Roses? Audrey perked. “Bennett? What are you doing?”
“Include a card,” he said. “On it, write, ‘to the sexiest mother I know.’”
“Bennett!”
He ignored her. “Thanks, and send me the bill.”
His voice fell silent, but a second later, rose again.
“Dale? Do you think you and Everly could watch the kids tonight? I think Audrey’s going stir crazy.”
“You’re driving me crazy,” she replied loudly.
“Great. We’ll bring them by around six.” He disconnected and leaned one shoulder on the wall trim. “Find your dancing shoes, Mom. You and I are going to go cut the rug.”
Audrey frowned. “Now I know we’re out of date. No one says that anymore.”
Yet, the hours passing, the Harris boy returned to his parents, she found herself looking forward to whatever Bennett had planned. She’d been buried in diapers and toys too much lately. Having adult-time was extremely welcome.
How to dress for it presented a problem. Her pre-pregnancy clothes no longer fit, and her post-pregnancy clothes consisted mostly of things with access for nursing. She located a creamy blouse with a scoop neck at the back of the closet and paired it with tight blue jeans. Her one pair of heels would have to do.
Adding makeup and earrings, she decided the effect wasn’t too bad.
She exited her bedroom to the excited babble of the three kids floating up the stairs. Grasping the rail, she took careful steps to the bottom and turned left, following the sounds. She stepped into the living room amidst sudden silence.
“Is it that bad?” she asked. “I’m afraid I don’t have many more options.”
“Bad?” Bennett cat-whistled. “You’re hot, babe.”
Embarrassed he’d said so in front of the children, she back-stepped, but he leapt forward, grasping her arm. “Don’t. Don’t be insecure,” he said. “I think the children seeing I care for you is a good thing.”
Was it? Had they reached that point? Part of her was glad. Yet, her embarrassment remained.
A tug at her other arm, turned Audrey’s gaze.
“Are you going to be my mom?” Jeff asked.
The question smacked her in the chest, and once more, Audrey reversed. Bennett halted her movement, taking a place behind her.
Gazing over her shoulder, he spoke to his son. “Why do you ask?”
“Bobby said so.”
Audrey, regaining her poise, knelt in front of him. She should have known this question would come. Just the same, she considered her answer. It was one thing for Bennett to care for her, another for her to usurp Beth’s place.
“You can call me whatever you like,” she finally said, “but I will never replace your mom. She loved you very much. You know that?”
He nodded.
“I’ll make you a promise. Cross my heart …” She drew an x over her chest. “As long as I’m breathing, I’ll never leave you.” She opened her arms. “Give me a hug?” Embracing him, she inhaled.
This made all the dirty diapers, the sleepless nights … looking foolish in front of the Harrises … worth it. She’d been naïve and unprepared when she came, but richly rewarded with a family that had so much love to give.
She stood to her feet and took his hand. “You ready to go see Grandpa Dale?”
He nodded and pointed at August. “Uh huh, but August’s eating crayons.”
He’d never really been to the jazz restaurant and didn’t really like jazz, but the noise and lights of a dance club were too juvenile for a forty-two year old man and big band music at the swanky country club too old. The low lights and low murmur of voices did set a romantic feel though, and the tiny round table they’d been seated at gave a measure of privacy.
Bennett ate, doing his best to provide conversation that didn’t involve the children, yet couldn’t quite get his son’s question out of his mind. Here, it’d been six months, and he couldn’t picture his life without Audrey, couldn’t sleep at night without feeling her there. He relied on her wisdom and laughter to survive.
In spite of that, he held part of himself back. Not simply in their sex life, or partial lack of it, but in his heart and mind as well. It was as if by committing to her, he’d turn his back on Beth. She hadn’t asked him to turn his back on Beth. She’d asked instead for her own consideration, and he agreed with her one hundred percent. Still …
“Why are those people staring at me?” she asked, breaking into his thoughts.
She nodded across the room, and Bennett swiveled, staring through the semi-darkness at an older couple angled in their direction. He started. First, it’d been Julie, and extricating themselves from her had been bad enough. But this was far worse. This was one of only a handful of things they hadn’t talked about. He hadn’t hidden it necessarily, but she hadn’t asked, so it’d never come up.
Rubbing two fingers down the center of his throat, he tried to answer.
“Bennett? You know them?”
He coughed. “They’re Beth’s parents.”
Her skin paled. Her fingers trembling, she curled them in her lap. “But I thought … I just assumed.” Her color returned in an instant flash. “They don’t see their grandchildren?”
Her tone made him uncomfortable. Bennett squirmed. “It’s complicated.”
“How ‘complicated’?”
She was angry. He softened his voice and hoped she’d follow suit. “They wanted her to marry Peter Massey, not run off with her new boss. The kids remind them of me, I guess …”
She snorted. “That’s no excuse. They should remind them of her.” Instead of calming, she grew more irate.
Desperate to hush her, he released his fork and took her hand. He tugged her from the table toward the dance floor. But hugged together, swaying side-to-side, it was extremely awkward, her spine rigid, her steps reluctant.
She pulled her head back. “They think you’re doing it again. You’ve run off with someone much younger than you and don’t care about her.”
“Audrey, please …” He turned her away from a nearby couple, whose heads had swiveled. “It’s not any big deal. I don’t care how old you are.”
But the Harrises had reminded her of this very issue earlier today and now, his in-laws did. He knew she wouldn’t let it go.
“I don’t care that you don’t care or that they do care …” she replied. “But to not see their grandchildren over some childish tantrum …” She gave an angry grunt.
“Back down, Mama Bear,” he said.
This halted her in place.
He recognized the look in her eye and didn’t like it. Because, once more, Audrey was not Beth. Beth, who’d ignored any and all negativity around their relationship. Audrey, after what she’d suffered with her ex, was forever guarding the figurative line in the sand with a battle axe raised if you crossed it.
“Introduce me,” she said.
Bennett moved them even further away from others on the dance floor. “That’s not a good idea.” In fact, a very bad one.
Her gaze hardened. “It’s a very good idea.” In her next breath, she gave a piercing gasp. “Don’t tell me they didn’t come to her funeral.”
“They came … or rather, we avoided each other,” Bennett hastened to explain. “But there’s no point in reopening those wounds again.”
Audrey halted cold. “They’ve never closed. Don’t you see that? As long as you avoid them and they avoid you, Jeff and June are the ones to suffer. Where were they when I found you? Because I know you had no help.”
He hadn’t, and it’d never occurred to him to call and speak to them. Beth had been barely able to do so when she was living. The last person they wanted to hear from was her incapable spouse.
It replayed to Bennett again that part of Audrey’s anger was directed at Cale for his betrayal. He ignored his son, so the thought of them ignoring their grandchildren was especially painful.
“Introduce me,” she snapped. “I won’t have them gossip about us behind
our backs. I’d rather set the record straight up front.”
The set of her jaw said, or are you ashamed of me? He wasn’t, but inaction would make her think he was.
“Bennett.”
Bennett blew out a frustrated breath. She heard it and stood taller.
Couples moved around them like water in a stream, and stationary, for those few minutes, they eyed one another. He capitulated, at last, tired of arguing, and grasping her hand, directed their footsteps toward his in-laws’ table. His gut curled into a ball, nervousness sweeping down his frame. What little he’d eaten tossed into his throat.
Their eyes sharpened, the weight of their stare adding to his discomfort. Halting in front of them, however, he tried to act calm. “Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I … we …” He fumbled his words and glanced at Audrey. “This is Audrey.”
Mrs. Jarvis gave a haughty sniff. “It’s only been six months, Bennett.”
Audrey stiffened, and he willed her to not speak, but knew she would.
She did.
“Six months,” Audrey said. “How interesting that you know how long it’s been without you seeing the children.”
Bennett winced, and the couple startled.
“Oh, wait …” Audrey continued. “That’s right … you wanted rid of him. What? Is it his fault she’s gone?”
“Audrey.” He grasped her sleeve. She’d gone too far.
But she yanked free, apparently unstoppable. “No,” she said, her eyes dark. “I’ll put it all out here or not sleep tonight.” She shook her arms, drying her palms on her jeans. “He hired me to care for June because she was failing.”
His mother-in-law acted surprised.
“She wouldn’t eat properly and your grandson, Jeff, wouldn’t leave his side. I am now the only mother they have, and ‘so what’ if our family isn’t what people expect. They are my entire world, but you wouldn’t know that either. You’re too busy staring at yourselves to see the beautiful children your daughter created … or how generous and kind the man is that she married.” Audrey hushed. Her chin lifted, she gazed at him. “I’d like to go now,” she said. “I miss my children.”
His heart full, he nodded, but when she went to walk away, he couldn’t stop himself from telling her how much she meant. As he did with everything else though, he spoke in the only way he knew how. Taking hold of her cheeks, he leaned in and kissed her.
Her anger dissolved in their mingled breath.
He glanced down at his in-laws. “I miss Beth,” he said, “but I’ve done enough crying. Jeff and June need their dad to be strong. She’s how I manage it.”
Steering Audrey from the table, he returned to theirs, weighted a few bills beneath his plate, and aimed them for the door. They didn’t speak on the drive to her parents’ place, and he assumed it was because they were both lost in thought. But after picking up the children, the silence became a wall they couldn’t see around.
He hated it, but knew the source. For all he’d done with her, for all he’d spoken to her, in his head, he was still married to Beth, and it was destroying the best thing he had.
She reasoned she had everything going for her, a good home, a loving family. She no longer thought of Bennett’s children as anything but her own. June considered her “mom”, and though Jeff called her Audrey, he turned to her for everything a mother would provide. Bennett’s reluctance to move past their current relationship became a huge issue though, standing between them more and more as summer turned into fall.
Fall then became winter. They shared Thanksgiving and Christmas with her parents. Surprisingly, Beth’s showed up with gifts. Jeff was reluctant to speak to them, but June acted like they’d come solely for her. Mrs. Jarvis was won over in an instant, her face wreathed in smiles. Strangely, they accepted August, too, Mr. Jarvis calling him a “wonderful little boy”.
At the first of the year, ten months into her life with Bennett, the barrier they’d erected crumbled a tiny bit. August’s and June’s birthdays approached, her first, his second, and Audrey sought out Bennett to organize some sort of party.
“We should invite Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis.”
Leaning back on the counter, Bennett stared at her across the rim of his coffee mug.
“Don’t look at me like that. We should.”
“Just like we should attend the weekend picnic with the Harrises?” he asked.
That’d been awful. Bobby and Jeff’s friendship continually forced the families together. The relationship hadn’t gotten any easier though. She and Mrs. Harris generally talked about cooking, the one topic they could agree on, but even that was on a different spectrum, Mrs. Harris being extremely health conscious.
“They love the children,” Audrey continued, “and cutting them off, after making an effort to include them, would be wrong.”
He agreed. It was written on his face, but male pride kept him from saying it.
“I thought we could do something at the park.” That way Jeff could escape to the playground. He’d not warmed up to Beth’s parents at all. And if August was messy, as he tended to be, it wouldn’t be noticed.
“Okay, you plan it and …” Bennett’s head turned. Setting his coffee cup down, he rounded the kitchen counter and headed into the living room.
The tumult that followed brought her after him. She entered the toy-strewn space to find Jeff cringing at the base of the couch, August’s cheeks purpled. His mouth agape, he tried to breathe, but whatever had lodged in his throat prevented it.
Panic grabbed her, and she surged forward. But before she could take action, Bennett gave the boy a hard slap, and the object shot out. August erupted into screams, and Bennett, his cheeks red, eyes moist, wrapped his arms around him and spoke low.
“It’s okay. Daddy’s got you.”
Daddy. Audrey’s legs weakened, and she sank onto the couch.
June decided to join the noise, whimpering, and she reached for her, lifting her into her lap. With the flat of her hand, she patted her softly. But her gaze was on Bennett.
He looked down at Jeff. “Your little brother can’t play with those. Remember, I told you to keep them in your room?”
Again, his words settled over her. Little brother.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
Bennett inhaled, then nodded toward the toys in question. “Pick it all up and put it in the box. Put the box on my dresser. You can’t have those back until you learn to do better.”
Obedient, his head hung, Jeff reached for the tiny plastic parts.
August squirmed to be released, his unrest already forgotten, and Bennett lowered him to the floor. Their eyes finally met. Neither one said anything, yet their thoughts were the same. Their sons, their daughter, and the love grown between them begging to be set free.
CHAPTER 10
Audrey tossed in bed for the thousandth time, her breaths escaping in a frustrated huff, and Bennett, tired of hearing the noise, rolled over to face the back of her head. The upper strap of her top, slipped off her shoulder, exposing the length of her neck and a warm patch above her right shoulder blade. Edging forward, he pressed his mouth there, and the sound of her breathing changed to a softer flurry.
“What’s got you so wound up?” he asked.
She wriggled, changing positions again. Lying flat, her hands folded across her waist, she looked not at him though, but the ceiling. She nursed June less now, adding cereal and fruit to her diet, so her voluptuous figure had lessened. Not the appeal, however. She was as desirable as she’d ever been. Even then, her nipples rosy through her tank top’s thin material, begged his attention.
Bennett tamped down the heat and dragged his eyes to her face.
“You called yourself ‘Daddy’,” she said, “and referred to August as your son.”
He had. But he thought of himself that way and thought she’d be happy about it.
“He isn’t your son.”
Surprised by her tone, Bennett rose onto o
ne elbow. “What do you mean?”
She spoke frank. “He isn’t your son, and Jeff and June aren’t my son and daughter. I have no rights to care for them outside of you allowing it, and if something happened to either of us … God forbid … they’d be split up.”
She was right, and it wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of it. But, as usual, he lived in denial. After Beth had died, he’d denied she was gone, denied June wasn’t getting used to the bottle, denied Jeff had trouble grieving. Now, he was trying to deny he’d have to make a choice. That’s what this came down to – choosing between the past and the future.
“I’m in love with you,” she said.
Again, Bennett started. That was not the tone he’d expected her to use when he heard those words.
“It’s okay,” she continued. “You don’t have to say it back.”
“Beth …”
“Yes, Beth. But my name’s Audrey, and I love you. I love your children; you love my son. I’m their mom; you’re his dad. I’m sorry about your wife; I’m not trying to replace your wife, but I’m extremely resentful.”
There wasn’t anything to say right then. She had the right to feel that way. In her eyes, he’d been dragging his feet, as if he stood with one foot on either side of the gate. “What do you want from me?” he asked.
She didn’t respond, and the silence became deafening. Eventually, he lay on his side again, and she shut her eyes. His sleep was troubled, filled with strange dreams in which Audrey and Beth interchanged. Something similar must’ve been in the air with the children because June cried at three a.m. and August, for the first time he could recall, left his toddler bed for theirs. He scrabbled at the mattress, climbing in, and Bennett tucked him in between them.
He awoke mid-morning, August curled around his arm, and noticed the emptiness on Audrey’s side of the bed immediately. He lay there, unmoving, one hand rising to stroke August’s head. Gradually, the noises below stairs leaked through the walls: Audrey talking to Jeff, his son’s response, and his daughter’s high-pitched squeal.
He listened for some ten minutes, then working his way from beneath August, rose and shuffled across the hall into the master bedroom. He stood in the doorway, the yellow light of dawn exposing the rim of dust on every surface. Except for changing clothes and showering, he spent very little time in here. As a result, it’d become an unintended shrine.
Words From The Heart (Spring-Summer Romance Book 2) Page 9