by Elena Aitken
“Not even a little bit.” Ben grinned and kissed her softly on the lips. “There could never be anything strange about you.”
They stood that way quietly lost in their own thoughts but after a moment, Drew spoke up. “They look so happy, don’t they?”
Ben turned to see where she was looking, because that comment could apply to pretty much all of their friends. It was no surprise, of course, that she was talking about Amber and Logan, who did indeed look ecstatic. “They really do. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Logan smile so much.”
“Amber either.” Drew tipped her head against his chest. “They really do have it all,” she said wistfully. “It kind of gives me hope, you know?”
“Hope for…”
“For me.”
Ben tensed a little.
If it was hope she was looking for, his love would give her all she needed. If only she would allow herself to accept it.
And he had no idea how to make that happen.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The rest of the week had gone by in a flash with Drew working on her website and sample menus for potential clients, and if it hadn’t been for the promise of a real date with Ben, one that involved dinner at a restaurant without a children’s menu—or at least one they weren’t going to look at—Drew would have already been in her sweatpants and curled up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn.
But the appeal of some actual adult time with Ben, just the two of them, was strong, so after finishing up in the kitchen, she showered and even spent extra time on her hair and makeup before picking out a cute dress she hadn’t worn in years. She did a little twirl in front of the mirror and actually laughed at herself moments before the doorbell rang.
“You don’t have to ring the doorbell.” She laughed as she swung open the door to greet Ben.
“Sure I do. It’s a date—” His mouth fell open briefly. “You look…” Ben shook his head and bit his finger as he took her in from head to toe. “Wow,” he finally managed. “You look amazing, Drew.”
She could feel the heat from the blush, but she didn’t try to blow off the compliment. “Thank you.” She bit her lip a little and Ben let out a groan.
“I need to kiss you.” He reached out and pulled her close to him, as he pressed his lips to hers. She moaned a little against his mouth as the sensations shot through her like an electrical charge. The kiss was different from any they’d shared before.
Barely restrained, it held the promise of more. Much more. And considering Ben had arranged for Austin to spend the night with his parents, it was a promise that could be kept.
“Damn, girl.” He pulled back. “I’m not sure I’m even hungry for dinner anymore.”
She laughed, feeling emboldened by his obvious attraction to her. “Forget it,” she said. “I didn’t get dressed up for nothing and I desperately need a night out.”
“And you deserve it.” He lifted the bouquet of flowers she’d only barely noticed in his other hand. “You also deserve these, although they aren’t nearly as beautiful as you.”
“Aren’t you smooth?”
As she took the flowers to put them in water, Ben winked. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
“Well, I can’t wait to see it all then.” She laughed a little at her brazen and obvious flirting as she quickly arranged the flowers in a vase. “Hey.” She walked back to the door. “I was thinking. Since this is our first real, no kid date in ages, let’s turn off our phones. Just for dinner.”
“Really?”
Drew nodded. “Really. For sure. Austin is with your parents and it’s just for dinner. I don’t want to be distracted by anything.”
His smile was slow and sexy as he nodded his agreement. “Drew, the only thing I want to be distracted by is you. Let’s do it.”
Ben had made them reservations at the Riverside Grill, with a window seat overlooking the river. As always, the food was delicious, but it was everything else that was so much better. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she wasn’t worried about the million things that had consumed her for the last few years. The only thing she needed to focus on, and did she ever, was the man in front of her. And it was perfect.
She’d been attracted to Ben for months, but somehow things had shifted. The attraction before was one from the heart. A connection that made her stomach flip and gave her butterflies when he was around. She’d felt drawn to him, safe with him, and sure, when he’d kissed her, it was exciting and new and never failed to stir up desire. But this was different.
Sitting across from him at the table, she couldn’t keep from touching him. The way he looked at her emboldened her as she reached across the table to take his hand and trace small circles on the top of it. She tried not to giggle as Ben continually lost his train of thought during their conversation, and she was not about to object when he suggested they skip dessert and get some fresh air.
“I’ll meet you at the front,” she told him as he finished paying for their dinner. “I just want to freshen up a little bit.”
Drew slipped away and with a smile still plastered to her face, pushed her way past the swinging door into the ladies’ room. She came up short. The smile faded from her face as she almost ran smack into an older woman on the other side of the door.
“Oh,” Drew said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
“Well, I certainly saw you.”
Instinctively, Drew took a step back. “Excuse me?”
The woman pursed her lips together, which gave her the look of someone who’d sucked on a particularly sour pickle.
Drew’s face flushed with anger. She crossed her arms over her chest. It wasn’t the first time she’d been on the receiving end of someone else’s opinion and she was sick and tired of it.
It was exhausting trying to keep up with what everyone else in the world thought she should be doing or saying or how they all thought she should be behaving. And her girlfriends and her mother were right: it didn’t matter what anyone else thought, least of all an old sour-faced woman in the ladies’ room. Drew took a step forward, challenging the woman to say what was on her mind, but just as she suspected, the woman made some sort of half choking, half coughing noise and slipped past her out of the washroom.
After she left, Drew dropped her arms to her side, the easy, flirty feeling she’d had only moments earlier, gone.
When was it going to get easier?
When was she finally going to be able to just live her life without having someone else second-guessing everything she was doing?
Hell, when was she going to stop doing it?
“You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Ben spun around at the sound of the voice he didn’t recognize. An older woman, her face a mottled red and purple with her lips pinched together, stood in front of him.
“Excuse me?” He glanced behind him, but it was clear the woman was talking to him.
“Taking advantage of a fragile young widow like that.” The woman’s words hit him like a blow and Ben took a step back at the force of her words. Before he could formulate a reply, she continued. “You have no business preying on her that way and to think, your own brother’s—”
“I think you need to mind your own business.” Drew appeared next to the woman, her face a surprising mask of calm as she confronted her. “You have no business speaking about things you don’t understand.”
“I think I do.” The woman shook her head. “I’m a widow myself and I can tell you with absolute certainty that I would never have been caught dead carrying on the way you are right now. It’s shameful.”
“Is it?” Drew’s voice shook a little, but Ben couldn’t tell whether it was from anger or another emotion.
“Drew, I don’t think—”
“No.” She placed a hand on his arm and glanced at him. “This needs to be said. In fact, it’s long past time that I said it.” Drew turned back to face the woman. “I am so sorry for the loss of your husband,�
� she said, her voice strong, but full of a compassion that was not there a moment ago. “I know how hard it is to lose someone you love so much.” Whatever the woman was expecting Drew to say, it was clear by the shock on her face, that was not it. “But I am even more sorry for you,” Drew continued, “that you feel so much anger and resentment toward your own situation that you feel you need to place it on the shoulders of a complete stranger.”
“Pardon me?”
“The loss of a loved one is terrible. And no matter what the circumstances, it leaves you with a hole that can never quite be filled. But it’s even more tragic if you stopped living the day your husband died.” The woman moved to speak, but Drew cut her off gently. “I’m not going to pretend to know your situation, just as you don’t know mine. So I’m not going to judge you or your choices. Just as you shouldn’t be judging me or mine. But all I will say is that they are mine. Not anyone else’s. And anyone who judges me…well, that’s more about them than it is about me. I hope you have a nice night.” She nodded her head at the woman and spun on her heel to face Ben.
More than anything at that moment, Ben wanted to grab her beautiful, sweet face and kiss her. She was so strong, so ferociously confident in a way that Ben could see had lit up a part of her—one that she probably didn’t even realize was dark.
Instead, he took her hand and winked at her before leading her out into the hot summer night.
They didn’t say a word until they’d reached his Jeep in the parking lot. He spun her into his arms and kissed her hard and fast. “You are simply amazing,” he said when he was able to pull his mouth away from hers. “You know that, right?”
She shivered in his arms, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t because she was cold.
Instead of answering him, Drew stood on her tiptoes, reached up, and pulled his mouth back down to hers. It was her turn to kiss him. A shiver of desire raced through him at the intensity of her mouth against his. Every kiss they’d ever shared had led to this one, and more than anything, he didn’t want it to end. Not unless it meant a beginning, and when she pulled away from him, breathless, her eyes glassy and said, “Take me home, Ben,” he knew it was exactly that. A new beginning.
Drew was sure that nothing would feel more right than the way Ben touched her and kissed her. But she’d been wrong. Curled up next to him in his bed, her head on his bare chest as he drew circles with his finger on her back, was the closest thing to perfection she’d ever felt.
He’d taken her back to his small house and they’d made love with an intensity and sweetness that she hadn’t even known was possible. And now she never wanted to leave because everything about being with Ben was like going home. They’d drifted off to sleep, only to wake at some point again in the night to explore each other all over again. Now, with their bodies and minds completely satisfied and perfectly exhausted, Drew was content to spend the rest of the night, and hopefully the next day, snuggled up to Ben’s hard chest.
“Drew?”
“Mmmm.” She nestled in closer and tried not to fall asleep.
“That was…you are…”
She giggled and turned a little so she could lift her head and look at him. The curtains were open, and the glow of the moon lit the small room enough that she could see his face. “Perfect?” she answered for him.
“Absolutely perfect.” His smile was tired and sexy and completely satisfied.
“I’m exhausted.” She dropped her head back to his chest.
“In a good way, of course.”
“Obviously.” She smiled to herself. “Promise me we can sleep in.”
“Baby, I can’t make any promises with you curled up next to me like that.”
She thrilled at the desire she inspired in him.
“Either way…” She could feel herself drifting into sleep. “I need to sleep.”
He stroked her hair and the last thing she remembered before slipping into a deep sleep was hearing him tell her how much he loved her, and thinking that she felt exactly the same way. She’d tell him in the morning. She was ready.
Drew had no idea what time it was when she heard the banging on the door, but the room was darker than she remembered. Next to her, Ben had shot up at the sound, too.
“What is…who…”
“I don’t know,” Ben said, his voice strong with authority. “Stay here. I’m going to go check it out.”
She watched as he tugged on a pair of athletic shorts, grabbed a baseball bat from next to the door, and his silhouette disappeared into the house. Drew’s heart raced and she scrambled in the dark for her purse but for the life of her couldn’t remember where she’d left it when they’d come into the house.
From the other room, she could hear another round of banging on the door and then Ben called out, “Who’s there?”
Drew wrapped her fingers around the leather strap of her purse on the floor at the same time she heard a muffled response from whomever it was outside. But she couldn’t quite make it out.
It only took her a second to find her phone and flip it on. She’d completely forgotten to turn it back on after they’d agreed to turn them off the night before. Instantly, panic raced through her. Austin.
The racket at the front door forgotten, Drew quickly opened her messages.
Twenty-five unread texts?
Her heart in her throat, she clicked over to the missed calls.
Ten.
Austin. She knew without looking at any of them.
She thought she was going to throw up as she flipped the quilt aside and found her clothes. The dress was crumpled in a ball, and no doubt completely wrinkled, but it didn’t matter. She needed to get to Austin.
From the front room, she could hear Ben’s voice. It was no longer raised or agitated, and then…as she stepped into the hall, Evan’s.
“What do you—”
“What’s wrong with Austin?”
She and Ben spoke at the same time but both men turned to stare at her. It was Evan who spoke first.
“We’ve been trying to get a hold of you but…”
“Our phones were off. What’s wrong?”
“You should get dressed.” Evan spoke to Ben, but Drew was pretty sure she was going to commit some sort of inexcusable act if he didn’t just tell her what was wrong already.
“Evan!”
He turned back to her and in what she was sure was his police officer voice, said, “Austin’s in the hospital.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The hospital was only ten minutes across town, but the drive felt like hours. On the way there, Evan explained to her how Ben’s parents had tried calling both of them but couldn’t get through on either of their phones.
The guilt for turning her phone off was like a knife in her gut, and the knowledge that she’d been too caught up in Ben to remember to turn it back on was the twist of the knife that made her bleed.
“He spiked a fever,” Evan explained. “It was over 104 and Sylvia got worried when she couldn’t bring it down.”
“104? That’s high.”
“Does he get fevers like that often?” Ben asked from the backseat.
Drew shook her head. He’d never had a fever that high before. He was a really healthy kid. He didn’t get sick at all, not really. And as far as she could remember, the only fever he’d ever had was when he was a baby after his immunizations. But that wasn’t 104.
104 was too high.
Ben’s hand squeezed her shoulder. “He’ll be okay, Drew. He’s in good hands.”
“He is,” Evan said. “I called Mark. I thought you’d want him to be there.”
“I do,” she said with a nod. She couldn’t think of anyone she trusted with her son’s health more. “Thank you.” She sat quiet for a moment as she realized that everyone knew about her son being in the hospital before she did. Guilt flooded her and threatened to paralyze her completely.
She couldn’t think about it. She needed to push the guilt away and get to her littl
e boy.
The moment the car pulled up to the emergency room doors, Drew was out and running toward the front desk. The nurse saw her coming and stood with her hand out for her to stop. “Mrs. Ross. I need—”
“I need to see my son.” On some level, Drew was aware she was being irrational, and she needed to calm down, but her baby was in the hospital and if something happened…no. She could not and would not allow herself to think that way. “Where is he?”
“Mrs. Ross, I just need you to fill out a few—”
“No.” She was just about to run through the swinging doors that she, unfortunately, already knew from experience, led to the beds where her son would be, when a strong arm wrapped around her shoulders.
“It’s okay, Delores,” Mitch Ross said. “We’ll get to the paperwork in due time. I’ll take her back.”
Drew didn’t care what Delores had to say about it; she was going with Mitch. Never in her life had she been so grateful for her father-in-law as she was at that moment as he led her through the doors.
“He’s okay, Drew. He’s going to be just fine.” Mitch’s voice soothed her in the same power that both of his sons’ voices had and she found herself calming down a little bit, as they walked through the emergency room.
Apparently she hadn’t calmed down enough, because the moment Mitch gestured to the curtain that was Austin’s, she thought she was going to be sick. There were too many memories associated with hospitals and pale-green privacy curtains just like this one over the years. Only instead of her son, it had been her husband.
“Drew?” Mitch’s hand squeezed her arm. “It’s okay. He’s going to be okay.”
She nodded, but her head didn’t feel attached to her body. “I know.” She said the words, even though she didn’t know at all. How was she supposed to know everything would be okay? The doctors in Nevada had all told her that, too. It’s going to be okay. We’ll try these treatments…this one will work…this is the latest medicine…just one night in the hospital for tests…