"Thanks to you," Janie murmured. She watched Rafael as she spoke, knowing that the fact he could relax with Cassie was due to Ben's loving care of him.
"I'm not doing anything special," Ben protested.
"Yes, you are." She finally looked over at Ben. "Whether you want to admit it or not, you're making a huge difference in his life. You're giving him stability, and a sense of belonging. You represent safety to Rafael. I'd say those were things that have been missing from his life for far too long."
"That's not so hard." His voice was gruff. "It's easy to feel safe and stable in Cameron."
"You're also giving him love. That's not quite as uncomplicated."
Ben's face hardened. "I'm taking care of him, Janie. I want to give him a home. That's all it is."
Janie looked over at him, studied his eyes and the pain that simmered deep inside him. The middle of their wedding reception wasn't the time for a debate about the meaning of love. "We'll see," she said.
"Let's go check on him." Ben's voice was abrupt. "He's always a little nervous in a crowd if he doesn't know where I am."
Janie had to clamp her lips together. If Ben's concern for the child's state of mind wasn't love, she didn't know the meaning of the word. But if Ben chose to deny that he loved Rafael, it wasn't her place to challenge him on it.
After all, he doesn't love you, either.
The pain stabbed at her again, sharp and fierce. As she followed Ben over to the table, she told herself to get used to it. If she expected to be successful at this sham of a marriage, she was going to have to accept the fact that theirs was a marriage of convenience. Love had nothing to do with it.
Rafael looked up when they approached the table, and the quick light in his eyes told Janie how he felt about Ben. Then he turned to her and gave her a shy smile, and her heart turned over in her chest.
"Hey, buddy." Ben reached out and ruffled Rafael's hair. The gesture was automatic, the kind of touching that all parents indulged in. Janie wondered if Ben even realized how much he cared about this child. "Don't you think the rest of us would like some of that cake?"
Ben pretended to scowl and Rafael giggled, much to Janie's surprise and delight. She hadn't seen the playful side of either the man or the child.
"We left half for the rest of you." Cassie piped up, grinning at them, and Rafael's eyes sparkled.
"Yes, we only ate half," Rafael echoed.
Ben turned to her, feigning a stern look. "What do you think about this, Janie?"
She tried to look thoughtful. "I don't know. It looks to me like they could each use another piece of cake. I don't think they've had enough."
Both children giggled again, and Ben threw her a grateful look, laughter stirring in the back of his eyes. "Am I going to be outnumbered here?"
"Right now it looks like it's three to one." Janie kept her face bland as she watched Rafael. His eyes darted from one of them to the other. His shocked delight at being the center of attention made her heart ache.
Ben heaved a huge sigh. "It's a sad thing when a man is outnumbered. Go ahead and get more cake. But I don't want to hear about any stomachaches tonight."
Both children scrambled away from the table, laughing, and Ben turned to look at her. "Thank you," he said quietly.
"For what? For teasing a couple of children?" she said, her voice light.
"No, for making Rafael feel like a part of a family."
"That's what he is, Ben. The day you took him into your home, he became your family. All I'm doing is helping to make it a legal bond as well as an emotional one."
"Not everyone would know how to handle him."
"I'm no expert. I've never lived with an eight-year-old boy. But my nephew is a little older than Ben." Her heart quivered once with remembered pain, then she firmly put it out of her mind. Her family was safe and happy somewhere. She had to believe that. "I know how to push their buttons."
"How am I ever going to make it up to you?" Ben asked.
"There is no need to make it up to me," she said, her voice sharp. "I'm already crazy about Rafael. He deserves all the happiness he can get out of life. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that he's happy with you. If I didn't think the two of you belonged together, I wouldn't have agreed to this … this sham. So don't talk about making it up to me."
Ben stood watching her, a strange light in his eyes. "Every day I learn more about you, Janie. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, or not."
"You'd better learn enough about me so we can fool the social worker and the judge." Her voice was sharper than she intended, to mask the pain that washed over her. "This isn't about you and me, it's about Rafael."
His eyes cooled and hardened. "You're right. And thank you for the reminder. You won't have to remind me again."
* * *
Chapter 5
«^»
Several hours later, Janie took a deep breath and watched the last person leave the restaurant. She wanted to lock the door behind him and hide away from the world, but that was impossible. The person she most wanted to hide from was standing next to her.
After this stress-filled day, she desperately wished she could let the mask slip, to stop pretending, but she couldn't do that. She was committed to this sham of a marriage, and she would do her best to keep up the facade. Because there was someone who mattered more than her comfort, someone who was more important than her pride.
He stood next to Ben, watching her with uncertain eyes. "What's wrong?" she asked, her voice sharpening as her gaze whipped back to the child. "Are you all right, Rafael?"
Ben cleared his throat again. "He's fine. There's just something that I haven't told you."
"What's that?"
"Shea is going to have Rafael stay out at the ranch for the night. She said that we … ah … needed to have privacy on our wedding night."
"And you agreed?" Janie fought to keep the rising panic from filling her voice. She didn't want to alarm Rafael.
"What was I supposed to say, Janie?" he demanded. "That we weren't interested in having a wedding night?"
Janie struggled to control her reaction. She was too aware of Rafael watching. "You could have said I wanted time with Rafael, to get to know him." She was cornered, and she knew it. Sighing, she said, "Are you sure you want to go to Shea's, Rafael?"
He nodded eagerly. "I like the ranch," he said. "I like to play with Buster."
Janie touched the boy's head. There was no way she could compete with Shea's dog. "Okay. Why don't we get your bag packed?"
The three of them left the restaurant, and Janie locked the door carefully behind her. But instead of walking to her own house, as she usually did, they climbed into Ben's vehicle and headed the few blocks in the other direction to Ben's tiny home.
Rafael was out of the car and running to the house almost before the car had stopped. She tried to climb out after him, but Ben put his hand on her arm. When she froze, he pulled it away, but it was too late. Her nerves tingled, and her heart was racing. She slowly turned to face him.
"I'm sorry, Janie," he said quietly, when she finally turned to face him. "There was nothing I could say to Shea to head her off. You know how she is when she gets an idea. And if we were truly married, we'd want privacy for our wedding night." He nodded at the house, where Rafael was heading back out the door, a backpack in his hand. "You can see that Rafael is excited about going to Shea's." He compressed his lips as the boy approached the truck. "We'll talk about this later."
As Rafael got into the truck, Ben said, "You have everything you need, buddy?"
Rafael nodded vigorously. "I have clean clothes and underwear, and my hairbrush. And my deedee."
Before Janie could ask what a deedee was, Ben turned and gave Rafael a stem look. "How about your toothbrush?"
The boy gave him a mulish look in return. "I forgot it."
For a moment Ben watched the child, then he grinned at him. "That's okay. I'm sure Shea has one you can use."
&nbs
p; Janie almost chuckled at the chagrined look on Rafael's face. Some things never changed, and apparently getting kids to brush their teeth was one of them. But her smile faded as they drove down the two-lane highway toward the Red Rock Ranch. Soon Rafael would be with Shea and Jesse, and she and Ben would be alone.
On their wedding night.
The thought stirred images she didn't dare allow to linger. Turning away from Ben, she stared out the window at the gathering dusk and tried to force herself to think about something else.
"Hey, Rafael," she said, turning around to face the child, "what's your deedee?"
He watched her for a moment, as if trying to decide if she could be trusted, then he reached into his backpack and pulled out a small square of multicolored cloth. She saw his fingers stroke it once, then he slipped it back into the pack.
She opened her mouth to ask him where he'd gotten it, but Ben touched her hand once, then immediately withdrew his fingers. When she glanced over at him, he gave a quick, silent shake of his head.
"It's beautiful," she said, instead of the question she'd bitten back. "I can see why it's special to you."
He nodded once, then shifted his hands on his pack. Almost, she thought, as if protecting the scrap of material. Her heart ached for him and all he had suffered.
"Here we are," Ben said as he slowed the truck. He turned into a curving driveway and headed around a cliff that blocked the view of the rest of the ranch. Once past the cliff, the beauty of the Red Rock Ranch unfolded in front of her, under the rising moon.
The green pastures stood in front of them, almost black in the moonlight. Cattle were mere shadows, darker blurs on the velvet of the grass. Only the buildings were full of light. The house stood as a welcoming beacon in the rapidly darkening Utah dusk.
He glanced into the back seat of the truck. "We'll come get you in the morning, okay, buddy?"
"Can I stay until the afternoon?"
Janie smiled in the darkness. The wheedling tone of Rafael's voice was one of the sweetest sounds she'd ever heard. Only a child who was completely confident of his relationship with the adult in his life would whine that way.
Ben pretended to consider. "I'll have to talk to Shea. They may have things planned for tomorrow."
"Shea says I'm never a bother," Rafael replied. "She says I can help out here on the ranch any time I want."
"I'll talk to her."
But before they could get out of the car, Shea burst out of the house. Janie didn't think she'd ever seen Shea moving at less than warp speed.
"Hey," she called. "Is that the guy who's going to help me with all those cattle tomorrow?"
Janie could feel Rafael beaming from the back seat. "Ben doesn't think I help," he said, and she smiled again to hear the scorn in his voice. "Tell him I'm a big help, Shea."
"The biggest." Shea's face was solemn as she leaned through Janie's open window. "I've got all kinds of work planned for tomorrow. How about letting him stay two nights?"
Panic rose up inside of Janie. That would mean two nights and a whole day alone with Ben. And she wouldn't even have the excuse of the restaurant to get away from him. Heaven on Seventh was closed on Sunday.
"I don't know, Shea. Maybe we should come for him tomorrow afternoon." She heard the strain in Ben's voice. Apparently he felt the same way about being alone with her. She should be glad, she told herself fiercely. But a small corner of her heart folded in on itself, trying to protect her from the pain.
"Why don't you give me a call?" Shea said easily. Then she grinned at them, a wicked look in her eyes. "And if I don't hear from you, I'll assume you found other things to think about."
The only things they would be thinking about, Janie told herself, were ways to avoid each other in that tiny house of his. And ways to avoid the memories that lingered there.
Then Shea stepped away from the truck, and Rafael bounded out of the back seat. Ben slid out of his seat and went over to stand in front of the boy, and Janie slipped out of the truck to stand nearby.
Ben squatted down in the red dust and put his hands on Rafael's shoulders. "You have a good time, you hear?" he said, and his voice was gruff. "And you mind Shea and Jesse."
Rafael nodded hard. "I will, Ben."
Almost as if he couldn't stop himself, Ben's arms snaked around the boy in a quick, hard hug. "I'll miss you," he said, then he set Rafael away from him and stood up. "We'll see you tomorrow."
Rafael nodded and hugged his pack to his chest more closely. When he gave her a quick glance, Janie stepped forward. "I'll miss you, too," she said in a low voice. But she didn't touch him again. She remembered the way he'd tensed the last time she'd touched him.
"Is he going to be scared?" she asked Ben when they were in his truck and out of sight of the house.
"I don't think so." He glanced over at her, and she saw understanding in his eyes. "I think most eight-year-old kids have a hard time with their first few sleepovers. And Rafael is not a typical eight-year-old. He'll be fine. And if he's not, Shea will give me a call."
They drove through the darkness, the silence humming in the truck between them. Janie didn't want to think about the fact that they were alone, and married. She didn't want to think about the long night facing them. So she searched for a safe topic of conversation.
"What's that piece of cloth he has that you called his deedee?"
Ben's face tensed. Apparently this wasn't a safe topic of conversation after all. "When he arrived in this country from San Rafael, he had only a few things in his pack. The other children brought food or clothes, but all he had was a tattered lace shawl, a silver comb, a chipped white mug and that scrap of cloth. I've asked him if he wanted to tell me about them, but so far he hasn't. He keeps the other things underneath his bed, but he takes that piece of cloth everywhere. And he sleeps with it every night."
"Deedee doesn't sound like any Spanish word I've ever heard," she said, trying to keep her voice light.
Ben's hands tightened on the steering wheel, and his face looked as if it could have been carved from the rock that surrounded them. He didn't say anything for so long that Janie was certain he wasn't going to answer. Finally he spoke, and the words sounded like they had been torn from his throat.
"It's not. He got that word from me."
"Is that what you called your comfort blanket as a child?"
"No." His hands curled so tightly around the steering wheel that his knuckles whitened. "It's what another child I knew called it."
"You seem to have figured out the right way to handle it." She wanted desperately to ask him about that other child, but her heart told her she didn't have the right. And Ben certainly had no obligation to share any part of himself with her. Wasn't that the bargain they'd made?
Ignoring the pain in her chest, the emptiness that wanted to swallow her, she said, "Rafael seems to be adjusting pretty well."
Ben didn't answer right away, but she saw his hands loosen their grip on the steering wheel. Finally he said, "Yeah, I think he is. He won't talk about his life in San Rafael at all, or any of the things he brought with him. But he's smiling more, and he lets me hug him now. He didn't want to be touched when he first came to live with me."
Rafael was a safe topic, she thought. They could talk about Rafael all night and never have to touch on the subject they both clearly wanted to avoid—their so-called marriage. So she asked Ben another question about Rafael, and Ben relaxed even more as he answered it. By the time he turned into the driveway of his home, she had almost forgotten the tension that hummed beneath the surface.
Almost, but not quite. Because as soon as she faced that house, all the strain came roaring back.
Ben's voice trailed away as they sat in the darkness and looked at the small, one-story house. There was too much history here, she thought in a panic. Too many memories. They should have chosen to live at her house.
But they couldn't do that. They had Rafael to consider, and he needed the stability and sameness of B
en's house.
So she sat and stared at the house, willing herself to walk inside. She'd been inside several times in the last few days, to move her clothes and belongings in, but she hadn't been alone with Ben at the time. Rafael had been there, and usually at least one of the other deputies who'd been helping her move. This would be the first time she and Ben were alone, truly alone, since she'd agreed to marry him.
Ben finally said, "We'd better go inside." She heard the strain in his voice and wondered if it was because of the looming night alone.
"You're right." Her lips felt stiff, and she had to struggle to get the words past them. "If I know Cameron, everyone on your block has been waiting and watching for the newlyweds to get home."
He turned to her, and even in the darkness, she saw his eyes glittering. "Then we'd better make their wait worthwhile, don't you think?"
He moved closer, and all the air whooshed out of her lungs. "I think…"
"That's a bad habit of yours, Janie. You think too much." His mouth lowered. "Sometimes you just have to do."
His kiss wasn't tentative or tender. He crushed his mouth to hers, devouring her, demanding a response. And in spite of her vows to herself, in spite of all her lectures these past few days, she couldn't stop herself from responding. She couldn't bite back the moan of pleasure, the burn of desire that scorched her with its heat. She couldn't stop her hands from clutching at his shirt, holding on like he was the only constant in a spinning, out of control world.
She felt the shudder that rippled through him, felt the thudding of his heart next to hers. And she felt him struggle for control, fight to pull himself back from the edge of passion. Suddenly all the promises she'd been making to herself didn't matter. She forgot the countless times she'd told herself that she and Ben could live together as emotionless, passionless strangers.
All she knew was the rightness of Ben, of touching him and caressing him. All she heard was the small voice inside her head that told her to grab on to him and hold on for all she was worth. All she wanted to do was keep on kissing him, forever.
THE MARRIAGE PROTECTION PROGRAM Page 6