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“Thank you again,” she whispered. She reached up and rubbed her throat, thinking it felt raw as she talked.
“You’ve said that before,” he countered lightly.
She squeezed her daughter closer to her side. She didn’t think she would ever stop saying thank-you. The fear that had consumed her as she’d realized the house was on fire and her daughter was down the hall—her heart pounded just remembering the terror.
“I won’t get tired of saying it. You saved my daughter’s life.” She felt tears come again as she said those words.
The man driving the car rolled his eyes. Ben Mayeaux stiffened with unease.
Bachelors, she could tell. Not used to women, but she couldn’t help it. Her child had almost died. This man had saved them. “You’re my daughter’s hero. I can’t thank you enough for what you did.”
“Yeah. Well…” Ben shifted uncomfortably.
Stephanie cleared her throat. “I know we’re supposed to rest, but is there any way…I mean…” She shrugged, holding her daughter as close as the seat belts would allow. “I really need to stop and see my house today. Just to assure myself. I know it sounds crazy but…”
“No, it doesn’t.” Ben turned to the driver. “John, let’s stop by there first. But it’ll only be for a few minutes,” he added without looking at her.
Stephanie felt duly reprimanded for disobeying doctor’s orders. But she just had to see her house. The fire hadn’t been out when they’d left. She couldn’t explain why it was so important, but she just had to see, to make sure something was there. The fire seemed almost like a dream.
John turned onto the Pride-Port Hudson road before taking another turn onto a road that led to the house.
The first thing she noticed was that there were still small clouds of smoke hanging over the house, coming up in thin spirals from some blackened wood to the side of where her daughter’s room used to be.
The second thing she noticed was that part of her roof was missing.
John pulled into the driveway, the gravel crunching underneath the tires as he rolled to a stop.
“Mama,” Katie whimpered and pointed.
“It’s okay, honey,” Stephanie said, though it wasn’t.
She released her seat belt and pushed open the car door.
The smell of burned wood permeated the air, making her daughter wrinkle her nose.
As Stephanie started toward the house, Ben warned, “Don’t go inside. We don’t know what’s secure.”
Katie clung to her mother’s hand. Stephanie trembled as they walked to the side of the house past the many azaleas and hydrangeas, past the hawthorns and bridal-wreath bushes to where their bedrooms were located. The garden that had contained her flowering perennials had been crushed and was covered with soot. The annuals were gone, trampled and destroyed in the attempts to get her daughter and put out the fire. The walls to the bedrooms had been severely damaged, especially Katie’s room.
Her stomach turned, and she felt queasy as she saw how much damage Katie’s room had sustained.
Her daughter wouldn’t have lived had Ben waited for the firemen to get her out.
“Thank you, God,” she whispered, shuddering.
Katie tugged on her hand, slipped free and ran toward the blackened wood.
“Katie! Watch out. It’s dangerous there.”
“My bear, Mama,” she said, and squatted in the mess that had once been the outside wall to her room.
Stephanie hurried after her and got to her just as she stood.
Sure enough, black-coated but amazingly not too wet or burned, was the white teddy Katie liked to sleep with.
The little girl pounded the bear on the ground. “She’s dirty.”
“She sure is,” Ben said, walking up. “We can wash her out at my house,” he offered.
Stephanie wasn’t sure how well the bear would fare being washed, but she didn’t argue. Instead she said, “Mr. Ben is right. We can clean it all up.”
If only she could say the same thing about the house, she thought as her daughter ran toward the car to show John what she’d found.
Katie didn’t know what a stranger was.
Stephanie surveyed the rest of the house from where she stood.
Ben walked next to her. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“It looks pretty bad,” she said and laughed. It was not a laugh of joy but of welling despair. It was a laugh with a touch of sarcasm, a laugh that escaped to cover the tears that would come otherwise.
She had the oddest feeling Ben knew that as he slipped an arm around her and gave her shoulders a hug.
“We’ll come back tomorrow and go through everything. Just from this side it looks like the fire started toward the back and spread. I guess breaking your daughter’s window gave the fire enough oxygen to really destroy her room, but I’d be willing to bet the rest of the house is intact, if not a little water-and smoke-damaged.”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Standing here…”
“You need to rest.”
Glancing at the man beside her, she realized he was right. She was numb.
He was very perceptive.
Studying him, she realized he wasn’t feeling as well as he sounded, either. “Does your throat hurt as much as mine does?”
A crooked grin tilted one corner of his mouth. “I don’t know. How much does your throat hurt?”
“Feels like a rusty railroad track, and the train derailed somewhere along the line,” she admitted.
He chuckled. “Come on. Let’s go to the house. You can take one of those pills the doctor gave you—after you shower.”
“Clothes!” she said, suddenly realizing all she had were the pajamas she was dressed in.
Ben glanced down, realizing what she was wearing.
“Ah, um…” He stepped away from her, looking acutely uncomfortable. “You can borrow one of my shirts. You really shouldn’t go in there until we’re certain how stable the structure is. And your daughter, well, can she wear a T-shirt maybe?”
He acted like he was embarrassed or unsure of the offer. To her it sounded like a lifeline. “Thank you—again,” she said.
He nodded.
“Let’s go,” he said firmly but gently.
She nodded and headed to the car. “Thank you again,” she whispered as she started to climb in the car.
Ben smiled and said as he shut her door, “We’re going to have to talk about this thank-you thing.”
She thought they could talk, but after seeing what her daughter’s former bedroom looked like, she’d never get tired of saying it.
No matter what he said.
Chapter Four
Family are the people who know everything about you and are willing to comment on everything even if it’s not their business.
—Ben’s Laws of Life
“Do you need to call your boss? Maybe some friends to let them know you’re okay?”
Ben stood in the living room watching the way the little girl, Katie, clung to her mom as her mom hung up the phone from the insurance company and then dialed Katie’s school. She had said those were the two calls she had to make. He thought it was strange that she didn’t call friends or a boss. They looked so odd standing there in his kitchen, covered with soot, dirtying his phone. The child clung to the mother and the grimy teddy bear clutched to her chest with equal desperation.
He wondered what the two saw in his house. Trying to see it through their eyes, he noted the stark wood furniture with the brown cushions. A large tan rug covered part of the polished wooden floor in the lower section of the living room where he stood.
Various pads and pencils were tossed on the coffee table and end tables. The shelf over the fireplace was empty except for a few gifts his sister had gotten him—mugs, a picture of her, her husband and two kids.
There were no knickknacks or crocheted table covers like his grandmother had had sprinkled all over her house. He had some in a box somewhere that he’d gotten when Grandma Betsy had died, but he’d never bothered to unpack them.
He hadn’t understood their use—until now. The house looked sort of bare without such things.
“No. I mean, there’s the church, but then there’s not a lot they can do—except maybe clothes and food—after I figure out what I’ll need. As for friends, well…” She shrugged. “And, well, I’m my own boss, actually. I do ad campaigns for businesses. Art and things like that. Graphics. I also do Web sites.” She shrugged and replaced the phone in the cradle, which rested on the wall near the kitchen.
He was glad he tended to keep a clean—if empty—house. The kitchen had a couple of dirty dishes in the sink, but that was it. The dining room table in front of the patio doors was spotless except for a few more pads of paper.
Suddenly, he smiled triumphantly. There were place mats there—the ones his sister had bought him last Christmas.
Realizing the woman was staring at him, he said, “That’s interesting. You know, I was thinking of hiring someone to create a Web page for me and work up an ad. My business has been picking up this last year, and I wanted to focus on expanding it through the media.”
It was the truth.
It was also an invitation for her to talk. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this awkward around a woman. Seeing her there in her pink frilly pajamas… Oh man, he thought, and almost slapped his head as he realized he’d made her and her daughter continue to stand there, soot-covered, in their pajamas.
“It’s important you have an idea what you want before you get started. Perhaps I could give you some advice,” she offered.
He walked up to the second level of the house, went to the hall and started down it. “I’d like that.”
“Can you perhaps give me an idea how much the repairs might be to the house? I have insurance but I know there’s going to be some out-of-pocket expense. You do those things, so maybe you have an idea?”
He listened to her voice as he dug through his closet and found two shirts. He stopped at the linen closet and dug out towels. She sounded just as nervous as he did, he realized.
He returned to the living room and set his plunder on the table. “Tell you what,” he said, thinking to relax the woman a bit. He had a very bad feeling she was strapped for money. Maybe it was because the pajamas she wore were faded and frayed around the wrists and ankles. Or maybe it was the fact that the little kid’s gown was about three inches too short, both on the legs and arms. “Would you consider doing up a campaign for me if I waived the repair job costs?”
He’d said something wrong, he realized immediately from the way she stiffened. Lifting his hands in a conciliatory gesture, he offered, “We’ll draw up a contract. It’ll be strictly business. But as I was saying earlier, I sure could use some advice on that expansion John and I are planning.”
She hesitated then relaxed. “Let’s discuss that.”
Relieved she hadn’t taken him to task for the crazy offer, he nodded. “Sounds good.”
Rubbing at his throat, he went into the kitchen. “I hope you’ll make yourself at home. Just help yourself if you want drinks or food. I’ll warn you, I’m not the best host in the world. I’m a workaholic,” he ruefully admitted. “I plan to call my company, take a shower and then rest for a while. I’d suggest you two do the same.”
He opened the medication the doctor gave him for pain and downed two pills. He got a glass out of the cabinet next to the sink, slid it into the refrigerator door and filled it up, quickly swallowing the cold water.
At the giggle from the little kid, he turned his head, curious. “You got water out of there,” she informed him.
He blinked. “Yeah.”
“She’s never seen one of those before,” Stephanie said.
“Oh.” Shifting, he shrugged. Deciding to try to win the child’s friendship, he went to the cupboard and pulled out another glass. “You want to try?”
Her eyes lit up as if he’d offered her candy. She scampered across the room and grabbed the glass.
“Push it up against this, like so,” he said, and helped her.
“I can do it,” she informed him immediately and then pushed like he’d showed her and watched the water fill the glass—and overflow.
“Oh, dear,” Stephanie said, coming forward.
“No problem,” Ben said. “Why don’t you two go take a quick shower and I’ll wipe up the spill?”
Stephanie nodded. “Come on, Katie,” she said and slipping her hands to her daughter’s shoulders hurried her off.
Ben shook his head, found a cloth and wiped up the water running down the refrigerator.
Well, that had been an interesting almost conversation, he thought sardonically.
He hoped things eased between them or this was going to be a long few days.
He tossed the cloth into the sink, made a quick call to his office then headed for his room and the shower. It’d been a long morning, and surprisingly all he wanted to do was take a nice long cool shower and then get some shut-eye.
Unfortunately, as he was climbing out of the tub his phone kept him from doing just that. He grabbed a pair of pajama bottoms, slipped into them then snagged the phone.
“Hello?” Cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear, he tied the drawstring and listened.
“Hi, Ben, it’s me, Sunni. Are you okay?”
Ben resisted the urge to sigh. He reached for a comb and quickly ran it through his hair be fore dropping to the bed next to him. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?” He lay the comb on the bedside table.
Of course, he knew why she was asking about him. He should have known she’d have heard by now, especially the way word traveled in small towns, but he just hadn’t had time to think. No excuse—well, maybe two, which were in the other room sleeping right now.
