The dress Faith had found was similar in length to Char’s, mid-calf, but had a snug waist and full skirt. It was a peach organza, she thought, with tiny sprigs of embroidered white flowers. It was pretty, proper and somehow innocent. She realized now that she had bought it imagining what Ben would think when he saw her in it.
Today was about Charlotte.
Who was breathtakingly beautiful when she walked down the aisle on Daddy’s arm toward Gray. He didn’t take his eyes off her. Faith saw that Moira was watching him, too, smiling. They grinned at each other behind his back, unnoticed by the groom.
Prickly Charlotte kissed Daddy’s cheek with remarkable tenderness just before he handed her over to Gray. Faith saw Daddy’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard. He’d been able to make the walk without crutches, and she knew that mattered to him. Did he, too, wish with all his heart that Mom was sitting in that front pew?
Gray’s mom wiped her eyes in the front pew on the other side of the aisle. Both his parents were here, and his stepmother, too. This was the first time Charlotte had met them. Faith thought they seemed like nice people.
The service was short and somehow more heartfelt for all its simplicity. When it came time for the bride and groom to exchange vows, Gray looked into Charlotte’s eyes as if no one else in the world existed and said huskily, “I do.” Char, who had once been so terrified by the bonds of love, made her promise as if she didn’t have a doubt in the world.
The minister pronounced them man and wife and smiled at Gray. “You may kiss your bride.”
He swept her into his arms as if he’d barely been able to wait this long and kissed her with such hunger, everyone in the church had to feel it. Despite herself, Faith looked past them at Ben and found him watching her, not the bride and groom. The expression on his face made her heart stutter, it was so much like the longing and love and passion in Gray’s eyes when he’d said, “I do.”
Oh, God. She was so afraid to believe it was possible Ben felt that way. Why now, when he had avoided her for months except when he had had to go to the farm as a police officer? She didn’t understand.
She didn’t understand much of anything anymore. Why Rory had felt such rage, why he couldn’t let it—and her—go. Why everything had changed. Why she had changed so much, until she’d become completely lost.
Faith tore her gaze from Ben’s and looked at Daddy instead, letting him anchor her as his calm, steady presence had for much of her life. Her breathing slowed; her heart unclenched.
Gray lifted his head at last and turned himself and his bride to face the wedding guests. His arm was still around her when they started back up the aisle.
Moira and Faith stepped forward to follow. Ben stepped out of his pew toward Faith, but Daddy reached her first, offering his arm. She smiled at her father and took it. Ben crooked his elbow for Moira instead, and they followed behind.
In front of the church, Faith was very careful not to catch the bouquet of white gardenias that Charlotte tossed over her shoulder.
WHAT THE HELL WAS THE USE? Ben asked himself in bafflement and frustration after leaving Faith’s classroom a couple weeks later.
They had gone out twice more since the wedding, but getting her to go was like netting a wild animal. Every time he asked her out, Faith offered excuses. Sometimes she did open up when they were together, but more often, she raised a barrier that made him think more of barbed wire than a brick wall. Did she even notice that she was drawing blood?
During the last dinner date, he had decided to lay his feelings on the line. Maybe he was being too subtle for her.
He couldn’t quite bring himself to say, “I love you.” He’d never said those words in his life to anyone, and the odds were good that if he did now Faith would throw them back in his face.
So after he kissed her good-night, before she reached for the door handle, he said, “Maybe you’re not ready, but I’d like it if you’d start thinking about what we have going here.”
She stared at him, eyes shadowed by the darkness.
Even more clumsily, he continued, “What I feel is…something new to me. I want you. No, more than that. I…”
Faith shook her head. Hard. “Don’t say that. You didn’t want me when I was whole. You feel guilty, and sorry for me, and… No!” she cried, when he tried to interrupt. “No!” She turned away from him, struggled with the door handle and all but erupted out of his 4Runner, racing to the house so fast he didn’t catch her before she banged inside.
And today… Today she’d made conversation as if she were lunching with a substitute teacher, someone she was being nice to but didn’t expect to run into again. He was left with no idea whether she’d actually heard what he was trying to say.
Damn it. Maybe she just wasn’t ready. He was pushing; he knew he was.
The alternative was to admit she wasn’t interested at all, which meant he’d have to give up. His chest felt hollow when he imagined doing that.
She didn’t need him as much as she had; she looked better all the time, even if she wasn’t—and maybe never would be—the same woman she’d been before her last confrontation with Rory. She’d said today at lunch that she had quit taking the pills and was sleeping fine anyway. She no longer had the bruised, wounded look that had wrenched his gut every time he saw her. He’d noticed, when she had walked past the window in her classroom in a shaft of sunlight, that her hair shone again. He wanted desperately to see it loose around her shoulders. Spread on his pillow. She had beautiful hair, smooth and as pale as the early spring sunshine she evoked for him.
She did respond to his kisses as if she couldn’t help herself, but then she fled from every one of them. She never touched him voluntarily. He suspected his invitations to dinner alarmed her as much as they did because a date inevitably led to a kiss, while she could dodge him when he dropped by her classroom or even the farmhouse in the evening because her father was present.
That gave him hope and maddened him at the same time. She wanted him, but she was refusing to let herself have him.
That might be because she didn’t believe she’d ever feel anything serious for him. For her, lust wouldn’t be enough.
On the other hand, he had to ask himself whether she was afraid of him on some level. She had loved and entrusted herself to a man who proved to be a monster. Was she left fearing what went on behind closed doors in other marriages? When he got frustrated, did she wonder whether he was capable of lifting his hand to her? It made his stomach turn to even think about it, but he had to.
Maybe Charlotte would know.
At city hall, a couple of people in the lobby and on the stairs cleared out of his way after startled glances. Ben knew he could look forbidding and had to make a conscious effort sometimes to strive for unalarming. He was in no mood right now to try.
Unfortunately, when he got to his office, Gray was waiting there, standing at the window. Ben couldn’t even be rude, since this was the first time he’d seen him since he’d gotten back from his honeymoon.
When Ben walked in, Gray turned from the window. “I had a question—” He stopped, raised his eyebrows. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Ben dropped into his chair, then scrubbed a hand over his face. “Faith.”
“You had lunch with her?”
“Only because I got to her classroom before the bell rang, so she had no chance to escape. If I’m late, she always makes a getaway.”
“Did she expect you?”
Ben snorted. “Doesn’t matter. I suspect she hides out during lunchtime every day, because I try to stop by a couple times a week.”
“Charlotte said you two are seeing each other.”
“We are. Because I keep pushing and pushing.” He paused and faced the bleak facts. “I don’t know if I should keep on, Gray. Hell.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve been thinking about talking to Charlotte.”
“Come to dinner tonight. Unless you have plans?”
He loo
ked up in some surprise, meeting the mayor’s gray eyes and finding compassion he hadn’t expected in them. “You mean that?” he asked, hearing the thickness in his voice.
“It’s not just Faith, is it? It’s the job, too.”
He let out a huff of air. “Sometimes I wonder what the hell I’m doing here. Yeah. Right now, I feel as if I’m beating my head against the wall on all fronts.”
“Come to dinner,” Gray repeated.
Unexpectedly warmed by what he knew was a gesture of friendship, Ben nodded after a moment. “Thanks. I’d like that. Uh…how was the honeymoon?” They’d gone to Kauai for ten days.
Gray gave a brief, wicked grin. “Good. Too short.” He tugged at his tie as though it was choking him. “I have a late meeting. Seven tonight?”
“Seven,” Ben agreed. “You had a question?”
Gray just shook his head. “It can wait.” He rapped his knuckles on Ben’s desk and walked out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MAN, HE WAS A MESS. Ben stood on Gray Van Dusen’s front step with his finger hovering above the doorbell. He’d never in his life begged for reassurance from anyone, and Ben knew damn well that’s what he was here to do.
He’d never pleaded for an intervention in his personal life, either, and he needed that, too.
Crap.
Ben pushed the button, then shoved his hands in his pockets and waited.
It was Charlotte who opened the door. Did she look surprised?
“I hope Gray told you I was coming,” Ben said.
Startling him, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Of course he did. We’ve been waiting for you.”
He stepped cautiously inside, the cop in him doing a quick sweep even though he’d been here often enough. It stung a little that—this place was everything his aging house wasn’t. The wooden floors gleamed. A bronze statue of an eagle that must have cost an arm and a leg perched on a pedestal carved from a single chunk of wood; on the wall behind it hung a rug that looked Navajo. A fire burned behind glass doors in the river-rock fireplace. Gray rose from the leather sofa and said, “Would you like a glass of wine? Bourbon?”
“Wine. Thanks.”
Gray went to the kitchen and came back with a glass of red wine that had a ruby glow against the fire-light—or, hell, looked like blood from Ben’s perspective. Maybe he should have gone for a bourbon and water.
Charlotte nudged him to a deep, upholstered chair, then sat close enough to her husband to lean against him once she’d tucked her feet under her.
“There’s an offer on the farm,” she said.
Ben closed his eyes. “Oh, damn.”
“It was inevitable,” Gray pointed out.
“Yeah, but…” Ben lifted one shoulder. “Winter can be slow for real estate. I thought slow might be a good thing for Faith.”
“I don’t know.” Charlotte frowned. “Once they’re all packed, the house is going to seem really empty. And having the barn closed up and even emptier…” She gave herself a shake, as if warding off shivers. “For Faith, I’m guessing living there might feel like…like the old days when someone who died was laid out in the dining room for weeks and you had to live around the body.”
“Nice imagery,” Gray said. “Jeez.”
Ben’s grunt was almost a laugh. “But effective.” He took a swallow of the wine. Too sweet for his tastes, but he appreciated the heat of it in his throat and belly. “Faith has gone at the getting ready to move thing like an athlete training for a triathlon. I’d been hoping she’d see that it isn’t really that urgent.”
Gray set his wineglass down on the table. “And now she’ll be even more convinced it is.”
“What happens when she’s done?” Ben asked. His frustration tasted more like anger right now. “When there’s nothing left to do? How long has she been filling every spare minute to keep from facing whatever the hell her demons are?”
“Years,” her sister whispered.
He looked at her, startled. “What?”
“She started this…crusade to save the farm after her marriage broke up. After she came home from the hospital. She needed something, and Dad gave it to her.” Head bent, she gazed down at the wineglass she still held, looking more fragile than usual. More like Faith. “I should have known what was happening, but I didn’t.” Her voice, too small and not like her, broke. “I didn’t want to know.”
Gray didn’t say anything, but his hand had settled around her nape and he seemed to be gently massaging it. Her head turned and she rubbed her cheek against his knuckles.
Ben waited. He’d known something was wrong between the sisters, although he could see their love, too. The tension was occasional, more on Charlotte’s side than Faith’s, it seemed. He hadn’t been able to figure out why she hung back sometimes, like the night Faith had shot Rory and the two sisters had sat on the sofa holding hands but with too much distance between them. Even if Faith had pushed her away, why had Charlotte let her?
Shame on her face but determination, too, Charlotte said, “We’d been mostly estranged for ten years. My fault.”
Gray made a sound in his throat. “Char, you don’t have to do this.”
She gave him a twisted smile. “Yes, I do.” She met Ben’s eyes. “I…didn’t like being an identical twin. It really ate at me. I loved her, but I pushed her away, too. I think that makes a lot of this my fault.” She shook her head at her husband’s rumbles. “No, let me finish. I can’t help wondering if I’m responsible for her putting up with Rory’s abuse. There was some reason she didn’t believe she deserved better than that. I think I left her feeling lousy about herself.”
“She’d tell you that was crap,” Gray snapped.
“And would you believe her?” She gave him a single, devastated look. “I thought coming home was a good thing, that we were healing each other. I still think it is. That we are. But…it hurts to know that she didn’t call me when she needed me. And that there’s a lot we can’t fix.” Her grimace might have been intended as a smile. “I just thought you should know, Ben. There’s history here that isn’t just her marriage.”
He nodded. “I appreciate it. I doubt it’s as simple as you’ve made it out to be, though. I didn’t know your mother, but she sounds like a nice lady. You had good folks who gave you real bedrock.” Something he wasn’t always sure he believed in, but…he’d met a lot of decent people in West Fork. In L.A., those weren’t the types he often encountered.
“That’s true.”
“So why’s the responsibility all on your shoulders? There are plenty of sisters and brothers who don’t get along.”
Behind her head, Gray gave a thumbs-up.
She couldn’t possibly have seen it, but she narrowed her eyes at Ben. “You sound like Gray. Have you been talking to him?”
He found himself smiling despite the tension that still gripped him. “He hasn’t prepped me, if that’s what you mean.”
Laughing, Gray kissed her cheek. “Common sense, sweetheart. What’d I tell you?”
Ben looked at the wine and again thought about blood. He clenched his jaw. “If I’d been able to arrest that bastard so she didn’t have to shoot him…”
“He’d have gotten out of jail eventually. Probably sooner than later,” Gray said bluntly. “Let’s not kid ourselves. He’d have come after her again. The truth is, she stood up to him. She saved herself. After feeling like a victim, after having him stalk her, that has to be the best outcome.”
“I’ve been telling her how gutsy she was, but I don’t think she believes me.”
Charlotte scrutinized him in a way that made Ben shift in his chair. Most of the time he was able to block out how much she looked like Faith. Well, hell; they were identical. But to him they weren’t, and it was more than the fact that Faith’s hair hung to her waist when it was loose from the braid while Charlotte’s was cut boy short and hugged her head. It was a matter of expression, of attitude, of the wants and needs and self-doubts that lay benea
th the identical bones and flesh. It was like seeing the same dress on two different women: same fabric and style and cut, sure, but it didn’t fit the same.
Right this minute, though, Charlotte looked disconcertingly like her sister. Maybe it was the worry in her eyes, the softness of her mouth.
“You’re not going to give up on her, are you?” she asked.
Ben rolled his shoulders. “I’m adding to her troubles right now. That’s not what I want to be doing.” What he’d wanted was to take care of her, to protect her, to soothe her and love her. Instead, he upset her right when she was trying to find her footing again.
“What are, um, your intentions?” Charlotte made a face. “Not that it’s any of my business, except… You weren’t exactly pursuing Faith until after this happened. You asked me out, not her.”
Well, shit. Ben hesitated. He wasn’t in the habit of talking about how he felt. He knew Gray had guessed, but Charlotte, he wasn’t sure of. Probably not, or she wouldn’t be asking.
But why else was he here, if not to throw himself at their mercy?
“I love her,” he said hoarsely. “I want to marry her.”
Her forehead crinkled. “Then why…?”
Damn, he hated this. But for Faith, he’d do it.
“I may have done her an injustice, but I saw a gentle, sweet woman when I met Faith. One who kept trying to believe that bastard Hardesty was redeemable, was really a good guy underneath.” Now his voice was harsh. He couldn’t help it. “I couldn’t see her wanting a man who grew up in foster care, who doesn’t know what it’s like to have a real family. A man who chose a job steeped in violence. I’ve killed three men. Did you know that? I’ve slammed more of them to the ground when I cuffed them than I can count. I have nightmares, but probably not as many as I should have. I am not a gentle man.” He looked hard at Faith’s sister. “Am I what you would have chosen for her?”
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