To Forgive & Hold Safe (The Broken Men Chronicles Book 4) (3 page)

I woke to a hand on my shoulder.  Jumping up had been a bad move as I felt the painful stiffness in my neck.

Where the hell am I?

Looking around, taking in the rhythmic beeping of machines, the medicinal scent of the air, I remembered.  Embarrassment filled me the moment I looked up into Anne Donner’s eyes.

“You came back?”

“I…uh…” I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded.

One look out the window and I realized that it was morning.  I never meant to spend what little that was left of the night there, but for some reason sitting at Hannah’s bedside had filled me with a sense of calm I hadn’t felt at night in a long time.

“Benjamin, are you all right?” Anne asked.

I nodded and got up, feeling foolish.  The woman was sweet, but how could she not be worried about a total stranger spending the night at her newly widowed daughter’s bedside?

It had been a mistake.

I cleared my throat.  “I should go.”

“Wait!” She grabbed my arm as I tried to make my way past her.  “Will you be back?”

I looked down. “I don’t know.” 
I want to.

I looked up once more into the older and wiser version of Hannah’s eyes and felt like the woman saw through me. It was as if she could see my deepest and darkest secrets; the ones I wanted to leave dead and buried.  The longer she looked at me, the more I wanted to put distance between us. 

As I made to move away, she wrapped her arms around me.

My arms went from limp at my sides to giving her an awkward pat on the back.

She pulled back, smiled and reached up to cup my cheek.  “You’re a good man.  I hope you come back, Mr. Carpenter.”

“Ben.  Just Ben, ma’am.” I forced a smile.  I turned and Mr. Donner was walking into the room.  “Sir.” I nodded my head.

“Son, I know my wife said it last night, but thank you.”  The man stuck out his hand and I looked down at it for a few seconds before I took and shook it.

“I’m glad I was able to do anything at all.” I looked toward their daughter.  “I better go.”

Absentminded as I drove home from the hospital, I didn’t realize where I had headed until I looked up.

It was a stop I had made far more times than I cared to count, but seeing as I’d already been this week, I was confused as to why I had ended up here.

The cemetery gates loomed before me as I drove through them and parked the car on a drawn out sigh.  I got out and walked the solemn and lonely walk to the two plots that awaited me like they did every week.

Kneeling before the tombstones, I ran my fingertips over their names.

Candace.

Karen.

My two girls.

The habitual ball of emotions clogged my throat.  I missed them both so much.

For however long I stayed, my peace was interrupted by a car door slamming shut behind me.

I paid it no heed.  It was a public place after all.

“I love you, my girls,” I whispered before getting to my feet.

Turning to leave, my body halted first with surprise – then trepidation took hold.

“Ben.”

The incessant lump in my throat grew and brought forth a very familiar feeling of suffocation.  Candace’s parents stood before me.

“How are you, Ben?” Betty asked.

“I’m okay.” I knew my appearance sure as hell didn’t convey that.  Why had I ended up here instead of at home where I should have been all along?

Don’s gaze took my appearance in.  His eyes showed worry.  “You look like you’ve seen better days.”

“I’ve been getting a lot of that lately.” I tried my hand at smirking.  “I should get going, it’s nice seeing you both.  Take care.”

I should have known that Don wouldn’t let me make my escape in a quick and painless fashion.  He rarely did these days.

He followed me to my car.  “We have some things of Candace’s that she’d want you to have, Ben.”

I took a deep breath and paused with my hand on the door before turning to face the man.  “Not now, Don.”

“You know, there was a day when you used to call me Dad.”

I couldn’t look him in the eyes.  “I-I can’t.  Not anymore.”

In a rush to get out of there before he said something else, I opened the car door and paused to look back at the man that had been as much of a father to me as my own.

“It’s been three years.  You need to stop blaming yourself, Ben.  No one else does.”

That was it.

I got in my car without acknowledging his words, started it, and peeled out of there.

I called my bar manager, Derek, on the drive home, and told him that I needed him to look after
Fairfax
for the day.

I walked out of the shower stall, my towel hanging around my waist.  The good thing about daytime was the fact that I was able to sleep whenever the opportunity presented itself.  I shed my towel and crawled naked under the sheets.

A smorgasbord of thoughts ran through my head as I settled onto my back.

Candace.

Hannah.

Hannah some more.

Then, back to Candace.

The more I thought about my wife, however, the more my mind flittered back to thoughts of Hannah.  Knowing her pain, I worried about what she was about to go through.  It wasn’t going to be an easy journey.  Hell, after three years I was still struggling.

I woke with a start.

Those piercing green eyes had been there, pleading with me.

If one thing was for sure, that dream had me resolving that I needed to abide by my word and stay at Hannah’s side.

At least until she wakes up and tells you to get lost, Carpenter.

I got up, headed to the bathroom, and splashed some cold water on my face.  Staring back at my reflection, I took in my light brown hair laying in all sorts of directions, the dark circles under my eyes, and my pale complexion.  My stomach rumbled, and that’s when I realized that it was nearing dinnertime and I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before at Mike and Nicole’s reception.

Grabbing a quick bite after dressing in jeans and a t-shirt, I headed out the door.  Before I could take my first step, however, my foot ran into a box, nearly sending me tumbling down the front steps.

One look at the brown cardboard and there was no question as to what it held.

I don’t need this right now!

Bending over, I picked the box up, turned to drop my keys on the small table by the front door, after kicking it shut, and set the load down on the coffee table in my living room. Staring at it, I backed away from the cardboard container as if it might contain a communicable disease of some sort.

I knew what I would face if I lifted that lid, and I was terrified that the hell I had been living these past few years would worsen to an unbearable level if I did just that.  Fighting through my weariness, I sat down and made to peek inside.

In that box, I found notebooks – five of them, to be exact.  They matched others I had found around the house after Candace’s death.  Why they hadn’t been kept here, I don’t know.  Upon opening them, I found Candace’s neat scripture.

“I love that man…”
This made me smile.

“He’s asked me to be his finally…”
This made me remember.

“Chris is…”

Hold on!

I re-read the last few words of the passage I was scanning.

My heart began to pound.  My eyes bulged at what I read – twice!

That’s when I realized that this was a whole new set of journals.  Journals I was never meant to see.  Journals written by a woman, that up until moments ago, I thought loved me.

No, it’s not possible.

But then, masochistic curiosity struck, despite my wanting to deny what I had just read.  My eyes flittered to the top of the page where I knew I’d most likely find a date.

My heart sunk.

The book dropped to the floor.

Chris.

That name had come up before.

And then something clicked.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I bolted to my feet and flung the box and sent its remaining contents crashing to the floor.

Glass shattered, but then again, so did more of my heart.

Anger simmered at a low boil, my temper barely in check, but I hadn’t finished sorting through the items, and now I had a mess to clean, forcing me to do just that.

Crouching down, I turned the box up and peered inside.  In it, there was a glass figurine.  I remembered it.  Candace had it since college.  She’d kept it in her office.

That’s when I realized that this stuff must have come from work.

As I lifted some folder from the box, something slipped out of it and landed at my feet.  I bent down to pick it up.

A photograph with the following caption:

One year and I love you more everyday.

Love,

Candy

I flipped the photograph over and there he was in Technicolor.  Chris.

The ex who had given her the figurine.

A man I’d invited over for dinner, along with his wife – a man I had shaken hands with on numerous occasions.

Candace’s boss –
no
– lover.

My hands shook with rage, my fingers releasing the piece of paper as if it had singed me.

I looked down at the notebooks, and then at the fallen photograph.  Dropping the file folder on the table, I backed away.

The air around me was getting too thick, my lungs felt like they were closing up.

I need to get out of here.

Grabbing my keys, I locked the front door, jumped in my car, and headed for…well, I’m not sure where I was headed, but far away from home sounded pretty damn good right about then!

I pounded on that door so hard my hand felt as if it would be bruised from my efforts.

“What the hell is your problem? I’ve got-” Danica’s face went from furious to concerned in a nanosecond.  “Ben, what’s going on?”

“I-I don’t… I didn’t…” I couldn’t find the words to explain myself for coming to her, but she was the only one I could think of with Mike being off on his honeymoon.

Danica grabbed my wrist, pulled me in, and closed the front door before ushering me toward the kitchen.

She made me sit down and went to the fridge to get me a bottle of water.

I’m not a man who drinks to excess, but I sure as hell could have done with more than aqua right then.

“Ben, you’re scaring me.  What’s going on?”

“She cheated,” I choked out.

“Who?”

“Candace.”

“What?”

I snorted.  “My thoughts exactly.”

“With who?”

I ran a hand down my face, swallowing the taste of bile in my mouth.  “Her boss.”

“What?”

My head bobbed up and down, my gaze failing to meet hers.

Jake entered the kitchen.  “Hey, man, you look like shit.”

“Thanks.”

Jake looked between his wife and I.  “Something’s wrong, I can smell it.”  He crossed his arms.  “Why do I feel like something big just happened?”

I looked at Jake, then met Danica’s eyes.  The room remained silent for a moment until I gave her the nod that granted permission for her to inform her husband.  Jake looked at me with shock strewn across his face as he received the news.

Shock was only the icing on the cake for me.  Beneath that layer was one of betrayal, and another of worthlessness.  Oh, and let’s not forget the embarrassment, too.  It was like I had married a stranger, like I had loved someone I had never known.

It had all been a lie.

Was Karen even mine?

A new wave of fury built with that lingering question.

I got up to leave without a word.

“Where’re you going?” Danica asked.

“I think I’ll find my answers if I sit down and read those journals.”

“Are you sure that’s smart?” Jake asked.

“I think it’s time that I get past all of this, don’t you?” I eyed them both, far from enthused at my surely self-imposed torture.  “I can’t…” I sighed.  “I can’t believe I’ve been stuck like this for so long and all of it was a lie.”

“Not all of it, Ben.” Danica walked up to me and grabbed my hands.  “That beautiful baby girl you had.  You know that Karen was yours even if she wasn’t.  The love you had for both of them was real too.”

My chortle lacked any humor.  “It clearly didn’t mean much to her.”

“Promise me that if you need anything, you’ll call.” I gave her a curt nod.  “But I think you’re right.  You should read those journals.”