Harlequin Superromance December 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Caught Up in YouThe Ranch She Left BehindA Valley Ridge Christmas

by Beth Andrews

  He frowned as she rubbed her arms, and he made a small, worried sound. Then, with a jerky motion, he darted up the steps and into the town house. When he emerged seconds later, he held her running shoes, which she kept by the door, and one of Ruth’s sweaters, which had hung on the coat tree for years.

  He extended them awkwardly. “I just thought, if you really don’t want to go inside...”

  “Yes. Thank you.” Smiling, she took the shoes gratefully, and wobbled on first one foot, then the other, to tug them on without even unlacing them. His arm twitched, as if he wanted to help steady her, but that was one impulse he did resist.

  He held out the sweater so that she could insert her arms, but even that made him blush.

  “Thank you,” she said again, warmly enough, she hoped, to make him feel more at ease about whether his gesture had been too personal. “I guess I was numb at first, but the chill started to get to me. I feel much better now.”

  He nodded, obviously tongue-tied, pretending to read over his notes from their interview. She closed the sweater over her chest, wrapped her arms there to hold it shut, and watched him without speaking.

  She was sorry he felt embarrassed. But it was soothing, somehow, to witness this gallant innocence. It was like...a chaser. Something sweet to wash away the bitter aftertaste of the shadowy, hulking threat, who had, in such a surreal way, appeared at her bedroom door.

  “Pea! Are you mad, girl? It’s freezing out here!”

  She turned at the sound of Ben Hackney’s voice. Oh, no. The first police vehicle had arrived with blue lights flashing, and they must have woken him. He probably had been alarmed, wondering what had happened next door.

  “I’m fine, Ben,” she said. As he drew closer, she saw that he carried one of his big wool overcoats, which he draped over her shoulders without preamble.

  “You will be fine—when you get inside. Which you’re going to do right now.” He glared at McGregor. “If you have more questions, you’ll have to ask them another time. I just spoke to your boss over there, and he agreed that I should take Miss Wright in and get her warm.”

  McGregor lifted his square chin—a Dudley Do Right movement. “Miss Wright has indicated that she doesn’t want to go into the house, sir.”

  “Not that house, you foolish pup. My house.”

  McGregor turned to Penny. “Is this what you’d prefer, Miss Wright? Is this gentleman a friend?”

  Penny put her hand on Ben’s arm. “Yes, a good friend,” she began, but Ben had started to laugh.

  “I’m going to take care of her, son. Not serve her up in a pie.” His voice was oddly sympathetic. “I know how you’re feeling. You want to slay dragons, shoot bad guys, swim oceans in her name.”

  McGregor’s eyebrows drew together, and he started to protest, but he was already blushing again.

  “Nothing to be ashamed of,” Ben assured him, slapping him on the shoulder. “She has that effect on everyone. Give her your card. That way, if she ever decides she wants to, she can call you.”

  “Ben, for heaven’s sake.” He had been trying to match her up with a boyfriend for the past ten years. She had to credit him with good instincts, though—he’d never liked Curt.

  She turned to McGregor. “He’s teasing,” she said. “He thinks it’ll make me feel better, after—”

  To her surprise, the officer was holding out his business card. “Oh.” She accepted it, looked at it—which was stupid, because what did she expect it to say, other than what it did? James McGregor, SFPD, and a telephone number. She wished she had pockets.

  For one thing, having pockets would mean she had pants.

  “Thank you.”

  Then Ben shepherded her away, across the dewy grass, up his stairs—the mirror image of the ones on Ruth’s town house—and hustled her to the kitchen, where she could smell coffee brewing.

  The kitchen was toasty warm, but she kept on the overcoat, realizing that the shivering wasn’t entirely a result of temperature. He scraped out a chair at the breakfast nook, then began to bustle about, pouring coffee and scrambling eggs with a quiet calm as she recounted what had happened.

  When the facts had been exchanged, and the immediate questions answered, he seemed to realize she needed to stop talking. He kept bustling, while she sat, staring out at the brightening emerald of the grass and the gorgeous tulips he grew with his magical green thumbs.

  She liked the small sounds of him working. The clink of a spoon against a cup, the quick swish of water dampening a dishcloth, the squeak of his tennis shoes.

  The simple sounds of another human being. Suddenly she realized how completely alone she’d been the past two months.

  Finally, the internal shivering ceased. With a small sigh of relief, she shrugged off his coat. Glancing at the clock over the stove, she realized it was almost seven.

  She must have been here an hour or more. She should go home and let him get on with his day.

  “Thank you, Ben,” she began, standing. “I should go ho—” All of a sudden she felt tears pushing at her throat, behind her eyes, and she sat back down, frowning hard at her cup. “I—I should...”

  “You should move,” Ben said matter-of-factly. He had his cup in one hand and a dish towel in the other, drying the china in methodical circular motions, as if he were polishing silver.

  “Move?” She glanced up, wondering if she’d misheard. “Move out of the town house?”

  He nodded.

  “Just because of what happened this morning?”

  “No. Not just that. You should move because you shouldn’t be living there in the first place. For Ruth, maybe it was right. She liked quiet. For you...”

  He shook his head slowly, but with utter conviction. “I always knew it was wrong of her to keep you there. Like a prison. You’re too young. You’re too alive.”

  “That’s not fair,” she interjected quickly. Criticism of Ruth always made her uncomfortable. Where would she have been if Ruth hadn’t agreed to take her in? “Ruth knew I needed—a safe harbor.”

  “At first, yes.” Ben sighed, and his gaze shifted to the bay window overlooking the gardens. His deep-set blue eyes softened, as if he could see them as they’d been fifteen years ago, an old man and a little girl, with twin easels set up, twin paint palettes smudged with blue and red and yellow, each trying to capture the beauty of the flowers.

  “At first, you did need a quiet home. Like a hospital. You were a broken little thing.”

  He transferred his troubled gaze to her. Then he cleared his throat and turned to the sink.

  Ben knew about the tragedy that had exiled Penny from Bell River, of course. Everyone knew, but Ruth hadn’t allowed anyone to speak of it to Penny. She thought it would be too traumatic. Having a mother die tragically was bad enough for any child. But having your mother killed by your father...and your father hauled away to prison...

  And then being ripped from the only home you’d ever known, split from your sisters and asked to live in another state, with a woman you barely knew...

  Traumatic was an understatement. But, though Ruth had meant well, never being allowed to talk about what had happened—that might have been the hardest of all. Never to be given the chance to sort her emotions into words, to put the events into some larger perspective. Never to let them lose power through familiarity.

  Sometimes Penny thought it was a miracle she hadn’t suffered a psychotic break.

  “Sweet pea, I’m sorry. But I need to say this.” Ben still held the cup and dishrag, and was still rubbing the surface in circles, as if it were a worry stone.

  “Of course,” she said. “It’s okay, Ben. Whatever it is.”

  “Good.” He put down the cup and rag, then cleared his throat. “Ruth did mean well. I know that. You needed to heal, and at first it was probably better t
o heal quietly, in private. But you’ve been ready to move on for a long time.”

  “How could I? Ruth was so sick, and—”

  “I know. It was loyal of you to stay, to take care of her when she needed you. But she doesn’t need you anymore, honey. It’s time to move on.”

  At first Penny didn’t answer. She recognized a disturbing truth in his words. That truth made her so uncomfortable she wanted to run away. But she respected him too much to brush him off. They’d been friends a long time. He was as close to a father as she’d ever had.

  “I know,” she admitted finally. “But moving on...it’s not that easy, Ben.”

  “Of course it is!” With a grin, he stomped to the refrigerator and yanked down the piece of paper that always hung there, attached by a magnet shaped like Betty Boop. “Just do it! Walk out the door! Grab your bucket list and start checking things off!”

  She laughed. “I don’t have a bucket list.”

  “You don’t?” Ben looked shocked. He stared at his own. “Not even in your head? In your heart of hearts? You don’t have a list of things you want to do before you die?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why? You think bucket lists are just for geezers like me?”

  “Of course not. I’ve never had any reason to—”

  “Well, you do now. You can’t hide forever, Pea. For better or worse, you aren’t like the nun in Ruth’s parlor. You were never meant for that.”

  Ruth’s parlor overflowed with lace doilies and antimacassars, Edwardian furniture and Meissen shepherdesses. Ruth had covered every inch of wall space with framed, elaborate cross-stitch samplers offering snippets of poetry, advice and warnings—so many it was hard to tell where one maxim ended and the next one began.

  Penny had loved them all, but her favorite had been a picture of a woman putting on a white veil. When Penny moved in, at eleven, she’d assumed the woman was getting married, but Ruth had explained that the poem was really about a woman preparing to become a nun.

  The line of poetry beneath the veil read, “And I have asked to be where no storms come.” Penny had adored the quote—especially the way it began with and, as if it picked up the story in the middle. As if the woman had already explained the troubles that had driven her to seek safety in a convent.

  “My father murdered my mother,” Penny always imagined the poem might have begun. “And so I have asked to be where no storms come.”

  She’d mentioned it to Ben only one time. He gave her a camera for her twelfth birthday, and she took a picture of the sampler, among her other favorite things. When she showed it to him, he had frowned, as if it displeased him to see how much she liked it.

  He was frowning now, too. “I hope you’re not still toying with the idea of taking the veil.”

  Penny chuckled. “Of course not.” She remembered what Ruth had said when Penny had asked if she was too young to become a nun.

  “Far too young,” Ruth had responded with a grim smile, “and far too Methodist.”

  “Good.” Ben waved his hand, chasing the idea away like a gnat. “You’d make a horrible nun. You were made for marriage, and children, and love.”

  “No.” She shook her head instinctively. No, she definitely wasn’t.

  “Of course you are. How could you not know it? The men know it. Every male who sees you falls in love with you on the spot. You make them want to be heroes. Think of poor Officer McGregor out there.”

  It was her turn to blush. Penny knew she wasn’t glamorous. She had two beautiful sisters, one as dark and dramatic as a stormy midnight, the other as pale and cool as a snow queen. Penny was the boring one. And if she hadn’t been boring to begin with, these years with Ruth, who didn’t believe in wearing bright clothing or making loud noises, had certainly washed her out to a faded, sepia watercolor of a woman.

  The only beauty she had any claim to showed up in her art.

  Ben’s affection made him partial. As if to offset Ruth’s crisp, undemonstrative manner, he had always handed out extravagant compliments like candy.

  “Don’t be silly, Ben.”

  “I’m not. You are. You’ve got that quiet, innocent kind of beauty, which, believe me, is the most dangerous. Plus, you’re talented, and you’re smart, and you’re far too gutsy to spend the rest of your life hiding in that town house.”

  She had to smile. She was the typical youngest child—meek, a pleaser, bossed around by everyone, always trying to broker peace. “Come on. Gutsy?”

  “Absolutely. You’ve conquered more demons at your young age than most people face in a lifetime. Starting with your devil of a father, and going up through tonight.”

  “I haven’t been brave. I’ve simply endured. I’ve done whatever I had to do.”

  “Well, what do you think courage is?” He smiled. “It’s surviving, kiddo. It’s doing what you must. It’s grabbing a can of wasp spray and aiming it at the monster’s ugly face.”

  She laughed, and shook her head. “And then shaking like a leaf for four hours straight?”

  “Sure. For a while you’ll shake. But trust me, by tomorrow, you’ll realize tonight taught you two very important things. One, you can’t hide from trouble—not in a nunnery, and certainly not in a San Francisco town house.”

  The truth of that sizzled in the pit of her stomach. She might want to be where no storms come—but was there any such place?

  She nodded slowly. “And two?”

  “And two...” He took her hand in his and squeezed. “Two...so trouble finds you. So what? You’re a warrior, Penelope Wright. There’s no trouble out there that you can’t handle.”

  * * *

  MAX THORPE HADN’T been on a date in ten months, not since his wife died. Apparently, ten months wasn’t long enough. Everything about the woman he’d taken to dinner annoyed him, from her perfume to her conversation.

  Even the way she ate salad irritated him. So odd, this intensely negative reaction. She’d seemed pretty good on paper—just-turned-thirty to his thirty-four, a widow herself. A professional, some kind of charity arts work on the weekends. His friends, who had been aware that divorce had been in the air long before Lydia’s aneurysm, had started trying to set him up with their single friends about six months after her death, but this was the first time he’d said yes.

  Obviously he’d surrendered too soon—which actually surprised him. Given the state of his marriage, he wouldn’t have thought he’d have this much trouble getting over Lydia.

  But the attempt to reenter the dating world had gone so staggeringly wrong from the get-go that he’d almost been glad to see his daughter’s cell phone number pop up on his caller ID.

  Until he realized she was calling from the security guard’s station at the outlet mall.

  Ellen and her friends, who had supposedly been safe at a friend’s sleepover, had been caught shoplifting. The store would release her with only a warning, but he had to talk to them in person.

  Shoplifting? He almost couldn’t believe his ears. But he arranged a cab for his date, with apologies, then hightailed it to the mall, listened to the guard’s lecture, and now was driving his stony-faced eleven-year-old daughter home in total silence.

  A lipstick. Good God. The surprisingly understanding guard had said it all—how wrong it was morally, how stupid it was intellectually, how much damage it could do to her life, long-term. But Max could tell Ellen wasn’t listening.

  And he had no idea how he would get through to her, either.

  Ellen had turned eleven a couple of weeks ago. She wasn’t allowed to wear lipstick. But even if she was going to defy him about that, why steal it? She always had enough money to buy whatever she wanted, and he didn’t make her account for every penny.

  In fact, he almost never said no to her—never had. At first, he’d been overindulge
nt because he felt guilty for traveling so much, and for even thinking the D word. Then, after Lydia’s death, he’d indulged his daughter because she’d seemed so broken and lost.

  Great. He hadn’t just flunked Marriage 101, he’d flunked Parenting, too.

  “Ellen, I need to understand what happened tonight. First of all, what were you and Stephanie doing at the mall without Stephanie’s parents?”

  Ellen gave him a look that stopped just shy of being rude. She knew he didn’t allow overt disrespect, but she’d found a hundred and one ways to get the same message across, covertly.

  “They let her go to the mall with friends all the time. I guess her parents trust her.”

  He made a sound that might have been a chuckle if he hadn’t been so angry. “Guess that’s a mistake.”

  Ellen folded her arms across her chest and faced the window.

  The traffic was terrible—Friday night in downtown Chicago. It would be forty minutes before they got home. Forty very long minutes. He realized, with a sudden chagrin, that he’d really rather let it go, and make the drive in angry silence. Though he’d adored Ellen as a baby and a toddler, something had changed through the years. He didn’t speak her language anymore.

  He didn’t know how to couch things so that she’d listen, so that she’d care. He didn’t know what metaphors she thought in, or what incentives she valued.

  The awkward, one-sided sessions of family therapy, which they’d endured together for six months to help her deal with her grief, hadn’t exactly prepared him for real-life conversations.

  Even before that, everything had come together in a perfect storm of bad parenting. His job had started sending him on longer and longer trips. Mexico had happened. When he returned from that, he was different—and not in a good way. His wife didn’t like the new, less-patient Max, and he didn’t like her much, either. She seemed, after his ordeal, to be shockingly superficial, oblivious to anything that really mattered in life.