He scowled, knowing she was likely to call, volunteer for some mundane chore, but blow off asking Ron to be her model. A quick glance at his watch told him he didn’t have time to do anything but accept that she was always going to put her family before herself. “Okay, then. I guess…I guess I’d better pack.”
“Okay.” She shoved the sheets into the washer and left the bedroom.
…
Megan was proud of herself for not breaking down when Ben told her he was leaving. Her mother’s suggestion that she tell him how she felt about him was wadded up in a lump of clay in her gut, which was a good place for it, instead of out in the middle of the room where he would feel obligated to be kind.
It didn’t matter anyway now. By the time he came back to the States, he’d have forgotten all about her.
She hadn’t wanted to see the relief on his face when she’d told him she was about to get her period. She could call him in a few days to confirm that she wasn’t pregnant and leave a message. Heck, she could just text him.
It was good he was leaving now instead of in two more weeks. Two weeks in which she’d get more attached to him, and he’d just get more turned off by her family. The look on his face when she mentioned calling her sister was enough to drive home the fact that he, too, had fallen victim to Megan’s mixed blessing—an amazing family her boyfriends hated.
Everything would be fine. The past few amazingly wonderful and sexy weeks would be a hazy, rose-colored memory in no time.
Ben came back into the main room wearing his camouflage stuff, his duffel slung over his shoulder.
Holy freaking sex machine, Batman! Why couldn’t she have recognized this uniform fetish a couple of weeks ago?
He smiled, and she was drawn toward him. Swamped with his scent, his heat, and his nearness, she nearly bit her tongue to keep from whimpering.
“I had a really nice time being your husband, Mrs. Rutledge.”
That name on his lips sent a wave of longing through her that nearly knocked her down. She couldn’t do this. No long goodbyes, no sirree.
“Be careful on your way back to San Diego,” she said, trying to sound brusque, but her throat tightened, and her nose began to burn with unshed emotion.
“I’m always careful,” he said. “Well, usually.” He stood there, staring at her with those bottomless brown eyes.
Oh, no you don’t, big guy. You get your ass out of here before I make a fool of myself. She cleared her throat. “I had a good time, too. It was fun being your, uh, almost baby mama.”
“Let me know what you find out. About…you know.” He let out a breath and shifted his weight from one leg to the other, adjusting the strap of his duffel over his shoulder, so anxious to leave he couldn’t stand still. He loved his job so much he didn’t even like to take vacation. He’d told her that.
“Yeah. I’ll let you know,” she promised. As soon as she could function, one way or another.
“I’d better go.”
She nodded, stepping back to let him pass.
Instead, he followed her, leaned down, and kissed her—slowly, gently. She savored the feel of his lips against hers, the way his heart beat against hers as she threw her arms around his neck. She clung there for a moment before she pulled away with a deep breath.
“Take care of yourself,” she told him.
He nodded. “Always.”
“Seriously. Be safe.” She was not going to spend the rest of her life scanning the sky for jets, praying whoever was flying them would make it to their destination. Okay, she probably was, but still…
“I will.” He hesitated, brow furrowed. Blew out a breath and shook his head. “Call Ron about modeling as soon as I leave.”
“Sure.” She’d get right on that. Not.
As conveniently as ever, her phone tooted with an incoming “save me” text from one of her siblings. She pulled it from her pocket, and said, “Escape now, while you have the chance.”
He opened his mouth as though to argue, but with one more peck on the lips, he smiled and said, “See you later,” before he let himself out of her apartment and out of her life.
See you later. Sure beans. Her phone played “We Are Family,” and she hit the button. “Hello?”
“Meg? What’s wrong? You sound like you’ve been eating batteries.”
“I kinda feel that way, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Megan paced the length of her kitchen. One, two, turn. One, two, turn. Even though the tiny space was spotless, it bore traces of Ben’s presence. A long-handled spoon rested in the dish drainer. She should put it away. It wasn’t like she was going to need it anytime soon, but it looked good there, next to the assortment of hot sauces he’d accumulated.
She was tempted to put hot sauce on everything she ate these days, but was also afraid to use his collection, because if she did, it would be gone one day.
Maybe she should buy duplicates and use those, just keep Ben’s stuff there on the counter. Sure, that was healthy. A memorial to her absent lover. She snorted. Like she didn’t already have his name tattooed on her back.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and stared at the screen. It was stupid, really. Calling him was a mere formality. She’d told him three days ago she was starting her period. She didn’t need to let him know she’d really started the next day, that the spotting hadn’t been some sort of uterine embryo implantation phenomenon, and in spite of her plan to leave a message and run, she’d waited the three days to call because she hoped he’d be able to answer the phone so she could talk to him. It was time to grow the hell up and not sit around pining for him like some four-year-old on the couch, watching out the window for the mother who never shows up.
Oh for crying out loud. She unlocked her screen and tapped until she got to his number.
…
Ben’s training mission lasted four days, not three. During that time, he got about six hours of sleep in spite of spending most of the mission sitting on his ass on a runway in the middle of nowhere, without cell phone service or internet. It had been a good mission, though. In spite of his inner turmoil, he’d felt better and more confident than he had in…ever. Someone told him he seemed more relaxed. Could it be that his week running a circus had improved his leadership skills in the real world? Probably had more to do with watching Megan navigate the chaos of her life with grace and ease.
At any rate, he was exhausted and stumbled through the door of his hotel room. He didn’t even get his phone out of his pocket and onto the charger before he was facedown on the mattress and snoring.
After a good ten-hour nap, he got up, went to the bathroom, then checked his phone for messages, but it was dead. He’d forgotten to charge it. Damn. All he’d been able to think about while he was cooling his heels was getting home and calling Megan.
He forced himself to plug it in and take a shower before powering it back up, and then had to wait a few more minutes while it decided to check in with the network and download emails and voicemail.
There it was. A missed call from Megan yesterday.
“Hey, Ben, it’s me. Megan.” A self-conscious chuckle. “In case you forgot my voice, or whatever.”
Like he could ever forget the smooth, cool tones of her speaking his name, or the way she laughed so loudly, or the little gasp she made when she came… Just her voice on this message made him smile, made shit in his chest flutter around.
“Anyway, I wanted to let you know that you’re officially off the hook. I’m definitely not pregnant. I…I’m sorry I missed you. I hope your thing went well. I guess you’re leaving again soon, and I’m going to be pretty busy, so…” The flutters in his chest turned to sharp talons, and he had to sit down.
She ended with, “I really did have a great time while you were here, and I hope you have a good life. So, yeah. Take care. Bye.”
Hell. She was blowing him off. He should have said something to her before he left, left her with some little seed of a thought ab
out how nice it might be to see her again when they could manage it, but this was pretty clear. She was moving on.
He’d spent the week trying to figure out what to say, something that would let her know how he felt without obligating her to feel sorry for him, to let him down easy, or annoying the hell out of her on the off chance she felt something stronger than fondness for him, too, but now…now he’d been dismissed.
What would happen if he showed up anyway? Just happened to run into her at the bike expo, maybe. He could say he was there to meet his buddy for a belated mini trip and thought he’d come see how her jacket did, just for grins.
Yeah, she’d see right through that, feel as though he was crowding her, and run fast and far.
He now had seventy-two hours to fill before he had to report back to the base. Seventy-two hours he’d hoped to be spending with Megan, but which now stretched endlessly in front of him.
Maybe he should go to see his mother and Nana. He could let them fuss over him and feed him, keep him anesthetized with food.
He hit his mother’s number.
“Hi, baby,” she said, her rich voice filling his heart with comfort.
“Hey, Mom,” he said. “You got time for a visitor? I’m thinking about catching a flight out.”
“What’s this about? You don’t make spur-of-the-moment trips.”
“Nothing,” he lied. “Just want to see my best girls. It’s been a while.”
“Uh-huh. This have anything to do with an unborn baby being targeted by bioterrorists?”
He laughed, remembering the ridiculous story he’d told her when he’d called to ask about medicines for Megan’s flu. “I don’t know. Maybe a little.”
“What happened?”
He sighed. “Well, you’re not going to be a grandma.”
“Hey, Mama, you can put that yellow yarn back. We don’t need to make any receiving blankets just yet,” she yelled, away from the phone.
He heard Nana say something unintelligible.
“She says she might as well finish this one. You never know.”
“That can go to one of Aunt Marcie’s grandkids.”
Nana said something else, and Mom told him, “She says you two would make pretty babies, so you might want to go apologize for whatever you did.”
“What? How—”
“We looked at her on Facebook. She tagged you in a picture wearing some ridiculous hats.”
“Ah.”
“Talk to me,” his mother demanded, so Ben did.
He told her the basics, and she listened sympathetically until he finished.
She said, “I’m sorry, honey.”
“It’s for the best. I wouldn’t know the first thing about being a husband or a father, given my role model.”
Mom’s voice was cautious when she asked, “What specifically do you mean?”
Ben hated talking about this, because it reminded him of what a coward he’d been as a child. How his chickenshit side came out when he least wanted it. But he said, “I remember when he walked away from us, how hard you and Nana had to work to take care of us.”
“Oh, baby, no.” Her voice was choked with emotion.
“What?”
But she didn’t answer, because she’d begun to cry in earnest.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
There was some rustling, and it sounded like the phone was banged onto something.
“Benjamin, what did you say to your mama?”
Uh-oh. “Hey, Nana. I, uh, I told Mom that I thought I’d be a lousy dad because I had a lousy role model.”
“Oh no you didn’t.” Ben pictured her wagging finger and flinched from three thousand miles away. When Nana waved that finger, you had better get your act together. “Your mama did the best she could, and you know that.”
“I know that, damn it,” Ben protested.
“You watch your mouth.”
“Sorry,” he said. “But I was talking about my father, not her.”
“Well, you got that right, anyway,” Nana said. “That man never was worth a lick of spit.”
“Give me that phone,” Mom said, and then she was back on the line. “Ben, I need to tell you something.”
His heart thumped uncomfortably. “Okay.”
“Your daddy and I got married too young, and we were both selfish and stubborn. We fought, split up, and got back together, only to do it all over again. Finally I knew I had to move on with my life. Your daddy wanted to come home to live with us, off and on for years, but I—I was so afraid of getting my heart broken again, I told him no.”
The bottom fell out of Ben’s stomach. She thought it was her fault? That was crazy.
“I’m so sorry, Ben.”
“I…I don’t know what to say,” he mumbled.
“I know it hurt you. Maybe I should have let him move back in. Should have forgiven him for having other girlfriends. Should have—”
“Wait. No. You absolutely should not have compromised. He didn’t want a family, he wanted a place to crash when he didn’t have a better offer, and he didn’t want me. If he had, he’d have come back for me whether you wanted him there or not.”
She sniffled.
“You—you and Nana—were the best parents I could have had.”
“But not if you think you wouldn’t know how to be a good father. You’d be Little League coach of the year for sure.”
“Being a good father isn’t about teaching your son how to play baseball.”
“I don’t know. You were so shy. I think we babied you too much.”
Ben laughed. “I was shy as long as I can remember. Way before Dad left us. That didn’t have anything to do with you. You raised me to be a good man, made sure I did my homework, and took me to Boy Scouts. Helped me with that application to the academy.”
“Well, you do seem to be turning out pretty well,” she allowed. “Give or take some malarkey about bioterrorist novel plots.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, laughing. “I was desperate.”
“I know. What are you gonna do now?”
“Fly to Memphis to visit my mom and grandma,” he said.
“Oh no you’re not,” Mom said.
“Why not?” Ben asked, surprised at being rejected.
“Because…because we’re not going to be here,” Mom said. “We’ve got a trip planned.”
“We do?” Nana asked in the background. “Oh. Yes. We do. And you”—her voice was clearer now, because she’d taken the phone from Mom— “You’re gonna get in that boring car of yours and hightail it back to Nevada and get that girl to give you another chance.”
“That’s probably what I’m going to do,” he agreed, laughing, and checked his watch. “I’ve got five hours to figure out how.”
“And then you’re going to introduce her to us so we can get a look at her in person. She doesn’t update her Facebook profile often enough.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Megan, do you have the magic rabbit?” Dad’s tone of voice let her know that this hadn’t been the first time he’d asked.
She pointed at the cage next to the “disappearing audience member” box. “He’s right there, in his—” He wasn’t in his cage.
“Beth’s almost done with her act. We need him ASAP!”
Oh no. That stupid rabbit disappeared more than it appeared, that was for sure. She knew she’d put the lock on his crate after she fed him, she was sure of it—
But the lock was nowhere to be seen, so if it had been on the crate, it had been taken off before he was carried out of the dressing room to the—
He had been in there, hadn’t he?
She had no idea.
Her brain had left the state with a particular pilot almost week ago, and she hadn’t been able to get it back.
“Come on, Meg, get your head in the game,” Dad said, giving her a one-armed hug as he went by.
“I’m trying,” she mumbled, dropping to her knees to peer under the racks of costumes fill
ing the space. Last time the darned thing had managed to find his way into the makeup drawer, but you just never knew. “Come here, Mr. Hops,” she called, though knowing that his humans were looking for him probably just sent him further into hiding.
“You can use my bunny, Gwampa,” Lexxie offered, holding up her bedraggled but beloved stuffed cottontail.
“Thank you, sweetie,” Dad said, taking the thing between thumb and forefinger. “It looks like it’s got a zoonotic strain of myxomatosis,” he grumbled.
“You’re not really going to use a fake rabbit in that trick, are you?” asked Harry.
“I will if you don’t help your aunt Megan find the real one,” Dad told him. “And then you’ll have to carry this one everywhere you go to make sure it doesn’t get lost, because you were supposed to be in charge of prop security.”
“I’ll be right back,” Harry said, hopping off of the crate where he’d been playing on someone’s phone and disappearing behind some scaffolding.
“What do you know that I don’t know?” Megan asked her dad, who smirked at the disappearing kid.
“I know that you probably forgot to lock that cage, and that I heard certain little boys discussing better ways to make a rabbit appear out of a hat.”
“I found him!” Harry crowed, reappearing with Mr. Hops in his arms. “He was hiding in a box.”
“Uh-huh,” Megan said, taking the rabbit and putting him back in his cage, making sure the latch was firmly closed, and handing her dad the key.
“Why isn’t Ben here?” Harry asked for the nineteenth time that day.
“He’s at work,” Megan said, and heard the thin shell of her patience beginning to crack.
“You’re not very nice when he’s not here,” Harry complained.
Megan sucked in a breath and tried to focus on the to-do list in her hand. “Wasn’t Ron supposed to take you kids swimming this afternoon?”
“We’re going in a few minutes,” her brother-in-law said, limping into view.
“What happened to you?” Megan asked.
“I twisted my knee trying to ride Harry’s skateboard.”
Well, that solved one issue Megan had kind of decided to ignore, anyway. She didn’t want to go to the bike expo in the first place, and now she didn’t have a model.
Accidentally in Love with the Pilot Page 16