Shoreline Drive (Sanctuary Island)

by Everett, Lily

  He shook his head at himself, as if he found the entire concept of being in love unbelievable now.

  “So what went wrong?” Merry asked into the hush.

  “Nothing, at first. We got married, I was promoted to chief resident, she cut back on her hours at the art fund … and got pregnant.”

  It wasn’t as if Merry hadn’t been prepared for this. It stood to reason that if Ben had proof of his ability to father children, he’d gotten it during his first marriage. But somehow, it was still a shock. Merry bobbled her mug and bit back a curse as she lifted her hand to her mouth to suck hot tea off her skin.

  Her entire body was engaged in the act of listening, every atom of her being rerouted to her ears as she strained to catch Ben’s next words.

  “The pregnancy was normal. Easy, even. Ashley never had morning sickness, and she kept up with her yoga and lap swimming until the week she gave birth.”

  If Merry hadn’t hated Perfect Ashley, who Ben was still hung up on, already … but with a shiver of presentiment, Merry knew she couldn’t hate Ashley. Not with what was surely coming next.

  “The baby was born exactly on time. I was in the delivery room, and since I’d already done my labor-and-delivery rotation, the attending even let me be the one to catch the baby.” There was no wonder or joy in Ben’s deadened voice, only sorrow, and Merry had to bite her lip to keep from begging him to stop talking. But now that he’d started, Ben seemed unable to stop. He told the story in a steady stream of distant words, as if it had happened to someone else.

  “She looked healthy, ten fingers and toes, no obvious issues. Ashley cried. I might have, too, I don’t remember. We named her Justine, after Ashley’s mother. Justine Elizabeth Fairfax.”

  He paused there, long enough for Merry to count out five heartbeats as blood pounded in her ears. “It’s a beautiful name,” she finally said.

  Ben jolted, blinking at her as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Yeah,” he said, setting his mug down on the coffee table with a loud crack. She caught a glimpse of his eyes and caught her breath.

  His eyes weren’t numb or distant—they were infinite pools of rage and grief. “That pretty name looked great on her tombstone.”

  “Oh, Ben.” Merry covered her mouth with her hand, frozen on the sofa. Should she put her arm around him? He looked as if he’d throw off any comforting touch, the line of his broad back vibrating with tension.

  “She lived four weeks and five days. Four weeks and five days of tests, procedures, and specialists. She never left the hospital.”

  Heart breaking, Merry tried to imagine the extended terror Ben and his wife experienced in those days. She couldn’t. Her brain simply refused to go there.

  “Failure to thrive,” Ben murmured. “Do you know what that means?”

  Merry shook her head mutely, her vision blurred by tears.

  “It means,” Ben continued, soft and ruthless, “that she didn’t grow. She actually lost weight after birth, even though Ashley fed her constantly. Her body refused to retain or efficiently utilize the calories she took in. She wasted away in front of us for four weeks and five days because of a chromosomal abnormality so rare, it only affects one out of every six thousand live births. It’s like being struck by lightning. No way to predict it, no way to prevent it, no way to cure it. Nothing to do but stand outside the NICU and watch her fade.”

  The remembered helplessness in his tone was horrible, annihilating, and Merry couldn’t stay respectfully on her side of the couch any longer. “You can push me away if you want,” she said, scooting over to wrap her arms around his bent shoulders. “But I hope you don’t.”

  He was icy marble under her touch for a long minute. Finally, he turned his head, just far enough to press his face to the side of Merry’s neck. She clutched him closer in relief, fisting her hands in the loose cotton of his soft waffle-knit Henley and burying her nose in his hair.

  “She died,” he gasped thickly. “My baby girl, my Justine.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Merry kept whispering, over and over, feeling as if she’d been turned inside out. God in heaven, no wonder he hadn’t wanted to relive this nightmare by telling her about it.

  Ben’s arms crept around her waist, hesitant at first, but soon he was holding on to her as if she were his only anchor in a stormy sea, tight enough to make her ribs creak in protest. His shoulders spasmed, he shook, but his face where it pressed against her neck was dry. He didn’t cry.

  That was okay, because Merry was crying enough for both of them.

  *

  Eyes swollen and burning, Ben let the flood of Merry’s tears wash his grief back down into the depths of his soul. No amount of sobbing would ever wipe it away completely, he knew, but as Merry’s hitching breaths ghosted over his head, Ben felt lighter than he had in years.

  Repression might be a valid coping strategy, but there was something to be said for getting it all out there.

  Sitting up took effort. Every part of Ben’s body wanted to mold itself to Merry’s, to melt into her and mesh together until he absorbed some of the sweetness and good humor of her outlook, her giant and generous heart, into himself.

  “You can probably guess the rest,” Ben said, sinking back into the sofa cushions, still close enough to feel Merry all along one side. He was exhausted by the emotional roller coaster of the day. “Ashley and me … our marriage didn’t survive the death of our daughter. Ash got remarried four winters ago; I hear she’s got a healthy toddler and another on the way.”

  Merry let him go so she could lean over and grab a tissue from the box on the end table. Blowing her nose, she shuddered out a long breath and pulled herself together. “Then,” she said, frowning, “nothing went wrong with Ashley’s other pregnancies.”

  Ben tensed. “Obviously not.”

  “So that’s what your dad meant. You could father as many perfectly healthy kids as you want—there’s no reason to assume lightning would strike twice in the same place.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Ben cut off that train of thought with a sharp gesture. “I’m never putting myself, or any woman I care about, through that again.”

  “But Ben, you can’t blame yourself.” Merry resettled with her legs under her as she stared earnestly at him and mouthed the same platitudes Ben had heard a hundred times from his parents, his friends, the doctors and nurses at the hospital. Even Ashley.

  Unwilling to listen, Ben shifted restlessly. “I do blame myself. Justine—she never even had a chance at a life. I was supposed to be there for her, to protect her from everything. I trained to be a doctor, and when it mattered most, I couldn’t heal my daughter. I was helpless.”

  Even Ben could hear the raw anguish in his rough voice, but instead of backing down or hurrying to placate him, Merry shook her head. The expression on her beautiful face was exasperation, tinged with fondness and a heartbreaking edge of empathy. “Oh, Doc. You pride yourself on rationality, you place reason and logic above emotion every time—but about this? Even you can’t be rational.”

  And somehow, that single observation struck Ben like a tuning fork to the skull, reverberating all through him.

  He sank deeper into the couch cushions, boneless with shock. “You’re right,” he admitted for the first time since he said good-bye to his baby girl. “I’m not being rational about this.”

  “And maybe you won’t ever be.” Merry put a gentle hand on his knee, sympathy softening her husky voice. “At least, not enough to take a chance on having a baby with me. And if that’s the case, I’ll understand. Just so long as you let go of the guilt and try to accept that the tragedy of Justine’s death was not your fault.”

  Ben swallowed hard. “How did you get so wise?”

  Merry ducked her head, hiding her eyes, but when she looked up again she was wearing a small, tremulous smile. “After Alex was born, you came around to see him every day. You were always so gruff when you first arrived, but when you saw how fat and happy he was…”r />
  Ben struggled for a brief moment, then gave in. He’d gone this far, he might as well spill it all. “Alex was the first birth I attended, since Justine. It’s meant … so much to me, I can’t even tell you how much, to be part of his life. And yours.”

  They were still sitting so close, he could feel the way her body inclined toward him inside the circle of his embrace. In all the horrible aftermath of Justine’s birth and painfully abbreviated life, Ben had never felt connected to Ashley this way. Which was completely his fault—he’d built thick, impenetrable walls around his heart to avoid dealing with the gut-wrenching horror of the situation. That much was true.

  But it was also true that Ashley had never turned to him. Not once. They’d each been locked in their own separate cages, prisoners of grief and anger, and when Justine’s death released them … they’d found they could no longer bear to even look at one another.

  Every glimpse of Ashley’s pale, shocked face had threatened to pull him back into that prison once more.

  Ben stared at Merry’s flushed cheeks, her nose pink from crying, her eyes bright with the remnants of tears she’d shed for him because he wasn’t able to cry for himself. And he realized he’d never felt more free.

  “What you went through,” Merry began, then cut herself off with a choking breath. “I can’t even imagine it. Thank you for telling me—I think I understand everything much better now.”

  “Oh, good.” Ben barked a hoarse laugh, scrubbing his hands over his scratchy five o’clock shadow. “When you’ve got me all figured out, let me know.”

  “It might take a while.” Merry slid over to rest her head on his shoulder. “You’re pretty tricky.”

  “Luckily, we’re married now. So you’ve got as much time as you need.”

  She buried a yawn in the front of his shirt. “True. I’ll get started in a minute.”

  Her breaths evened out, deep and slow, and Ben felt peace drop over him like a fleecy blanket. He yawned wide enough to unhinge his jaw, and stretched one arm out to shut off the lamp and click on the baby monitor. He listened for a moment, but the only sound from Alex’s room was a snuffled sigh.

  Feeling as if he’d been given a precious gift, Ben maneuvered Merry carefully until they were lying spooned together, Merry’s slim back to his chest. Her head was pillowed on his bicep, which was going to cut off all circulation to his arm in less than half an hour, but Ben didn’t care.

  He was exactly where he wanted to be.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Merry blinked awake between one breath and the next, cradled against the warmest, most comforting mattress she’d ever experienced.

  A mattress that rose and fell beneath her, emitting a steady tattoo of measured beats against her cheek.

  Her eyes flew wide. Oh, right. She was lying on top of Ben.

  Every inch of her skin was suddenly and vividly roused to the sensation of being pressed up against Ben’s powerful form. With her head tucked down against his chest, his sinewy arms curled loosely around her, Merry breathed in his spicy evergreen scent and tried not to think about how their legs were tangled together.

  She’d fallen asleep in the loose, gauzy dress she’d worn to get married, and while she’d enjoyed it as a pseudo-bridal gown, it was less than ideal as a nightie. The filmy material had slithered up in the night to tighten around her thighs and leave her legs bare. Every breath shifted Merry’s naked calves against the frayed denim of Ben’s jeans in a way that sent shocking tendrils of heat curling up her spine.

  Ben rocked slightly beneath her, his abs going granite hard beneath her hand, and one of his jean-clad thighs slid between hers. Merry swallowed her surprised squeak at the wave of desire that crashed over her when her hips slotted perfectly against Ben’s.

  Gravity and the dreamy lethargy of her body melted her into an unthinkable intimacy with this man she’d sworn never to touch.

  Merry squeezed her eyes shut, but that only made the sensations more urgent and impossible to ignore. She felt something deep inside unfurl and stretch in a molten glide toward the source of pleasure.

  Ben.

  This was crazy. Was she ready for this? Her body was different now, after giving birth—would she even be able to please Ben? Did she want to try?

  But the moment she bit her lip and did a slow-motion wriggle to get her hands braced on either side of Ben’s hard-planed chest, ready to push herself up off the couch and away from temptation, Ben’s surprisingly long, dark lashes fluttered. He opened eyes hazy with sleep, and smiled up at her.

  Merry’s heart tightened as if someone had tied a ribbon around it and pulled hard on the ends. Half asleep, with bright moonlight washing through the window and silvering his skin and hair, the first thing Ben did was smile when he saw her.

  “Merry,” Ben said, licking his lips in an absentminded, wondering kind of way. “My smart, wonderful new wife.”

  Staring down at him, entranced, she forgot all about getting up. “We fell asleep,” she murmured, intensely aware of every shift and tense of Ben’s awakening muscles. “You should’ve kicked me awake and made me go to bed.”

  “What for? I’ve slept on this couch plenty of times. It gives good sleep.”

  A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “It must. I don’t usually nod off so easily.” She sniffed, her nose a little stuffy, and memory came rushing back. “Especially not right in the middle of a majorly emotional conversation! Oh my gosh, Ben, I’m so sorry! You really should have pinched me or something.”

  Ben’s laugh was low and deep. Merry could feel it in his abs, in the tightening of his muscles, before she heard it. He lifted one arm, bent at the elbow, over his head and tangled his fingers in the unruly waves of his hair. “And miss the chance to have you drool on me? No way.”

  Merry struggled upright in horror. “I did not drool! Oh no. Did I drool?”

  Her position, braced over him on her hands, pushed her center of gravity lower, where his thighs cradled her hips.

  Sensual awareness flashed through Ben’s moon-dark eyes before he smiled up at her. “Only in a cute way. Besides, anyone would’ve zonked out after the day we had. Think about it. We started the day with a food fight, segued to a legally binding ceremony linking us for life, with a side of good old-fashioned parental disapproval, and finished up with me breaking apart into a million pieces on the couch.”

  “It is a lot to process,” Merry agreed, unable to resist the urge to smile back at him.

  There was a beat of silence, long enough for her to truly understand the new, uncharted level of intimacy they’d tumbled into, almost by accident.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Ben said suddenly. “In case I haven’t mentioned it lately … I’m really happy you said yes.”

  “Me, too.” And … she was fighting a blush, hoping the room was too dark for him to make it out.

  But of course Ben, whose sharp eyes never missed anything, frowned and reached up to brush her cheek with the back of his fingers. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Merry ducked her head. She could get up, retreat to the safety of her bedroom and Alex’s soft snuffles in his bassinet, but … she felt strangely safe already. “I’ve never been here with a guy before. This is new territory for me.”

  “What, napping on a couch? Yeah, that does sound a little tame for Miss Meredith Preston.”

  His voice was softly teasing, but Merry couldn’t help taking it seriously. She wanted him to understand. “No, I mean … intimate.”

  He arched one of his brows, dark and devilish in the moonlight. “There’s a baby sleeping on the other end of that monitor that proves otherwise.”

  Merry slapped at his chest with playful annoyance, wholeheartedly grateful for the way Ben always seemed to know when to lighten the mood. “Not like that! I mean, yes. I have had my share of … encounters. Some would probably say more than my share. My sister, the armchair psychologist, has lots of theories about lack of paternal involvement—which
is about half a click away from telling me I’m searching for a father figure, which, ew. I’ll cop to having some daddy issues, but I don’t think it’s as simple as that.”

  “Or maybe it’s a lot more simple.” Ben shrugged against the cushions, the move settling him deeper into the sofa. His searching gaze never left her face. “Maybe you simply enjoy sex. Which, by the way, is completely natural, not to mention biologically useful.”

  What a weird conversation. Merry settled back to rest her chin on Ben’s cotton-covered sternum. “I guess I used to enjoy it. If not the sex, always, then the closeness. Even the illusion of it was enough sometimes. At least for a while. I don’t know, it’s hard to think about it now—I feel like such a different person from that girl who went out to a different club every night and had all those boyfriends.”

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing you in your clubbing gear,” Ben said, waggling those brows like a cartoon villain.

  “Oh, I was a sight to behold.” Merry huffed out a laugh. “Crazy hair in a rainbow of colors, leather pants so tight I basically had to paint them on. And my eye out for any guy that caught my fancy, who made me feel special, or could help me forget whatever drama I was worrying about that week. And I won’t lie, at times it was fun. I loved the pounding music, the sweat and energy and anonymity of losing myself on the dance floor. But when I got pregnant … I couldn’t afford to lose myself anymore. I had to be present, all the time. I had to pay attention. And now that I’m a mother…”

  “What?”

  She shook her head, letting the loose fall of her hair hide her face. “Being Alex’s mother is the most important thing I’ve ever done. The stakes are crazy high. I can’t afford to mess it up.”