“Oh, Ben.” Pamela sighed. But it was the pity lurking in the depths of his mother’s eyes that set Ben’s heart pounding as if he’d run a mile flat out.
His mother was an expert at reading people; she’d built a social empire out of that skill, crowned herself queen of the hospital benefit committee and the country club set. It was all too easy to believe she knew something he didn’t.
He was saved from the foolishness of showing his vulnerable underbelly by demanding to know what she meant when the front door opened.
Merry and Ivan blew in on a cool blast of air, cheeks reddened and mouths smiling. Ben felt slightly better when Merry’s gaze found him immediately.
She came straight to him and put one slim arm around his waist. Ben had to control himself carefully to keep from crushing her to him with a too-tight grip. No matter how tightly he held her, he was afraid he’d still feel her slipping away.
“Ivan’s going to stick around for a few days, to spend some time with Alex,” Merry announced. Her fingers flexed against Ben’s side, but when he studied her face, he saw only calm purpose. “I’ve asked him to come back tomorrow morning to meet him.”
One more night to pretend that nothing was changing. Ben closed his eyes briefly in thanks.
“Surely we can wait until the child is returned here,” Tripp said impatiently. “Ben says you expect your sister to bring him back after dinner.”
Ben stiffened against the urge to yell at his father to get the hell out and leave them in peace.
“I wanted to stay and see Alex tonight,” Ivan interrupted. He looked excited after his conversation with Merry, like a kid being presented with a gift wrapped in shiny paper. “But Merry says he’ll be tired, probably crying a lot and stuff. If we wait until tomorrow, he’ll be in a better mood.”
“Besides,” Ben said, fixing his father with an inflexible stare. “There’s only one evening ferry back to the mainland. You wouldn’t want to miss it and get stuck out here on the island.”
“They could stay with us, if they needed to.” Merry’s voice was uncertain, lilting up questioningly at the end as she looked to Ben for confirmation.
“We wouldn’t want to impose,” Pamela said smoothly, rising from the armchair where she’d been perched. “Tomorrow will be quite soon enough. Ben, walk us out to the car.”
“Gladly.” Ben held the door open for his parents and Ivan, then hurried around to open the front passenger door of the Town Car for his mother.
As he’d suspected since she’d made her demand about being walked out, Pamela had something to tell him. The moment the car doors slammed behind Tripp and Ivan, she leaned up to speak into Ben’s ear.
“I’m sorry about this, Benjamin. I truly am. She seems like a very sweet girl, but if you follow through with this plan of adopting her son, I’m terribly afraid you’ll miss out on life’s greatest joy—becoming a parent.”
The thread of sincerity tightening his mother’s voice hit Ben like a sucker punch. “I’ll be Alex’s father, in every way that matters. That’s what I want.”
“It’s what you want now,” Pamela said gently, wrapping her soft fingers around Ben’s tense wrist as he reached for the door handle. “But what about when you finally move past what happened with Ashley? Eventually, you’ll heal. You must see that all I’m trying to do here is to ensure that when that day comes, you’ll have the opportunity to create the next Fairfax heir with a suitable partner.”
“All I see is that you and Dad can’t stand for me to be happy.” His tongue felt thick in his mouth, his throat as tight as if he were going into anaphylactic shock. “I always knew you didn’t love me, since I was a kid. But this is the first time I ever felt like you actually hate me.”
She drew back as if he’d struck her across the face, eyes wide and shocked. “Benjamin! How can you say such things? We’re trying to protect you from making the worst mistake of your life. Giving the Fairfax name to a child without a drop of Fairfax blood…”
Unutterably tired and sick at heart, Ben wrenched open the car door. “Just go. Please.”
“It’s for the best, Ben. A quick, clean break now will be so much better than something messy and drawn out. And you know that a break is inevitable; she won’t stay with you. Water will always seek its own level.”
Conviction rang clear as a bell in his mother’s voice, every word the truest he’d ever heard from her. Apparently satisfied that she’d gotten the last word, she sank gracefully into the deep black leather seat and twitched her skirt away from the door.
Moving on autopilot, Ben slammed the door and watched the car drive away, scattering a curious goose, the three-legged goat, and a hissing one-eared cat as it went.
Water will always seek its own level.
One of his parents’ favorite sayings, often used in conjunction with “Blood will tell.” Ben had never thought about it seriously before. His mother meant it as something very snobbish and easy for him to dismiss—but she was actually talking about how people would automatically seek out those who were most like them … and Ben couldn’t dismiss that notion quite so easily.
After all, wasn’t that why he’d been alone for most of his life?
The days were growing shorter, the evenings much cooler once the sun slipped down behind the trees. A shiver worked through him as he trudged back toward the warmth of the house.
It was hard to imagine anyone less like him than vibrant, friendly, openhearted Merry.
Maybe his mother was right. Like the changing of the seasons, nothing lasted forever. Maybe it was time to start protecting himself.
*
To Merry’s surprise and cautious delight, the first meeting between Ivan and Alex went well. In a display of sensitivity she could hardly believe, he’d opted to come to the island on his own, asking Tripp and Pamela Fairfax to stay at the hotel in Winter Harbor.
“He said he didn’t want a big audience while he met Alex,” Merry explained, leaning in the bathroom doorway while Ben ran the water into the baby tub, meticulously testing the temperature.
Ben had also made himself scarce for the big meeting, citing work commitments—but Merry was pretty sure he simply didn’t want to be around Ivan and Alex together. Which she understood, but she had to talk about it with someone or she’d go nuts. “He told me he noticed how tense your parents’ presence made everyone, so he thought it was for the best that they sit this one out. That was good, right?”
“What a prince,” Ben muttered, eyes fixed on the flow from the antique brass faucet. “Let me know when they schedule the awards ceremony so I can see him get his medal.”
Something twisted in Merry’s chest. “Ben…”
He sighed and pushed to his feet, holding out his hands for Alex to start the evening ritual they’d devised to get the baby to sleep through the night. She’d noticed that if Alex had a warm bath with Ben followed by quiet time in the rocking chair with his mama, he’d drop off to sleep without much fuss. And, at nearly six months old, he’d sleep a good seven or eight hours straight.
Merry handed him over with a tinge of reluctance. She dreaded the moment when Alex went to sleep and left her and Ben alone to have the talk they’d managed to avoid all day.
“Sorry.” Ben’s clipped tone didn’t betray a lot of regret. He sounded angry, more than anything else, but Merry couldn’t tell if he was ticked off at her or himself.
“I know this is … awkward. For all of us.” Proud of herself for keeping her voice steady, Merry followed the slow, precise movements of Ben’s bare hands and arms as he lowered Alex into the bath. The sleeves of Ben’s dark gray chambray shirt were rolled to the elbow, exposing the strong, corded tendons of his forearms, the graceful jut of his wrist bones.
Momentarily distracted, Merry hauled herself back to the point. “Do you think it’s easy for me, being around my ex? The last time I saw Ivan he yelled at me, accused me of sleeping around, and said…” She swallowed, looked down at her feet. “All kinds
of terrible things. Just to avoid any possibility of taking part in my baby’s life.”
“Exactly. This man—I’m using the word ‘man’ loosely here—ran out on you and your kid and stayed away for more than a year. What I don’t understand is how he can show up here after all that, and five minutes later, you’re ready to play happy family with him.”
“This isn’t a game,” Merry said tensely. She didn’t want to lose her temper, but it was getting tough. “I’m not playing around, Ben. This is my son’s future happiness, his entire concept of family and love—and Alex deserves the chance to know his biological father. I’m not trying to hurt anyone, especially not you. You’ve been so good to us. But I have to take this chance, for Alex’s sake. I don’t want him growing up wondering what he did to make his own father abandon him.”
Ben paused in the act of pouring a slow stream of warm water over Alex’s dimpled back. Keeping his hands on Alex to steady him in the slippery tub, Ben twisted his torso to meet Merry’s gaze.
Whatever he saw in her face made his hard-edged features blur into something gentler. Sadder. That was even worse; Merry preferred angry, pissy Ben to unhappy, resigned Ben.
“You grew up without your mom, knowing she’d chosen her addiction over you and your sister,” he said quietly. “And when your father didn’t show up for our wedding … you didn’t seem surprised.”
“After the divorce, Dad worked a lot. All the time, really. I’m not complaining—he had to support two kids on his own, he didn’t have any family to turn to. But even when he was home…” She leaned her head on the doorjamb, suddenly too tired to hold it up on her own. “I think we reminded him too much of Mom, and everything that went wrong in his life. He never hit us or even raised his voice, even when I got in trouble at school or stayed out past curfew. Sometimes I wondered what it would take to make him look at me and really see me. You know?”
“There are lots of ways to be abandoned.” Ben turned back to the bath, the slow, almost hypnotic motion of his soapy hands over Alex’s little body. “Fatherhood is more than biology, Merry. Sharing genetic code doesn’t guarantee a good relationship.”
She swallowed, knowing he was thinking of his own father. “I know that. But if Ivan is serious about wanting a relationship, how can I deny them both that chance?”
From behind, she saw the way Ben’s shoulders went rigid, as if he were braced for attack. But his voice stayed low and expressionless. “So I guess the real question is … what happens when a marriage of convenience becomes inconvenient?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The heavy silence behind him rushed in Ben’s ears like the roar of a jet engine, deafening white noise that blocked out everything but the sound of his own heart beating far too quickly.
“I’m not saying that I want to move back in with Ivan and pick up where we left off!” Merry finally croaked out, the words shredded and thin. “What do you—Ben, listen to me. This is not about me choosing him over you. It has nothing to do with our marriage!”
“Don’t kid yourself. You are absolutely choosing between us.” With great care, Ben lifted a sleepy Alex from the tub, water streaming down his forearms and dampening the cotton of his shirtsleeves. He pivoted, ready to hand Alex off to Merry, who was supposed to be waiting with Alex’s soft terry-cloth towel.
But tonight, Merry stood frozen in the doorway, her fingers white-knuckled against the wood as if she was worried she’d fall over without the support.
Ben paused, hope flickering to life in his gut. “Unless I’m mistaken,” he said slowly. “And you do intend to ask Ivan to sign away his paternal rights.”
Merry jolted as if he’d touched her with a live wire, her face going tense with surprise before it settled back into unhappy lines. “Ben, I can’t. Not now, when everything is so new and they’ve barely had any time together. I’m not saying that will never happen—but we have to be patient and see how things play out. I owe it to my son to try and make things work with Ivan. And waving some piece of paper in his face that relinquishes all rights to his kid isn’t going to help anything.”
“Right.” Ben shook his head in disbelief as the feeble flicker of hope snuffed out. He snagged the terry cloth himself and wrapped it around Alex until he looked like a baby burrito. “It wouldn’t help anything at all … except to make it possible for me to actually adopt Alex in a year, as discussed when we entered into this arrangement.”
“Arrangement,” Merry echoed faintly. “Yes. I remember what we discussed. And the adoption was never guaranteed. That’s what the year-long grace period is for.”
Her voice sounded weird, but when Ben frowned over at Merry, her eyes were trained on Alex. She held out her arms, and Ben passed him over, the move as smooth and habitual as a choreographed dance.
They were good together, the three of them. Ben fumed, frustrated beyond belief. Why couldn’t Merry see that? Why didn’t she want to protect that as much as Ben did? “But it ought to at least be a viable option,” he argued. “At this point, with Ivan back in the picture, I might as well go ahead and give up on the adoption ever happening.”
Merry shook her head. “All I’m saying is that I need time to see where this thing with Ivan is going—and you already agreed, in writing, to give me that time. Nothing has changed.”
Her refusal to see what was going on here made Ben’s temper flare. “Everything has changed. Don’t you get it? My parents brought Ivan here for a reason. They didn’t cross paths at an opera gala or run into each other at the club—my father tracked Ivan Bushnell down and deliberately brought him to Sanctuary Island to cause trouble. He’s hoping Ivan will do exactly what he’s doing—assert his paternal rights and prevent me from ever adopting Alex.”
“Don’t you use that tone with me,” Merry hissed over the baby’s head, her cheeks red with anger. “That superior, sarcastic, you’re-a-moron tone. I’m not an idiot, Ben, I know what your parents are up to. They don’t just want to stop the adoption—they want me gone, the marriage dissolved, all trace of me and my son removed from the Fairfax family register forever.”
Alex fussed, aware of the deviation from his routine and the tension in the air. Arching his back, he tried to launch himself out of Merry’s arms. With the ease of practice, Merry held on to her bundle of damp baby and went for the door.
Pausing in the hallway, she turned back to say, “And by the way, you’re the one playing directly into their hands by letting Ivan come between us.”
The knowledge that she was right did little to soothe Ben’s ragged emotions. Running his wet hands through his hair, he squeezed his eyes shut and fought to control his breathing. “My parents know me pretty well, as it turns out. If they wanted to break us up, they hit on the perfect way.”
He opened his eyes in time to see Merry suck in a breath as if she’d been slapped. Her eyes glittered with moisture even in the dim light of the hallway, but her face was still and calm, whiter than Alex’s terry-cloth towel. “Your parents will only get what they want if you choose to give it to them.”
She faded away into the darkness of the hall, leaving a vast, yawning emptiness behind her. Ben cocked his head to track the soft sound of her bare feet moving farther and farther away, and when he heard the quiet click of the guest room door closing behind her, he sank down on the edge of the tub and buried his face in his hands.
All Merry wanted was time, she said. But that precious commodity was slipping away from them both, moment by moment, like bath water running through their spread fingers.
He’d missed his chance to make Merry fall in love with him, to show her how good it could be to build a life together. The moment another option became available to her, she threw open the door to welcome it.
If Ivan wanted her back, what would she need Ben for? There was nothing to be gained by filling himself with false hope and illusions of potential. He’d risked everything, from his fiercely guarded privacy to his scarred heart—and he’d lost it all.
/> Inevitable, probably. The equation of Ben plus Merry had never really made sense. Someone like her was never meant for a man like Ben.
He wished he could promise himself he’d stop taking risks, but deep down, he was afraid if it came to a cage match between his sense of self-preservation and his innate stubbornness, stubbornness would deliver an epic beat-down every time. As long as there was even a remote possibility of getting everything he wanted, Ben would defy common sense to fight to the end.
But when the end came … when Merry and Alex left him, he’d be alone again. And this time, he swore, he’d bury his stupid, idiotic heart so deep inside, no one would ever touch it again.
*
The next week was one of the worst times in Merry’s life.
She and Ben were hardly speaking, and when they did, every conversation was stiffly polite and revolved around the baby—working out who would do what with Alex’s care, sharing information on when he’d last been fed or changed. It was like living with a remote stranger who had zero interest in even casual get-to-know-you chit chat.
There were no more snide asides from Ben when Merry set up times for Ivan to come by and see Alex, no more fights about Ben’s parents and the way they’d moved into a suite at the Fireside Inn across the water as if they wanted front-row seats for the breakup of their son’s fledgling marriage.
But there was no laughing, either. No teasing, no hilariously sly accounts of the idiotic things his patients’ owners did and said, and none of the shared joy in the everyday milestones of life with a fast-developing baby. The sudden cessation of all that togetherness made Merry realize just how much she and Ben talked—and how much she’d come to count on him.
Not as a source of security, and not even as parental backup to help with Alex … but as the person she shared everything with. Like the very best friend she’d ever had, but better … because when the lights went out and Ben’s long, hard body lay next to hers in the dark, she felt things she’d never felt with a girlfriend.
Shoreline Drive (Sanctuary Island) Page 23