The Russell Twins

“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 about it, Faith picked up the phone and dialed her sister’s cell-phone number.

“Sure, Saturday morning is fine,” Char said, after being asked. “I was just thinking about you. Any chance you want to go swimming at the river tomorrow after you get home from school? Maybe Marsha could stay a couple of extra hours.”

Faith hesitated; even the meager salary she was paying the nice woman who worked Tuesday through Friday at the farm ate into their inadequate profits. But it didn’t seem as if she and Char ever had time to do fun things, only the two of them. Gray was such a big part of Char’s life now, and Faith couldn’t leave Daddy on his own for very long yet, either.

“I’d love to. It’s supposed to be hot again tomorrow,” she said. “You want to come by and get me?”

“Okay.” There was a muffled voice in the background, which Faith assumed was Gray’s. Char laughed, then said into the phone, “See you about four?”

“Four,” Faith agreed.

THE SIGHT OF HER SISTER in a bikini shocked Charlotte. Faith had lost weight. Too much weight.

Since their late teens, Charlotte had been the skinny one. She’d always had more nervous energy and not much appetite. Later, she’d deliberately lost weight—part of her strategy along with dying her blond hair dark—to ensure that she and Faith couldn’t be mistaken for each other. She had hated being an identical twin, having another person who looked so much like her. Some of her earliest memories were of throwing gigantic temper tantrums when their mother tried to dress them the same. Too much of her life had been consumed by her near-frantic need to separate herself from her sister.

When she’d come home almost two months ago, Charlotte had realized that next to her sister she looked bony. Urban angular, she’d convinced herself. But, darn it, the food was better here at home. Corn fresh from the field, real butter from a local dairy, bacon and eggs for breakfast instead of a hasty bowl of cereal. She’d been gaining weight ever since, while Faith, stressed almost past bearing, had been losing it.

Charlotte just hadn’t realized how much, until now.

She had the sense not to say anything. Faith had reason to be scared. Reason, irrational though it would seem to most anyone else, to be driving herself so hard to try to save the family farm. With the fabric of her life so torn after Mom’s death four years ago, the failure of her marriage and now Rory’s cruel and terrifying attacks, Faith had to hold on to the one solid piece of her life that she could: home. The heritage they’d both grown up taking for granted.

Daddy, Charlotte believed, was ready to let the farm go. Neither of his daughters could imagine what he’d do if it was sold and carved up into a housing development, but Charlotte could tell he was uneasy with the theme-park kind of farm Faith had created and with the retail business that brought in most of the income. No matter what, Don Russell would never be a real farmer again. He was tired. Once he’d have bounced back quickly from the kind of injuries he’d suffered when the tractor had rolled on him. Fifty-nine years old now, he was struggling with the pain and the limited mobility and the indignity of having his daughters have to care for him like a baby in the first weeks.

Because she understood her sister, Charlotte was doing her best to help. She had accepted a job with an Eastside software company in part because she could do a fair amount of the work from home. She was putting in several hours every evening so that she could fill in a few mornings a week at the farm. Gray didn’t mind, overwhelmed as he was with his part-time mayor, part-time architect gigs, which he said felt more like full-time mayor, full-time architect. He often worked evenings, too.

Charlotte knew that she could help her sister and father only so much, but she should have noticed how Faith’s weight was plummeting. Instead of just helping out at the farm, maybe she should have suggested more fun outings. Did Faith ever have fun anymore?

As always, they had made their way upriver, over a tumble of boulders and under the railroad bridge, to a favorite spot that was private and offered a pool deep enough to allow them to cannonball off a rock into the water. The river was running even lower than it had been the last time they’d been here, she noticed as they waded in. Winter had been unusually dry this year, so there wasn’t much snowmelt to run off.

The water was cold enough to discourage any sane person from wanting to plunge in. Inch by inch, was her plan—one Faith ruined by splashing her. Of course she splashed back, and pretty soon they were both immersed to the neck and squealing as they waited for their bodies to grow numb.

“See? Isn’t it better this way?” Faith finally claimed.

“Yeah, right.”

Faith rolled onto her back to float. After a minute, sounding a little guilty, she said, “You still don’t have a dress.”

Charlotte steadfastly refused to go shopping for a wedding dress without her sister, but Faith never seemed to have a minute to spare.

“Not this weekend.” Faith was still floating, her fat, wet braid drifting beside her like kelp. “But maybe next weekend.”

“Okay,” Charlotte said softly, knowing Faith probably couldn’t hear her with her ears beneath the water.

The wedding she and Gray were planning would be simple. She had no intention of spending thousands of dollars on a dress, and she wasn’t the type for flounces or pearl-encrusted fabric, anyway. How hard could it be to find something simple and ready-made? Not that she would dare say that aloud. Faith was more interested in the details of the occasion than Charlotte was. She had always enjoyed planning all the details of parties. Faith cared about things like flowers and a cake. Thank goodness she hadn’t offered her own wedding dress, assuming she’d kept it. Charlotte found herself hoping Faith had trashed it, hateful symbol that it must seem to her.

Eventually they got out of the water and lay in the sun, talking idly. Faith told her sister about this year’s crop of kindergarteners, which included the requisite couple of hellions, a few kids who, in her opinion, shouldn’t have started for another year and two girls who were already reading at a first-grade level or beyond. Charlotte was still feeling her way around in her new job; she’d been working on computer-security projects before, but was now helping enhance already successful management software with on-demand customization capabilities. Mostly she told Faith about the personalities in the office.

Faith asked lazily, “Do you and Gray want to come to dinner this weekend? Sunday, maybe? Dad likes Gray, you know.”

Charlotte laughed. “I know. But then, everyone likes Gray. How else do you think he got elected to office?”

Faith laughed, too. “You’re right. I like Gray.”

Actually, she and Gray had gone out a couple of times, some months before Charlotte had come home. They’d liked each other; there just wasn’t anything else there. And yet, according to Gray, the minute he set eyes on Charlotte, he wanted her. Had maybe even fallen in love with her, although he hadn’t called it love for a few weeks. He hadn’t even realized Faith and Charlotte were identical twins, maybe because he’d seen through Charlotte’s facade from the beginning to who she was beneath. She hadn’t yet quit marveling at the knowledge that he loved her—she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to. It was a miracle that he did, and that she’d been able to let herself love him in return.

“Have you seen Ben lately?” Charlotte asked.

As if by chance, Faith turned her head away, pillowing it on her arms. “Um. He came by a couple days ago. No news. He seemed annoyed that I don’t carry my gun in a holster at all times.”

“Oh, sure.” Charlotte eyed the back of her sister’s head. “You don’t have it with you now, do you?”

There was a moment of silence. “In my beach bag.”

“You’re kidding.”

Faith rolled over then sat up, her gaze level. “Nope. I carry it everywhere. Except school, of course. Then I lock it in the car, in the glove compartment.”

Charlotte looked at the lemon-yellow-and-white bag, repelled at the idea of a handgun nestled inside it alongside the suntan lotion. “Wow. I didn’t realize.”

“We’re all alone here,” Faith said, her voice cool and expressionless. “What if Rory showed up right now? Even if we screamed, nobody could get to us in time to help.”

Charlotte shifted uneasily and stole a look over her shoulder.

“I’m ready,” her sister said with remarkable calm. “I told you that.”

Charlotte looked back at her sister’s face in awe and disquiet. Had Faith really changed so much? Or was the armor she wore no more than a thin crust disguising the vulnerability and fear beneath?

Anger surged through Charlotte. Why couldn’t the police find Rory? Was it too much to ask that Faith be able to feel safe?

“Maybe I’ll stay at the house tonight,” she decided.

Faith only shook her head. “I’m ready,” she repeated. “You couldn’t do anything.”

“I can keep the baseball bat next to the bed.”

Faith’s mouth curved faintly. She’d been the one ready to swing the bat at Rory’s head last time, except that he’d run before she could. “We’ve changed the locks,” Faith said, “and Dad should hear if Rory breaks a window.” He was still sleeping downstairs, in the hospital bed they had rented when he came home after he was hurt. He could probably manage the stairs now with his crutches, but why should he?

“Maybe,” Charlotte said doubtfully. “The way he snores, how can he hear anything else?”

They both giggled. As long as they could remember, Dad had been insisting that he didn’t snore. Mom always said she’d tape him some night, but she never had, and somehow teasing him about it didn’t feel right without Mom here. Some nights this past summer Charlotte had even taken comfort from the familiar sound drifting upstairs.

“Maybe you and Dad should come stay at Gray’s, just until Ben finds Rory,” she suggested. She’d tentatively talked to Gray and he was willing, even though the two of them loved the time they had together, without anyone else.

“I let him terrorize me for three years,” Faith said, sounding completely inflexible. “I won’t let him make me go into hiding, Char. Anyway … How long would we have to stay with you and Gray? Two weeks? Two months? What if Rory never comes back? Or if he waits until Daddy and I go home again? No. I appreciate the offer, but it’s not necessary.”

Charlotte found her eyes resting on the tote bag, with its sunny colors and a semiautomatic pistol tucked inside. Faith followed her gaze, as if understanding what she was thinking. Her expression stayed resolute, almost stony. It was as if her weight loss was a manifestation of what was happening to her—Faith’s soft, gentle nature had hardened, as though baked in a kiln, the process altering her very substance.

Uneasily, Charlotte thought about how little it took to shatter kiln-fired stoneware.

Suppressing a shiver, she said, “If you change your mind, you’re always welcome. Even in the middle of the night. Okay?”

Faith reached out and hugged Charlotte, pressing her cheek to her sister’s. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I love you, Char.”

“And I love you,” Charlotte whispered, too, thankful that the words came so readily these days, a balm to soothe the hurt of ten years of estrangement.

Cold prickles walked up her spine as she thought about how precious their restored bond was. She could lose her sister so quickly if Rory stole into the farmhouse some night and slipped into Faith’s bedroom without waking her. A gun would do no good at all, if she didn’t have time to reach for it.

FAITH SHOWERED before bedtime to cool down, even though she had been swimming in the river only a few short hours ago. The day’s heat had risen in the house, found no escape. Despite the fan in her bedroom and the fact that she’d wrestled her sash window up, she was toying with the idea of taking a pillow and sheet downstairs and sleeping on the sofa in the living room with Dad.

If only he didn’t snore …

She had always enjoyed hot weather; she’d even thought that if it weren’t for Daddy and the farm she might have liked living in southern California or the Southwest. The idea was one she played with while waiting for sleep some nights. Starting anew where no one knew her both appalled and intrigued her. It would be so lonely, but also—she had thought a long time about the right word to describe the shimmer of excitement she felt, and settled on one—liberating. When she was younger, that kind of freedom had held no appeal. After the years of her marriage, though, she’d begun to imagine what it would be like to stand entirely, selfishly alone. To be the quintessential island.

It was only a fantasy, of course. She had a feeling she would wither and die if she truly found herself plunked down in Phoenix, say, knowing no one, unfettered by any ties.

And yet, sometimes she was so very tired.

She had gradually turned the water temperature colder and colder, and now it rained down on her, nearly icy. With a sigh, Faith turned the shower off and stepped out shivering. She towel-dried, then brushed her hair and plaited it with practiced hands. She knew from experience it would still be damp come morning, and help keep her cool.

Momentarily, head tilted as she gazed at herself in the mirror, Faith wondered what she’d look like if she cut her hair boyishly short, like Char’s. She laughed at herself. Silly—she’d look exactly like Char! Except different, really. She had become aware these past two months that they might be identical twins, but they didn’t move alike or laugh alike or even make the same gestures. Passing as each other wouldn’t be easy, as it had been when they were mischievous children.

Rory wouldn’t like it if I cut my hair.

Faith went still, looking at herself in the steam-misted mirror. Her eyes had widened, the shade of blue deepening, as she did battle with the tight knot of fear that had ruled her for too long.

“I should cut it,” she whispered. “Because.”

No. She shouldn’t do anything at all because Rory liked it or didn’t. If she cut her hair in defiance of him, she would be giving him more weight than he deserved.

And she liked her hair long. She always had, resisting haircuts while Char had experimented with every length when they were teenagers.

Faith began to breathe again. She wouldn’t give Rory any power at all. She’d think about him only as a threat, the reason she would be target shooting tomorrow again.

She went back to her bedroom and found it considerably cooler after the cold shower and with her hair wet and the braid heavy down her back.

Dad had long since fallen asleep. She’d heard the rumble of his snoring as she’d crossed the hall from the bathroom. A farmer his entire life, he rarely stayed awake much past nine o’clock, but he no longer awakened with dawn, and he napped in the afternoons, too. She worried a little about how much he was sleeping, although the doctor insisted that was normal, part of the healing process. She still thought some of it might be depression.

Faith turned off her light and stood for a minute looking out her bedroom window at the cornfield. She could see the highway from here, too, and on the other side of it a glint of river between stands of trees. The moon was nearly full and low in the sky, a buttery yellow that looked mystical but was probably, unromantically, caused by smog in the atmosphere. A month from now, on All Hallow’s Eve, it would be a sullen orange, the harvest moon.

She left the curtains open and lay in bed, the covers pushed aside, enjoying the wash of air over her skin as the fan rotated. The faint hum was mesmerizing, a kind of white noise that soothed her. Faith fell asleep to the sound of it.

She never slept soundly anymore. Waking suddenly wasn’t unusual. Old houses made noises, and sometimes Daddy got up at night to go to the bathroom. Faith thought it was a creak that she’d heard. She always left her door open now, in case her father needed her. The rectangle was dark, inpenetrable. She lay staring toward it, holding herself very still as she listened intently for the thump of his crutches, or the quiet groan of the hundred-year-old house settling.

Nothing. For the longest time, there was no repetition. Her instinctive tension eased. She began to relax, let the weight of her eyelids sink. She was always so tired….