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Ben put on a frown. “So then you don’t want this cake….”
She grabbed for it, laughing. “Don’t you dare take that away.”
He handed over one of the plates and she gestured him inside. They sat on the couch as they always did when he brought dessert.
She took a couple of slow, savoring bites. “I don’t know how Anton does it. Red velvet cake always looks so good, you know? But as a rule, it’s a disappointment.”
He nodded. “I know. It’s usually dry. And too sweet.”
“But not Anton’s red velvet cake.” She treated her mouth to another slow bite. “Umm. Perfect. Moist. And the cream cheese frosting is to die for. So good …”
Ben laughed. “You should see your face.”
“Can you tell I’m in heaven? Good company and a really well-made red velvet cake. What more is there to life?”
“You’re happy. I like that.”
She gave him a bright smile, ate yet another dreamy bite of the wonderful cake. “You know, we really should go into that little town, Chula Mesa, one of these nights.”
He swallowed, lowered his fork. His dark eyes shone. “We?”
“Yeah. You. Me. Donovan.”
“Donovan.” Ben spoke flatly now. “Of course, Donovan.”
“No, really. I think it would be good for him, for all three of us, to get out of this house for a while. We could invite Anton and Olga, too. Make it a group outing.”
Ben wasn’t exactly jumping up and down with excitement at the prospect of a night out with his boss. “Have you brought this up to him?”
“Just that first night.” She made a show of rolling her eyes. “You remember how well that went.”
“What can I say? You can’t make him do what he doesn’t want to do.”
“Ben, he needs to get out. He’s … hiding here. He’s made this house into his fortress—you know that he has. It’s not good for him.”
Ben lowered his half-finished plate to his lap. “Listen to you. You’re getting way too invested in him.”
“What’s wrong with that? You said it yourself, that first night. You said he needed someone like me around.”
“I didn’t mean that you should make him into a … project.”
“But I’m not.”
“Abilene. You’re his protégé. Not his therapist.”
“Which is a very good question. Does he have a therapist—a counselor I mean, someone to talk to? If he spent half as much time trying to figure out what’s going on inside him as he does in the gym downstairs, he’d be a much happier person. Not to mention, more fun to be around.”
“No. He doesn’t have a counselor.”
“Well, he should. And he should get out. We should work together on this, you and me, make it a point to get him to—”
“Abilene. Stop.” Ben set his plate down, hard.
She blinked. “What?”
“I’ll go with you, okay?” He spoke with intensity. With passion, almost. “Into Chula Mesa, to Luisa’s. We can have a few drinks. A few laughs, just the two of us.”
Just the two of us.
Suddenly, the rich cake was too much. She set it down, half-finished, next to Ben’s. “Ben, I …”
He sat very still. And then he smiled. It was not a particularly pleasant smile. “Not interested, huh?”
“Ben …”
His lip still curled. But now, not in any way resembling a smile. “Just answer the question.”
There was no good way to say it. “No. I’m not. Not in that way.”
He let out a slow breath, and then smoothed his hair back with both hands. “Well, at least you didn’t say how much you like me. How much you want to be friends.” “But, I do. On both counts. You know I do.” She wanted to touch him. To soothe him. But that would be beyond inappropriate, given the circumstances. “But my liking you and wanting to be your friend … neither of those is the issue right now, is it?”
“No, they’re not. The issue is that I want more. And you don’t.” Now he looked openly angry. “It’s Donovan, right?”
She gaped. “Donovan? Not on your life.”
He grunted, nodded his head. “Yeah. It’s Donovan.”
“Ben. Come on. I don’t even like him.”
“Yeah. You do. You like him a lot.” He stood. “I think that you and I need to redefine the boundaries.”
She hated that. But he was right. “Yes. I agree. I think we do.”
“If you want to know about Donovan, you should ask him yourself. If you want to go to Chula Mesa with him, tell him so. If you think he needs a shrink, say so. Say it to him. Leave me out of it. Please.”
He left her, shutting the door a little too loudly behind him.
“What did you do to Ben?” Donovan demanded when she walked into the studio the next morning bright and early.
As if she was answering that one. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, come on. I know he’s got a thing for you.”
She took a careful breath. Let it out slowly. “If you knew that, you might have mentioned it to me before now.”
“I thought it was none of my business.”
“Oh, right. Because you’re so considerate of other people and all.” She was standing in front of her drafting table.
He rolled out from behind his twin computer screens and came at her, fast, stopping cleanly a foot from her shoes. “He left a half hour ago.”
Her throat clutched. She gulped. “What do you mean, left?”
“He packed his suitcases and he left. He said he needed to get out of this house, away from here. Far away.”
“For … how long?”
Donovan blew out a breath. “Abilene. He quit.”
She felt awful. Yes, Ben had been upset last night. But she’d never imagined he would just pack up and move out, just walk away from a job he’d had for two years now. “But where will he go?”
Donovan stared up at her. His sky-colored eyes, as always, saw far too clearly. “If you cared that much, you wouldn’t have turned him down when he made his play, now would you?”
She eased backward, around the drafting table, and sank into the swivel chair behind it, not even caring that Donovan would see the move for what it was: a retreat. “How would you know if he made a play for me?”
He let out a low sound—dismissive? Disbelieving? She couldn’t tell which. “I guessed. And since you’re not denying it, I’m thinking I guessed right.”
She threw up both hands. “What do you want me to say?”
“How about the truth?”
“Fine. All right. He did ask me out. I said no.” She glared at him, daring him to say one more word about it.
He said nothing. He only sat there, his strong hands gripping the wheels of his chair, watching her face.
She dropped her hands, flat, to the drafting table, making a hard slapping sound. “Where will he go, Donovan?” Tears of frustration—and yes, guilt, too—tried to rise. She gulped them down, hard.
He rolled a fraction closer and spoke with surprising gentleness. “Stop worrying. He owns a house in Fort Worth, near his family. And he’s an excellent engineer. I gave him a glowing letter of recommendation. He’ll easily find another job. Plus, it wasn’t just you. I think he was getting a little tired of things around here. A little tired of the isolation, of dealing with me. He was ready to move on. And he definitely has options as to what to do next. So please, take my word on it, Ben is going to be fine.”
She stared at him, vaguely stunned. He had just been kind to her, hadn’t he? He’d made a real effort to soothe her worries about Ben.
Had he ever once been kind to her before?
Not that she recalled. And Donovan McRae being kind … that was something she would definitely have remembered.
She pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks, murmured softly, “It’s … kind of you, to say that.”
“Not kind,” he answered gruffly. “It’s only the simple truth.”
A weak laugh escaped her. “You just can’t stand it, can you? To have someone call you kind?”
“Because I’m not kind. I’m a hardheaded SOB with absolutely no consideration for anyone but myself. We both know that.”
She closed her eyes, pressed her fingertips against her shut eyelids and wished she could quit thinking about the things Ben had said last night—about how she had a thing for Donovan. About how, if she had questions for Donovan, she should gut up and ask them of the man himself.
Well, she absolutely did not have a thing for Donovan. Not in the way Ben had meant. She was only … intrigued by him. She was curious about him.
And yes, she wanted to help him get past whatever was eating at him, whatever had made him turn his back on his own life.
Was that so wrong?
He was watching her. Way too closely. “All right.” He pulled a very clever sort of wheelie maneuver, leaning back in the chair, so the wheels lifted a fraction, turning while the wheels were lifted, and then rolling the chair backward until he was sitting beside her at the drafting table. “What terrifying thoughts are racing through that mind of yours?” He almost sounded … friendly.
So she told him. “I think you need someone to talk to.”
“About what?”
“About … all the stuff that’s bothering you. I think you need to see a trained professional.”
He craned away from her in the chair. “A psychiatrist. You think I need a shrink.”
“I do. Yes.”
“No.”
“Just like that?” She raised a hand and snapped her fingers. “No?”
“That’s right. Just like that.”
“Donovan, you’re a very intelligent man. You have to know that there’s no shame in seeking help.”
“I didn’t say there was shame in it. I only said no. And since I am perfectly sane and a danger to no one, I have that right. I’m allowed to say no.”
“It’s not about being sane. I know you’re sane.”
“That’s a relief.” He pretended to wipe sweat off his brow.
“I just thought that if you could talk it out with a professional, if you could—”
“I’ll say it once more, since you have a bad habit of not listening when I say things the first time. No.”
She could see she was getting nowhere on the shrink front. So she moved on to the next issue. “Then how about this? Will you go into Chula Mesa with me some evening?”
He actually groaned. “Didn’t I make it clear two weeks ago that I was not going to Chula Mesa—with you, or otherwise?”
“You could rethink that. You could change your mind. People do that, you know, change their minds?”
“Abilene. Have you ever been in Chula Mesa?”
“Well, besides driving through it, no, I haven’t.”
“I’ve been in Chula Mesa. I’ve seen it all, been there. Done that. I don’t need to go there again.”
“Just … think about it. Please.”
“I fail to understand what a visit to Chula Mesa could possibly accomplish.”
“We’ll get out of the house, see other people, broaden our horizons a little.”
