Authors: Julie Lessman
“I’m willing to listen, Ben, but I’ll need more than idle talk …”
His lids lifted halfway, pulse throbbing when his gaze lighted on her lips.
Yeah, me too …
“I’ll need total honesty, complete candor, and a willingness to change.”
So help me, I already have …
His mind traced the curve of her steeled jaw, skimming across those adorable pursed lips, wondering how he could have ever missed that delicate spray of freckles across her perfectly formed nose.
“And you’ll need to apologize to Lacey, of course,” she continued, “and become the dad that she needs.”
Her words doused with a cold chill. “What?”
Ignoring the sudden scowl on his face, she dragged him back to the table and pushed him down in the chair, one beautiful brow hitched high as she scolded with a finger. “So help me, Ben Carmichael, if you want my friendship, there’s going to be a high price to pay—”
He couldn’t help it—he grinned. “Häagen-Dazs?”
That stopped her cold. Her brows bunched low. “What flavor?”
He rose with a bit of a swagger. “Maybe you need to come over and find out.”
She shoved him down, the threatening finger back in play. “Don’t you dare sidetrack me, Carmichael—I can
not
be bribed.”
“Tiramisu.”
A lump bobbed in her throat several times before a rasp broke from her lips. “All right, but you need to know I’m not fooling around here.”
Head tipped, he challenged her with a skim of a smile. “Mmm … maybe you should …”
She tossed her hands in the air with a huff. “Okay, that’s it—you’re obviously not serious here—”
He fisted her wrist with a gentle hold, gaze burning hers with a smoldering look. “Oh, but I am,” he whispered, stunned at the sudden desire coursing his veins, wondering how feelings could go from friendship to fire in the scorch of a touch. A need—deeper, stronger, more urgent than anything he had felt in a long, long time—seared all reason, obliterating everything but Tess. His gaze dropped to her lips for the briefest of moments, but it was more than enough to drain the blood from her face. He circled the soft flesh of her palm with his thumb, his voice little more than a rasp. “Trust me, Tess, I’m just as shocked as you.”
She jerked free like he’d branded her with a hot poker instead of his thumb, avoiding his face as she rubbed the spot hard. “This is about Lacey, Ben, nothing more ...” Her voice trailed off.
Heart thundering, he stared at her for several seconds, finally releasing a heavy exhale, fraught with frustration. “Okay, Tess, we’ll do this your way. Just Häagen-Dazs and serious conversation at my house.”
She glanced up beneath a fringe of dark lashes, like a doe in a hunter’s sight.
He battled a grin while he stood to stretch, his smile veering toward dry. “On separate sides of the sofa with Beau in between, all right?”
“T-Thank y-you.”
The waver in her voice lured a grin to his lips, infusing a hint of victory in his tone. “And I even have some of those fancy Morelli gourmet waffle cones dipped in white chocolate.”
She glanced up, stress lines easing as a smile tugged at her lips. “It seems you have a heart after all, Dr. Doom, only it’s black with evil.” She hefted her chin with a stern fold of arms. “This could take longer than I thought.”
Pushing his chair in, he gave her a heated look, wishing it would warm her half as much as she did him. “One can only hope.”
What am I doing here?
Tess hooked a strand of hair over her ear, fingers quaking as much as her knees as she stood on Ben Carmichael’s front porch.
“I need to leave a note for the kids,” she’d told him, “and then I’ll be right over.” But she stalled writing the note and stalled changing from her crop top and short shorts into
loose
running clothes that covered her head to toe. Her finger hovered precariously over the doorbell. And she was stalling now.
Big time.
She felt all of sixteen again, wavering in the glow of the front porch light he rarely turned on. Her stomach was as queasy as if it were one of those horrific haunted houses the kids always dragged her to on Halloween. Ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night.
Heat instantly bruised her cheeks as she tugged down on Jack’s old T-shirt, stretching it to cover as much of her full-length yoga pants as she possibly could despite the steamy night. The blatant desire she’d seen in Ben’s face tingled her skin with a heat that had little to do with the weather. Her jaw hardened along with her will. Well, there would be no “bumps in the night” tonight or “bumps” in the road either, not if she could help it.
Too many ghosts in our past.
Her eyes shuttered closed, and the memory of Ben’s words, his touch, his look paralyzed her as she braced a hand to the wall, body and mind swaying with indecision. Should she turn around and go home? Or brave the wolf who could very well take a bite out of any resolve she might have. She kneaded a sudden headache at the bridge of her nose. Where on earth had this mutual attraction come from? Out of the blue like this, when her sole desire till now had only been to reconcile Lacey and him.
Sure, Tess, whatever you say ...
Sweat beading her brow, she could still feel the fire of his touch even now, the heat in his eyes that confirmed what she’d been unwilling to admit since the night she’d encountered Cynthia in his kitchen. She was attracted to Ben Carmichael. A low groan ached in her throat. And apparently he was attracted to her. Panic seized like a fist, freezing her feet to the floor
. Oh, Lord, I can’t do this …
The door whooshed open and there he stood in all his glory, muscled body filling out a polo a little too well for a man his age. With a fold of arms, he butted a shoulder to the jamb with that little-boy grin she remembered whenever he’d trounced her, Karen, and Adam in Scrabble. Only back then it made her smile.
Not buckle her knees.
“The ice cream’s melting,” he said, the husky tease in his tone doing a little melting of its own. “What took you so long?”
Her cheeks pulsed with heat as she bolted into his house, inching sideways to avoid touching his arm. “Had to change after I wrote a note for the kids,” she called over her shoulder, all but sprinting down the hall to the back of his house. “Told ’em I was taking a long walk.”
Yeah, a long walk.
Off a short pier.
She shuddered at the click of the front door.
Into a sea of attraction that could very well drown us both.
Making a beeline for the far edge of the sofa, she nudged her sneakers off and curled into the corner, feet tucked beneath her legs. She summoned up a sassy smile, desperate to deflect the jitters tumbling inside. “Okay, Doctor Doom, only one scoop or I’ll have to run an extra mile in the dark.” She glanced around. “Where’s Beau?”
With a secret smile, Ben strolled into the family room with a smug look that told her he knew exactly how nervous she was. Those deadly hazel eyes scanned from the top of her messy bun down Jack’s mammoth T-shirt to the tips of her painted toes, laughter crinkling at the corners on his way to the sliding door. “Extra mile? I doubt that, Tess. Five minutes in this heat bundled up the way you are should sweat any calories for an entire week.” He let Beau in, unleashing a flurry of tail-wagging and whines that made her smile, helping to ease the tension at the back of her neck.
“Hey, Mr. Bodacious,” she said when Beau laid his head on her lap, “I’ve missed you!”
“You do realize how offensive that sounds that you missed my dog instead of me?” Ben slid her a lazy grin before disappearing into the kitchen.
“Kind of hard to miss somebody who shuts you out with padlocks and plantation shutters,” she called, ruffling Beau’s snout before kissing him on the nose. “Besides, I was mad.”
“Was?” She heard cabinets open and close. “Does this mean I’m forgiven?”
She grinned and stretched her legs out, starting to relax as she patted the sofa to lure Beau onto the couch. “Only if I get a gourmet cone with my ice cream, mister.”
He reappeared—along with her tension—toting two cones and a Beggin’ Strip, which he promptly tossed to Beau before handing her one of the cones. “I may be a lot of things, Tess, but I’m not stupid.” Kicking his Sperrys off, he settled in on the other side of Beau, propping his long legs on the teak coffee table with bare feet crossed. “Comfortable?” he asked, tongue swiping the top of his cone as he studied her with a sideways glance. “Or do you need me to sit in the kitchen?”
She chuckled despite the rise of blood in her cheeks, deciding if she hoped to get anywhere regarding Lacey, they needed to address the annoying gorilla—or dangerous doctor—in the room. She wiggled her toe into Beau’s fur, giving his backside a mini-massage. “Nope. As long as my trusty guard dog is here and the doctor behaves, we should be good.”
“We could be, you know,” he said quietly, watching her with a hooded stare while he worked on his cone. “‘Good,’ that is. There’s something’s happening between us, Tess, and scary as it may be, you can’t tell me you don’t feel it too.”
She looked away, her voice strained. “I feel it, Ben, but it’s not a good thing, and I don’t think we should go there.”
“Why?” The cone paused at his lips while he assessed her with a serious gaze, as if contemplating the best medical procedure for a surgery.
“Because it’s not right—we have too much history.” Avoiding his piercing look, she concentrated on cleaning up her melting cone, the subject matter completely robbing the joy of tiramisu. “It would be too weird for everybody—us, our kids, my church—”
“I don’t care what anybody thinks, Tess—”
She glanced up. “I know you don’t, Ben, but I do.”
A flicker of hurt flashed across his face before his jaw tightened. “It’s just a blasted attraction I want to explore, not a proposal of marriage.”
Temper toasted her cheeks while her chin lashed up. “Yes, well before I ‘explore’ a relationship with any man, Ben Carmichael, I need something far more important than attraction.”
“Really.” He scowled, grinding his cone to nothing in several hard crunches. “And what could possibly be more important than attraction?”
She stopped mid-chew, an ache in her chest over the real reason they could never become involved. Her voice softened as all temper faded away. “Faith,” she said quietly, “a deep and abiding belief in God that binds two hearts together.”
“Yeah?” His eyes snapped, darkening from hazel to deep brown. “And how’d that work for you the last time, Tess?”
The air locked in her throat, his swift jab striking a blow that brought tears to her eyes. The cone trembled in her hand as she scrambled to her feet, discovering first-hand the painful nick of Ben Carmichael’s tongue that Lacey had always implied. She started for the kitchen, intending to pitch her cone and leave. “And to think I almost doubted Lacey when she told me the awful things that you said.”
“Tess, wait!” He jumped up and circled the coffee table, cutting her off at the door with a grip to her arm. “I’m sorry. Sometimes my temper gets the best of me and I say things I don’t really mean.”
“Like telling Lacey she was some other man’s mistake?”
He had the grace to blush, his hand dropping along with his gaze. “Yeah, like that,” he whispered, chafing the back of his neck. “It was a vile thing to say, and I’ve apologized to Lacey, and now I’m apologizing to you, for sniping at you like I did.”
His humble tone doused all fire in her eyes. “Why do you do it, Ben? Why do you hurt the ones who only want to love you?”
His gaze rose to meet hers, eyes somber despite the tiny tug of a smile. “Are you saying you want to love me, Tess?”
“I
care
about you, Ben,” she emphasized, “just like I cared about Karen and still care about Lacey, so you can wipe that smirk right off your face.” She took a step back, barely aware the cone was dripping down her arm. “So tell me
please
, Ben, because I truly don’t understand—
why
do you attack the people who care?”
Without a word he took the melted cone from her hand and disposed of it in the kitchen while she followed, silently dampening a paper towel before wiping the ice cream off her arm. When he was done, he tossed it in the wastebasket and walked out of the room, returning to his spot on the sofa where he perched on the edge with his head in his hands. “I’m no good at this, Tess,” he whispered.
“No good at what?” She carefully moved to her side of the sofa, gaze pinned to where he sat with a rare slump of shoulders.
“Opening up. Admitting the truth. Exposing my weaknesses.” He leaned back against the sofa, trailing into a glazed stare. “Facing the fact I was a failure as a husband and father.”
“You’re
still
a father, Ben,” she said softly, heart cramping at the look of defeat on his face. “And Lacey’s giving you a second chance—”
“No!” His head shot up, the pain in his eyes constricting her throat. “I don’t deserve it and I don’t want it.”
“But why? Love covers a multitude of sins, and that’s what Lacey is offering—her love.”
His head was shaking before she could even finish the sentence. “I was no good at it before, Tess, there’s no reason I’d be good at it now.”
“People change—they make mistakes, they learn, they move on.”
He grunted. “You bet they, do and I’ve learned plenty. Which is why I’ve moved on, and Lacey needs to do the same.” He slashed a hand through his hair, disrupting his usually meticulous appearance. “I’m no good at this whole love thing, Tess, and I’m smart enough to admit it.”
“And yet you want a romantic relationship with me,” she said, her smile dissolving along with her hope. “Not exactly a glowing endorsement Dr. Carmichael.”
He glanced up, capturing her gaze with a potent one of his own. “You’re different,” he whispered. “Don’t ask me why, but I trust you.” One edge of his mouth tipped up. “Maybe because you’ve never screwed me over, so there’s no grudge to get in the way.”
“You had a grudge against Karen?”
He issued another grunt. “More like a full-blown vendetta.”
“Why?”
The distant stare returned as he rested his head on the back of the couch, focusing on the ceiling instead of her face. “I felt like she tricked me into marriage. I loved her in my own juvenile way, sure, but made it perfectly clear I didn’t intend to get serious until I had an M.D. behind my name. When she came up pregnant, I got mad, accused her of sleeping around …”
“Oh, Ben …”
He glanced over, his guilt almost palpable. “I’m not proud of it, Tess, but back then I was a spoiled rich kid running away from responsibility, a freewheeling college student more interested in partying than studying.” His gaze returned to the ceiling, the burden of regret weighting his tone. “A kid addicted to pleasure and as selfish as they come. I rationalized that if she was sleeping with me, she had to be sleeping with others, so I refused to admit she loved me, refused to admit the baby was mine.”
“Ben—Karen loved you, she always did.”
A bitter laugh broke from his lips, void of all mirth. “I know that now, but after my stepfather forced me to marry her, I just wanted to make her pay for ruining my life.” He continued in a lifeless drone, as if his shame had sapped all his energy. “I ignored her for the rest of her life, Tess, and I ignored Lacey too, except when people were around. A real first-class jerk. By the time I could finally see that Karen loved me and Lacey was mine, it was too late.”
He stared straight ahead, and she didn’t miss the gleam of moisture in his eyes. “By then, I was so riddled with guilt that I blamed them all the more, for making me feel like a failure as a man.” His Adam’s apple shifted as his gaze finally met hers. “When all the time the failure was mine.”
“You’re a different man today, Ben; you can start over.”
“No, Tess. I didn’t deserve Karen’s love, and I sure don’t deserve Lacey’s. Especially when I still harbor bitterness over things I refuse to go into here.” He shook his head, jaw tight. “I don’t trust myself, and I won’t do that to Lacey. I failed her as a father once, and I’m not going there again.”
Tess sat up, her patience suddenly as thin as her gaze. “You know what, Ben? You’re right—you did fail her, but newsflash, buster—you got blood in your veins just like the rest of us mortals, and failure is the name of the game, so get over it.” She jumped up and marched to where he sat, ignoring the sag of his jaw when she leaned in, hands on her hips. “You know what I think? You’re a bigger failure now than you ever were before, and all because you’re too freakin’ scared to take a chance. Oh, you cloak it in noble intent, saying you don’t want to hurt Lacey, but that only wounds her all the more by heaping rejection on top of inane, selfish, cowardly, too-stupid-to-live, moronic failure. Two wrongs don’t make a right, Dr. Doom, or don’t they teach that in medical school?” She reloaded with a deep breath before unleashing the rest of her fury. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re nothing more than an older version of that same spoiled little kid who’s simply made a career out of running away.”