“Just listen to the water,” he said softly. “Let everything else go.”
He kept massaging her head, his touch light, fingers moving slowly through her dark, silken hair. Her breathing slowed and deepened. Gradually he felt her body relaxing against his. They sat that way for a long while. Ben sorely wished he could calm his mind the way he was helping her to calm hers. But it was impossible for him to reach that relaxed state when she was lying in his arms. He wanted her so much he could barely contain it. But he would, for Penny’s sake.
Eventually she blinked her eyes open and whispered, “I can’t believe it.”
“What?”
“The headache’s gone.” She sat up then, turning to face him, surprise etched in her pretty eyes.
He didn’t want her to sit up. He’d so enjoyed holding her, touching her. “I’m glad.”
“They usually last so much longer.”
Ben nodded. But he was worried. Headaches had never been part of the myriad symptoms she’d suffered. “When did these headaches start, Penny?”
Lowering her gaze in thought, she frowned just a little.
“Just before I left the clinic,” she said. “But they got a lot worse once I came here. I think the first time one hit me this hard was the night I drove past this ranch for the first time.” Meeting his eyes again, she went on. “Stress, I imagine. Wanting so badly to remember and not being able to. It’s enough to give anyone a headache.”
“That could be it.” He drew a slow breath and dearly hoped he wasn’t about to bring her headache screaming back again. “But it might not be. Penny, you were so sick…and you said yourself you spent two years in a coma. Don’t you think it would be best to make sure these headaches aren’t something a lot more serious?”
She bit her lip, averted her gaze.
He reached out to cup her face. “I’m not going to push you, okay? Whatever you decide is fine by me. But I’m worried about you, Penny.”
She nodded. “I know that.” She sighed heavily, tipping her head back and staring up at the big blue sky. “I woke up a month ago, in a hospital bed. The nurse—her name was Michele—she looked like she was going to faint from shock when I opened my eyes and spoke to her. It didn’t hit me right away. I mean, I was so overwhelmed and frightened, not knowing who I was or what I was doing there. It was a couple of weeks before I started to feel like something…something wasn’t right.”
“Physically, you mean?”
She shook her head. “No. I felt fine, getting stronger every day. It was the way they acted. Dr. Barlow, and the nurses.” She studied his face as she spoke. “Don’t get me wrong, they treated me like a princess there. But they kept saying I had no family, no friends, no reason to be in a hurry to leave. And it just felt wrong to me, like they were keeping something from me, you know? I got…I got really suspicious.”
Ben smiled. For a second he’d spotted a familiar gleam in Penny’s eyes. “Nancy Drew,” he muttered.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Go on, please. I want to know everything.”
Taking a breath, she leaned back on her hands in the grass. “I realized that I’d never seen another patient in the clinic. Dr. Barlow told me I’d been in an accident, and had spent two years in a coma. And he told me this clinic was solely for the treatment of patients like me, with the same type of injury. But when I asked to see other patients, talk to them, he got…weird. Put me off, you know?”
Ben nodded, imagining how the old Penny would have reacted to the doctor’s vague answers. And he was also wondering about this doctor, and filing that name away in his mind. Barlow.
“So what did you do?”
“They gave me a sedative to help me sleep every night,” she said. “So one night I just didn’t swallow it. When the nurse left, I got out of bed, flushed the pill and waited until the place was very quiet. Then I slipped out of my room and had a look around the clinic.” She sat up, looking troubled, meeting his eyes. “There were other patients there, all right. In every room I checked. But they were all unresponsive, and hooked up to IV’s and monitors.” She bit her lip. “This is going to sound really farfetched, Ben.”
He almost grinned at her. To have her here, telling him something farfetched, was almost too good to be true. He couldn’t count how many times she’d started a sentence that way in the past. “Tell me anyway,” he said.
She nodded. “I think I was the only one in that place who ever came out of their coma.”
Ben sat up a little straighter. “Are you sure?”
She shook her head. “No. I mean, I couldn’t search the whole place. But the letterhead at the nurse’s desk read Barlow Hospice.” Licking her lips, closing her eyes, she went on. “A hospice is where people go to die, Ben. Not to get well. And I got to thinking about how surprised they all seemed when I woke up. And how they’d been calling me Jane and saying they had no information about my background, and that I’d told them I had no one when I’d arrived there, before slipping into a coma. And suddenly I just didn’t believe any of it.”
“You think they were lying to you?”
Penny nodded slowly, and her eyes narrowed. “There was something going on in that place. I’m sure of that.”
There was a remembered fear in her eyes that made Ben shiver. “Did you confront them?”
“Would you? If I was right, and I let them know I was onto them, they’d have never let me out of that place.”
“So you ran away?”
“Not for a while. First I got them to take me walking every day, so I could get strong again. Eventually, I knew the clinic backward and forward. They even let me go outside into the yard a few times. That was when they finally had to give me the clothes I’d arrived with. When I found the torn, crumpled bit of an envelope in the lining of the jacket pocket, I knew I had to come here. It was my only hope of finding the truth.”
He stroked her hair. She didn’t object, so he did it again. “It couldn’t have been easy, coming all that way…not knowing what you’d find.”
She shrugged. “I got into the nurse’s lounge and stole Michele’s credit card along with her goofy hat and sun-glasses. She caught me in the act.”
Ben stiffened. “Holy….”
Penny’s eyes gleamed and Ben fell silent, recognizing that look. He hadn’t seen it in a very long time. Since long before the accident and her supposed death. Since they were teenagers.
“I had to tie her up and leave her in a closet. Mean, I know, but I had no choice.”
He shook his head in wonder. “Maybe the old Penny isn’t completely gone after all,” he said softly.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because that’s just the kind of thing she would have done.”
“Really?”
Ben nodded, searching her face, wanting to ask her if this new Penny had any sort of feelings about him. Wondering if things like desire or attraction had survived in her memory along with the ability to ride and the tendency to see mysteries around every corner. He wanted to ask her. But he didn’t. Maybe because he was so afraid to hear her answer.
Instead he said, “So you think you were more or less a prisoner there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t wait around to find out.”
“And that’s why you’re so wary of doctors.”
She nodded. “They stick together, you know. If I saw someone, they might just ship me right back to the clinic.”
Ben shook his head. “You think I’d let that happen?”
She stared at him, but said nothing.
“They’d have to go through me to take you away again, Penny,” he said softly. “And if they managed that, they’d have the rest of the family to contend with. You’re safe with us, Penny. No one can hurt you now that you’re home.” She blinked, bit her lip, and he knew she was close to giving in. “Would it help if I told you the doctor I have in mind is the same one who tended your mother when you were born? And tended her aga
in when she and your dad passed on later?”
Penny’s eyes closed suddenly. “My parents are dead,” she stated in a flat tone.
Ben groaned. “I didn’t mean to drop it on you like that, Penny. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking—”
“Was it…while I was…gone?” she whispered.
Ben clasped her small hand in his large one. “You were by their sides, honey. Your daddy had a year long battle with cancer. He died when you were still in college, and your mama had a heart attack a couple of weeks later. Almost like she couldn’t live without him.”
She blinked away a few tears that crept into her eyes. “Maybe she couldn’t.”
Ben nodded. “I know just what she was feeling.”
Her gaze dropped, touching very briefly on Ben’s lips, and he forgot about the time that had passed and leaned closer and brushed her mouth with his. Softly, too briefly. She tasted so sweet.
Her eyes widened a little, but a second later they fell closed, and her lips touched his again. Ben gathered her close to him, and kissed her. Gently, tenderly, he caressed her mouth with his. Until she drew away shuddering, lowering her head again, rubbing her temples.
“Penny?”
“We should get back,” she said, getting to her feet.
He shouldn’t have done that. Dammit, he was moving too fast. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”
“No.” Her timid whisper stopped him in mid-sentence, and he searched her face. “It…it’s okay.”
She looked up, met his eyes, and he could see her headache had returned. But he could also see the flush of pleasure in her cheeks that hadn’t been there before.
“I’ll see this doctor of yours if you think I should, Ben. But only if…” She lowered her head, bit her lip.
“Only if what?”
Averting her gaze, she said, “Only if you’ll be there with me.”
Didn’t she know he’d be with her twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week if he had his way? “I’ll be there,” he promised. He took her hand, and led her slowly back to where the horses grazed.
What was happening to her? It was frightening, and shook her right to the core, whatever it was. She’d been terrified when the horse had taken off with her like that, scared senseless when she’d seen the fence looming before her. But then something had come over her. Something unfamiliar and strange. Almost like someone else had taken over her body and her mind. She’d felt possessed by some foreign soul.
But when it happened, somehow she’d known exactly what to do. Her body had acted without her consent, and she’d found herself suddenly at ease in the saddle, anticipating the horse’s every move, even urging her forward, instinctively aware she had no choice but to jump the fence. And when the horse sailed easily over it, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. And every part of her seemed to remember having done this before. Every physical part. She’d felt all of this before. The wind rushing across her face, carrying the heated scent of the mare. The percussion of thundering hooves on the ground beneath her, the elation of flight and then the impact of the landing. Her body knew those things, recognized them. Her mind didn’t. She couldn’t remember them. But the knowledge was there. The sensory memories remained.
And they had been there again when Ben’s soft lips had brushed hers. Her body had come alive. It knew the feel of those lips even if her mind didn’t. She’d tingled all over, and something…something was teasing at the edges of her mind—something she couldn’t quite grasp. Just as it had with the horse.
And just as it had then, her head began pounding like a jackhammer, feeling as if it would split at any moment.
Was she starting to remember? Would this continue? Did she want it to, when each hint of memory seemed to bring on such intense pain?
Yes. It would be worth anything to get her identity back. She knew that. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had much choice in the matter. But she didn’t tell Ben any of this. She could just imagine the way his eyes would light up with hope if he knew. And how disappointed he’d be if nothing more came of it. She had more than sufficient reason to believe nothing would.
She’d asked Dr. Barlow if her memory would return. He hadn’t said maybe. He hadn’t said time would tell. His reply had been a sad but simple “No.” And though she suspected the man might have lied to her about other things, she couldn’t think of a single reason he might lie to her about that.
But could he have been wrong?
Ben helped her back into the saddle. He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. “It’s like riding a bike,” he said. “Once you learn, you never forget.”
She shook her head as he mounted his own horse. “I’ve read about people with amnesia who have to learn to walk and talk all over again. I imagine they forgot how to ride a bike.”
“But you didn’t,” he said, gathering the reins and looking at her, and even though she hadn’t told him the truth, she saw that gleam of hope in his eyes all the same. “It’s gonna come back to you, Penny. All of it. I know it is.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
He’d nudged his horse into a gentle walk, and Penny rode along beside him. Though it was early autumn, the sun beat down, warming her. It felt good. All of it. The breeze that cooled the sun’s hot kiss, the saddle creaking beneath her and smelling of leather.
“What do you mean?” Ben asked.
She lowered her head. “I’m different now,” she said.
“Not in any way that matters.”
“How have I changed?” It wasn’t what she really wanted to know. What she wanted to ask him was whether he thought he could learn to like her again, get to know her as the woman she was now, rather than the woman he remembered. Because this new Penny might be all she could ever be. The one he longed for so much might be just as dead as if she really was in that grave she’d seen.
But maybe not. Because being with him here in this place felt so right.
He thought about his answer. “You never used to throw your towels on the floor after a bath,” he said.
She felt her cheeks heat and bristled a little defensively. “I did pick them up when I got around to it.”
“Before, you’d have wiped the tub dry, and the floor, and folded the damned things before you put them in the hamper.”
So he thought she’d turned into a slob. She glanced at his face and found him grinning.
“Used to drive you crazy when I’d toss mine aside after a shower. And your neatness obsession used to drive me just as nuts.”
She blinked in surprise. “Then it doesn’t bother you if I’m sloppier than I used to be?”
“Bother me?” He looked at her sharply. “You saying you’d be upset if it did?”
Penny quickly averted her gaze, not knowing how to answer that. It would upset her, she realized, but she wasn’t certain she understood why.
He saved her from having to reply, though. “You could trash the whole place, and I wouldn’t mind, Penny.”
She tried not to smile, but smiled anyway. His voice was deep and soft. It made her feel warm inside. “How else am I different?”
He shrugged. “You never had a dog before. I told you that, though. Then there’s the music.”
“Music?”
He nodded. “You were listening to some rock station when I came into your room this morning.”
“And I didn’t used to?”
“Never. You were strictly country. Knew all the words to every song Reba ever did.”
She frowned. “Reba who?” Then she wished she hadn’t said it, because he looked at her again, and his eyes were so sad it cut like a knife. But he covered it quickly.
“You, uh, you cut your hair.”
“You let yours grow,” she said.
Ben’s eyes widened and, drawing his horse to a sudden halt, he stared at her, gaping. “Did you hear what you just said?”
Penny blinked, searching her mind. “It just came out,” she said. “I don’t know wher
e it came from, Ben, it just sort of spilled out of me without warning.” Her head ached a little harder. She closed her eyes.
“No,” he said gently, and his hand came to rest on the side of her head, right where it ached. Easing, comforting her. His touch was magic to her. And each time he stopped touching her, she found herself wishing he’d touch her again. “Don’t try to force it. Just let it go, pretend it didn’t happen. Seems to me more comes back to you when you aren’t trying than when you are.”
She shook her head, opened her eyes. “Please don’t get your hopes up, Ben. It wasn’t a memory. I don’t know what it was—it was just there.”
He nodded slowly, clicking his tongue at the horse, and both animals began walking again. The steady plodding of their hooves over the lush, grassy ground was soothing somehow. The house was in sight now. And Penny felt an odd twinge of regret that their ride together was coming to an end.
“So, about the hair,” Ben said, sending her a sideways glance. “Do you think I should cut it again?”
She smiled at him, but her throat went dry as she studied his dark gold hair, pulled back with a band, and thought about how it would feel to run her fingers through it. “I…kind of like it the way it is.”
He turned his head so she couldn’t see his reaction to that. “I like yours, too.”
“Better than before?”
He faced her, and his smile was gone. His eyes, deep and solemn as his gaze moved over her. “I liked it long. I like it short. I’d like it even if it all fell out.”
Her stomach tied itself into a painful knot.
“It isn’t the hair, Penny. It’s the woman underneath who gets under my skin. Always was.”
She closed her eyes. “The woman underneath,” she whispered, wondering why his words hurt so much. And then she knew. Because there was no woman underneath—not the one he knew, at least. Not anymore. And there might never be again.
Chapter 7
They sipped iced tea on the porch swing, and Ben studied her face, searching for signs of fatigue. But he saw none.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked eagerly.
Long Gone Lonesome Blues Page 10
