She covered her eyes with one hand, but underneath it, he could see the corners of her mouth twitching with a barely restrained smile. “Yes, as a matter of fact, he is. The magazine is called Prospects, and it’s a—a—”
“Mail-order groom catalog?”
Her hand slid away. “Basically, yes. I guess some of the guys are decent guys, but they look like underwear models. They can’t hold jobs because they’re spending too much time in the gym working on their bodies, and they’re looking for the perfect Ms. Right who will take care of them well into the future.”
And Janice thought those guys were preferable over him. She’d rather see Lynda with someone who wanted her for her money than with some undereducated carpenter who wanted her for herself. For himself. Not that he wanted her …
Oh, hell.
Lynda got the fast ride first, tires squealing on pavement, the car hugging the road as if Ben knew it intimately. The one time she dared look at the speedometer, she’d practically shrieked. Since she didn’t think startling him when they were traveling in excess of a hundred miles an hour was wise, she didn’t look again.
As they approached Howland, he slowed down to the speed limit, sending a great shudder of relief through her, then grinned at her. “What do you think?”
She thought she probably didn’t have to raise her brows much to appear wide-eyed. “I’m impressed.”
He patted the dash. “All the girls say that. My Goat’s a good car.”
“Actually, I meant your driving. After all, we’re alive.” Thank God.
“Hey, I’m fast, not reckless. I wouldn’t go looking for an accident. You know how much time and money I have in this baby? I’m awfully fond of her.”
Her laugh sounded nervous. “Gee, I’m concerned about the damage to my body, and all you can worry about is the car?”
His gaze moved over her like a caress. “I’ll concern myself with your body, too, if you have no objection.”
Her smile froze on her face, and her heart stopped beating for a moment, two, more. Then he grinned and looked away, and her unsteady heartbeat resumed.
As they drove into the main part of town, Ben gestured. “Is there any place in particular you’d like to have dinner?”
She shook her head, all the while considering that he’d asked her out without even choosing a restaurant. Shameful, her mother would say. Poor planning, law-boy would add. Spontaneous, Melina would disagree, and spontaneous was good. The men Lynda had dated when she lived in Buffalo had been even less spontaneous than she was. Her last dinner date had been to a restaurant so exclusive it required connections to even get a reservation, major connections to get in with less than a month’s notice. Her date, powerful as he was, hadn’t managed. She’d had to mention Ross’s name to get them in.
Ben was taking her to a fast-food drive-in, and it was neither shameful nor a result of poor planning. In fact—she took a deep breath that smelled of fried onions—the way her mouth was already starting to water, it seemed a very good idea.
All the spaces close to the street were taken up by teenagers celebrating the warm weather and the start of summer. He parked near the back, away from their laughter and music, and shut off the engine. They sat for a moment in a cozy sort of quiet before he looked at her. “Is this okay?”
“It smells great.”
They ordered cheeseburgers and fries. He asked for a vanilla malt. She debated, then settled on a Diet Coke. She would have to run a lot of miles to burn off the meal without adding ice cream to it.
While they waited for the food, he settled comfortably in the seat. The neon lights that hung beneath the tin roof hummed, and one on the wall blinked regularly, switching from onion to on on every few seconds. A car filled with teenagers crept past with music blaring, then pulled into an empty space on the other side, and everyone spilled out to join their friends.
“Do you remember ever being that young?” Ben asked.
“It doesn’t seem so long ago, until you realize that we’re practically old enough to be their parents.” Looking away, she grimaced. “I mean, not us, but you and me. I mean—”
“I know what you mean.” His voice was low, warm, and something else. Affectionate? Tolerant? Indulgent?
Whatever it was, she decided the chance was as good as she was going to get to bring up a discussion left unfinished that afternoon. Careful to not look at him, to sound casual and careless as if she were making idle conversation, she said, “In the store today … you avoided answering Maggie’s question about whether you have any kids of your own. Why?”
“Maggie … that’s the munchkin’s mom, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And your boss’s wife.”
“Uh-huh. And you’re avoiding my question now.”
“Uh-huh.”
She studied him for a moment in the dim light before speaking. “You do, don’t you? You have a child, or children, someplace. Otherwise, you would simply say no.”
Before he could answer—or not—a pretty teenage girl brought out their food. He cranked up the window a few inches to hold the tray, paid the girl, then handed Lynda one cheeseburger, one paper bag of fries, and her diet drink. For a few moments they busied themselves with packets of salt and ketchup, with spreading out napkins and balancing food on knees and the dash. Finally, when she figured he’d successfully avoided answering again, he asked the same question she’d asked earlier. “Does it matter?”
So it was true. Ben was a father. Though she’d dated divorced men and men whose sex lives were far more active than her own, she’d never been involved, even on the most casual basis, with a man who had children. It was a curiously difficult concept to grasp. Somewhere out there was a little boy or girl, maybe blond-haired, maybe green-eyed, with Ben’s blood flowing through his or her veins. Maybe with his grin, his lazy Southern speech, his mannerisms. And maybe more than one little boy or girl.
Did it matter? Employer to employee, of course not. Friend to friend, maybe not. Woman to man … she honestly didn’t know.
Since she couldn’t offer an answer she didn’t have, she remained silent, and when she remained silent, he became that way, too. They ate without speaking, and when they were finished, he gathered the trash onto the tray and set it all on the shelf underneath the menu. Instead of starting the car, though, he turned slightly to face her. “I was nineteen. I met this woman in a bar, took her home, and … she stayed. We were together three or four months. I was about to end it when she found out she was pregnant. I was a dumb kid. All I could think was no way was I sticking it out with her. My parents had gone through that and made each other’s lives and everyone else’s hell. I told her so long, it was fun, I’m outta here. And I never saw her again.”
Not wanting him to see the emotions in her eyes—not sure what emotions were in her eyes—Lynda avoided looking at him. “What about the baby?”
“It was a girl. She’s twelve now. She lives with her family, and she’s happy, cared for, and well loved. She probably doesn’t know I exist, and she probably doesn’t care.”
He’d turned his back on his own child. The idea was appalling. Indefensible. Astoundingly selfish.
But he’d been a kid himself. Nineteen, raised by a grandmother who clearly loved him, and ignored by parents who hadn’t wanted him. He’d merely followed the example they’d set for him.
But he’d known firsthand how hurtful a parent’s abandonment could be, and he’d done it to his own child anyway.
“I know I screwed up,” he said quietly. “I was selfish. But for whatever it’s worth, she was better off without me. I would have been a lousy father. I was a kid, and all I cared about was having fun. There’s no way I could have dealt with her, her mother, and marriage.”
But you could have tried, Lynda wanted to say. Her mother was a kid, too, but she hadn’t had the option of walking away. She’d grown up quickly, had the baby, loved her, raised her, and helped her become that happy, cared-for twelve-
year-old.
When she still didn’t say anything, he muttered something under his breath, started the engine, and backed out of the space. Once they were out of town, he settled in at about ten miles above the speed limit, turned the stereo loud to combat the wind—and to make conversation impossible—and seemed to forget that she was there. She wanted to break the silence but couldn’t, wanted to pretend she’d never asked the question and he’d never answered but couldn’t do that, either. Perversely, she wanted to ask other questions—Have you ever seen her? What’s her name? Where does she live? Don’t you feel even the slightest longing to know her the way a father should?
And one other. Is she the only one?
The trip home seemed to fly past, and yet, when he parked beside her car and she climbed out into the warm, quiet night, her entire body ached, as if she’d been wound taut as a spring for hours. She expected to say good night right there, but he got out of the car and silently walked to the back door with her.
She unlocked the door, then faced him with an uneasy smile in the dim glow of the porch light. “I’m afraid I’ll never share your appreciation for fast driving. I guess I’m just a tad fainthearted. But I enjoyed the evening.”
“Yeah, I could tell by all that nonstop chatter.”
She wasn’t sure whether the bitterness in his voice was directed at her or perhaps himself. Did he regret telling her the truth? Did he wish he’d told her it was none of her business or just flat-out lied?
He walked as far as the top of the steps, then turned back. “Emmaline used to say don’t ask a question if you aren’t prepared for the answer. You weren’t prepared for that one, were you?”
For hearing that the man she was attracted to had abandoned his own baby girl? How could she ever be prepared for that? “No, I wasn’t.”
“You know what, Lynda? People make mistakes. We screw up, and when that happens, we can’t undo it. We can only try to make it right.”
“What have you done to make it right?” She’d tried to hold the question in, but it popped out anyway. “Have you tried to be a father to your daughter? Have you accepted any responsibility for her support and upbringing? Have you apologized to her for ignoring her existence for twelve years?”
The look he gave her was harsh. “No.” And that was all he said. Not, I’m planning to. Not even, The thought crossed my mind. Just, No.
“People do make mistakes. I understand that. But when it involves a child, it’s just … You know how it felt to be abandoned by your father, and yet you did exactly the same thing to your daughter.”
“And she was better off for it, just like I was better off without my old man.” Anger sharpened his voice and gave a rough edge to his accent.
“Why do you get to make that decision for her?”
“Parents do that. It’s what being a parent is about.”
“No. Being a parent is about loving your child and being there for her, protecting her, teaching her, and setting a good example for her.”
“And where does your mother fit in that definition? She treats you like a commodity that has to be given away before you get too old to be of any childbearing use to her. She doesn’t care what you want. She doesn’t give a damn about your career. She looks at you and sees her only daughter, nearly thirty-five, still single, and not likely to find a good husband on her own, which makes you a failure in the grandchild-producing department, too. She’s convinced she can pick a better man for you than you can—and she’s probably right, since her only requirements seem to be an impressive bank account and the willingness to breed you like a prize mare. If that’s loving, protecting, and setting a good example, I’m damned lucky to have escaped my parents, and my daughter’s damned lucky to have escaped hers.”
For one stiff, chilly moment, they stared at each other, then she smiled her best drop-dead smile. “Go to hell, Ben,” she said politely before going inside the house and closing the door. For good measure she turned off the porch light, leaving him standing alone in the dark.
Chapter Twelve
Ben awakened Thursday morning with a headache and a killer case of heartburn. He would have liked to blame them both on the greasy burger with fried onions, but it was too early in the morning to try to fool himself. Last night’s dinner had nothing to do with the way he felt. The after-dinner conversation did.
He would have guessed that it wasn’t yet dawn, but a glance at the alarm clock showed that it was a few minutes after seven and a look out the window explained the darkness. Clouds hung low over the valley, bringing rain in sheets that fell from the roof like a flood-swollen river. It was the first rain since he and Sophy had finished their work on Lynda’s roof, and he wondered—
Remembering that icy smile she’d turned on him, he groaned and turned over facedown in the bed. He wasn’t sure which had hurt worse—that smile, the Go to hell, or her turning off the light while he still stood there. There had been something so disdainful, so dismissive, in leaving him there in the dark. He’d felt … hell, he didn’t know exactly what he’d felt. Like he didn’t matter. Like he didn’t deserve the simple courtesy of a light to show him the way out.
A rumble of thunder brought his head up out of the pillow. There was plenty of inside work to keep him and Sophy busy at the site. Otherwise, this would have been a goof-off-without-pay day, thanks to the weather. It could still end up that way. Lynda very well might have changed the security code on the gate and instructed Gloria to have him bodily removed by the sheriff if he showed his face up on the hill.
And he couldn’t blame her. What had possessed him to say those things about her mother? And what in hell had made him tell her the truth about Alanna?
That was what had hurt most—her reaction. He’d never told anyone about Alanna, not even Emmaline. Berry had taken care of that. He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge what a bastard he’d been, hadn’t wanted to face the guilt he’d managed all on his own, heaped on top of Emmaline’s censure and disappointment. It was his greatest regret, his greatest shame, and he’d never trusted anyone with it. But he’d trusted Lynda.
He should have lied, should have grinned and said, You volunteering, darlin’? If he had, he might have gotten those kisses he’d been planning on.
But he hadn’t lied, and in choosing not to, the only thing he’d accomplished was changing her opinion of him. Before, she’d thought he was maybe worth some kind of fling, if nothing else. Now she knew him for what he really was.
He watched the storm, brooded, and kept track of the time until eight o’clock had come and gone and eight-thirty was quickly approaching. Sure that she had long since arrived at her office, he finally got up, dressed, and dashed through the rain to the GTO. The interior of the car was warm, steamy, and smelled faintly of burgers, onions, and something more expensive, more exotic. Perfume? Or Lynda herself?
After a detour to the doughnut shop, where the clerk now knew his name and had his order ready when he walked in the door, he headed for the Hope house. His only hope that morning, with his mood as dark as the weather, was that he still had a job to go to.
He was halfway up the hill when he slowed to a stop. Sophy, in shorts and a slicker, with the hood down and her blonde curls dripping, greeted him with a brilliant smile. “Isn’t it a beautiful morning?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. When I went to bed last night, I told God, Let’s have a beautiful morning—you know, clouds, rain, thunder.” A bright flash made him scowl and add, “Lightning.”
“You did not,” she said with a good-naturedly accusing look. “You didn’t talk to God at all last night.”
That was easy enough to guess. People could look at him and rightly assume he was not a praying man. Other than his grandmother, he’d never had anyone in his life he cared about enough, or wanted anything badly enough, to resort to prayer. “Hop in. I’ll give you a ride.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she obeyed him. “I actually like walking in the rain,” she said as he moved his foot off
the brake. “Everything smells so fresh and clean, and I run into some special people.”
“The only people you’re likely to meet out here in the rain are trespassers.”
“You’re not a trespasser.”
Oh, but he was. He didn’t belong there. Truth was, with Emmaline gone, he didn’t really belong anywhere.
“How did your date go?”
His jaw tightened until his teeth hurt, but the memory of Janice Barone grinding her teeth trying to get through a meal with him made him ease the pressure. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner in this week’s Date from Hell.”
“Let’s see if I can guess what went wrong. Everything was fine right up until you finished breaking every traffic law in the state of New York, then you …” Thoughtfully she tapped her finger against her lips, then her eyes brightened. “Then you dropped a major surprise in her lap that she didn’t know how to react to and you ended up arguing.”
Ben gave her a long look. “How did you—?” Gloria. Lynda must have told her what happened or—more likely—the housekeeper had overheard her talking on the phone to Melina. “She didn’t have any problems reacting. And there wasn’t an argument. We just exchanged a few words.”
“Hurtful words.”
“She’ll get over it,” he said with an indifference he didn’t feel.
“But will you?”
Before he could respond to Sophy’s quiet question, they crested the hill and he swore under his breath. The clunker Gloria drove was in its usual spot, and right beside it was the Mercedes. Great. Lynda had delayed going to work so she could fire him face-to-face. And he hadn’t expected anything more personal than a message passed through Gloria.
The muscles in his neck were knotted when he followed Sophy into the kitchen, but there was no sign of Lynda. Good. Maybe he could manage to be working elsewhere when she came down to leave.
“Morning, Gloria,” Sophy said cheerfully.
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