Zoe picked across the floor for a closer look. “You’ve got a big bump on your head.”
“Any arnica in the first aid kit?” Ben asked.
Kezia nodded, then winced.
“I’ll get it. It’s in the kitchen.” Zoe scurried from the bathroom.
As soon as Zoe left, Kezia shoved both hands against Ben’s chest. He didn’t budge. Not even a step.
Ben grabbed her waist and lifted her onto the vanity, positioning himself between her spread thighs.
“Stop it!” She swatted his arm. “Zoe will see—”
“If you stop fighting to get away, all Zoe will see is me looking after a friend while she’s hurt. What’s wrong with that?”
Man logic—gah! So frustrating when they were right.
“Nothing.” Only a little bit of sulk in her tone.
A friend caring for you shouldn’t involve becoming more and more turned on—why the devil did he look so good, smell so good, feel so damn good? She stopped wriggling, and he stepped backward. Enough that she could breathe without sucking down more sexy-man smell, anyway.
“So. Wanna explain why you didn’t get help to unblock your drains?”
Folding her arms—partly to hide the wet patches on her tee shirt, partly to disguise her granite-hard nipples—Kezia sucked in her cheeks and inhaled. Her forehead throbbed in protest. “West and Ford are busy, and as I said before, I know how to unblock my own drains.”
“It never occurred to you to ask me, the guy you’re sleeping with?”
Actually, it had. Ben’s name popped into her head all the time—anytime she thought about anything. But she couldn’t make that call. Asking him to tackle some chores around her house—and boy, did she have some revolting jobs, like gutter-clearing, on her list—would signal they’d crossed a line from sexy-fun-times into a relationship. And if Ben scented in the wind that she’d fallen for him? That would be the end. Finito.
“The guy I’m sleeping with has enough work of his own—and keep your voice down.”
Zoe’s off-key singing drifted along the hallway, and a chair screeched as she dragged it to the pantry where they kept the first aid kit.
Ben raked a hand through his sandy hair, leaving it in snarls. “I’m not too busy to help you out, Kez. You don’t need to ask West or anyone else to fix your plumbing—it’s bloody insulting.”
“Just because we’re sleeping together doesn’t mean—”
“Doesn’t mean what?” He paced. As much as a big man trapped in a tiny bathroom could pace. “Doesn’t mean I can’t care if you get hurt? Doesn’t mean I can’t help you around the house? Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t accept all the amazing meals you leave in my fridge? Or is that only so Jade doesn’t starve?”
“No.” She licked her lips. Ben said he cared about her—and how pitiful that her heart rolled belly-up at such a little scrap of emotion.
“I thought as much. So if you’re telling me it’s sex between us and nothing else—no caring, no friendship, no nothing except bumping uglies when the mood strikes…”
She flinched at his gravelly voice.
“Then I’ll walk out of this fucking house right now and not look back.”
Kezia stared at the black streaks of gunk on her jeans where she’d wiped her fingers. The idea of returning to virtual strangers coated ice on every vertebra. Maybe caring was a poor second to love, but however pathetic it made her—she’d take it.
“I’m sorry, Ben. I don’t know what this is—what we are. But it’s more than just sex, and I…” Her throat thickened, and she swallowed hard. “I don’t want you to walk away.”
“Then let me in, Kez.” His voice softened. “It’s okay to ask me for help. It’s okay to lean on me a little.”
She offered him a trembling smile. He cared for her, but would he hold fast through the kind of storms she’d weathered? No. Lust and affection faded and grew brittle with time. It wasn’t okay to lean on him. Because leaning on him, depending on him now her heart was involved? Fool-proof recipe for disaster.
“Found it!” Zoe’s footsteps clattered down the hallway, and she burst into the room with the arnica cream. “Here you go.” She handed the tube to Ben.
“I can do it,” Kezia said, then pressed her lips together as he unscrewed the cap.
He shot her a you seriously wanna go there? look.
Ben gently smeared the cool cream on her forehead. “Zoe, why don’t you put the kettle on and find one of those flowery tea bags your mother likes?”
“Okay.” Zoe’s grin turned sly. “But aren’t you going to kiss her bump better? The cream won’t work, otherwise.”
Heat prickled Kezia’s cheeks. “Zoe! Ben doesn’t have—”
“I don’t want to get into trouble for not taking proper care of Oban’s favorite teacher, right, Zoe?”
Zoe giggled, and before Kezia could object further, Ben kissed her brow—with the foresight to aim just beside the sore spot.
“Better?” he said.
She nodded, and her skin tingled—and not from the hot, aching lump on her forehead.
Zoe examined them with the same concentration she’d give bugs in their garden. “You missed the bump, Ben.”
“I don’t want to hurt your mamma, and the stuff on her head stinks.”
“Then you should kiss her somewhere else…” Zoe scuttled into the hallway, her dark eyes dancing. “I’ll put the kettle on for Mamma’s tea. Oh—and I’m watching a DVD in the family room so I won’t hear anything.”
Ben made a noise caught between a huff of amusement and choking distress as Zoe disappeared. Splendido. Now her daughter suspected. Maybe Zoe hadn’t cast them yet as Buttercup and Westley from her favorite movie, The Princess Bride, but it wouldn’t take her long to build impossible fairy-tales around the two of them. “True wuv” and all that nonsense.
A throat cleared in a deep rumble.
Dammit—she’d been staring at the man’s chest for the last ten seconds. Kezia scrubbed damp palms down her jeans. “She’s, ah, subtle.”
Ben cupped her jaw. “She likes the idea of the two of us together.” His thumbs traced gentle circles on her flushed cheeks. “I like the idea of the two of us together.”
And he smothered any objections with a toe-curling kiss.
The jug’s steam-train whistle jarred her eyes open a few minutes later. She didn’t want to release her grip on Ben’s shoulders. The shock that she’d let him kiss her—and kissed him right back, with Zoe nearby—rendered her speechless.
What had she done? Fuelling Zoe’s happy-family fantasy by staying in the bathroom with Ben instead of marching into the family room and explaining that she and Ben were only friends?
Strong hands lifted her onto her feet. “I’ll finish up in here, you make your tea.”
Ben crouched and picked up her dropped pliers. The tool looked like a kid’s toy in his big palm. “No self-respecting handyman has pink tools, for Christ’s sake.”
He glanced up, brown-eyed gaze flashing hot. “Go on now.”
Kezia fled. If she stayed another moment, the temptation to do him on the bathroom floor might be too hard to resist.
***
The text came in at a minute to nine—a strategic ploy on Piper’s behalf, as she knew Kezia wouldn’t have time to argue.
Girls’ lunch @ 12, table booked. No excuses. Be there or I’ll choose the bridesmaids colors.
Served her right for having an ex-cop as a friend. An ex-cop who’d spot her nervous tension a mile away.
“Ms. Murphy?”
She tucked her phone into her bag. “Ah, yes, George?”
George’s freckled nose crinkled. “Do we really have to have a math test now? Can’t we have it this afternoon?”
Kezia stood and ruffled his choppily cut red hair. “We have a times table test every Wednesday morning, George, you know this. Sometimes it’s better to get hard things over with first.”
Like dealing with her friends at lunch.
“At last,” Shaye said as Kezia slid into the empty seat. “We’ve only got an hour.”
“We ordered your usual.” Piper poured her a glass of water from the carafe.
“Maybe I don’t feel like chicken today. Maybe I’d like something different. Pasta for a change.”
Silence reigned as she dumped her purse on the floor and smoothed her dress over her thighs. The kind of silence she knew meant her two friends exchanged what the heck glances.
Shaye’s eyebrows twitched together. “But you never order pasta. Hon, are you okay?”
“Yeah, what’s got you bent outta shape?” Piper leaned forward, hazel eyes slitting into interrogation mode.
Kezia’s hands coiled into fists. The restaurant’s turquoise-painted walls, pretty sea-life themed watercolors, and crackling flames in the open fireplace usually soothed her. Today? Not so much. Her stomach churned—nausea? Oh, Gesù!
She deliberately relaxed her fingers, pressing her palm to the tablecloth. “Nothing. It’s just been a busy morning. Sorry for the bitchiness.” Swirling the ice cubes in her glass she paused, then took a sip.
Piper crossed her giraffe-long legs. “Time of the month, huh?”
The water Kezia swallowed got sucked into her lungs. She clapped a hand over her mouth, coughing hard enough to make her eyes burn.
Shaye hitched her chair closer and offered a napkin. “Went down the wrong way?”
Kezia nodded. Oh yeah. A coughing fit disguised the tears streaming down her cheeks brilliantly. After she could finally breathe without choking, she dabbed the napkin to her eyes.
“Wow, embarrassing,” she croaked.
“Doesn’t explain why you’re still crying.” Piper’s flat stare bored into her.
“She’s not—” Shaye leaped to Kezia’s defense, craned forward, examined her face, then said, “Wait. She totally is.”
Kezia touched a finger to her cheek. Well, look at that—wet with tears.
“Hon?” Shaye patted her hand. “Did something happen with Ben? Did he upset you?”
If only it were as simple as Ben upsetting her. Like telling her her culo looked fat in those jeans. Or she’d gone overboard with the basil in her baked Ziti. More tears leaked out. Dear Lord, she was making quite the spectacle. Hormones? Was that why she couldn’t stop crying? Her chest hitched.
Piper’s lips twisted into a snarl, and she leaned over to hiss, “I’ll kick his bloody ass! What-did-he-do?”
Shaking her head, Kezia scrunched the napkin in her fist and blinked rapidly. A local diner picking up a whiff of scandal was the last thing she needed. “He didn’t do anything—give me a second.”
“Breathe, Kez.” Shaye shifted her chair to give Kezia space and refilled her water glass.
Huffing in and out of a blocked nose, Kezia straightened her spine. Breathe. Hah! Breathing didn’t help loosen the iron fist squeezing her lungs. Her shoulders slumped again and she whispered, “I’m three days late.”
“Holy guacamole,” said Shaye.
“Fuck a duck,” said Piper.
“Ladies?” Lani, their server, arrived at the table with a tray. “Everything okay, chef?” She placed a plate in front of Shaye.
“We’re fine, thanks.”
The younger woman turned her curious gaze on Kezia, so she adopted a bright smile—just three girls doing lunch, nothing to see here. “We’re wedding planning. Piper wants the bridesmaids to wear orange ruffles.”
“Uh-huh.” Lani unloaded her tray and sauntered off, muttering, “Weddings? It’s your funeral, white girl.”
“Three days might not mean—you know.” Shaye left her flatware alone, drumming her fingers on the table top.
“I’m reliable.” Kezia prodded the lump of dead fowl on her plate with a fork. Ugh. Zero appetite. “Every twenty-eight days, sometimes twenty-seven or twenty-nine, but usually it’s like clockwork.”
“We’re women, sometimes our hormones and stuff get screwed up. Doesn’t mean you need to pick out knitting wool.” Piper sawed off a chunk of her steak. “Did you order one of those test kits online?”
“Yes. It should arrive in the mail tomorrow,” Kezia said.
“And Ben? Are you going to tell him?” Shaye asked.
“We’ve been extra careful since we came home from Queenstown.” She put down her fork and squeezed Shaye’s hand. “Piper’s right, it’s probably hormones. Plus, I’ve had some big life changes, and maybe the stress has affected me.”
“Falling in love shouldn’t be stressful.” Shaye picked up her flatware with a small frown.
Piper snorted, coughed, and thumped her breastbone with a fist. “On what world other than a Disney-animated one is that statement true? Puh-lease.”
“Well, when I fall in love with the perfect guy, there won’t be any stress.” Shaye scooped up a forkful of rocket and beetroot salad and stuffed it defiantly into her mouth.
Piper rolled her eyes and sipped her water. “So. Who would’ve thought, you and our tall, dark, and cranky brother? In lurv.”
Kezia’s stomach barrel-rolled. “Love hasn’t been mentioned.”
“Well, don’t expect a greeting card or status-update from him to announce it.” Shaye pointed her fork at Kezia. “Ben holds onto his emotions like a hoarder holds onto his clutter.”
“He’s totally gone on you though, I can tell,” Piper said. “West agrees—says his mate’s single status days are numbered.”
“We’re not that serious.”
“You’re serious though, aren’t you hon?” Shaye said.
The kind of serious where she wouldn’t easily recover. But hey, nobody needed to know how one-sided this thing with Ben really was. Kezia shook her head and tried a laugh, which squeaked out forced and half strangled.
“I don’t know. I really don’t. And until I can figure out where Ben fits in all of this and if we’d survive”—she lowered her voice even further, since Mrs. T sat only two tables away—“a positive test result, there’s no point stirring up a hornets’ nest because I’m a few days late.”
“Fair enough,” said Piper.
Kezia closed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t want those girls hurt if things between Ben and me don’t work out.”
“But Kez, why wouldn’t they work out?” Shaye said. “If you are—you know—Ben’s changed being with you and having Jade and Zoe around. I’m sure he’d be happy.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” Kezia offered Shaye a weak smile, then met Piper’s sympathetic gaze across the table. “Well, we’d better get stuck into this amazing lunch before it goes cold. Buon appetito!”
Kezia swallowed a mouthful of what tasted like chicken-flavored-sawdust and washed it down with a gulp of water.
Yes, anyone could see Ben had stepped up to the fatherhood plate and knocked the ball out of the park. But his acceptance of Jade didn’t necessarily extend to him making room in his life for her and Zoe. Now the added complication of her being a two-for-one deal—the prospect of an unplanned pregnancy could sabotage even long-term relationships.
It didn’t matter that he cared about her. It didn’t matter that a little part of her heart thrilled to the thought of carrying his child. When a person cared about the other but wouldn’t ever experience the kind of bone-deep, can’t live without you, sickness and health, to death do us part, true wuv…
Well. True wuv for her and Ben would remain an impossible dream.
Chapter 15
Repetitive burps sounded from his jeans pocket.
Ben wiped his hands on a dishtowel and dug out his cellphone. Jade had fiddled with his ringtone again. Brat. One of her favorite games—switch to the most annoying ringtone she could find.
A grin still twisted his lips when he answered. “Yep?”
“I’m at Erin’s.”
Ford.
Brows drawing together, Ben glanced around his kitchen and sink full of dirty dishes. Looks like it’d be eggs on toast tonight. “You’re interrupting me to gloat about your coffee break?”
“The ferry’s in.” A fast huff of air on the other end of the line. “I saw Marci.”
Ben’s heart slammed into his throat and throbbed there like a bad tooth.
“Wait a sec.” He walked to the doorway and poked his head through to the hall. Jade’s bedroom door remained closed and she was singing along to the tinny sounds of his iPod—another thing of his she’d commandeered. She was occupied making party bags for her birthday sleepover tomorrow.
He shut the hallway door and put the phone to his ear again. “You sure.”
“I know what your kid’s mother looks like, Harland—blonde hair, big boobs, and she’s dragging a suitcase.”
The panicked concern in his mate’s voice shot another bolt of adrenalin into Ben.
“What’s she doing here?”
“Didn’t ask. Just giving you a head’s up—she’s headed your way.”
Ben swore, raking his hands through his hair. “Thanks, Ford. Later.”
He disconnected the phone and hurried into the kitchen to rinse some of dishes crowding his sink. God knew why she was here, but like hell would he look like a slob when she arrived.
Marci. With a suitcase.
Damned if he knew what that meant, but the knock on his front door told him he’d soon find out.
He stalked down the hallway and yanked open the door. Marci stood on his deck in painted-on jeans and a low-cut red top. On Kezia, red glowed against her skin like a glass of expensive Pinot. On Marci, the bright color looked tacky and washed out—a cheap Rosé.
Her smile lost a few amps of brightness. “Oh. You were expecting me?”
“A mate spotted you on the wharf.”
“The guy with the dreadlocks? I saw him staring.” She cocked her hip, tapping the toe of some clumpy-heeled shoe that probably had a fancy name in chick-speak, but which he didn’t give a rat’s ass about.
Give him Kezzy in her rubber boots any day.
“Why are you here?” He didn’t open the door wider, even when she dragged her hot-pink suitcase closer to her side.
Melting Into You (Due South Book 2) Page 21