“Ms. Shalvis draws the reader into her stories immediately and creates a devastatingly tender love story with plenty of action and intrigue.

She knows how to deliver.”

—Rendezvous

“Rachel, I can’t talk to you when you’re wearing that stupid hat.” Before she could react, Ben whisked it off her head.

And froze.

Her soft, flowing hair was…gone, leaving a short, choppy cut of maybe an inch or so. The extent of everything she’d been through—the accident, the pain, the slow, ongoing recovery—suddenly hit him. He hated himself for reminding her, for reducing her to tears.

But he’d forgotten—Rachel would never allow anyone to see such a thing. Crying in public would be unacceptable. Crying in front of him would be tantamount to disaster.

Instead, as regal as ever, she remained calm, her head high. “Ben, go away.”

Gently he put the cap back on her head, his fingers brushing over her warm, smooth skin. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t even look at me.”

He realized they were not on the same plane, that she apparently thought the sight of her had sickened him. “No, wait. Rachel—” He dragged in a deep, ragged breath. “You look…alive. Isn’t that all that matters?”

JILL SHALVIS

has been making up stories since she could hold a pencil. Now, thankfully, she gets to do it for a living, and doesn’t plan to ever stop. She is the bestselling, award-winning author of over two dozen novels, including series romance for both Harlequin and Silhouette. She’s hit the Waldenbooks bestsellers list, is a 2000 RITA® Award nominee and is a two-time National Reader’s Choice Award winner. She has been nominated for a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award in Romantic Comedy, Best Duets and Best Temptation. Jill lives in California with her family.

The Street Where She Lives
Jill Shalvis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER ONE

HE’D ONCE BEEN CALLED a selfish bastard, and Ben Asher figured that to be a fairly accurate assessment. He lived his life on his own terms and kept his emotional entanglements pared down to, well, him. Thanks to his freelancing job as a photojournalist for National Geographic and Outside, among others, he could pack up and leave at the drop of a hat, without looking back. Even now, after only a few months of being in the Amazon, he’d be moving on to his next assignment soon.

Good old Africa, here he came.

He moved through the strangling, thick, wet, green growth so unique to the Brazilian jungle, finally breaking free into a small clearing containing a couple of temporary structures. He crossed the clearing and stepped over the threshold of the reserve’s office, which, due to the proverbial lack of funds, was the size of a postage stamp. They’d been without electricity and phones for nearly a month, only just today getting the phones turned on. Warily, he met Maria’s glare. Apparently the calls were coming in too fast and furious for her liking.

Maria, his temp, had been forced to walk approximately twenty-five big, whopping yards from the office to the radio hut to radio him about this call. Noting it was hotter than hell outside, he figured he understood. “Gracias.”

She didn’t respond, but then again, she rarely did. She’d come to him from his previous assignment near Rio, where Ben had uncovered a so-called American ministry. The “minister,” Manuel Asada, had run an international charity scam, which through the years had earned him untold wealth. Targeting churchgoing, generous souls in the name of humanity, Asada had solicited funds and promised to build villages and feed the poor.

Instead, he’d pocketed everything, killing anyone who defied him or got in his way. He also had a nasty habit of abusing the local women. Maria had been one of them. Together with her testimony and Ben’s photographs evidencing some of the crimes, Asada was now languishing in a Brazilian prison, but would soon be extradited to the States. There he’d face some of his swindled victims in court, not to mention murder charges on no less than three counts.

Secretly, Ben hoped Asada remained in Brazil, where he had a better chance of actually staying in a jail cell. He’d sworn vengeance on everyone who’d taken him and his profitable business down, including family members and loved ones. Luckily, in Ben’s case, that meant fewer people than the fingers on one hand.

He picked up the phone. “Asher.”

“D-daddy?”

At the sound of his daughter’s quavering, frightened voice, his heart stopped. “Emmie? What’s the matter?”

Loud, crackling static filled the line, reminding him that thousands of miles separated him and his twelve-going-on-thirty-year-old daughter. “Emily?”

Nothing, just more static, and Ben damned the poor phone lines, the pathetic equipment, the shack he’d called home for two months. “Emily!” Panic had a bitter taste, he discovered. Sweat trickled down his back as he sank to a rickety chair. The humid air made his shirt cling to him like a second skin. “Come on, come on,” he muttered, and banged the phone on the scratched, beat-up desk, swearing uselessly before whipping the phone back up to his ear.

“Daddy?”

Sagging in relief, Ben relaxed his folded-up, taut legs, and promptly smashed his knees into the wood. He took in a breath of the closed-in air around him. “I’m here! Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

Thank God. “Where are you?”

Not a good father question, he noted with disgust. Any father, any good father, would know where his daughter was at all times. Not that his father had ever taught him such things, but he knew how parenthood was supposed to work.

“I’m home,” she said.

She meant her home, of course, which she made with her mother in South Village, California.

“You’ve got to come.” Across the too many miles and years, her voice broke, killing him. “Please, don’t say you can’t.”

Ben spoke to his precious, only child far too seldom. And she was precious. She was also brilliant, which never failed to both amaze and terrify him. In any case, it would be easy to blame his heavy travel schedule as a photojournalist or even the fact that his cell phone rarely worked for the lack of time they’d spent together. But the truth was, it was his own need to roam at will, to never set down roots that caused the problem. The story of his life. He was nearly thirty-one years old, and had yet to figure out the cure for insatiable wanderlust.

He didn’t need a shrink to know that came from his upbringing. Work harder, Benny boy, or we’ll send you back.

That bit of wisdom had come directly from Rosemary, his foster mother. Don’t say the wrong thing, Benny, we’ll send you back. Don’t rock the boat, Benny, we’ll send you back.

He’d gotten the message loud and clear. Don’t say a word, because no one wanted to hear it.

Well, he’d cut out his own tongue before giving his own daughter a similar message. “Em? Talk to me.” The static was bad, but he thought he heard a sad, little sniff, and his stomach hit his toes.

“It’s about Mom.”

As it had for thirteen long years, just the thought of Rachel caused conflicting emotions to race through Ben—pain and regret. Regret and pain.

Mostly pain.

Whoever had said time heals all wounds was full of shit.

“It’s really bad this time,” she said with another little sniff.

Okay, he got it now. Ben relaxed marginally, because for spending so little time together, he and Emily were well versed in this play. The last time it’d been “really bad” Emily had wanted to day trade on the Internet with Rachel’s investment account. The time before that she’d been campaigning to be homeschooled so she could travel with him, which besides being a really bad idea—what did he know about kids?—had nearly caused Rachel to blow a gasket.

Ben leaned back, scraping his too wide shoulders on the narrow, splintery chair back. “What is it this time, she won’t let you take an extra math class?” His daughter was famous for overloading on school in order to avoid socializing—which Ben blamed on Rachel since he’d never asked for more schoolwork in his life. The irony of the whole thing amazed him. It’d taken one hundred percent of his energies just to survive his childhood, and yet Emily, free to enjoy her youth in a way he couldn’t have even dreamed of, chose to work herself into the ground. “You don’t take enough time to be a kid—”

“No, you don’t understand!” A sound crossed the airwaves, one that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “She’s had an accident…. We tried to call you, but we couldn’t get through, and then Aunt Melanie said I should try again…”

Black spots filled his vision. Probably the steamy, muggy weather. But that was a lie, a damn lie. After all these years and all the heartache, he still didn’t want Rachel hurt.

“An accident?” The black spots blossomed, showing him remembered visions from all those years ago. His first sight of her, in English class at school; tall, willowy, hauntingly beautiful. She’d been so far out of his league, him being nothing more than a foster kid from The Tracks, a sleazy area of South Village no one wanted to lay claim to. But she’d looked at him that day, from eyes that held a mirroring loneliness, a mirroring pain, and he’d fallen a little bit in love on the spot.

He hadn’t expected her to feel the same way, and had figured he’d hit the lottery when she’d smiled back. As he’d gotten to know her, and her demons, he hadn’t had a chance in hell at keeping his distance. Their time together, every single minute of those six months, the intensity of it, the passion, had been heaven on earth. Until she’d taken it all away, nearly destroying him in the process.

“She got hit by a car and almost died.”

My God. That lovely, giving, warm, unforgettable body broken and bleeding and hurt? Vaguely, he caught a horrifying list of injuries.

“…and a cracked pelvis, too. Broken arm, ribs, leg and ankle, all down her left side where, um, the car slammed into her.”

Ben couldn’t process it, couldn’t begin to imagine.

“And there was some brain injury, but the surgery went really, really good.”

The hope in Emily’s voice sliced through him like a razor blade. “Brain injury?”

“Yeah, it made her talk funny at first, but she’s better now. Sometimes it takes her a minute to, like, coordinate herself, but the doctor says that’s temporary.”

“Okay.” Ben realized he’d been holding his breath and he let it slowly out. Guilt sliced through him for every not so charitable thought he’d ever spared about Rachel over the years, and there’d been many.

“The doctors say she’s going to be fine,” Emily said in his ear, her voice still wavering even as she became the comforter. “But, Daddy, she needs help.”

She couldn’t need money, Ben thought. Rachel had inherited gobs of it from her workaholic father who’d probably entered hell pissed off that he couldn’t bring his fortune with him. Not to mention, Rachel was hugely successful in her own right as a popular cartoonist. Her famous comic strip, Gracie, earned her so much dough it made him dizzy to think about. But maybe she’d lost it all in the stocks or something. “I don’t have much at the moment,” he admitted having just last week made his regular substantial charitable donation.

What was the point in saving, when he didn’t have a place to keep it or someone who needed it? He had no family besides Emily, at least none that wanted to claim him. Being the eighth of nine wards in a foster home that gathered kids in the name of “Christian” duty—and for the monthly stipend—he’d gone all his life without material things. When he’d finally had the money to buy stuff, aside from his cameras, he got no satisfaction from it. If anything, material goods just tied him down. And after his first seventeen years of being held to one spot, being untethered was his greatest joy.

In fact, he’d been untethered for just about his entire adult life, cohabiting with some of the most rural and isolated people on earth. If it weren’t for Emily, he might never have reemerged into “society” at all.

“It’s not money she needs.” Emily hesitated, and Ben waited anxiously. His daughter was not only sharp as hell, but capable of reasoning far beyond her years. And she was reasoning now, silently, which always scared him.

What could Rachel, a woman who needed no one, possibly need from him?

“She wants to go home to recuperate. But she can’t really manage by herself. So she’s going to have to go somewhere else to get better, like a convalescent home. And then I’d have to go to Aunt Melanie’s and change schools. She’s really freaking out worrying about me.”

Damn it. Damn it. He didn’t want his daughter separated from her mother, and with Rachel’s sister one hundred and twenty miles north of them in Santa Barbara, that’s exactly what would happen. “We can hire a nurse,” he said.

“She’s trying, but it’s hard to find someone.”

Once upon a time, he’d known Rachel better than anyone. She’d had it tough, in a way even tougher than he had. As a result, she trusted no one. She’d rather lie down and die than accept help from a stranger.

Actually, unless she’d changed in thirteen years, she’d rather lie down and die than accept help from him. That feeling was mutual and had been since the day she’d decided he was no longer welcome in her life. It still bugged the hell out of him how easily she’d moved on, while he’d mourned and grieved her loss for years.

But he was over her now, very over her.

“Daddy, she’s determined to do it all, for me, but she’s going to hurt herself. Please? Please won’t you come?”

His daughter had rarely asked him for anything. And yet all he could do was panic at the thought of being caged, tied down to one place—that place—for God knows how long.

“Please,” she whispered again, her voice barely audible. “Please come home.”

The hustling, bustling, urban South Village, just outside Los Angeles, had never been his “home”—he’d had no real home. But since he hadn’t told his daughter about his past—about being found nearly dead in a trash bin when he was only two days old—he couldn’t very well explain it to her now.

And just because the word home was foreign to him didn’t mean it was that way for Emily. He’d give anything, everything, to ensure she never knew what it was like not to have a home.

“We need you, Daddy.”

A new coat of perspiration beaded his forehead. “She’ll refuse.”

“She knows she has no choice. It’s you, or hiring a stranger.”

“You know how she feels about me.”

“Yes.” She cleared her throat and spoke in a perfect imitation of Rachel. “You’re ‘wild, rough and unmolded.’”

Oh, yeah, that was a direct quote. He could hear the faint smile in his daughter’s voice, the daughter far too understanding and old for her years.

His fault.

“And danger is your middle name,” she intoned, still quoting.

Hmm.

“Oh! And you’re a selfish…” She lowered her voice. “Well. You-know-what.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re also—”

“Okay, okay.” Nothing like being humbled by your own child. Maria shoved an envelope in his hand. It was grimy, but then, everything here was. Addressed to him, it looked as if it’d been to hell and back before arriving here. The postmark date was five weeks ago, which didn’t surprise him. It was amazing it had gotten to him at all.

Inside was a perfectly spotless, perfectly folded piece of white paper. The chilling words read “I’m not done with you yet.”

Ben lifted his head and covered the mouthpiece with one hand. “Did you just get this?” he asked Maria in Spanish.

She nodded her head and looked at him from guarded black eyes.

Fear clawed Ben’s belly. “Asada.”

Maria paled at the name.

“Radio the authorities,” he said, still speaking Spanish. “Make sure he was extradited to the States as planned.”

She nodded and turned away.

As helplessness coursed through him, Emily continued to chatter in his ear. “You won’t be sorry, Dad! We can all be together. You know, like a family.”

Oh, boy. He’d have to deal with that later. For now, he had bigger issues. Asada had once sworn revenge, and now somehow appeared to be free to carry out his threats.

Five weeks free, if the postmark meant anything.

For the first time he could remember, he only half listened to his daughter’s monologue about all the things they could do if he was there. Under other circumstances he’d be amused and a little intimidated by Emily’s plans to make them a cozy nuclear family.

Maria came back, speaking in rapid-fire Spanish, shocking Ben, both because she was actually speaking unprompted, and by the words coming out of her mouth.

Five weeks ago, Asada had escaped in the middle of extradition to the States, adding the murder of two guards to his rap sheet in the process, and was thought to be somewhere between North and South America.

Christ. “Emily,” he said hoarsely, gripping the phone. “Tell me about your mom’s accident.”

“She was hit by a car.”

“When?”

“A month or so ago, you’ve been unreachable until now—”

“I know. Who hit her?”

“I don’t know. The police haven’t caught anyone.”

Ben dragged in a steady breath. “Okay, listen to me. I don’t want you to open the door or talk to any strangers, do you understand?”

“Daddy.” She laughed. “I’m twelve, not four.”

“Yes, but—”

“You gave me this talk years ago, remember? Don’t worry.”

“Emily—”

“Just say you’ll come back here to be with us while Mom gets better.” She hesitated, then went for the kill. “I love you, you know.”

Ah, hell. He was such a goner.

And he was going to South Village, California.

“I love you, too, baby. With all my heart. Now stay safe.” Please, God. “I’ll be there fast as I can catch a plane.”

CHAPTER TWO

EVEN AT THE tender age of five, Rachel knew what moving day meant. A new room, a new nanny, all of her toys in new places. She didn’t want to go, not again, neither did her sissie, but what they wanted didn’t matter.

“Goddamn it girl, suck it up.” This from her father. “Go find your mother if you’re going to snivel.”

Her mother waved her nearly empty glass of that stuff that looked like water but smelled bad—it would be years before Rachel came to know vodka was her mother’s drink of choice—and said, “Don’t look at me, there’s nothing I can do.”

A common refrain, one Rachel had learned to live by. With no more control over this move than the last one, or the one before that, she sat on the step, hugged her doll close and waited for the movers.

“Rachel.”

She tried to blink the porch into focus, but suddenly she wasn’t five years old anymore, it’d all been just another dream. She’d had a lot of those lately. As it had for the past month, the creeping, insidious pain joined by a nauseous claustrophobia jerked her fully awake. Logically, she knew the claustrophobia was from being trussed up like a mummy. But even worse was the sweat-inducing panic she felt from her complete lack of control over anything, including her own body.

“Oh, good, you’re awake.”

She grimaced at the deceptively kind voice of the nurse who carried needles, and used them often. “You couldn’t possibly need more blood.”

“Oh, just a little.”

“No way.”

Unperturbed, the nurse sat by Rachel and took out her blood kit.

“I mean it. Don’t even think about it.” But even Rachel had to let out a laugh, though it shot a bullet of sharp pain right through her. Most of her was still covered in either soft bandages or plaster casting. She hadn’t been able to move on her own since she’d crossed the street a month ago, heading toward Café Delight to have lunch with her agent, Gwen Ariani, and instead had been mistaken for a roadblock by a speeding car.

Among other physical problems she had, her brain seemed to have the hiccups, making coordinating movement a circus event. Her doctor told her that would probably be temporary. Probably. Good God. Forget the fact she needed fine motor skills to maintain her comic strip Gracie; things weren’t looking real good for the rest of her nice, cozy life. “I am not a pincushion.”

“Spunk.” The short, dark-haired nurse named Sandy nodded approvingly. “Give ’em hell, girl.” She swabbed Rachel’s arm, but had the good grace to look apologetic as she wielded the needle. When she was done, she patted Rachel’s hand—bandaged to the tips of her still healing fingers. “Oh, and hey, good news. Most of the bandages come off today. Dr. Thompson will be here this morning.”

“And how about the casts?” Rachel found herself coming to life for the first time that day. That month.

“You’re going to go from plaster to air casts.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You’ll be more mobile and lightweight. It’s a good thing.” Sandy headed for the door. “Now, don’t you worry your pretty little head over any of the details. I’ll be back with the doctor in a few.”

Rachel studied the ceiling, her new hobby. There were eighty-four ceiling tiles in the room. She’d worry her pretty little head all right—the “pretty” part no longer applying, of course. She’d worry because she knew. They would release her, maybe as early as the end of the week, but it didn’t mean freedom.

For at least a couple of months she needed help, a fate worse than death as far as she was concerned. She’d learned her love of control from her overly controlled, overly authoritative, overly guarded childhood. That she would need someone to help dress her, help her move around, help her in every way, was extremely…frightening.

What she really needed right now was a powerful, virile husband.

Ha!

To get a husband, she’d have to seriously date someone. To do that she’d actually have to let that someone into her life. And to let someone into her life, especially a male someone, she’d have to… Well, she’d have to do a whole hell of a lot, including honing up on the social skills she’d let get so rusty.

Since that wasn’t about to happen, Rachel had no choice, no choice at all. A nurse. A temporary nurse. Either a huge, beefy woman or a male, it didn’t really matter at this point. She had so little pride left.

Just as long as she and Emily got to be at home, together, nothing else truly mattered.

Which brought to the surface her greatest worry. How was she going to manage without being a burden on her teenage alien—er, daughter?

Her hospital room door opened again, and she heard the voice of Sandy, coming back with Dr. Thompson.

Closing her eyes, she feigned sleep. It was unlike her to pretend anything, but in this case, where everyone persisted in talking to her as if she’d suffered permanent brain damage, eavesdropping had become a necessity.

She wanted to know their plans for her, because no way was she accepting anything but release papers. No convalescent care, no way. Forcing her taut muscles to relax wasn’t easy. Over a month after the accident she couldn’t yet quite remember, and every inch of her still ached.

Even her hair.

And she itched. Beneath the cast on her arm and lower leg. Beneath the multitude of healing lacerations. Beneath the stubbly hair growing back after the buzz cut she’d required for surgery to ease the swelling of her brain.

If it didn’t hurt to smile, she might have let out a wry one. All her life she’d cultivated her long, blond tresses—only to lose them in one twist of fate.

At least she still had her…what? She didn’t have her health, she didn’t have her life as she knew it, she couldn’t draw, couldn’t even hug Emily—as if her daughter even wanted to be hugged.

“If she doesn’t hire help, Sandy, she’s not going to heal properly.” This from her doctor.

“Well…her daughter was talking to Outpatient Services earlier,” Sandy told him. “She signed up for home care, I believe.”

Rachel stopped breathing. Emily had already arranged for an at-home nurse? Melanie had obviously helped, but that seemed completely out of character, because though Rachel’s sister had come through for her after the accident, it wasn’t Mel’s usual habit to think ahead for herself, much less someone else.

For years Mel had complained that Rachel didn’t need her enough, but the truth was, when Rachel did need Mel, when she tried to confide something that was really bothering her, Mel often shrugged it off as not important. That, or she went overboard in her response.

A perfect example had been when Rachel and Ben had split. Feeling like a basket case, she had attempted to talk to Mel about him. But in her exuberant need to protect her baby sister, Mel had taken it as an opening to talk bad about Ben every single time the subject came up. Thirteen years later she was still doing it.

Rachel had learned to keep her problems to herself.

Besides, Mel had already gone above the call of duty, using vacation time from her job in order to take care of Emily while Rachel had been in the hospital, handling the house and all the responsibilities that went with that. Handling everything.

Rachel knew how much Melanie needed to get back to her own life, especially her independence. She and Emily would manage. With—oh, joy—a hired nurse. Having someone in their home, living with them, would make her terribly uncomfortable, but—and this was the good part—she was going home.

After a distressingly nomadic childhood, and after being woken at all hours of the day and night to be poked and prodded at for a month, her own bed would be heaven. Quiet, calm, tranquil heaven.

EMILY BOUNCED into Rachel’s hospital room, a barely contained bundle of energy. She wore a tank top, baggy jeans too loose on her hips and clunky sandals. Her face was completely void of makeup, as she hadn’t yet found that particular vice, but she had two silver hoops in each ear. Her bright-green eyes were shining through her too-long blond bangs.

Her ever present laptop was tucked beneath her arm.

In spite of her exhaustion from a brutal physical therapy session, Rachel’s heart swelled at the sight of her greatest joy. In having a child, Rachel had learned to share herself, to receive love as well as give it. It was because of Emily that she felt whole.

Whole being relative at the moment.

Given the shift of the shadows on the walls from the gently dancing pines outside, hours had passed since Dr. Thompson had removed some of the bandages. She was now a new person. Granted, a new person with little to no hair, fresh new air casts on one arm and leg, and a healing broken pelvis. A new person who still hurt…but she felt marginally better nevertheless.

Or at least lighter. The bandages on her multitude of abrasions—which had covered part of her face, her torso and good arm—were gone. Because she could, she bent her right arm, watching with relief when the still-scabbed limb did what it should. And if she ignored the wild trembling that indicated it was weak as a baby’s—something her physical therapist promised to fix “in no time”—things were good. “Emily…look at me go.”

Emily looked suitably impressed. “Nice. Before you know it, you’ll be drawing again.”

At the moment, she couldn’t even lift a pencil, much less think with the wit required for Gracie,—a character who was brave, brassy and bold, everything Rachel wasn’t—but she’d get there.

God, please, let me get there.

To hide the fear from the girl who saw everything, she forced a smile. “Did you come with Aunt Mel?”

“Yeah.” Emily plopped into the bedside chair, her pixie-blond hair once again swinging into her expressive eyes. She set down her laptop. “She’s busy flirting with your doctor again, but as my supposedly mature aunt, she didn’t want me to know, so she sent me in here.”

Melanie had a long history with men. Very long.

“She thinks I don’t know about the birds and the bees.” A quick cheeky grin flashed, reminding Rachel that before the accident, she and Emily had been on shaky ground due to Emily’s certainty she knew everything, which naturally meant Rachel knew nothing.

“I bet I know more than she does,” Emily added.

A sexually aware preteen—every parent’s nightmare. “Emily—”

“Oh, Mom, I’m just kidding.”

Uh-huh. But no way was she going to start a grudge match today. “You really doing okay?” She wished she could reach up and touch Emily’s face, her hair. She missed their closeness, missed everything. “Tell me the truth.”

“Well, I’m better than you. The nurse told me they took out all your stitches. And most of the bandages, too.” Leaning in, Emily scrutinized every inch of her face until Rachel wanted to squirm. She could only imagine how she must look. The bruises had to be fading along with the swelling, but they were probably still putrid yellow and puke green. And her hair, her glorious hair… “They haven’t brought me a mirror, so…” She managed a weak laugh, but Emily leaned even closer, still serious, still inspecting.

Rachel turned away and fought the burning behind her eyes. “I probably look fit for Halloween, even though that’s months off yet.”

“Oh, Mom.” At the soft, choked-up voice, Rachel turned back, shocked to find love on Emily’s face. Love.

“Don’t you know?” she whispered. “You look beautiful.” Her eyes were shining like two brilliant stars. “So beautiful, Mom.”

Rachel managed a smile past the huge lump in her throat. “Which means you’re beautiful, too.”

“Yeah.” But it was Emily’s turn to look away now. “But I know who I really look like….”

When she trailed off with no clear intent to finish, Rachel sighed. Not a coward, she reminded herself. Never a coward. “Like your dad.”

They stared at each other awkwardly while Rachel’s heart sank. No, she wasn’t a coward, and hadn’t been in a long time, but bringing up the subject of Ben Asher with Emily was usually trouble.

He was the one person Rachel and Emily never agreed on.

How could they? Her daughter saw him as a hero, larger than life. A man who put others’ needs before his own. A man who brought justice to people who couldn’t get it for themselves.

He was that, Rachel admitted to herself, and more. So much more.

SHE’D CHANGED SCHOOLS again, halfway through senior year this time. On her first day, a boy sauntered into her English Lit class late. With a slow, lazy smile and even lazier gait, he strode down the center aisle with a devil-may-care attitude that had wild whispers falling in his path.

“Did you know he’s from The Tracks?” one cheerleader hissed to another, just behind Rachel. “Lives in a foster home with eight other kids.”

“He’s still hot,” came a hushed reply.

“Hot, yeah. But dirt poor.”

“Such a waste.”

Rachel couldn’t help but notice no one else in the classroom gave him the time of day. Given his laid-back air and languid stroll, he could care less. He wore Levi’s with a hole over one knee, a dark T-shirt with a frayed hem and ripped sleeve and had an ancient Canon camera slung over his shoulder. His hair was wavy and long, past his collar at the back, the front tumbling over his forehead. He tossed it back with a lift of his head.

His gaze focused in on Rachel.

She wasn’t used to that. She was invisible. It’s what happened when you were always the new kid, and she was good at it. But he saw her, with eyes that were sparkling and full of trouble. He took the one empty seat in the classroom.

Right next to her.

“Hey,” he said with a slow, devastating smile.

She looked behind her to see who he was talking to, and he laughed.

She felt like she’d been hit with an electrical current.

“Got an extra pencil?” he asked.

A little overwhelmed by his sheer presence, by the fact he was even looking at her, she handed him her pencil. Boys didn’t look at her often, mostly because she never made eye contact and never bothered making friends. Why should she when she’d only be moving again soon enough?

“Got some paper?”

She’d given him a few sheets, and an eraser, too. And by the end of that first hour he’d convinced her to share her notes, and help him study for the next test. She’d tried to explain she wasn’t the girl to get to know if he wanted to be popular, but he laughed.

“Popular?” He scratched his jaw and shrugged his bony shoulders. “Not my thing.” His eyes roamed her face, seeming to see more than anyone else ever saw. “But you…you, I’d like to get to know.”

And he’d done just that, gotten to know her, in a way no one else ever had.

Not then, and not since.

“MOM?” Em’s worried gaze ran over Rachel’s face. “Stick with me now, you’re freaking me out.”

Right. Stick to the present, much better than the past. They were talking about Ben. Ben, who took the most amazing photographs of the underprivileged and displayed them boldly in print for the more privileged population to squirm over. His thought-provoking articles that accompanied those pictures usually won him awards, and instigated a surge of charitable donations to better circumstances all over the world—and appease their guilty consciences. She knew this because she’d followed his career over the years for no reason other than morbid curiosity.

But he was just a man. A man who’d shown her more passion and emotion and life than anyone before or after. And though it had been thirteen long years, she still resented it with her entire being. Resented him.

“Look, forget it, okay? Forget Dad for now.” Emily chewed on her fingernail and strove for casual. “So…what was for lunch? Puke-colored Jell-O again?”

Rachel took a deep breath, heart aching. “Emily, honey…you are like him. Just like him. In so many ways.”

Emily blinked twice, slow as an owl, and Rachel couldn’t blame her. Rachel often hadn’t been willing to talk about Ben. Not a great parental decision, she could admit now. “Yes, you look just like him. You know that. And since he’s drop-dead beautiful, you are, too. So beautiful, Emily.”

Emily looked stunned at the turn of the conversation, which made Rachel doubly glad she’d had it. “So…” She cleared her throat. “You and Mel hired someone for us? You going to be okay with that?”

Emily’s glow faded and she stared at Rachel’s hand, which she gently clasped in her own smaller one, nails polished with chipped purple glitter and chewed to the quick. “I wish you wouldn’t worry about me so much.”

“It’s a mom thing. Am I going to like her?”

“Oh, man, would you look at the time?” Emily pulled her hand free and bounced up. “Gotta go. Homework.”

“Nice avoidance technique. Who is she, Em, Attila the Hun?”

“You’re funny, Mom. You should write a comic strip.”

“Emily Anne, what are you up to?”

Innocent eyes glanced back, solemn and full of intelligence. “What makes you think I’m up to something?”

“Intuition,” Rachel said dryly.

“Hey, I’m just getting you where you want to be, Mom. Home.”

CHAPTER THREE

DESPITE HIS desperate need to get to South Village immediately, it still took Ben nearly a week. Two days to get out of the jungle. Another two waiting for a seat on a small plane to get to an international airport. And then nearly two days more of connections and travel.

Finally, Ben landed in Los Angeles and nearly choked on the smog. It wasn’t even noon and the temperature had already hit ninety-five degrees, a sweltering, shimmering heat that made the air so thick that breathing was optional, and unadvised.

Granted, he’d suffered far worse, with much more humidity, for long months at a time. But somehow, spring in Southern California seemed more hell-like than anything he could remember.

Okay, so it was more than the weather. It was the fact he’d come back to his inauspicious beginnings after all these years, a place he tried not to think about, much less visit. He’d left here at seventeen, scrawny, too poor to even pay attention, and sporting a broken heart. He’d done his damnedest to stay far, far away.

For the most part, he’d managed, convincing Rachel’s sister Melanie to bring his daughter to wherever he happened to be. To further her education, he’d said in his defense of dragging a young girl to all four corners of the earth. Dirty corners at that.

Melanie had bought the excuse. So apparently had Rachel, and Emily had been delighted with her annual travels with her father.

As a bonus, he hadn’t had to face this place in a good long time. But he was here now, courtesy of his own terror over a madman who may or may not know about his daughter, about Rachel.

Ben had contacted the local authorities here in the States, and had been passed over to the Feds. They’d been polite, helpful and dishearteningly doubtful that Asada would be stupid enough to show his face here in Southern California. After all, just the week before, he’d been featured on the television show America’s Most Wanted. Unless Asada had a death wish, he was deep in hiding. Still, they’d promised to do drive-bys to surveil at Rachel and Emily’s place. And they’d promised to take a look into Rachel’s accident, to see if maybe it hadn’t been an accident at all.

A thought that made his blood run cold.

He had a meeting tonight with one of the FBI agents he’d spoken to, Agent Brewer, and hopefully would learn something more. Something like they’d caught Asada.

Riding the airport escalator to the ground floor, Ben took a long, critical look at his own reflection in the mirrors that lined the walls. A grim stranger stared back. He’d have thought he’d had enough grimness in his life, that he didn’t need to borrow more, but just being back “home” seemed to have uncovered some vast store of it deep within him.

He hadn’t told Emily about Asada. No way was he going to be the one to introduce her to the truth about the cold, cruel, dangerous world he lived in.

And Rachel…well, he’d wait and see on that one. For all she knew, he was coming to help her. Though why on earth she’d agreed to such a thing was beyond him. He figured desperation must have played a huge role, but for the life of him he couldn’t imagine the only woman who’d ever brought him to equal heights of ecstasy and depths of misery being that desperate.

Of course, he no longer knew her every thought and whim as he once had. Right now, she was injured, hurting…he wouldn’t put more stress on her shoulders by bringing up Asada.

No, Asada was his cross alone to bear.

He stepped outside, and the heat sapped his energy. Or maybe it was the reality of being here.

Your own fault.

With a sigh, Ben slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed toward the rental cars, resigned to his fate.

TO RACHEL, South Village was home sweet home. Beyond being the busiest and most energetic pedestrian neighborhood in California, South Village was her life. The casual elegance of the charming town was no faux city walk like Universal City, but authentic, steeped with the blend of history and early California legend that came from being one of the original mining towns in the late 1800s. Since then, the place had been subjected to face-lifts, decline, then more face-lifts, and was now enjoying an upswing.

In a few square miles one could eat at a restaurant owned by a famous celebrity, check out the best and latest in live theater, grab a drink from a sidewalk café, buy a present from a funky bookstore or an original boutique, or simply wander the streets drinking fancy iced coffees, taking in the sights.

But that’s not why she loved it so much. Here she could surround herself with people. Here she could lose herself in the crowd. Here she could just be.

Here she’d granted herself the luxury of learning a place inside out for the first time.

She lived on North Union Street, right in the heart of downtown. On her left sat One North Union, an old hotel remodeled into an array of art galleries. On her right stood what had once been the sheriff’s office in the great Old West, and was now her neighbor’s house. On the other side of that was Tanner Market, nearly hidden from view on the street by a brick courtyard filled with flowers, fountains and wrought iron.

In her opinion, what made the block of beautiful buildings was her house. Thanks to the syndicated success of Gracie, she’d purchased the old firehouse five years ago. The three-story brick structure had already been shined up, gutted and restored for modern use, but Rachel and Emily had customized it further, turning it into the home of their hearts. Every wall, every floor, every piece of furniture, had been lovingly agonized over and decided upon based on comfort.

This was her first real home—already she’d lived here longer than anywhere else—and if she had her way, her last. She sat in the wheelchair she was determined not to need by the end of the day and looked around. It’d been nearly a week since she’d been promised release from the hospital, and finally, finally, after more physical therapy, after long discussions with her doctor, here she was.

Already, amazingly, she could feel the improvement in her bones. Just being home did that, she mused sitting in the big, open living room that had once housed fire-fighters. A month and a half ago, she’d stood in this very spot every single day, staring down at the street below, watching people stroll by, smiling, laughing, living. She loved it here, right smack in the middle of organized chaos. Here she was home. Safe. Just her and Emily.

Now, fresh from the hospital, with her head still spinning from her doctor’s orders to take it easy, she was waiting for the new nurse, telling herself she’d be out from under the nurse’s care as soon as possible.

“Here, Mom.” Emily came up behind her and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders.

She hadn’t even realized she was cold, but now she could feel her limbs shiver. Her brain still fooled her like that sometimes, and it disturbed her, this horrifying lack of control. But the bone-melting exhaustion frustrated her most of all. Her good hand trembled where it rested on her thigh. Her shoulders slumped, making her bad arm ache all the more, and she’d only been sitting five minutes.

For a woman used to running five miles before breakfast, then working a full day, then chasing Emily around on a racquetball court, the lack of energy was demoralizing.

She felt used and abused. Washed up. And so discouraged she could hardly stand it. She wanted to jump up, wanted to run through her house, wanted to see each and every room she’d made theirs. She wanted to go into her lovely studio upstairs and touch her easel, her colored pencils, fresh clean paper. She wanted to draw, paint, scream…anything other than sit here helpless. Helpless made her feel like a child again.

As that child, she’d had money, privilege, material things…everything but stability, security and safety; the three Ss which meant so much to her. Her father had spent his entire adult life taking over troubled corporations and turning them around, gathering millions as he did. He gathered the money to himself in a way he never had his own family. There’d been no laughter, no shared family dinners, no affection and certainly no love in their household.

Melanie, the oldest by two years, had usually commanded the fleeting attention of their parents. Given Mel’s penchant for trouble, most of that attention had been negative. Still, she’d thrived on their nomadic existence, making friends with ease—especially male friends.

Not Rachel. As the years passed, she’d promised herself that someday, she was going to find her own home and never leave it. In her senior year, her father moved them to South Village, and by the time Rachel had graduated, it was time for her parents to move on.

Mesmerized by the place, Rachel stayed. She utilized family contacts to get her sketchings purchased by the local paper, she’d gone to college at night studying art and the rest was history.

Home sweet home.

“Mom?” Emily moved in front of her and kneeled. “It’s only natural to be this tired, right? Didn’t the doctor say so? I mean, coming home took a lot out of you.”

“Yeah.” Rachel felt the burning need to throw something or have a good cry. Even her daughter had changed, as now suddenly Emily didn’t want to do anything to upset her. Rachel wondered how long that would last, how long before they went back to being two circling, snarling tigresses. “Lying in that hospital bed for five weeks was hard work all right.”

“The way you stress it was. Do you want to lie down?”

“I’d like to never lie down again.”

Emily laughed. “Don’t worry, in no time you’ll be yelling at me to go out and play instead of doing homework.”

Rachel sighed, it was all she could do. “I’m proud of your grades, Emily. So proud. But you’re too young to work so hard.”

“I like working hard.”

“But…” Rachel frowned as the thought flew from her head. Frustrated, she closed her eyes and concentrated so hard it hurt, but it was no use. She couldn’t remember what she’d wanted to say. “I really hate that. How can I yell at you if I can’t keep a thought in my head?”

“Practice,” Emily assured her, looking cocky. Probably because she was in charge here and knew it. Role reversal was a powerful tool in the hands of a preteen. Terrifying.

The doorbell rang, and suddenly Emily’s grin dissolved. Her healthy glow faded as she stared at the door.

“It’s the nurse.” Rachel looked at the door with what she imagined was a twin expression to her daughter’s.

“Early.” Emily chewed on an already gnawed fingernail. “Go figure.”

Definitely that good cry would have to wait, because Emily looked more nervous than she did. “Oh, honey. It’ll be okay.” It had to be. “Besides, it’s temporary, remember?”

“Yeah. Um…you might want to remember that.”

It was instinctive, wanting to hug her daughter. So was the move to do just that, which had her body shooting sharp little bites of pain as a reminder that she couldn’t do anything on the spur of the moment. As she sagged back in her chair, she took a deep, careful breath.

“Mom?”

“I’m okay.” Okay being relative of course. Careful to not move a muscle, all of which were quivering, she said, “Let’s get this over with. I’m sure you and Mel did a great job picking her out.”

“Uh…now’s probably a good time to mention Aunt Mel had nothing to do with this.” Emily continued to chew on her fingernail, staring at the door with a curious mixture of dread and joy. “She doesn’t know, no one has any idea….”

The bell rang again, following by three raps on the wooden door.

An impatient nurse. Great. She really was getting Attila the Hun.

Emily tossed her chin high and headed for the door. Then, ruining the confident stance, she hesitated. Quick as a bullet, she shot back to Rachel and dropped a sweet kiss on her cheek, and gave her a very wobbly smile. “I’m really sorry, okay? You know, like, in advance.” Then she strode to the door and opened it.

Standing there, one shoulder braced, his other hand flat on the opposite jamb, head bowed as he waited with a barely contained edginess, was the one man Rachel had thought to never see again.

Ben Asher lifted his head, and his dark, melting brown eyes unerringly found her across the foyer. “Hello, Rachel.”

He’d come. He’d come back. And unbelievably, all she could think about was her hair, or lack of. Though it screamed in protest, she lifted her weak, shaking arm, checking the position of the soft cap she’d used to cover her bald head. “You.”

“Yeah. Me.” He straightened to his full height, which was considerably over six feet. Without being asked, he moved inside, dropping a duffel bag and backpack to the ground with a heavy thunk. Then he hauled Emily close for a big hug. “Hey, sweetness.”

“Hi, Daddy.” She squeezed him back, then untangled herself and grinned at him.

Bigger than life, he stood in the foyer, set his hands on his hips, and with frank curiosity, looked around him, taking in the large open airy room with the bricked wall, the hardwood floors, the fire pole in the center.

“Mom.” Emily licked her lips, dividing a look between her parents. “I sort of asked Dad to come.”

Ben shot his daughter a wry glance, complete with arched brow, and Rachel had to wonder…had Emily really asked…or begged?

Did it matter? He hadn’t come for her, he’d come for Emily. Of course he’d come for Emily, to take her on one of their trips. How she’d ever thought otherwise, even for that brief, humiliating flash, was beyond her. She closed her eyes against the sight of him, but it didn’t matter; his image was indelibly printed on her brain. He was so much the same yet so different, her breath was gone, simply gone.

He’d always done that to her, way back when they’d been seventeen and he’d been her entire world. God, had she really ever been that young? She’d thought her pain couldn’t possibly get any worse, but just looking at him made her want to double over with the agony from the inside out, making her feel like she was nothing but an emotional powder keg ready to blow. “I don’t want you here,” she said with remarkable calm. Not even for a few minutes. She wanted him gone so she could concentrate on her Attila-the-Hun nurse still to arrive.

Ben’s lips curved, forcibly reminding her of Emily. Oh yes, her daughter was indeed a true gorgeous chip off the old gorgeous block. She’d just forgotten how much.

“I understand the sentiment, believe me.” Gaze still on Rachel, he extended an arm, bringing Emily back into the crook of it, hugging her again. “How are you holding up, Emmie?”

The voice. The face, the same rugged, tanned, open face, framed by the same sun-kissed, light-brown hair Rachel had loved to run her fingers through. It was still long to his collar, with the same tousled look that assured her he used his fingers far more often than his comb. His clothes were clean but nondescript, allowing him to be the chameleon he was, fitting in wherever he felt the need. Even so, an aura of strength and confidence exuded from him, and Rachel could only return his stare.

It’d been thirteen years since she’d last seen him. Why did it suddenly feel like yesterday?

His movements, as he held his daughter and came farther into the room, were fluid and lithe…everything hers weren’t. Muscles rippled beneath his T-shirt and faded jeans, reminding her of her own weaknesses. But his eyes, still holding hers, reflected her same discomfort.

Finally, Ben broke the unsettling eye contact to look at Emily. “Tell me you asked your mom before you called me.”

“Asked me what?” Rachel’s heart started to beat heavy in her chest, threatening to burst not yet healed ribs right open.

Ben shook his head at Emily, love and irritation swimming in his gaze. “Chicken,” he chided softly.

Emily lifted a shoulder and gave him her saddest, most pathetic look.

With a soft sound of annoyance and love all mixed in, Ben let go of Emily and came toward Rachel in long, easy strides, hunkering down before her wheelchair with such casual strength she wanted to kick him.

If only she could have lifted her casted leg.

He sported a day’s worth of dark stubble, but it didn’t hide the fact he had beautiful cheekbones and a strong, wide jaw. His mouth was full and, she had to admit, still sexy as hell. How in God’s name she could look at him and notice such a thing, after all this time, was beyond her.

But those eyes, those dark, haunting eyes. Such a deceptively soft color, and yet there was nothing soft about him. Try sharp. Probing. Blunt.

“You look like hell,” he said, proving the point.

“Yes, well, I’ve been in hell.”

Nodding slowly, he reached out and touched her pale fingers with his sun-kissed, callused ones. She felt the jolt all the way to her toes. So did he if his quick inhale meant anything, which proved one thing—as much as it shocked her, for she was not a sensual, sexual creature by nature—they were still explosive in each other’s presence.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” he said.

He spoke the truth; it was his nature. Stifling an emotion wasn’t in his genetic makeup. Which made his pity more than she could take. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”

Amusement flickered briefly across his face. “I wouldn’t dare.”

Trussed up as she was, her senses were on overload, especially her sense of smell. His scent came to her—warm, clean, earthy male—and it was so achingly familiar, her traitorous nose flared, trying to catch more of it. He always had been a disturbing combination of untamed outdoors and infectious sensuality, full of passion, of fire, zest for life.

No, he hadn’t changed a bit.

But she had. He might have once walked away from her, but she was tougher now. Impenetrable. She just wished he hadn’t come for Emily now, when she was shaking with the effort not to fall over with exhaustion.

“You’re in pain now?” he asked, perceptive as ever.

Hell, yes, because just looking at you brings me pain, stabs into my carefully hoarded memories. Reminds me of my failures. “I don’t want you h-here.” Stuttering on the last word as her brain once again failed her was the ultimate insult, and as if it was his fault, she glared at him.

Ben pursed his lips as he studied her, rubbing his jaw. The growth there made a raspy noise that seemed to cause a mirroring tug in her belly. God, she remembered him, just like this. Looking at her, through her, in her. She’d always been positive he could see far more than she’d wanted him to.

Which was all tied up into why she’d asked him to go. Once upon a time he’d been everything that had been missing in her life, and everything that could destroy her. When he’d done just that, she remembered thinking how naive she’d been to think she could handle a man like him.

She wasn’t so naive now. She knew she couldn’t handle him.

“I can’t go away this time, Rachel.” His voice was full of apology and a pent-up frustration to match her own. “I promised Emily I’d stay.”

She jerked her gaze to her daughter, who was hovering behind Ben, wringing her hands, biting her lip.

“That’s why I said I’m sorry, Mom,” Emily said quickly. “I know, I know, I’m probably grounded for a month.”

“For life.”

“Yeah, well…” Emily laughed nervously. “I deserve that.”

“No, she doesn’t.” Ben shook his head, watching Rachel. “She was frightened. Alone and worried about you. And she wanted me to be here.”

“For one of her trips with you while I recoup. Fine. Great,” Rachel added. “Thank you for that.”

“Don’t thank me for caring about my own daughter. Emily is everything to me.”

“I thought that was your camera.”

That caused a shocked silence.

“Is that what you really think?” he asked softly.

The present and the past commingled, and for a moment she couldn’t tell where she was or when. He’d always had his Canon around his neck. He’d had an amazing talent for reaching past his subject, capturing the heart and soul in a way that had never failed to steal her breath. At seventeen, he’d been determined to use that talent as his ticket out, knowing the odds but not giving up.

Ben never gave up.

Compared to his outspoken and obvious ways, Rachel fought her battles differently, internally, but she didn’t want to be so cruel as to hurt him with words simply because she was in pain. “I’m sorry. I know you care about Emily.”

“Damn right I do. She needs both of us. How else will she ever learn to do certain things? Feeling, for instance.”

Once again, she considered kicking him. “You don’t know me anymore.” Every word was a trial to get out past the sheer exhaustion creeping through her body, but she wouldn’t collapse, not until she was alone. “It’s immaterial anyway. You can’t take off with her right now, she’s in school and summer break isn’t for another month.”

Emily didn’t look relieved, which was her first hint. Her second was Ben’s direct, unwavering stare.

She stared back, the truth sinking in. “No. No.”

“Afraid so,” Ben said evenly, even lightly, though his eyes alone expressed his own unsettled emotions. “I’m staying. Until you can care for yourself.”

“You’re my help?”

“Yep.”

Being so tired made remaining even moderately social difficult. Being in pain and betrayed on top of it—by her own daughter no less—made it impossible. “I’d rather go to a convalescent hospital.”

Emily shifted closer. “Mom.”

She’d deal with Emily and her betrayal later. “I mean it.”

“Fine.” Ben rose in one smooth, swift motion, making her dizzy when he looked down at her from his full height, his gaze inscrutable for once. “I’ll just take you there myself.”

“Now?” she croaked.

“As opposed to never? Yes, now.” He put his tense, lived-in face uncomfortably close to hers. His eyes flashed. “You don’t want me here, then you can’t stay either. You didn’t expect Emily to handle the burden—”

“No, of course not.” Burden. Lovely.

“Well, then…” He moved behind her. Strong, tanned hands reached for her chair. Tough forearms with long blue veins over ropy muscles flexed as her chair shifted.

He’d do it, she decided. Yes, he would, because if there was one thing she remembered quite clearly about him, it was that he never bluffed. Hadn’t she learned that one night so many years ago, when she’d let her fear of intimacy overrule her, when she’d rashly told him to get out of her life, and he’d done exactly that without a backward glance? “No.”

Before she could draw in another ragged breath, her chair stopped. Once again, Ben’s face filled her vision. Expecting pity, she braced herself.

Instead, she got anger.

“Are you done being a child about this? Because if you are, great. We’ll stay right here. We, as in you and me. Together.”

“I’d have been better off with Attila the Hun,” she muttered.

“You probably would have,” he agreed grimly. “But I promised Emily.”

And though he would do many things, one thing he wouldn’t ever do is go back on his word. “You’re crazy to do this. You can’t do this, we can’t stay together, it would be…”

“Like old times?” he mocked.

His direct gaze was unflinching, reminding her just exactly how they had been together and how good it had been. “You have no idea what it’s like,” she whispered.

“You mean being forced by circumstance to give up on everything?” He laughed harshly. “Yes, I do. I grew up that way.”

“Ben—”

“Forget it. It doesn’t change anything.” He squatted in front of her chair, setting his big hands on her arm-rests, his leanly muscled body crowding into her space. “But I’m a fair man. I’ll make you a deal.”

Her traitorous body actually wanted to lean closer. Her nose wanted to wriggle and catch a better scent. Her body wanted…his. “You’ll go after all?”

“Nope.”

His fingers touched hers again, making her wonder if his body was reacting in the same way as hers. “Something not quite as good, but it’ll have to do.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “What?”

“Soon as you can physically kick me out, I’m gone. What do you say to that?”

They both knew that even at her physical peak, she couldn’t have budged his long, powerful frame, not if he didn’t want to go.

He might appear lackadaisical to some, even easygoing. But that slow, lazy way he had of moving was deceptive, like a sleeping leopard. She knew exactly how tough, how resilient he was. Or at least how he’d been.

“Deal?”

Again, her past and present mingled together, leaving her blinking fiercely to keep the sudden tears of frustration to herself. She would not cry, not in front of this irrational, infuriating man. “Deal. But only because I’ll be better very soon,” she vowed.

Damn his far too good-looking hide, he let out a sardonic laugh that seemed directed at himself. “Believe me,” he assured her, surging to his feet in one graceful movement. “I’m counting on it.”

CHAPTER FOUR

BEN PRETENDED that he could actually breathe in this too big, too terrifyingly normal house that he wasn’t welcome in, and managed a smile as Emily showed him around.

He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the fact that he was here. That he’d stepped foot inside South Village and hadn’t imploded on impact. That he’d seen Rachel, and had felt…something. She’d felt it, too, but given the attitude and daggers she’d shot him, she hadn’t liked it any more than he had.

The refurbished firehouse was interesting, if one was into huge, open, elegant spaces. The rooms had high ceilings and windows everywhere that showed off the interesting view of the city that never seemed to sleep. There was a firefighter pole right down the center of the place, and a spiral staircase of wrought iron. Braided rugs adorned the shiny hardwood floors, and artwork from around the world decorated the brick walls. So did photographs.

None of his, Ben couldn’t help but notice. No skin off his nose. He’d come into this house with a mental wall twelve feet thick just to keep Rachel out of his head, and no doubt, she’d done the same for him. She was good at building walls. Hell, she was the master at building walls.

The furniture was new, tasteful and very Rachel. In other words, expensive. And yet, he could see Emily racing through these rooms, sliding down the pole from one floor to another, perfectly at home.

“You’re really going to stay home for a while?” she asked him.

Ben’s insides knotted at the small, hopeful tone, even more so than at the word home. He’d spent most of his childhood here in South Village trying to get out and all of his adulthood trying to forget.

Now he was back, indefinitely.

Dropping his things on the bed in the room that was to be his for the duration, he turned to her. “Yep.” Because she was looking unsure, he opened his arms, relieved when she leaped into them, hugging him tight.

“I know you said you would.” Her head didn’t come up to his shoulder. Against his chest, she smiled. “And you haven’t ever broken a promise, I just wanted to hear you say it again.”

God, she was young. She was so smart that sometimes he forgot how young she was. Honest relief flooded him that he was able to give her something, anything, other than his usual phone call. “I’ll stay as long as it takes,” he promised, thinking of Asada. He’d gone to see Agent Brewer on the way here, but there’d been no news.

So he concentrated on the here and now, how Rachel had looked downstairs, how she’d stopped his heart with just her eyes and how incredible it felt holding his kid—God, his kid. He wondered at the sharp ache in his heart. Why did it hurt so much to love her? “How does that sound, my staying as long as it takes?”

A grin split her face, a glorious answer, and his strange hurt faded.

Face flushed with happiness, she wriggled away. She danced and whirled to the door, all gangly arms and legs, and for a moment, Ben was lost in time, seeing Rachel as she’d looked thirteen years prior.

She’d been all arms and legs, too, he remembered. And the pang came back, sharper than before. What a miserable time in his life that had been, struggling to survive when he’d been little more than a kid. And Rachel had been his bright spot.

His hope.

Just as Emily was now.

“I’m gonna cook tonight,” she announced proudly. “A celebration dinner. Mac and cheese.”

“Celebration?” He doubted Rachel would be up for that. Her once creamy skin had seemed nearly transparent and bruised with exhaustion. She’d barely been able to hold her head up as she’d flashed those huge, angry, hurting eyes on him. If he hadn’t still been so unnerved at being here, so tensed and battle-ready, it might have broken his heart. “I don’t think tonight is a good night—”

“It’s a perfect night,” Emily assured him. “Mom’s where she wants to be and I have both my parents in the same place.”

Uh-oh. Ben might claim not to know a lot about the intricate workings of a female mind, but he knew warning signals when they blared in his brain.

And man, were they ever blaring now. “You know my being here is because you managed, God knows how, to pull a fast one on your mom.” And because a madman wants to destroy me. “Not because she and I are back together.”

Emily sobered. “Are you mad at me?”

With Asada on the loose he’d have had to come regardless. “No,” he said honestly.

“Mom’s mad.”

“Good guess. Em…tell me you know this is just temporary.”

“You just wait.” She twirled again and executed some sort of ballet movement that had his eyes crossing as he tried to follow her. “You’re going to love being here so much,” she said, breathless now, “that you won’t want to ever leave us.”

Damn. “Emmie—”

“Gotta get the dinner started. Catch ya in a few!”

And she was gone, leaving Ben blinking in her dust.

He was doing the right thing, he assured himself as he sank to the bed. Though he felt like he was suffocating here, he was doing the right thing.

He would not do as he’d been doing for years. He would not run and lose himself in some jungle. Or in some guerilla skirmish. Or in some forsaken desert somewhere. His camera and his need to capture the good photo, the story would have to wait this time.

He slipped his hand into his pocket, bringing out a copy of the second letter he’d received from Asada, which had been farther down in his stack of mail back in the South American jungle.

The authorities had the original, another fastidiously clean piece of stationary with precise folds and meticulous handwriting. In contrast to the pristine paper, the text was enough to make him feel sick: “Dear Ben, Just as you have ruined my life, I will ruin yours. Your most faithful enemy, Manuel Asada.”

The South American authorities were on Ben’s side completely. Asada had escaped, and this wasn’t only an embarrassment, but a huge threat. If they didn’t find him, it was only a matter of time before he’d set up another charity scam or kill without conscience to protect his business.

Or come here to exact revenge…if he hadn’t already. Ben felt a terrible, agonizing certainty Asada had somehow caused Rachel’s accident.

It wouldn’t happen again. Yes, eventually, Ben would have to explain the regular police drive-bys to Rachel and Emily, but now that he’d seen Rachel and the extent of her injuries, he was more convinced than ever she shouldn’t know until she was stronger.

Besides, how did one explain to his daughter and the woman who hated him that he’d inadvertently put their lives on the line? That there was a madman out to get them? It would make Rachel all the more dependent on him, something she’d hate with every fiber of her being.

Right or wrong, he had to wait. And if in the meantime, it put more pressure on him to protect them, to be something he’d never been able to be in Rachel’s eyes, then so be it. It was nothing less than he deserved for bringing them this danger in the first place.

BEN FOUND RACHEL right where he’d left her, sitting in her chair in the spacious living room, facing the huge set of windows. That damn ugly cap was still in place, hiding her hair from him. Her right arm and leg were in air casts. He knew that her ribs were cracked and that sitting there for so long must be torture. But he knew also that it had to be painful to shift positions.

She should have looked ridiculous. Miserable. At the very least, pathetic.

Instead, she looked as beautiful as ever. Maybe more so. Despite the fading bruises, her face was aristocratic, her skin smooth. Her body, what little he could see of it, was still long and sleek, and still made him yearn.

He could vividly remember a long-ago night when they’d sat in a hidden-away spot in the botanical gardens behind city hall. Rachel’s long blond hair rippling over his arm, that lithe, soft body spread beneath his in the grass, her huge, melting eyes filled with heat and fear and hope as she gave herself for the first time, to him. His first time, too, and in spite of the fact their birth control had failed them—the condom broke—that night still stood unrivaled to anything he’d experienced since.

She didn’t acknowledge him as he moved into the living room, and he wanted her to. “What happened to the person who hit you?” he asked.

“They never found him.”

He sucked in a breath. Oh yeah, Asada had done it.

Emily could be next.

Ben’s stomach quivered as he mentally added this to the long list of things he’d screwed up. Are you good for anything, Benny boy? No. No, he wasn’t.

Unaware of his personal hell, Rachel stared down at her hands, her words coming out slowly. “I’d almost rather it be a hit-and-run than someone who’d just made a terrible mistake. This…this torture of mine wouldn’t be erased by destroying someone else’s life as well.”

That Rachel had once nearly destroyed his life didn’t escape him. By the time she’d finished with him, Ben had felt every bit as battered and bruised as she looked now, except his injuries had been invisible.

Did she really look at him and feel nothing? And why did he care? Did he feel something when he looked at her?

Yes, he could admit, he did. Mostly anger and humiliation. She’d been taught to not express herself, but somehow he’d gotten Rachel to open up to him. It’d been like watching a flower bloom, beautiful and arousing. They’d been two lost souls made into one, yet she’d thrown it away with an ease that chilled him even now.

Good, there was more of that anger he needed in order to keep his distance. He’d just see her comfortable, then go make some calls regarding her accident and then stay away from her until he could leave. But when he stepped closer, took in her grim expression, her pale face, the way her good hand clasped her casted one, he was filled with alarm to see her trembling with the effort to remain upright. “Hey, let’s get you get into bed.”

She didn’t respond, which made him feel like an unwelcome slug. Not a new feeling for him, but it bugged him nevertheless. He put himself in her line of vision and reached out for the cap that shaded her eyes from him.

“Don’t.” Coming to life, she struggled to lift her arm, holding the ugly thing in place.

“I want to see your eyes.” Liar. You wanted to see if her hair was as glorious and thick and curly as it used to be.

“Why?” She flashed those eyes up at him now, wide and furious and full of pride as she stubbornly held on to the cap.

At least the temper was a hell of an improvement over the sadness and vulnerability. Not that he really cared. She’d fixed that for him a long time ago. He was simply here to make sure he didn’t bring his personal hell down on her.

“L-leave the cap.”

“I want to see the real you, what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking I wish you could leave.”

He couldn’t help it; he laughed. It was that, or lose it entirely. Go away, Benny. Go away, Ben. Go away… “I just remembered one of the things I used to admire most about you,” he muttered. “Stubborn as a bull.” He rose, moved behind her and grabbed her chair. “Nothing’s changed. Let’s go.”

When he would have shifted her chair forward, she set her good hand on the wheel. “No.”

Afraid to hurt her fingers, Ben stilled. “I’m taking you to your room where you’ll lie down and rest, damn it. You’re so tired you’re shaking. You have black circles under your eyes, you haven’t been eating near enough and—”

“You’re my nurse, not my mother.”

He looked down at the top of her head. “Well, since we both know what a peachy job your mother did, let’s leave her out of this.”

“How dare you throw my past in my face! You, of all people.”

Oh, he dared, and she’d riled him good now. Their past was exactly what had brought them here together. Their past often kept him up at night with flashes of remembered heat and passion.

Their past was one of the emotional highlights in his life, pathetic as that was to admit.

Torn between being infuriated and turned on at the same time, he let loose. “And as your nurse, I say take off the stupid hat.” Before she could react, he whisked it off her head.

And froze.

Her soft, flowing hair was…gone, leaving a short, choppy cut of maybe an inch or so. Then there was the three-inch long jagged surgery scar behind her left ear that made him want to throw up. “Rachel. My God,” he whispered, horrified at the extent of what she’d been through. Clasping the ridiculous hat to his chest, he turned the chair so he could look into her face, prepared to hate himself for reducing her to tears.

But he’d forgotten, Rachel would never allow him to do such thing to her. Crying in public would be unacceptable. Crying in front of him would be tantamount to a disaster.

Instead, regal as ever, she remained utterly calm, her head high. Eyes bright, she sent him a fiery look. “I h-hate you.”

Oh, yeah, he believed it. He even deserved it, more than she knew. Gently, he put the cap back on her head, his fingers brushing over the warm, smooth skin of her neck. “I’m sorry.”

“Go away.”

“Rachel—”

“No! Don’t even look at me.”

Her fair skin had reddened furiously, and he realized they absolutely were not on the same plane, that she apparently thought the sight of her had sickened him. “No, wait. God. Rachel—” He dragged in a deep, ragged breath. “Look, my horror is for what you’ve been through, not for what you look like. You look…”

Stunning was all he could think, staring into her wide, lovely eyes. Brave and lovely and desirable. But she’d never believe that. “Alive. Rachel, you look alive. Isn’t that all that matters?”

She didn’t say a word, but her chest rose and fell with her agitated breathing, and being nothing less than a very weak man, his eyes caught there, mesmerized by the surprisingly lush twin mounds of her breasts.

“You mean ugly,” she whispered.

A sound escaped his throat before he could control it. “No. That’s most definitely not what I mean.” He drew another deep breath and shook his head to clear it. “You’re wrong, very wrong.”

“Just go away.”

As those were hauntingly familiar words, he swore softly beneath his breath, fought with the demons that urged him to do just that, then placed his hands on her chair. “We’re out of here.”

“To where?” she asked, panic laced in her voice.

“To where I should have taken you when I first got here. Bed.”

FROM EMILY’S PERCH on the open loft, lying flat on her belly next to the top of the spiral staircase, with only her eyes peering over the side, she watched her parents and bit her lip. This was not quite the joyful reunion she’d imagined. But she was no longer a child. She knew life sometimes sucked. And yet…she could fix this. She could. If her mom and dad weren’t happy to see each other, she’d just make them happy. How hard could it be?

All her life she’d been told how brilliant she was, how extraordinary. She loved that word, extraordinary. Mostly because when she looked in the mirror she saw nothing but frizzy hair that gel didn’t fix, too many freckles and a geeky smile. Where was her extraordinariness? Maybe it would come when she got boobs, but what if she never got any and, just like her Aunt Mel, had to buy them?

Her mom had said her extraordinariness came from her brain, which worked like a well-honed machine. Well, she’d made good use of it then, regardless of the tangled web she’d woven by gathering them both here. She wouldn’t waste the effort.

All she had to do was get them to fall in love. Unfortunately, she knew little about that particular emotion. Desperate, she’d just gotten off the phone with Mel, figuring since her aunt had a new boyfriend every other day, she’d have lots of ideas. Emily had explained she was asking for a friend, but Mel had laughed and said she and her friends were too young for love.

Thanks, Aunt Mel.

Far below her in the living room, her father pushed her mother’s wheelchair. His face, now that he thought no one was looking at him, had lost some of that easygoing, laid-back attitude that was so innately him, replaced by a tenseness that shook her.

What was the matter? Well, besides everything?

Her mother’s expression, tight and angry, didn’t surprise her in the least. Emily had some serious kissing up to do. Probably dishes for a month, maybe more. She’d probably lost TV privileges too. Losing her beloved reality shows and MTV seemed like a small price to pay if they fell in love again.

When they were gone from view, she slid down the fireman’s pole and dropped to the middle of the living room, trying to ignore that tingling of guilt in the pit of her belly. Because, darn it, if she was as special as everyone said, then she knew what was best for her parents. And what was best for them was to be together, on the same continent for a change. That’s why she’d done it, blabbed about her mother’s situation to her father. Told Aunt Mel that they’d hired a nurse. Let her mother think Mel had gotten them that nurse.

Because now that everyone had done what she’d wanted, things could fall into place. All she had to do was make it happen.

MANUEL ASADA crawled through the Brazilian jungle for days upon days, and finally came out at his compound. Exhaustion and unaccustomed lack of even the most basic luxury had him weaving with weakness. He’d been on the move for too long, and could barely think, but the sight of his old fortress gave him a surge of energy.

It’d been searched and pillaged, of course, because thanks to Ben Asher, the authorities were hunting him down like an animal. Damn them all, his home was now barely a shell of what it had once been. Windows gone, inside gutted, dirtied…trashed. Disgusting. They’d pay for that, too.

That he’d gotten here at all was a miracle. He’d made it by the skin of his teeth, bribing when he’d had to, pulling from his dwindling stash of cash as it had been necessary. And it had been, several times. The entire experience—jail, the escape, being on the run—had sent him reeling with memories of his penniless, loveless, thankless childhood.

He could kill for that alone, that he’d relived being a professional beggar by the time he was four…but first things first.

His compound, once hopping with activity, mocked him with silence in the growing night, making him shudder. God, he really hated silent and dark.

Most of his minions had fled or been taken to jail, which left slim pickings. Two were still in the States, quaking in their boots, awaiting his further instructions after screwing up the murder of Rachel Wellers. He’d had some time to think about that now. By all accounts via his laptop, which he’d plugged in at various villages when he could, the woman had suffered greatly and continued to do so. Asada liked that; he liked that a lot. He intended for them all to suffer even more. Soon as he got himself reorganized. “Carlos, the place is filthy.”

“Yes, but you’ve been gone a long time.” The man’s voice wobbled with fear.

As it should. Everyone knew how Asada felt about dirt, how crazy it made him. Being treated like a parasite in a filthy jail cell hadn’t helped. Nor had being on the run ever since.

They couldn’t go inside; there’d be men around, looking for him to do that very thing. But beneath the compound lay a secret underground bunker. They’d once used it as a supply container but now it would become his home.

Carlos raced ahead of him as they made their way toward the hidden door that would lead to a set of stairs. Manuel waited while the trembling Carlos used his own shirt on the dusty door handle. They stepped inside but didn’t turn on the light—they couldn’t, not while he was still being hunted like a dog, and besides, there was no electricity. It was unthinkable that after all these years of building his empire, amassing fortune upon fortune, that this could happen. But it had.

He had been brought back to zero. Back to the old days, when he’d begged for money, sold himself, whatever it took. With a deep breath, he strode inside the dark, damp cellar and lit a single small oil lantern. Then he very carefully pulled out his small laptop from his pack, blew a speck of dust off the top. He didn’t turn it on, not yet. He wanted to conserve the gas in the generator. But he’d go online later, to check on the progress of what was happening in the States.

Once upon a time, just above him had been the center of his universe. Now, on top of this Brazilian mountain, hunkered beneath his multimillion dollar compound that gave him his multimillion dollar view, and he didn’t even dare go up there to survey his domain.

The fact that he couldn’t so much as show his face anywhere without possible retribution filled him with an unholy fury for which he had no outlet. He stalked over to a box of office supplies and pulled out a sheet of stationery. “You’re going to hike back into the city—preferably without getting yourself killed—and get this mailed,” he told Carlos.

“Sir, the others and I, we were wondering when we were going to get paid—”

The others were a handful of equally pathetic, worthless minions who deserved to be hung for letting this happen to him, their savior. “Go away until I’m ready for you.”

“Yes, but—”

“Go away and don’t come back until the entire cellar is spotless, not one speck of dust left.”

“Sí.”

Alone again, Manuel begun to write. “Dear Ben…”

CHAPTER FIVE

BEN PUSHED Rachel’s chair forward, then hesitated at the base of the spiral staircase in her living room. “Where’s your bedroom?”

Rachel hesitated, too. It just seemed too surreal, having him right here, behind her, his hands so close to touching her where they rested on the wheelchair grips by her shoulders. Plus, he’d leaned down to hear her answer, which meant she could smell him, feel his heat, his strength…

“Rachel? Your bedroom?”

How had this happened? How was he standing here, in control, in her house?

Because she’d been outsmarted by her own child, that’s how! All those years of successfully avoiding him, and here he was. Unbelievable. “This is so not necessary.”

“Your bedroom, Rach. Or, if you’d rather, I can take you to mine.” He shifted her chair around to look at her, so that she couldn’t avoid his dark eyes that had already managed to see past her carefully erected defenses.

She stared at the silver stud in his ear and did her best to ignore the blatant sexuality that rolled off him in waves. “Mine will do,” she said primly.

His sigh brushed over the cap she’d shoved back on her head. Then he straightened, his hands on his hips. His shirt pulled taut over his chest that she remembered being lean, almost too lean.

But he’d filled out. He was still rangy, still tough, but his young body had grown into a man’s.

Not that she was noticing.

“Someone else could help me,” she said desperately. “Anyone else. It doesn’t have to be you.”

“Where is your bedroom?”

She sighed. “Upstairs.”

He eyed the firefighter’s pole, then the spiral staircase. “I don’t think the stairs are going to work.”

“The elevator.”

“You have an elevator.” He let out a low whistle. “Why am I not surprised?”

Since he’d walked in her front door, she’d been holding herself tense, and it hurt. She wanted to be alone, to let go. The only way to do that was to appease him for now. “The place is a renovated firehouse. It came with the elevator. I didn’t add it.”

“You sound a little defensive.”

She ground her back teeth into powder. Hell, yes, she was defensive. She was always defensive. She’d learned young to shut herself down, happily existing in an emotional vacuum. Until Ben had come along, that is. Without a dime to his name, he’d done what no one else ever had—showed her all the things so missing from her own world…passion, emotion. Life. He’d wanted her, not just physically, and had never failed to show her so.

The force of what he’d felt back then, crashing into her cold, impersonal world, had terrified her. With good reason. Their fundamental differences had turned out to be a bridge impossible to cross.

Yet, you’d crossed it, came the unwelcome thought. For six months you crossed it and thrived on it.

Ben pushed her into the elevator. They waited in agitated silence for the doors to slide shut, and once they did, Rachel wished they hadn’t.

The space was small and lined with mirrors, which meant she could see herself, reduced and weak and defenseless in the damn chair. Worse, she could see him standing tall and strong behind her. “This is ridiculous.”

“My being here?” Ben locked his eyes on hers in the reflection of the mirrors. “Get used to it.”

That got a rough laugh from her, and a sharp pain shot through her ribs for the effort. It robbed her of breath, of all thought, and she squeezed her eyes shut, tensing up with a small cry.

Big hands settled on her thighs, surprisingly gentle for their size, as was his low, urgent voice. “Relax. Let it go. Breathe, Rachel.”

No, she wasn’t going to breathe, that would hurt worse. She was never going to breathe or move again. “Go…away.”

“Breathe,” he repeated, running his fingers lightly over her thighs. “Come on, slow and easy. In and out.”

She did and, shockingly enough, it helped. So did his voice, talking to her softly, over and over, reminding her to relax, breathe. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see him kneeling in front of her. “That…was your fault.”

“Undoubtedly. Everything is my fault. Keep breathing now. Slow and easy.”

“I know how to breathe.”

He surged to his feet as the elevator door opened and turned away from her. “What I’m surprised at,” he noted casually, pushing her off the elevator, “is that you still know how to laugh.”

She sucked in a gulp of air and tried to pretend that comment didn’t hurt worse than her ribs. Oh, yes, she knew how to laugh—he’d taught her. Had he forgotten? Forgotten everything they’d once meant to each other?

She was silent as he wheeled her down the hallway lined with collages of photos from the years past, starting with Emily’s birth. One shot of Emmie—small and red, wrinkled and furious, howling as she told the world how she felt about being born. Another of Rachel holding her bundle of joy, smiling with wet eyes at the now quiet baby, who stared right back at her. The two of them. Even then, it had been just the two of them against the world.

Later photos of Emily learning to walk, sitting on Rachel’s lap while Rachel drew a Gracie comic strip on her easel, another of Emily putting candles in a homemade cake for her mother’s birthday.

There was a shot of Melanie on one of her visits from Santa Barbara, puckering up for Emily’s four-foot teddy bear. A picture of the firehouse when they’d first purchased it, before renovations. And then subsequent pictures of Rachel and Emily and Melanie, covered in paint as they worked on the place. There was a picture of her neighbor Garrett with Emily riding on his shoulders. A picture of Gwen, Rachel’s agent, her arms around both Rachel and Emily, who held Rachel’s first impressive royalty check.

Behind her, Ben said nothing, and she wondered if he was even looking at the pictures, looking and feeling odd for not being in a single one. Did he feel left out?

Strange, but she didn’t want him to. Despite everything, she didn’t want that. She had Emily, her greatest gift, her greatest joy, because of him. She owed him for that, which was why, whenever he’d asked, she’d sent Emily to him via Melanie.

Bottom line was, she had this house and Emily. This was her world—stable, safe and secure. It meant everything.

In comparison, Ben had a duffel bag and a few cameras to his name. That was it as far as she knew. He liked it that way, or he had.

That they’d made it together for even six months so long ago seemed amazing now.

“Rach?” As if she were the finest, most fragile piece of china, Ben set a light, careful hand on her shoulder. “You okay? You’ve gone quiet and pale on me.”

His fingers brushed her collarbone like a feather, and a shiver raced down her spine. Not signifying cold, but something far more devastating. “I’m…fine.”

Another brush of those fingers, a testing one this time, while his eyes held hers. “Rachel,” he murmured. “It’s still there. Can you feel it?”

“I—” No, she wanted to say, but lying was ridiculous when surely he could feel the blood pounding through her body at just a single touch. Again, he squatted in front of her.

“You still have those eyes,” he murmured. “The ones that make me melt.”

She let out a nervous smile.

He smiled back.

“I have no idea why I’m smiling at you.”

His fingers traveled up, up, cupped her face. “I don’t care. Just keep doing it.”

She stopped breathing. His gaze was locked on hers as he slowly let his thumbs stroke her jaw. Her body responded, giving her a jolt of pleasure instead of pain for once, as if it recognized that this man, and only this man, had given her such incredible pleasure.

Ben let out a rough, disbelieving sound, then cupped the back of her head, gently holding her still as he shifted his mouth toward hers.

Move, Rachel told herself, and she did—closer, matching up their lips. It was unfathomable, unthinkable. He had no business touching her, and she had no business wanting him to, but she did. Oh, how she did.

The first light touch of lip to lip dissolved her bones, and all the pain with it. Needing the balance, she put out her right hand, gripping his chest. Beneath his shirt, his heart thumped steadily. A bit dazed now, she simply stared up at him.

With a soft murmur of her name, he changed the angle of her head and connected again. His mouth was warm, firm, giving, so beautifully giving that her eyes drifted shut and she lost her ability to put words together, to do anything but feel.

His tongue lightly stroked her lips. Struck by a familiarity and strangeness all at once, she moaned, then again when a slow, deep thrust of his tongue liquefied her. She fisted her fingers in his shirt, holding him close, making him groan deep in his throat.

The sound was raw, staggeringly sensual, but then he was pulling back, letting out a slow breath.

She did the same, but it didn’t change the fact she could still taste him and wanted, needed, more.

But that had never been their problem, the wanting.

“Your bedroom,” he said a little roughly.

“The next room down.”

He moved behind her, gripped her chair. Once inside, he stopped. There was a picture hanging on the wall, an eight-by-ten from two years before, of Emily wearing a sundress, beaming from ear to ear, holding up her elementary school diploma. Her eyes sparkled with such joy, such life, it hurt to even look at her, but Rachel looked anyway, just as she sensed Ben looking.

Did he see it? The resemblance, not so much physical, though that was there, too, but the very essence? The soul? It must have been like looking in a mirror.

God knows their daughter hadn’t gotten her sense of adventure and spirit from Rachel. Before Ben, she’d had nothing like that until he’d come along and had shared his. He’d done more than share: he’d somehow gotten so close, he’d breathed his very being into her, bringing her to life during the time they’d had together.

But Emily…she’d been full of life from day one.

“She’s beautiful,” Ben said quietly. “Like you.”

“Ben—”

“Let’s get you into bed.”

For a moment she thought he’d said “let’s get into bed,” and her heart jerked. Yes.

No.

But when he came to stand in front of her, his face was grim, so obviously her brain was messing with her again. “Don’t try to move,” he said. “I’ll lift you.”

She stopped breathing, realizing just that very second what his being here really meant. He was going to have to help her, look at her.

Touch her.

Before the panic fully gripped her, he moved, not toward her, but to her dresser, where he randomly opened one of her drawers. Shaking his head at the rows of socks, he closed it and opened another.

“What are you looking for?”

He lifted a loose, flowing silky camisole and matching bottoms, and his eyebrows at the same time. “Wow.”

The two pieces were the palest of blue, softer than baby’s breath, and her favorite thing to sleep in. And yet dangling from his long fingers, the innocent pj’s suddenly seemed like the sexiest things she’d ever seen.

She was not putting them on.

“You used to wear buttoned-up-to-the-chin flannel to bed, remember?”

“I was a kid.”

Something flickered in his eyes. “Not so much.”

Before she could come up with something to say to that, he’d tossed the pj’s on his shoulder and started toward her.

In spite of the exhaustion, the pain, she managed to shake her head. “I am not putting that on for you.”

He turned down her bed and laughed, a low, husky sound that grated at every hormone in her entire body. “You’re right about that. You’re putting it on for you.”

“Ben.”

“Rachel,” he mimicked, then in opposition to his easygoing toughness, he slid his arms around her, making her breath back up in her throat, making every single thought dance right out of her head.

“Easy now,” he murmured. “It’s loose and stretchy, so it should go on easily.” And gently, so gently she felt like she was being lifted by air, he rose with her in his arms. “Okay?” His eyes roamed her features, his mouth tight in concern.

A concern she didn’t want. “Put me down.”

He did, on the bed, and a myriad of things hit her at once. Pain from the jarring, no matter how careful he’d been. Comfort from the feel of her own bed after so many weeks. And sheer overwhelming devastation from the feel of his hands on her.

Then he reached for the buttons on her short-sleeved blouse. She let out a sound that make his gaze jerk up to hers.

“You can’t undress yourself,” he said reasonably.

“I’ll— I’ll sleep in my clothes.”

“Oh, that’ll be comfortable.” He looked into her stubborn face and sighed, stroking a light finger over her cheekbone. “You’re wearing your exhaustion like a coat. Just let me help you.”

She opened her mouth and he put his finger to it. “There was a time you let me help you with anything. Remember?”

She didn’t want to remember, but somehow his touch, like his kiss, insinuated itself past her bone deep weariness and pain, and struck her like a bolt of awareness lightning. “Get Emily. She’ll help me.”

Slowly Ben shook his head and removed the bunny slippers Emily had put on her feet at the hospital. “She’s making you dinner. Mac and cheese. She’s under the impression you’re going to bounce right back now that you’re home. Bringing her up here now, when you look half a breath away from death, would only scare her.”

She closed her eyes when his fingers brushed over her buttons again, squeezed them tighter as he pulled the blouse open and gently off her shoulders, past the cast on her arm, taking such slow, aching, tender care with her broken body she felt her eyes burn.

No. No falling apart until you’re alone.

He unhooked her bra and slid it off before pulling the stretchy, laced pj’s top over her head, very tenderly guiding her casted arm through the wide armhole. The material tugged at her nipples, and a shocking bolt of desire streaked through her.

Her eyes flew open, met his. Once upon a time he’d caused that reaction, in quite different circumstances. Did he remember? Judging from the strain in his face, the slight tremble to his hands as he dragged her loose pants down her legs, hardly shifting her casted leg at all, he did remember.

Determined to feel nothing as he pulled on her pj’s bottoms, then covered her up with the comforter on her bed, she concentrated on breathing, concentrated on not going down memory lane every single time she so much as glanced at him.

He moved off the bed and opened her bedroom window, letting in some of the early evening breeze. And unbidden, another memory hit her. Him crossing her bedroom just like he was now, his tall, lanky form turning to shoot her a crooked grin as he eased open her window and swung a leg over the sill at the crack of dawn, preparing to leave after a long, forbidden night of touching, kissing, talking, loving.

Now, Ben’s mouth curved wryly with the same memory. “I guess this time I can use the door instead of nearly killing myself climbing down the trellis. Remember?”

Her body shuddered. It was damn hard to feel nothing, to refuse to go down memory lane with him saying “Remember?” in that sexy voice every two minutes. “Tell me again why you have to do this, Ben. Why you have to stay.”

He turned away. “Do you really think that little of me, that you believe I wouldn’t?”

“I think you’re crazy if you expect me to fall for the reasoning that you want to be here, in South Village, tied to one house, one spot, when everything within you yearns to be on the move.”

He moved to the door. “Well, then, call me crazy.”

“But why? You can’t want to be here.”

“This has nothing to do with what I want.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Just get better. Get better and it’ll be over before you know it. Then you can go back to your safe, sterile life and forget I bothered you for one moment of it.”

The door shut behind him, and before she could obsess, sleep took over her battered body, releasing her from thinking, aching, wondering.

But not from dreaming.

TWO MONTHS BEFORE high school graduation, National Geographic contacted Ben. They wanted him to intern with one of their photographers for the summer in Venezuela. If that worked out, he’d have an assignment waiting for him in the fall in South Africa.

“Come with me,” he said to Rachel.

They sat in their hidden-away spot in the botanical gardens behind city hall, their common meeting place, halfway between their respective houses.

Rachel lifted her gaze off the letter in his hands and stared at him. He was more animated than she’d ever seen him, even in the throes of passion, and she knew why. He’d been waiting his entire life to leave this town, and now he had a chance.

But she’d been waiting her entire life to stay in one place longer than it took to order and cancel cable service. She’d moved once a year for as long as she could remember, and she was weary, so damn weary.

She loved South Village; loved the joyous crowds, the urban streets, the sights, the smells, everything. This town was her life, her heart. She loved it here and didn’t want to leave, not even for Ben. If she left, her life with him would be no different than it was now—just a blur of moving, moving, moving, when all she wanted was a home.

“Rach?”

“I want to stay.”

“No, we have to go. There’s nothing for me here, you know that.”

Actually, she’d only guessed, as he never told her about his family. It was the one thing he’d always refused to discuss.

“It’s my future,” he said hoarsely, telling her only how much this meant to him, but not why.

Oh, God, letting him go, watching him walk away, would be like ripping out a part of her, the best part. “I can’t.” Her heart got stuck in her throat because she knew. He was destined to go.

And she was destined to stay.

“You’ll come,” he said confidently. But they didn’t speak of it again because shortly after that Rachel caught the flu—a nasty bug that dragged on and on, weakening her, tiring her.

After watching her throwing up every afternoon at four o’clock on the dot for a week running, Ben took her to a clinic. “Does she need antibiotics?” he demanded of the doctor, squeezing her hand as they waited for an answer.

“Nope.” The doctor shook his head. “What you’re cooking isn’t contagious. It’s a baby.”

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