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CHAPTER14
Ben rubbedhis eyes and reached for his coffee. He tried to concentrate on the work glaring from his computer screen, but his thoughts continuously strayed to Hanna.
A week had passed since the night he’d taken her innocence, and they’d spent every possible waking moment together since then. Even when he had work to do, she would sit in his office as she studied the G.E.D. prep books Eli had left behind.
He’d just placed his coffee down when her soft voice startled him.
“Why don’t you have a phone?”
Ben swiveled around in his chair and looked at Hanna. She’d opened his office door a crack and had only poked her neck inside. Her nervous gaze flickered from his face and around the room. Guilt washed over him that she’d caught him working. He’d promised to spend the next few days with her, giving her his undivided attention. He’d just woken up early today to finish one last work project while she slept.
“I looked all over the house,” she said, inching through the door with a small step. “I couldn’t find a phone anywhere.”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Why do you want a phone?”
“I… I was only curious about why you didn’t have one. And I thought all English had phones in their houses.” She paused for a second, opened her mouth as if to say something else, and then closed it. She backed up and vanished from the room, closing the door before Ben heard fast footsteps in the hallway.
He jumped to his feet and raced after her. He wasn’t about to let her shut him out, not when their time together was limited, their future uncertain. Following the sound of her escape—a slamming front door—he hurried outside. He spotted her curled into a ball on the glider, blanketed in the early morning darkness. Lady was there too, sitting in front of Hanna, as if keeping guard. Ben approached and scratched Lady’s ears before urging the dog back inside.
“Go on,” he whispered.
The German Shepherd reluctantly obeyed, traipsing through the open door with her tail low.
“Hanna.” Ben went to his sweet little girl, scooping her up to cradle her in his arms. She pushed at his chest and squirmed against his attentions.
“I want to know you,” she said. “I want to know you and you won’t speak of your past. I don’t know anything about your family, your friends, or why you live out here alone. But even though I don’t know you, I’m not ready to leave. Eli included his phone number in the letter, and I wanted to call him to tell him not to rush. To give me more time. To giveusmore time together. But how can I do that when you have so many secrets?”
Every muscle in his body tensed, and a chill moved through him. He grabbed her wrists, holding one in each hand to prevent her escape. Her eyes flamed wildly, and her face glimmered pale as a ghost in the lingering moonlight. The chorus of nighttime insects swelled around them, seemingly louder as the seconds ticked by and the tension between them escalated.
Ben had no choice. He had to tell her.
Had to toss his secrets at her feet and hope for the best.
He wasn’t sure where or how to begin, but he started talking.
“I’m from a small town in West Virginia, Hanna. I lived there my whole childhood, went to college nearby, moved back and got married. I owned a computer repair shop with my wife, and the shop was located in the bottom of our house. One night I heard a crash and thought someone was breaking in to rob the business, so I grabbed my gun.” His voice cracked, and his heart pounded fast as he watched Hanna’s face grow whiter. “When I reached the top of the stairs, I thought I saw a man walking up, and when I told him to stop, he kept moving up the stairs, almost running. It was dark. I didn’t turn on any lights and it was so fucking dark. The figure lifted his hand though, and I thought I saw him holding a weapon of some sort.”
“What happened then?” She was no longer struggling to escape his lap, and she regarded him like a child watching the scariest part of a horror movie. Sympathy also shone in her eyes, as if she knew what Ben was about to confess to.
“I shot at him. The sixteen-year-old boy who lived next door. His name was Devon. The… the bullet only grazed his shoulder, but he fell backward down the steps and cracked his skull open. He died three days later. He didn’t have a weapon on him, either, by the way. Just his cell phone.”
Ben felt like he was outside of his body as he described the following weeks to Hanna, which led to his exile in these woods. Devon had been the all-American boy—star of the football team, a straight-A student, leader of his youth group at church, and he’d already had a full scholarship to college.
After a lengthy investigation, authorities deduced that Devon had been returning from a party that night, and the boy had been so intoxicated that he’d entered the wrong house through a back door.
In the end, Ben was painted as the bad guy.
The community where he’d spent his whole life ostracized him. Even his wife, Carmen, no longer wanted anything to do with him. Reporters called day and night, and a few local news stations had a field day with the story.
After his divorce was finalized, Ben’s only goal was to find a quiet, secluded place to live out the rest of his life. A place far away from accusing eyes. A place where no one would know a thing about him. A place where his past wouldn’t haunt him. So, he’d moved to the backwoods of Pennsylvania.
“That’s why I live out here alone. That’s why I don’t have a phone—at least not a landline like you were looking for. There’s no one I need to talk to. I made a mistake. A terrible one. And not a day passes that I don’t regret what I did. If I’d turned on a light first, if I’d waited for the boy to speak. If…” His voice trailed off.
Hanna remained frozen, holding his gaze with an expression he couldn’t place. But it must be disgust. How else would she look at him? Her people abhorred violence and weapons.
He gently lifted her and placed her back on the glider. After one last stroke of her hair, which she didn’t lean into the way she normally did, he stood up and headed for the front door. Pausing, he glanced back over his shoulder, feeling another chill creep up his back. “Now you know me, Hanna.”
Lady scampered past him as he entered the house, no doubt going where she was needed most. Ben returned to his office and stared out the window. The outlines of the trees emerged after a short time, and the stars above faded one by one as the sky grew lighter. But just as the sun began to rise, a cloud cover moved in, ushering in a gentle rain. The patter of water on the roof lulled him into a miserable trance.
