“I want you to leave.”
“I didn’t mean to …”
“Now.”
God. Feeling as though his chest was being crushed—as if he’d been the one under the tractor, not Don Russell—Ben backed away.
“I’m sorry, Faith,” he said, throat feeling raw.
She didn’t say anything, only stared at him with that same angry ferocity. He’d been right; she didn’t like him any better than she did her ex-husband.
No, Ben realized, as he made himself turn away and walk toward the open barn door, right now she hated him even more than she did Rory Hardesty. She still had a habit of softening sometimes where Hardesty was concerned. Pretty clearly, she’d be happiest never to see Police Chief Ben Wheeler ever again.
That, he thought grimly, was one thing he could do for her. Stay away.
Unless he could bring her the news that Hardesty was behind bars.
Or until a 911 call came in some night after Faith’s ex-husband returned to make sure no one else could have what he couldn’t.
Ben didn’t look back. He got in his patrol unit and sat behind the wheel while he calmed himself enough to drive without killing someone.
He was scared in a way he didn’t ever remember being before. Scared that the next time he saw Faith Russell, she’d be lying battered and bloody on a gurney—or dead, being fitted into a body bag.
It was a good five minutes before he could back out and drive away.
CHAPTER TWO
FAITH MADE IT THROUGH the day, and the next day, on sheer willpower alone. She didn’t know why Ben Wheeler’s visit had shaken her so badly, but it had.
He had.
From the minute she’d seen West Fork’s new police chief, she’d tumbled hard. It would be silly to call what she’d felt love, but it was more than lust. Maybe it was most accurate to say she’d known right away that she could love him. The shocking thing was, she’d never felt anything so potent and next-thing-to-painful for Rory. Rory and she had dated for over a year before he’d asked her to marry him. She’d liked him, felt comfortable with him. He’d felt right, as if he fit into the life she wanted.
Ben, Faith had known from the first moment, could blast her life as she knew it to smithereens.
In fact, he’d hurt her right away by asking Charlotte, not her, out to dinner. For all the troubles that lay between Faith and her twin, jealousy over a man had never been an issue. That night, while her sister was out with Ben, Faith had sat at home and burned with envy.
She still didn’t quite know what had happened between them, only that Char had said there weren’t any sparks. She’d been convinced that Ben was really interested in Faith and not her. Sometimes, Faith thought that, too. The night when Rory had tossed the cherry bomb through the window, Ben had seemed to have eyes for no one but Faith. He’d cradled her on his lap while the medic plucked shards of glass out of her flesh, and he’d rushed her to the hospital himself. His tenderness had made her feel safe.
But it seemed as if every time he held her and comforted her, he regretted that he had. She’d never seen a face close down tight the way Ben’s could.
Either he felt nothing for her, or he didn’t like what he did feel and refused to act on it. Either way, seeing him hurt.
She might have told Ben about Rory’s last phone call if only he wasn’t always so irritated with her, so scornful. She knew he didn’t understand any more than her own father and sister did why she had endured three years of marriage to a man who was abusing her. She despised herself enough, thank you; she didn’t have to spend time with a man who believed she was so spineless, he had to bully her into defending herself from Rory.
That was why she’d bought the handgun, why she’d spent a total of thirty-six hours to date shooting at the range. She would defend herself, and Daddy and Char, too, if they were in Rory’s way. Faith still felt queasy every time she picked up the Colt .38, but her hands were steady when she lifted it and aimed, and she could rip the heart out of the target.
Char was always the one who’d been adventurous, strong. Faith was the timid twin, the compliant one. The one easily wounded.
The perfect sucker for a man like Rory Hardesty, she knew now.
The worst thing about seeing Ben this time, she thought, was that she’d had to lie to him. Rory had called, a couple of weeks after he broke into the house and slashed Charlotte with the knife thinking she was Faith.
During the phone call, he’d sounded relieved to hear that Char had recovered. He claimed that he wouldn’t be moving back to West Fork. He’d sounded truly sorry for scaring her, and for what he’d done to Char.
The only thing was … his tone had changed at the end of the conversation. He’d asked if he could come see her if he was back in West Fork visiting. She told him no, and to add weight to her refusal said she was in love with someone else. His voice had changed after that.
“What about your wedding vows?” he’d asked. “Do you ever think about what you promised?”
She’d clutched the phone, thinking about all the times she’d forgiven him. About how close she had come to dying at his hands, which would have released her from her vows in a final way. And she didn’t say a word.
But he did. “I don’t like the idea of you with anyone else, Faith,” he’d told her, and she recognized the anger simmering in his voice.
She’d tried to convince herself it wasn’t anger, that it was really grief for what he’d been foolish enough to throw away, but she hadn’t quite succeeded. It had sounded like a threat to her.
Right after Rory called, Faith hadn’t been able to bear even the idea of seeing Ben again, of having to submit to his questions, of having to remember the horrible years of her marriage. Of giving him even more grounds to pity poor Faith Russell, too weak to stand up to a bully. Anyway, what good would it do to tell him?
They already knew Rory was a threat. Ben, especially, was convinced he would be back.
So she hadn’t told him about the call, and she wasn’t going to now. There wasn’t any point, and she had a right to defend herself against Ben as well as Rory.
But he’d known she was hiding something, which brought out the aggressor in him. Faith could tell he’d been determined to make her bare everything to him, every doubt, every fear, every weakness. She’d had no choice but to order him to leave and not come back, even though he meant well in his own way.
She could count only on herself, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Faith had spent a lifetime trying to clutch her twin sister close—so close, she’d driven Char away. And once she had lost her identical twin, she’d grabbed for Rory instead, enduring too much because he was all she had.
Well, she wasn’t the same woman now. She and Char had come close to healing their breach, and Faith was truly grateful for that. She wouldn’t repeat the mistakes that had alienated them in the first place. Char was mostly living with Gray now, their wedding planned for November. Faith wouldn’t let herself lean on her sister. And Daddy was still convalescent—the idea of him trying to protect her really frightened Faith.
Saturday, she decided, she’d see if Char could work for a few hours, freeing her to drive to Everett to get in some practice at the gun range. She hadn’t been for nearly a week now, and to stay strong and confident she needed to shoot often. Handling the gun should become second nature.
Thinking