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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.
