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“You haven’t changed a bit,” Ben said, grinning. “Still as much of a knockout as ever.”
Her laugh did little to mask either her flush of pleasure or the slight narrowing of her thick-lashed, coffee brown eyes as she gave him the once-over. Masses of warm brown curls trembled on either side of her full cheeks. “And you’re still full of it! Anyway…little Miss Peek-a-Boo behind me is Matilda, we call her Mattie. And this is Jacob. Jake. Kids, meet your Uncle Ben.”
Since Mattie was still hanging back, Ben extended his hand to Jake, gratified to see the wariness begin to retreat in his nephew’s dark eyes. “I hear you play baseball.”
A look of surprise preceded a huge grin. “Since third grade, yeah. Short stop. Do you?”
“After a fashion. Enough to play catch, if you want.”
“Sweet! Dad’s like, always too tired and stuff.”
“That’s crap, Jake,” Tony said, and Anita shot him a look that would have felled a lesser man.
“And when’s the last time you played with him, huh?”
“For God’s sake, ’Nita, my leg’s broken!”
“I meant, before that—”
“Are you the same Uncle Ben that makes the rice?”
In response to his niece’s perfectly timed distraction, Ben turned to smile into a pair of wide, chocolate M&M eyes. Twin ponytails framed a heart-shaped face, the ends feathered over a fancy purple sweater with a big collar, as the little girl’s delicate arms squashed a much-loved, stuffed something to her chest. Ben was instantly smitten. “No, honey, I’m afraid not.”
“Oh.” Mattie hugged the whatever-it-was more tightly. The ponytails swished when she tilted her head, her soft little brows drawn together. Curiosity—and a deep, unquestioning trust that makes a man take stock of his soul—flared in her eyes. “Papi talks about you all the time,” she said with a quick grin for her grandfather. “He says you usta play with Aunt Rosie and Livvy a lot when you were little.”
“I sure did.” Ben nodded toward the thing in her arms. “Who’s your friend?”
“Sammy. He’s a cat. I want a real kitty, but Mama says I can’t have one until I’m six. Which is only a few weeks away, you know,” she said to Anita, who rolled her eyes.
“You must take after your mom,” he said, with a wink at Anita, “’cause you’re very pretty.”
“Yeah, that’s what everybody says,” Mattie said with a very serious nod as her mother snorted in the background. “I’m in kindergarten, but I can already read, so that’s how come I know about the rice.” She leaned sideways against the table, one sneakered foot resting atop its mate, then closed the space between them until their foreheads were only inches apart. “My daddy broke his leg,” she whispered, like Tony wasn’t sitting right there.
“I know,” Ben whispered back. “That’s why I’m here, to help your grandpa until your dad can go back to work.”
“Never mind that it’s totally unnecessary,” Tony said to his father, not even trying to mask his irritation. “For a few weeks, one of the guys could drive me around. Or you could,” he directed at Anita, who crossed her arms underneath her impressive bust, glaring.
“And I already told you, I don’t have any vacation time coming up—”
“And maybe,” Ben’s mother said, clearly trying to keep her kitchen from becoming a war zone, “you should be grateful your brother is back home, yes?”
“Yeah, about that,” Mattie said, startling Ben and eliciting a muttered, “God help us when she hits puberty,” from Anita. “If you’re my uncle, how come I’ve never seen you before? And are you gonna stay or what?”
Ignoring the first question—because how on earth was he supposed to explain something to a five-year-old he didn’t fully comprehend himself?—Ben gently tugged one of those irresistible ponytails and said, “I don’t know, bumblebee,” which was the best he could do, at the moment.
An answer which elicited a soft, hopeful “Oh!” from his mother, even as his brother grabbed his crutches, standing so quickly he knocked over his chair.
“We need to get goin’,” he said. “’Nita, kids, come on.”
“But you just got here!” Ben’s mother said as his father laid a hand on his arm.
“Antonio. Don’t be like this.”
“Like what, Pop?” Tony said, halting his awkward progress toward the door. “Like myself? But then, I guess it doesn’t matter anyway now. Because it’s all good, isn’t it, now that Ben’s back. Kids…now.”
Both Jake and Mattie gave Ben a quick, confused backwards glance—Mattie adding a small wave—before Anita, apology brimming in her eyes, ushered them all out. In the dulled silence that followed, Ben’s mother scooped up one of the whimpering little mutts, stroking it between its big batlike ears. “It’s Tony’s leg, he’s not himself, you know how he hates feeling helpless.”
Ben stood as well, swinging his leather jacket off the back of his chair. At the moment, it took everything he had not to walk out the door, get in his truck and head right back to Dallas. Why on earth had he thought that time in and of itself would have been sufficient to heal this mess, that everyone would have readjusted if he took himself out of the equation…?
“Where are you going?” his father demanded.
“Just out for a walk. Get reacquainted with the neighborhood.”
“Oh.” His father’s heavy brows pushed together. “I thought maybe we could watch a game or something together later.”
“I know. But…” Ben avoided his father’s troubled gaze, tamping down the familiar annoyance before his mouth got away from his brain. Knowing something needed to be fixed didn’t mean he had a clue how to fix it. Not then, and not, unfortunately, now. He smiled for his mother, dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m not going far. And I’ll be back for that game, I promise,” he said to his father.
“Benicio—”
“Let him go, Luis,” his mother said softly. “He has to do this his own way.”
Ben sent silent thanks across the kitchen, then left before his father’s confusion tore at him more than it already had.
For maybe an hour, he walked around the neighborhood, his hands stuffed in his pockets, until the crisp, dry air began to clear his head, until the sun—serene and sure in a vast blue sky broken only by the stark, bare branches of winter trees—burned off enough of the fumes from the morning’s disastrous reunion for him to remember why’d he come home. That he’d made the decision to do so long before he’d gotten the call from his father, asking for his help.
So even if everything he’d seen and faced and overcome during his absence paled next to the challenge of trying to piece together the real Ben out of the mess he’d left behind, he still felt marginally better by the time he turned back on to his parents’ block…just as Mercy’s garage door groaned open.
From across the street, he watched her drag a small step stool outside, wrench it open. Now dressed in jeans and a bright red sweater small enough to fit one of his mother’s dogs, she plunked the stool down in the grass in front of her house. She jiggled it for a few seconds to make sure it was steady, then climbed and started to take down the single strand of large colored Christmas lights at the edge of the roof. In a nearby bald spot in the lawn, that Hummer-sized cat of hers plopped down, writhing in the dirt until Mercy yelled at it to cut it out already, she’d just vacuumed. Chastened, the beast flipped to its stomach, its huge, fluffy tail twitching laconically as it glared at Ben.
Speaking of a mess he’d left behind. If he knew what was good for him, he’d keep walking.
Clearly, he didn’t.
“Need any help?”
Mercy grabbed the gutter to keep from toppling off the step stool, then twisted around, trying her best to keep the And who are you again? look in place. But one glance at that goofy grin and her irritation vaporized. Right along with her determination to pretend he didn’t exist. That he’d never existed. That there hadn’t been a time—
“No, I’m good,” she said, returning to her task, hoping he’d go away. As if. All too aware of his continued scrutiny, she got down, moved the step stool over, got back up, removed the next few feet of lights, got down, moved the step stool over, got back up—
“Here.”
Ben stood at her elbow, the rest of the lights loosely coiled in his hand. A breeze shivered through his thick hair, a shade darker than hers; the reflected beam of light from his own truck window delineated ridges and shadows in a face barely reminiscent of the outrageous flirt she remembered. Instead, his smile—not even that, really, barely a tilt of lips at once full and unapologetically masculine—barely masked an unfamiliar weightiness in those burnt wood eyes. An unsettling discovery, to say the least, stirring frighteningly familiar, and most definitely unwanted, feelings of tenderness inside her.
She climbed down from the stool. “You started at the other end.”
“Seemed like a good plan to me.”
“Creep.”
That damned smile still toying with his mouth, he handed the lights to her.
On a huffed sigh, she folded up the stool and tromped back to the garage. The cat, wearing a fine coating of dirt and dead grass, followed. As did Ben.
She turned. “If I told you to go away, would you?”
He shrugged, then said, “How come you’re taking down your lights already? It’s not even New Year’s yet.”
Mercy and the cat exchanged a glance, then she shrugged as well. “I have to help Ma take her stuff down on New Year’s day, I figured I’d get a jumpstart on my own, since the weather’s nice and all. And they’re saying we might have snow tomorrow. Although I’ll believe that when I see it. Not that there’s much. Which you can see. I still have my tree up, though—”
Shut up, she heard inside her head. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Her mouth stretched tight, she crossed her arms over her ribs.
“And why are you over here again?”
“I’m not really over here, I’m out for a walk. But you looked like you could use some help, so I took a little detour. Damn, that’s a big cat,” he said as she finally gave up—since Ben was obviously sticking to her like dryer lint—and dragged a plastic bin down off a shelf, dumping the lights into it.
“That’s no cat, that’s my bodyguard.”
“I can see that.”
Mercy glanced over to see the thing rubbing against Ben’s shins, getting dirt all over his jeans, doing that little quivering thing with his big, bushy tail. Ben squatted to scratch the top of his head; she could hear the purring from ten feet away. “What’s his name?”
“Depends on the day and my mood. On good days, it’s Homer. Sometimes Big Red. Today I’m leaning toward Dumbbutt.”
The cat shot her a death glare and gave her one of his broken meows. Chuckling, Ben stood and wiped his hands, sending enough peachy fur floating into the garage to cover another whole cat.
“Because?”
“Because he’s too stupid to know when he’s got it good. If he sticks around, he’s got heat, my bed to sleep in and all the food he can scarf down. But no, that would apparently cramp his style. Even though the vet swore once I had him fixed, he wouldn’t do that. She was wrong. Or didn’t take enough off, I haven’t decided. In any case, he periodically vanishes, sometimes overnight, sometimes for days at a time. Then he has the nerve to drag his carcass back here, all matted and hungry, and beg for my forgiveness.”
Silence.
“You wouldn’t be trying to make a point there, would you?”
Mercy smiled sweetly. “Not at all.”
“At least I’m not matted,” he said, his intense gaze making her oddly grateful the garage was unheated. “Or hungry. My mother made sure of that.”
“How about fixed?”
He winced.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” She turned to heft the lights bin back up onto the shelf. “But you’re not getting back in my bed, either.”
Funny, she would have expected to hear a lot more conviction behind those words. Especially the not part of that sentence.
“I lost out to the cat?”
There being nothing for it, Mercy faced him again, palms on butt, chest out, chin raised. As defiant as a Pomeranian facing a Rotty. “You lost out, period.”
They stared at each other for several seconds. Until Ben said, “You know, I could really use a cup of coffee.”
“I thought you were out for a walk?”
“Turned out to be a short walk.”
More gaze-tangling, while she weighed the plusses (none that she could see) with the minuses (legion) about letting him in, finally deciding, Oh, what the hell? He’d come in, she’d give him coffee, he’d go away (finally), and that would be that. She led man and cat into her kitchen, hitting the garage door opener switch on the way. Over the grinding of the door closing, she said, “I’m guessing you needed a break?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You could say.”
“I don’t envy you. God knows I couldn’t live with my parents again. What are you doing?”
He’d picked up her remote, turned on the TV. “Just wanted to check the news, I haven’t seen any in days. You get CNN?”
“Yeah, I get it. And you’re gonna get it if you turn it on.”
On a sigh, he clicked off the TV, moseyed back over to the breakfast bar. “You still don’t watch the news?”
“Not if I can help it. Feeling overwhelmed and helpless ain’t my thang.” She pointed to one of the bar stools. “Sit. And don’t let the cat up—” Homer jumped onto the counter in front of Ben “—on the bar.”
Long, immensely capable fingers plunged into the cat’s ruff, as a pair of whatchagonna do about it? grins slid her way. On a sigh, Mercy said, “Regular or decaf?”
“What do you think?”
No, the question was, what was she thinking, letting the man into her house? Again. When no good would come of it, she was sure. And yet, despite those legion reasons why this was a seriously bad idea, the lack of gosh-it’s-been-a-long-time awkwardness between them was worth noting. Oh, sure, the atmosphere was charged enough to crackle—surprising in itself, considering her normal reaction (or lack thereof) to running into old lovers and such. That was fun…next? had been her motto for, gee, years. So who’d’athunk, that in spite of the unexpectedness of Ben’s reappearance, the sexual hum nearly making her deaf, in the end it would be a completely different bond holding sway over the moment, lending an Oh, yeah, okay feeling to the whole thing that made her feel almost…comfortable. If it hadn’t been for that sexual hum business.
Which led to a second question: If yesterday—shoot, this morning—she’d been totally over him, what had happened since then to change that?
Digging the coffee out of the fridge, she glanced over, noticed him looking around. Then those eyes swung back to hers, calling a whole bunch of memories out of retirement, and she thought, Oh. Right.
“Cool tree,” he said.
Grateful for the distraction, Mercy allowed a fond smile for the vintage silver aluminum number she’d found at a garage sale. Some of the “needles” had cracked off, but with all the hot pink marabou garland, it was barely noticeable. Well, that, and the several dozen bejeweled angels, miniature shoe ornaments and crosses vying for space amongst the feathers. This was one seriously tarted up Christmas tree, and Mercy adored it. “That’s Annabelle. You should see her at night when I’ve got the color wheel going. She’s something else.”
Ben shook his head, laughing softly, and yet more memories reported for duty. Including several that fearlessly headed straight for the hot zones.
“I just met Mattie and Jake,” he said.
Whew. “Yeah? Aren’t they great? That Mattie’s a pistol, isn’t she?”
“She is that.” He sounded a little awestruck. “Took to me right away.”
“Don’t take it personally, the child doesn’t know the meaning of ‘stranger.’ A second’s glance in her direction and you’re doomed. Drives my sister nuts.”
“She wouldn’t…Mattie knows better than to go off with someone she doesn’t know, I hope.”
“With Anita for her mother? What do you think?”
Ben’s shoulders seemed to relax a little after that, before he said, “I can’t believe you’re still here. In this house, I mean.”
A shrug preceded, “Why not? It’s home.” She spooned coffee into the basket; took her three tries to ram it home. “It’s just me, I don’t need a huge house. And the landlord gives me a good deal on the rent.”
“You’ve made some changes, though.”
“Not really,” she said, wondering why she was flushing. “Oh, yeah, those lamps by the sofa are new—Hobby Lobby specials, half off. And I did paint, about three years ago. During my faux-finishing phase. That lacquered finish was a bitch, let me tell you.”
“Huh.” He paused. “The walls are certainly…red.”
“Yeah, I almost went with orange, but thought it would be a bit much with the sofa.”
“Good point.” Another pause. “Never saw a sofa the color of antifreeze before.”
“Do I detect a hint of derision in that comment?”
Ben’s mouth twitched again. “Not at all. But the walls…your father must’ve nearly had a coronary.”
“To put it mildly. Until I pointed out that since I’ll have to be blasted out of here, painting over the walls is moot.”
He chuckled, then asked, “How are your folks?”
“Fine,” she said, even though what she really wanted to do was scream Stop looking at me like that! “Dad’s finally retired, driving Ma nuts. Her arthritis has been acting up more these past couple of years, which is why I have to help her take down her decorations.”
“She still turn the place into the North Pole?”
“You have no idea. And every year she buys more stuff. For the grandbabies, she says.”
“How many are there?”
“Twelve. Although Rosie’s pregnant with her fourth. A fact my mother never tires of shoving down my throat. That I’m the only one without kids. Oh, and a husband.”
His expression softened. “Guess there’s no accounting for some men’s stupidity.”
Uh…
Mercy spun back to the gurgling coffeemaker. “No matter. What can I say, that ship has sailed.”
After a silence thick enough to slice and serve with butter and jam, Ben said, “So what are you up to these days?”
The coffeemaker finally spit out its last drop; Mercy pulled a pair of mugs down from a cabinet, filled them both with the steaming brew. She handed him his coffee, then retreated to lean against the far counter, huddling her own mug to her chest. “Actually, I finally got my business degree, opened a children’s gently used clothing store with two of my classmates, about six or seven years ago. Except it grew, so now we carry some furniture and educational toys, too.”
He held aloft his mug in a silent toast. “And you’re doing well?”
“Fingers crossed, so far, so good. We were even able to hire an assistant last summer. A damn good thing since both of my partners have babies now. Had to find a larger place, too. One of those old Victorians near Old Town? Your father’s company did the remodel, actually.”
“No kidding? I’ll have to drop by, check it out.”
“You, in a kid’s store?”
“Why not? Hey, I’ve got a niece and nephew to spoil. Especially…” His eyes lowered, he thumbed the rim of his cup, then looked back up at her. “Especially since I’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“You know, you could at least pretend to be diplomatic.”
“I could. But why? And since we’re on the subject…so what exactly have you been doing for the past ten years?”
His eyes narrowed, a move that instantly provoked a tiny Hmm in the dimly lit recesses of her mind. “This and that,” he finally said. “Going where the work was.”
“Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
He looked at her steadily for a long moment, then said quietly, “I didn’t vanish without a trace, Merce. My family’s always known where I was, that I was okay. And I’m here now, aren’t I?”
“But why, is the question? And don’t give me some song-and-dance about your father needing you. Because I’m not buying it.”
Ben leaned back on the bar stool, gently drumming his fingers on the counter, as he seemed to be contemplating how much to tell her. “Let’s just say events provided a much needed kick in the butt and let it go at that.”
“A kick in the butt to do what?”
One side of his mouth kicked up. “Thought I said to let it go?”
“Not gonna happen. So?”
He slid off the stool, moseying out into the living room and picking up a family photo of her youngest sister Olivia and her family, including four little boys under the age of nine. “I needed some time to…reassess a few things, that’s all.” He set the photo back down and turned to her, his hand in his back pocket, and something in his eyes made her stomach drop.
“Ben…? What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“You always could see through me, Merce,” he said softly, a rueful grin tugging at that wonderful, wonderful mouth. “Even when we were kids. But this isn’t about something happening nearly as much as…well, I find myself wondering a lot these days how I got to be thirty-five with still no idea how I fit in the grand scheme of things.”
Yep, she knew that feeling. All too well. Only, up until a few minutes ago, she could have sworn she’d left that “Who the hell am I?” phase of her life far behind her. Apparently, she’d been wrong.
Not only because the grinning, cocky, nobody-can-tell-me-nuthin’ dude of yore had morphed into this man with the haunted eyes who’d clearly been knocked around a time or two and, she was guessing, had come out all the stronger, and perhaps wiser, for it. But because, in the time it took to drink a single cup of coffee, whoever this was had turned everything she’d thought she’d known about herself on its head.
On a soft but heartfelt, “Dammit,” Mercy sidestepped the breakfast bar and crossed the small room, where she grabbed Ben’s shoulders and yanked him into a liplock neither of them would ever forget.
Chapter Three
He’d been as powerless to stop their mouths’ colliding as he would have been a meteor falling on his head.
But nothing said he’d had to wrap his arms tight around her and kiss her back, with a good deal of enthusiasm and no small amount of tongue. Or lower her onto that hideous green sofa—except his back, which wouldn’t have taken kindly to bending over like that for longer than a second or so. Damn, she was short. Even so, he could still stop, no sweat, any time he wanted to, still pull away from that warm, wicked mouth and the warm, wicked woman that came with it.
Which eventually he did, if for no other reason than they both needed air, bracing his hands on either side of her shoulders and searching her eyes before once again lowering his mouth to hers, this time going slow, so slow, so mind-druggingly slow, pulling back whenever she tried to cozy up to his tongue, gently nipping her lower lip, her chin, her neck…remembering how it had been between them.
How good.
She made a sound that was both growl and whimper as her long, pale fingernails dug into his arms, as one leg snaked around his waist, trapping him, claiming him, even as his body completely ignored his brain’s strident protests, that this was stupid and wrong and what the hell was he thinking?
Breathing hard, she pushed him slightly away, even as she clutched his shirt. “So, how long are you here again?”
Right.
His heart pounding, Ben waited, silently swearing, for the testosterone haze to clear. Then he pushed himself up, and away, walking back into the kitchen to get his coat.
“Four weeks,” he said, flatly. Because damned if he was going to hold out the same bone to Mercy he never should have to his family. Because he had no idea what his plans were. What came next. “Maybe six.”
She sat up, her hair as knotted as her forehead, and need and regret and a whole mess of pointless, inappropriate feelings got all tangled up in his head. He’d missed that bizarre mixture of vulnerability and toughness that was Mercedes Zamora. Missed it way too much to risk screwing things up now.