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He shook his head. “You do know what happens when things go wrong and how to turn them around for a kid. In comparison, I suspect most parents do nothing but bumble along, hoping they aren’t screwing up.”
Eve laughed. “That’s mostly what social workers do, too, you know.”
His swift grin chased the shadows from his eyes and made her heart squeeze. “Don’t disillusion me.”
“Okay.”
He took a big bite, and she followed suit. A minute later, he said, “It was the hours that did my marriage in.”
Eve frowned and set down her sandwich. “Really?”
“You sound surprised. You must have read that cops have a really high divorce rate.”
“Well, sure I have, but I doubt the hours you put in are the main reason.”
“Women get tired of not being able to count on their husband being home for dinner or special occasions. Nicole claimed she felt like a single parent anyway. I think it’s not so much the long hours as that they’re erratic.”
“So are mine!”
“And you’ve never had a guy you were seeing think you ought to put him first?”
“If a man so much as suggested I should ditch some child’s problem to be on time for our dinner date, I’m the one who’d lose interest,” she said with spirit. “The kids I was dealing with at the end of the day today—they had to come first, if only temporarily.”
“People don’t always get that.”
He meant his wife didn’t get that. “You were a deputy when you got married.”
Ben looked wary. “I was.”
“You must have dated for a while first. Maybe lived together?”
This so wasn’t her business, Eve realized belatedly, but the whole idea made her mad. Love shouldn’t be conditional. What good would it be, then? All too often, she saw the damage done to children because parents or teachers or foster parents couldn’t love or accept them with their flaws. And wasn’t this the same thing, in a way? Ben’s ex-wife had loved him...until an aspect of who he was irritated her.
“We might have gotten married too soon,” Ben said, sounding constrained. “I was the one to push for it. Once I saw her again...” He shrugged.
He didn’t have to finish. He’d known his Nicole was the one. That’s what he was thinking.
And Eve was painfully jealous. Her fault for pursuing the subject of his ex-wife, but maybe it was just as well to know up front how things stood. What were the odds he’d ever feel so much for another woman?
Bailey didn’t have to wonder; she’d seen the difference. For Seth, Bailey would be the one-and-only instead of the fill-in Ben was probably looking for.
Ignoring the tight feeling in her chest, as if her rib cage had shrunk, Eve made herself say, “What from I’ve read, cops have other issues that affect their marriages. Alcoholism, chronic anger that may have to do with PTSD, a controlling nature to start with, a tendency to shut down around anyone but coworkers, the necessity of living with the awful things you see.”
He let out a sound that he might have intended as a laugh, but lacked all humor. “Gee, thanks. I feel like a real prize now.”
Eve made an impatient gesture. “I’m not talking about you. At least, not from what I’ve seen so far. You have talked to me about what you’re working on. A little bit about frustrations and doubts. You listen to me. You don’t seem to be a heavy drinker—”
“I’m not.”
She nodded. “My point is, the fact that you work lousy hours shouldn’t be enough to end a marriage. You do an important job, one I assume you find fulfilling. What were you supposed to do, quit that job and start doing something you hate just so you could sit down for dinner at six o’clock every night?”
There was a silence long enough to give Eve the idea she’d gone somewhere she shouldn’t have. Oh, God. What was she thinking? Listening when a guy criticized his ex was fine if tiresome; jumping in feetfirst herself, not so smart.
“You’re saying that Nic drawing a line in the sand over the hours I worked was...a diversion.” Ben’s tone was flat. “No, an excuse.”
“I don’t know her at all.” Her embarrassment came out in awkwardness. Eve couldn’t make herself meet his eyes. “So, no, I’m not saying that. There’s no reason you’d tell me the problems you had in your marriage. It’s just...” Oh, great, she couldn’t stop while she was ahead! Now what?
“It’s just?” He had plainly lost interest in his dinner. And probably her, too.
Well, so be it, she thought in defiance.
So she finished what she’d meant to say. “If a couple isn’t going to stick together, especially when they have kids, the problems should be deep and wide, not...not something trivial.”
“Trivial,” he repeated.
What was that saying? In for a penny?
“Marriages succeed even when one spouse is deployed for six months out of every year. Being late to dinner on a regular basis because you’re dealing with the tragedies other people suffer? That’s nothing.”
His face had become unreadable. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d moved. He didn’t want to give anything away, which most likely meant she’d hurt him.
And, gee, why would that be? Because, knowing absolutely nothing about his marriage beyond his casual mention that the hours he’d worked had been a problem, she’d decided—and told him—his wife must not really have loved him. Alternative: he’d taken her little speech to mean he must have problems that had impacted his marriage.
Way to go, Eve. She’d become a self-righteous know-it-all. What a shock no guy had yet fallen to his knees in front of her to declare she was the one for him!
She stared down at her plate, uncomfortably aware she probably looked like a turtle trying to shrink into its shell. Her cheeks heated until they must be flaming red. Ben didn’t say a word.
Finally she couldn’t let the silence go on. She took a deep breath and raised her chin, to find him still inspecting her, as if deciding whether she was a poisonous kind of spider he should crush or a garden-variety kind he might let crawl off and hide in a crack.
“I need to go,” she said, snatching up her napkin and dropping it on the table and then grabbing coat and handbag. Even as she slid out of the booth, she added, “I’m sorry. I should have kept my mouth shut.”
At last, his expression changed. “Eve. What are you...?”
“Good night.” And she fled, walking faster and faster until she was nearly running once she made it outside.
For no reason. When she reached her car, parked half a block away, and looked back, she saw that Ben hadn’t followed her.
And why would he?
* * *
WHAT THE HELL?
Stunned, Ben watched Eve hurry away without once looking back. He’d reacted slowly enough, he had barely gotten to his feet when the restaurant door swung closed behind her. Even if he thought he could catch her, he couldn’t leave without paying since the bill Eve had dropped on the table wouldn’t cover the total.
At last he slid back into the booth, where his remaining French fries didn’t look all that appealing anymore. Eve had hardly touched her meal.
How had their dinner date blown up in his face so fast? So, okay, he hadn’t liked Eve’s analysis of his breakup with Nicole, even if she’d been coming out strongly in his favor. Maybe it was habit, too many years of leaping automatically to defend Nic, but at least he hadn’t argued. In fact, he’d have sworn he’d locked down his emotions. On the job, he had plenty of practice at that. But, obviously, Eve had seen enough on his face to send her running. That made him feel like shit, even if he was still roiling inside over what she’d had to say.
Your wife didn’t love you or she’d have understood you’re doing the job you need to do. That’s what Eve had been trying to make him see.
Great guy that he was, he’d wanted to slam her for it.
Frowning into space, he brooded over his own irrationality. A beautiful woman had tried to tell him the divorce wasn’t his fault. She’d even made it sound as if she thought law enforcement was a calling, that he accomplished something noble. And him, he’d been furious because she implied that Nicole had been—was—shallow.
Or did this tightness in his chest have another cause? Maybe he couldn’t deal with the possibility that Nic never really had loved him.
No point in wasting time thinking about that anyway. What difference did it make now? The divorce had been signed, sealed and delivered over a year ago.
Except, if it didn’t matter, why was he so bothered? Ben rubbed his breastbone with the heel of his hand. Easy answer: no man liked thinking he’d been a fool.
Maybe his hesitation where Eve was concerned had been right on. He could call, apologize for whatever he’d done that had upset her and consider himself lucky they hadn’t gotten in any deeper before the crash. Because, damn, did he want to be psychoanalyzed every time they went out?
He made a sound. Yep, like Eve would agree to another fun evening with him.
Troubled, he signaled the waitress for the bill, lied and said Eve had been called away to explain their mostly uneaten meals, and went home.
There, he decided to call her right away and get it over with. No surprise, she didn’t answer.
“Eve, I don’t know what you thought, but I wasn’t mad. You had nothing to apologize for. I’m, uh, still a little touchy where the divorce is concerned. I guess you could tell. It’s my fault for bringing it up, though. I appreciate what you were trying to do—” Did he? “—and I don’t want you to feel bad about it. I’m the one who feels like a jerk because you didn’t get a chance to eat dinner, and after a tough day.” He hesitated, knowing he’d be cut off soon, unable to think of the right way to end this. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he finished hastily, and was left standing there holding his phone thinking, Wait. Call her?
* * *
EVE WAS TOO chagrined to answer when Ben’s number came up on her phone. Her behavior was inexcusable.
At home, she took a long hot shower and changed into sweats and fuzzy socks before making herself a cup of tea and sitting down to stare at her phone as if it was a crystal ball.
With a sigh, she called voice mail, put in her password and braced herself for Ben’s voice.
Eve, I don’t know what you thought, but I wasn’t mad.
Uh-huh. Sure.
By the end of his message, bewildered was a really good description of her state of mind. He felt bad? He was going to call her tomorrow?
She listened a second time, paying attention to his intonation, to that hesitation near the end.
Oh, God—what if he did call? Her stern inner voice told her: Be a grown-up, even if you haven’t been acting like one lately, that’s what. Smooth things over so it won’t be awkward if you run into him at Bailey’s in the future.
Eve made a face. Okay, it was good advice. And yes, that’s what she’d do. If nothing else, it was entirely possible she’d end up encountering him through work, the way she had met Seth in the first place.
What she’d say if Ben asked her out again remained undecided when she went to bed with a book.
Her morning was devoted to figuring out where to put the two kids she’d decided urgently had to be moved, then making the calls so it could happen. She drove nearly half an hour out to the tiny town of Lowell so that she could talk to the foster mom who’d been angry enough at a five-year-old and an eight-year-old to feed them nothing but bread and water for several days even as the rest of the family sat down to their usual meals. Eve packed the poor kids’ minimal possessions and called the school to let them know she would be picking the children up at the end of the day. She let the social worker who’d assessed the foster home know what had happened, making sure she didn’t sound critical. They all made mistakes. The home had looked decent, the kids had been well dressed, and if Eve hadn’t discovered what happened, she wouldn’t have seen any red flags, either. She was still bemused at how the idea her version of discipline might be inappropriate had shocked the foster mom, although she’d flushed when Eve asked if she had ever put her own children on a diet of bread and water. Clearly, the answer was no.
Whether the kids would be able to stay more than temporarily in the new foster home was an open question. Constant changes were really damaging to children’s sense of security, but there was no way Eve would have been able to leave them where they were.
She was briefly back at her desk in a cubicle at the DSHS offices when her mobile phone rang and she saw Ben’s name. Oh, boy.
I’m going to demonstrate my maturity, remember?
“Ben,” she said pleasantly. “Thank you for calling.”
The little silence told her she’d taken him aback.
“Did you get my message?”
“Yes, it was nice of you to call. I really am sorry I behaved so poorly. I don’t know what got into me, lecturing you as if I know anything at all about your marriage. You just...touched a hot button of mine, I’m afraid, and I was tired enough to let loose. And then what did I do but flee the scene of my crime.” She tried to inject a note of humor into her voice. “So you’re definitely not the one who should be apologizing. I am.”
“No,” he said, a little extra gravel in his voice. “I meant that apology. I guess I’m a typical man, blanking out emotions. What you said made sense. It left me feeling a lot of contradictory things I had trouble working through.”
Eve bowed her head and massaged her forehead. “I am sorry,” she said softly. “I swear I’ll keep my mouth shut the next time we run into each other at Seth and Bailey’s, if we do. Okay?”
Another silence had her going still.
“I was kind of hoping we could put this behind us and try again,” Ben said, just enough uncertainty in his voice to bring her head up.
“You must have women circling all the time,” she said. “I’m beginning to think I’m pretty messed up. I guess I don’t understand why you’d want to bother.”
“I’m not who you think I am,” Ben said. “Most women react to who I am on the outside. I kind of had the sense you saw a little deeper.”
Once again, he’d made her feel ashamed of herself. He was right. The truth was, she wouldn’t have been interested in him at all if his head-turning looks said all that much about his character. Gorgeous men tended to be full of themselves. For whatever reason, Ben wasn’t.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m...making assumptions.”
“Damn it, you’re a beautiful woman! You must know that.”
People had told her so, but when she looked in the mirror, filters kept her from seeing herself the way other people claimed to.
“Is that why you asked me out?” she had to ask.
Each pause left her wishing she could see his face.
“Partly. Sure. I reacted to your looks. But I reacted to your looks when I saw you on TV last summer, too, and I didn’t do anything about it because I didn’t know you. It was meeting you, seeing—” He stopped.
“Seeing what?” Eve whispered.
“Self-doubt. Kindness. The way you move, your smile, your laugh.”
Self-doubt was first on his list? she thought incredulously. How ironic that she’d been drawn to the same quality in him. Or maybe that wasn’t quite right to describe what she’d seen in him. She’d thought of it as the shadows in his eyes. Buried pain, hurt, a constraint that didn’t match his outward perfection. And...the gentle way he touched his daughter, the love in his eyes when he looked at her.
“That...might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she told him, in a voice that didn’t sound quite like hers.
“Does that mean you’re willing to give it another shot?”
Her sinuses burned and a smile trembled on her lips. “Yes. I’d love to give it another shot. If...if you mean it.”
He cleared his throat, and his voice still came out husky. “I do.”
The brief discussion about when and where they’d see each other again felt mundane compared to what had come before.
Friday night, they agreed finally. Dinner again. Possibly a movie, depending on what was playing at the four-screen theater in town.
Of course, all she did in the intervening day was get more and more nervous about seeing him again. She wished they could have had lunch that day. Or at least dinner. She hadn’t suggested it, though, and neither had he.
They ended up driving to Mount Vernon, a county over, and eating at an Italian restaurant on the main street that paralleled the Skagit River, then walking the block to the restored Lincoln Theatre with its single screen to see a foreign film that had been recommended to Eve.
Dinner was pleasant, but she thought they were both being so careful with each other, neither said anything important. At the theater, they chose seats on the aisle. He helped with her coat before shrugging out of his own parka.
At least, sitting side by side, their shoulders touched. Making yet more careful conversation, Eve focused on his big hands resting on his thighs. With his long fingers, they could have been a pianist’s hands, or an artist’s. Her heart gave a bump as she wondered what they’d feel like on her. As if reacting to her thought, his right hand flexed, curling into a fist before straightening. She looked up to see he was watching her. Reading her mind?
They stared at each other, Eve caught feeling unguarded. She couldn’t remember ever having such an intense physical reaction to a man.
“Excuse me,” a voice said, and she jerked to see a couple laden with popcorn and drinks waiting to get by to empty seats.
The moment broken, Ben murmured an apology and he and Eve both stood to let them by. Eve straightened her coat on the back of the seat and sat down again, then sneaked a glance at Ben. This time, his expression was wry.
“Guess this isn’t the place to say I like the way you look at me.”
Oh, boy. “Um, probably not,” she managed.
He laughed, lifted his arm and draped it around her. “So, how do you feel about cuddling at the movies?”
Smiling, Eve shifted closer. “Definitely positive.”
His breath warm on her ear, he murmured, “Good.” And then, as the lights dimmed, “Ah. Here we go.”
Now, if only she could concentrate well enough to read the subtitles.
CHAPTER FOUR
“SO WE’RE GOING to rerun this dinner, huh?” Eve teased, as she slid into the booth across from Ben at the diner.
He had hesitated to suggest eating here, but, damn it, there weren’t that many decent choices in town that didn’t have white tablecloths and require more time and effort than he and Eve could spare on a working night. Monday night they’d gone out for pizza and a couple games of pool. Turned out she knew how to wield a cue and had a good eye for trajectory. Her chortle of satisfaction had compensated his male ego after he lost two out of three games. When he’d called her at work Tuesday to ask if they could have dinner again Wednesday, his options were limited.
So he’d crossed his fingers and said, “What about the café?” and she’d agreed, but sounded distracted enough he hadn’t been sure she’d thought it through.
Now he agreed, tongue in cheek, “There’s that saying about getting back in the saddle right away.”
Eve wriggled a little and wrinkled her nose at him. “Now that you mention it, the seats do feel a little like a saddle, and they’re not padded much better, either.”
“The place could do with some updating,” he conceded. “Ah...maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
“Don’t be silly,” she retorted. “The food’s good, it’s quiet enough to talk and nine times out of ten you can snag the back booth.”
Ben gave a crooked smile. “You noticed, huh?”
“You and Seth,” she said, and bent to study the menu.
Did she have to remind him she’d dated his partner? Then he had an unwelcome thought. Was she a cop groupie?
“You gone out with a cop before?” he asked casually.
“Hmm?” She glanced up. “Oh. No.” An impish grin flashed. “And I was so annoyed at Seth by the time he asked, I couldn’t figure out why I’d agreed.”
Ben relaxed and laid one arm along the padded back. “He said something about that. Admitted he might have been wrong and you were right about that kid, too.”
“Did he?” Humor gave her a tiny dimple in one cheek even when she was suppressing a smile, like now. “Funny thing, he never told me that.”
Ben couldn’t help grinning. “What man likes to admit he’s wrong?”
Her gaze became more searching. “You don’t, either?”
“Not my favorite thing to do.” For some reason, he flashed to his divorce. Was that why he couldn’t let go? Because admitting he’d been wrong really meant admitting he and Nicole shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place, and he wasn’t willing to do that?
He flicked the thought away. “Here comes our waitress. You made up your mind?”
Eve closed the menu. “I’m going to try again with the same meal.”
“Since you didn’t get to eat it last time,” he said slowly.
“Since I was an idiot.” She smiled at the middle-aged waitress and gave her order. Ben did the same.
When they were alone again, he asked about her day. It sounded a lot like his, the way she described it. Apparently reports figured as largely in her job as they did in his. That and driving from one end of the county to the other, too often finding the person he’d gone to talk to had forgotten he was coming or decided to dodge him. He mentioned a couple of obscure back roads, and she knew them both, laughingly telling him one was a speed trap and she was too smart for it.
“Yeah, that dip makes a good place to tuck a patrol car out of sight, plus teenagers love to build up speed and try for some air there.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Tell me you don’t speed.”
“I don’t speed,” she said obediently. Rolled her eyes and added, “Anymore.”
“There’ve been a couple of ugly accidents on that same road in just the past year or so.”
“I know. And really I don’t. I was as stupid as any other teenager, but I’ve outgrown that kind of defiance.”
Their food came and they kept talking, sharing more tidbits from their jobs, likes and dislikes, a book he’d recently read, foods they detested, the concept of diving in the cold waters around the San Juan Islands, something he’d done a few weeks back with friends.
“In the middle of the winter?”
Laughing at her horror, he said, “You don’t get cold when you’re wearing a wet suit. The only kinda miserable moment is when you have to peel it off on deck.”
“Ugh,” was her conclusion. “Now, snorkeling in the Caribbean I could go for.”
He’d done that, too—on his honeymoon. He figured it was just as well not to say so.
And, wouldn’t you know, that was when his phone buzzed and he glanced to see he had a text from Nicole asking him to call when he had a minute. That sounded tentative for her, which had him on edge. Was something wrong? She’d have said if it was an emergency, he told himself, and put his phone away without comment. Eve’s gaze had followed it, though, and her expression was enigmatic.
For something to say, he asked her whether anything had come of the grumpy neighbor’s complaints about the Kekoa boy.
“Unfortunately, there’s been another incident,” Eve said, expression perturbed. “The foster dad called today. Mr. Rowe’s car was keyed. Apparently he usually parks in the garage, but he’d intended to go out later, so... Whoever did it was smart enough to stop with one side—the side Mr. Rowe couldn’t see from his front window.”
“Calculated.”
“What crossed my mind was malice aforethought.”
“The definition of first degree.”
She shivered. “It happened about when the boys got home after school. Gavin drove—he has his own car—and Joel took the school bus.”
“Not a real friendly relationship there,” Ben mused.
“No. Not outwardly hostile, either, but—” She chose not to finish.