. Silently. When I peeked into the parlor to find Josiah stretched out on the couch, he didn’t twitch a muscle, but I sensed he knew I’d come in.
“I don’t understand why we have to play this game,” he said, confirming it, his sudden voice sending a shock through my body. “But just try to stay out of Ben’s sight. He’s a dead aim with a pistol and a little quick on the trigger, if you ask me.”
I nearly squeaked. In fact, I may have. By the time the sound would have reached him, I was half way up the stairs.
CHAPTER 11
So now I was talking to this … girl, I supposed. Judging by the voice I remembered through my semi-conscious haze, I was ninety-nine percent sure she was a she and a thousand percent sure she was not anything otherworldly. About as sure as I was that for her to be hiding out in this decrepit house, afraid to speak or be seen, she must be in as tough a spot in her life as me. While I had enough problems without involving myself in hers, I could at least let her keep the roof over her head. She’d evidently had it before me anyway.
I just hoped she wasn’t nuts, or on meth or something. I’d gotten along with desperate homeless people before. Junkies were another story. Had more than my share come across the ranch looking for work. Always trouble. I could even handle some alcoholics, provided they kept their drinking limited to after work hours and didn’t do anything dangerous or irresponsible on the job. Oh, and didn’t try to syphon my clients when I wasn’t around. I can’t believe I trusted Brew. Just another kick in the head.
I doubted the person staying here was on drugs. She was too careful, too quiet. And, she’d tried to save my life. The doctor said I hadn’t been in any real danger—I woke in the ambulance on the way to the hospital—but she hadn’t known that. She’d made not one call, but two, expanding my odds. She’d held my hand. And she’d kissed me.
I touched my cheek. I don’t know why I kept coming back to that. Nothing really in the way she did it, more the fact that she did it, telling me she must be a genuine, sweet person. Why would such a person squat in an abandoned house? Was she being hunted by a former boyfriend or husband? The law, maybe. Just because she was sweet didn’t mean she couldn’t be a fugitive, wanted for something somewhere. I pondered it until Ben came back.
“Still have this door open?” he asked, coming in.
“Did you have to turn the knob and push?” I asked, a little louder than necessary so my guest heard, and wouldn’t be surprised by Ben.
“Nope.”
“Then yeah. Still open.”
He laughed. “Got me there.” Paper bags crinkled as he walked through the house to the kitchen and I rose to follow.
“I’d offer to help….”
“I don’t know why I didn’t come in the back,” he said.
“Front door’s already open.”
He started putting groceries away, telling me where to find everything, then made us some sandwiches. Fortunately, I’d missed breakfast at the hospital.
“Can you make a couple extra?” I asked. “So we won’t have to do it later.”
“Sure. Pepperoni and American cheese? Turkey? Ham and provolone?”
“Yeah.”
I pictured him shrugging. “Okay, one of each.”
“You know, you don’t have to feel like you have to stay all night,” I said. All motion stopped at the counter. “I’m just saying, don’t think I’m uneasy about being alone, because I’m not. You can call every twenty minutes to see if I answer,” I said with a chuckle.
Ben returned to his task, wrapping sandwiches in foil. “Are you trying to get rid of me, Kash?”
I wondered if I looked guilty or if it just felt that way with my eyes unable to focus on one spot. “Why would I want to do that?”
“You tell me.”
I opened my palms out. “I can’t think of a reason.” Not the truth anyway. Logically, it made no sense. He had a soft heart and could help the girl if she needed it, but I didn’t want to give up this strange secret yet. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be to my detriment. Or hers.
“You know I’m not about all that … emotion stuff, right?” he asked after a few seconds.
I could tell he was smiling. He was also lying. He was more emotional than me by far. I gave him a nod anyway.
“But … when you called so early this morning … and couldn’t say anything….” Sounded like the smile had vanished now. “I can’t tell you how scared I was. You’re my best friend. Closer than a brother, you know that. This kick in the head thing is hard enough to take, and I think maybe I’ve been too easy about you staying alone.”
“No, you weren’t,” I said. “I’m doing fine.”
“You could have died.”
“The doc said—”
“I know what he said,” Ben answered. “That you just passed out. But what if you’d hit your head on a table, or what if you’d had a seizure—he said those were possibilities.”
“Were,” I stressed. “I haven’t had any, plus I had vision for a little bit, so he thinks seizures aren’t very likely.”
“When did he say that?” Ben asked.
“You were right there,” I lied.
“No. Think I would’ve remembered that.” He paused. “Must’ve been when I stepped out to get water,” he said.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“I never left,” Ben fired back. “What the hell’s going on?”
I started to deny anything was going on, and planned to stumble away, when he tugged my shirt.
“Kash. What’s going on?”
So,
I had to make something up. I shrugged, trying to look a little sad. “I can’t stand the thought of being pitied, you know that.”
“That’s a crock.”
“It’s not that I think you pity me, necessarily. But being in this position, having a guardian … makes me feel sorry for myself.”
“I—”
I held a hand up. “It’s nothing you’ve done to make me feel that way,” I said, feeling proud of myself for having turned the tables, and at the same time like an ass for making him … well … pity me. I felt even stranger because until I’d said the words, I didn’t realize I was feeling exactly that way. “But I’m trying to figure all this out and on top of it, thinking about what was going on in my life before being cracked like an egg. I was making good use of the privacy. Me and my thoughts. Alone.”
I heard him take in a deep breath and let it out slowly, moving around the kitchen.
“I get that,” he said, finally. “But I’m not going to go home just to stay up all night so I can keep calling you to make sure you’re not dead. I’ll stay here for the night, and tomorrow … we’ll deal with when it comes.”
I agreed. Just one problem….
“Where are you sleeping?”
“Upstairs I guess, since you have the couch,” he answered.
“Hmm.”
“Hmm, what?”
“I’m thinking I might try the bed out tonight. The couch is lumpy as a sack of bones. Probably what woke me up last night. Would you mind taking it?”
Another long pause. I felt him staring at me, checking me for b.s.
“Are you going to tell me what’s up, or what?” Ben asked. “It’s like you…. Kash, are you seeing someone?”
“What?”
“A girl. You have a girl you aren’t telling me about? Is she coming over?” He grabbed my arm, startling me. “Please tell me it’s not Tracy. Are the two of you back together?”
“That’s not it.” I gave a shiver. I’d never lied to Ben when it came to women. Not that this could be counted a lie … exactly. There was a girl, yes … I thought, but not my girl. Maybe I should just tell him the truth.
No. Even though we were best friends, I felt I’d somehow be breaking her trust.
My phone rang in my pocket. I handed it to Ben to see who it was.
“Speaking of….” he said, handing the phone back.
Tracy. Great. “She’s not seriously coming here tomorrow, is she?” I asked, setting the phone down.
“Said so,” he said. “Seemed to be excited once I told her—by mistake,” he quickly added, “that you’d had your sight back for a little while.”
“Less than a minute.”
“However long, she seemed to find great hope in it.”
I was sure she did. “I can’t do it. I don’t want her here.” Especially with my guest here. “If you can’t stay, I’ll just go back to the ranch sooner. Someone will aid a poor blind guy.”
“Kash, you’re—”
“I don’t care. The absolute last person I want feeling sorry for me is her.”
“Now who’s being hopeful?” Ben asked with a snigger. “She’s feeling sorry for herself, hoping her meal ticket will return to full function.”
The venom in his tone was unlike him. They didn’t get along, but there was something more going on. “What’s up?” I asked. “I know you can’t stand each other, so why this sudden spike in hostility?”
There was shuffling of feet, and nothing more for the space of ten seconds before he heaved out a sigh.
“Ben?” My stomach felt hollow, as though in some freaky reversal I’d been punched in the stomach, now waited for the blow.
Ben let out a final hiss. “She came onto me.”
And there was the blow. No pain, yet took the wind from me just the same. What was he saying? That they’d—
“Nothing happened,” he said, placing a hand on my arm. “Yesterday when I checked in at the ranch to see everything was straight—they send their love, by the way—Tracy came marching out of the house. She sort of cornered me between the shed and the tractor you have there.”
I shook my head to remove any debris. I needed to take this in clear, straightforward. “Okay….”
His hand dropped away. “At first I thought she wanted to confront me about something with the way she came at me. When she ran her hands up my chest…. I pushed her away, almost knocked her on her ass. She acted stunned and goes, ‘what’s that for? I just wanted to comfort you.’ When has she even noticed how I felt, much less tried to be nice?”
What should I be feeling? Confusion? I had no reason to be angry. What Tracy did, or with who, had nothing to do with me now. Oh, there was suspicion, though. Not for Ben. We’d been through everything together, and even though I knew the cliché girlfriend runs off with best friend thing, no. Not Ben. He was in love with his wife, even more deeply since she carried their first child. But if Tracy came onto Ben, who else? And how many hadn’t pushed her away?
“And?”
“And nothing, that’s it, I swear. Then she started threatening me, saying she saw how I looked at her all the time and wouldn’t Jill love to know? I told Jill, by the way—not having that hanging over me. What kind of person does that, first of all, then threatens to destroy your marriage? Sheesh, Kash, I knew she was an awful person, but this?”
Bad judgement on my part, yeah. It had been lust, pure and simple. Then convenience. She did her job at the ranch—I’d have to make a point to find out just what else she did there—and as long as she stayed away from Ben, he’d kept from bad-mouthing her.
“Do you…?” How to ask this? “Do you know of any time she’s done something like this? With someone else?”
“Don’t you think I’d have told you?”
I nodded.
“No. Once in a while I’d hear the ladies gossiping, commenting on how she looked in her clothes or how the clients ogled her. They’d clam up when I came in. I figured they were jealous. Much as I hate to say it, Tracy is a good-looking woman. You know how women can be.” More shuffling. “I’m sorry, man.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I said. “You know people, and you never liked her. I should’ve factored in more of your judgement and less of how good she looks naked.”
Ben chuckled. “Yup.”
“Plus, I never intended to marry her. Sleeping with her was wrong from the start, we all knew it.” As Ben had gently mentioned on occasion.
“Either way, it’s too bad it had to turn out like this,” he said. “Though honestly, I wasn’t going to tell you yet. Before I left, I even told her I wouldn’t say anything because you had enough to deal with besides a slut girlfr…. Sorry.”
“No….” I couldn’t argue. “But why did you tell me? We’re not together, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Like I said, I would have eventually, but after I got your call…. Before I got to you in the hospital I didn’t know if I’d see you again—alive anyway—and I didn’t want anything to be hanging out there between us. I decided from now on I’m going to say anything that needs saying, no sense putting it off. Our friendship can take it, right?”
Choking back something eerily similar to an emotion, I nodded and cleared my throat. “This is all a lot to take in.”
“Yeah, well, there’s something else,” Ben said.
What now? I decided to ask. “What now?”
“While I was at the ranch, someone, who shall remain nameless, mentioned they don’t think your accident was accidental.”
“What?”
“This person believes Brew purposely locked you in the trailer with Toby intending you to get hurt. Maybe not killed, but definitely hurt.”
A bolt of ice shot straight to my heart as denial warred with confirmation inside me. I’d fired Brew for stealing clients, so I knew him to be a slimy cheat, as underhanded in business as he was in cards. Was he so heartless that he considered ending my life an even trade?
I suddenly h
ad to sit. Whether attempted murder or a spontaneous act of vengeance, the man was roaming around out there thinking he’d gotten away with something. Did he feel any remorse at all? Did he feel he’d left a job unfinished and would try to rectify it? Feeling for the chair, I managed to find my way into it.
“I see the muscle in your jaw working,” Ben said. “Don’t think about doing anything stupid.”
“I’m not.” Tying Brew to the saddle of my horse and sending them out through the stony patch of property we called the stoneyard wasn’t stupid. As balance went, it seemed fair. There was just as good a chance he might escape severe injury, as coming away with a cracked skull, right? “Who told you? I want to talk to them.”
“I promised I wouldn’t say who told me. They’re afraid of retribution.”
Okay, that part he was making up. None of the men in my camp were intimidated by Brewster McCloud. None of the women, either. Andy was the only one who would feel obligated to be totally fair-minded and hated tossing accusations without definitive proof. “I can respect that. But I’m going to ask around.”
“I figured. Which is why I didn’t want to say anything.”
Could I really be mad he’d kept things from me when I was keeping a secret under this very roof? At least his reasons were logical. Anyway, there was nothing to be done about any of it now. But the time would come.
CHAPTER 12
I watched Ben drive away again. Seconds later, I heard a noise in the hall and my door knob turned. The door was locked, but my heart fired off on a course of action that could only end with me in the emergency room.
“Hey Casper,” Josiah called.
What?! What did he want?! Did he expect me to answer?
Then he knocked!
“Hey. I just wanted to tell you the coast is clear if you want to come out. Ben left for a while. When he comes back, I’m going to try to keep him downstairs.”
Why? Why would he do that instead of telling his friend about me? I know he was grateful for my help, but why wouldn’t he tell Ben? I was curious, certainly, but more so distrustful. Josiah was blind, true, but he was a man. A big, strong man, alone in the house with a girl. What if he was just awaiting an opportunity to get close to me? Blind or not, once in his hands, anything might happen.