“I know you’re freaked that I keep coming around,” Ivan said awkwardly. “I get that. But you gotta understand it from my side. Like, I messed up when Merry told me about the baby. Right? I know that. I shoulda been more supportive and stuff. But like, I’m between gigs right now, and even when I’ve got a job, let’s just say it’s not the kind of thing that pays, like, benefits and all that. All I could think when she came at me with the news was that I’m too young to be a dad. There’s all kinds of stuff I want to do.”
“You’re the same age as Merry,” Ben pointed out. He didn’t want to listen to any of this, but there was a part of him that was curious about Ivan’s reasons for being here.
Ivan waved that away. “I know, but she’s a chick. She’s, like, hardwired to want kids. But you remember what it was like to be a young guy, right? It’s different for us.”
“I have a vague memory of being young,” Ben said, with a dry twist that flew right over Ivan’s spiked blond hair. “But it’s not fair to pretend this has all been easy for Merry. She’s worked hard to take care of Alex, to learn how to be a mother. Natural instincts only go so far.”
Ivan flushed as if Ben had accused him of something. “Everyone acts like she’s so perfect, the perfect mom. I could tell you stuff that would make you think twice about treating Merry Preston like some kind of saint.”
The frustration of a narcissist who felt he was being denied the admiration he’d come to expect from life. Pure contempt curdled Ben’s voice. “Nothing you could tell me would make me see Merry differently.”
“Oh yeah?” Ivan put his hands on his lean hips over the precariously low waistband of his jeans. “How about this: when I told her I wanted her to get an abortion, and I even promised to pay for it—she said she’d do it. So who’s the perfect mom now? No perfect mom would ever consider giving up her kid, right? I don’t think so.”
The past rearranged itself in Ben’s head. Things Merry had said, the way she acted like she didn’t have a right to happiness, her insecurities as a parent—all of it made more sense now. “She didn’t go through with it, though,” Ben said slowly. “She couldn’t. And that’s when you walked out.”
When Ben didn’t gasp in shock and horror, fury sparked in Ivan’s eyes. It was the thwarted anger of a child who hadn’t gotten his way. Flags of red burned high over his sharp cheekbones, blotching all down his neck. Overdeveloped pecs heaving, he shouted, “Yeah, well, I’m walking back in now. And nothing’s going to get me to leave again, even if you offered me double!”
Ben had a bare instant to wonder Double what? before a terrifying equine scream sounded from the paddock.
The entire world slowed down, time melting into a collection of seconds that ticked horribly, relentlessly by. Ben looked over Ivan’s shoulder, his vision sharpening as if he were peering through a telescoping lens, and saw Java rear up on his hind legs.
Face white, jaw clenched, Jo kept a firm grip on the longe line—but when Java lashed out with his front legs, he tangled one hoof in the line on the way down, yanking the leather from Jo’s hands. Jo cried out and fell to the paddock floor, cradling her arm to her midsection—it probably felt like it had been pulled out of the socket.
In the blink of an eye, Java pivoted and thundered away from the center of the ring, eyes rolling white with fear, long ears flattened nearly to his skull, hooves pounding hard enough to kick up clouds of sawdust as he raced for the gate into the paddock … exactly where Merry was heading, with Alex cradled in the backpack snugged to her chest.
“What’s happening?” Ivan said, panicky and loud, but Ben was already pushing past him, hurtling down the path to the paddock.
Time sped up again as he ran, legs pumping, lungs bursting. His entire focus narrowed to the infinitesimal window of time he had to reach Merry and Alex before the stallion did.
Merry, eyes only on Jo as she fumbled with the gate to get to her fallen mother, called out, “Mom? Are you okay?”
Even from this distance, Ben could see the exact moment when Jo looked up and realized Merry’s danger. She put out her good hand as if she could stop what was about to happen, terror spasming over her face. “Look out!”
Slow to react, Merry only had time to stumble back and turn her body, curling around Alex and shielding him with her torso and enfolding arms, before Java was upon them.
The big stallion cleared the gate, knocking his right hind leg hard against the top rail. His front hooves came down three feet from where Merry huddled around Alex. One more step would have the fear-maddened horse plowing directly into them.
Mind blank of everything except the words “get to her, get to her, get to her,” Ben threw himself between his family and the runaway stallion, arms spread wide in an effort to block Java.
Ridiculous, Ben noted absently. As if one human male with his arms out could stop a thousand pounds of raw muscle and aggression. But he had to try.
*
Braced for the pain of slashing hooves, Merry held her breath against a moment of impact that never came.
Disoriented, she kept to her crouch with her arms locked around her baby, but turned her head enough to see Ben appear about of nowhere.
“Ho,” he said, loudly enough for Java to hear him over the labored bellows of his own breathing, but in that firm, no-nonsense tone that animals of all shapes and sizes found so soothing. His arms were out to the sides, not waving or flailing, and Merry’s heart clenched at the knowledge that he was empty-handed.
Unarmed, facing down a traumatized stallion with nothing more than the force of his will.
She took all that in with a single glance, in the space of a heartbeat. In the next breath, Java screamed again, that same chillingly human shriek, and reared up.
The horse’s front hooves flew out, sharp and deadly and inches from Ben’s face, but Ben didn’t back down. “Ho, boy. Easy,” he said again, pitching his voice so deep, Merry felt it in the pit of her churning stomach.
Snorting, Java dropped all four hooves to the ground and hung his head, sides heaving with every breath.
Slowly, with infinite care, Ben lowered his arms and picked up the trailing leather lead still attached to Java’s halter. The horse followed every movement, his prey response going full tilt. His ears flicked forward to pick up any sound that might give him a clue as to which direction the danger would approach from.
But for the moment, the danger seemed to have passed.
Limp and shaky as the adrenaline washed out of her system on a tide of relief, Merry stayed down on her knees. Perfect opportunity to say a little prayer of gratitude, she thought, sending up an incoherent babble of thanksgiving that her outraged son was alive and whole to sob in her arms. The sound of his indignation at being jerked around and crushed against her chest had never been so sweet and welcome.
“Merry, my God, are you okay?” Mom, at least, knew enough to keep her voice low as she approached. It wouldn’t take much to startle Java again.
“I’m fine. We both are,” Merry said, the words thick and clumsy on her tongue. “Because of Ben.”
“Here, let me take the horse,” Jo said, reaching out for the lead line with her left hand.
“How’s your arm?” Ben wanted to know, keeping hold of Java’s halter.
“Just strained,” Jo assured them with a grimace. “He’s got a hell of a pull when he’s spooked. Hasn’t happened in a while. I wonder what got him riled up this time. Come on, big boy, let’s get you settled back in your stall.”
As her mother led Java up to the barn, Merry got her knees under her and tried to stand up. It was always a little tricky to get up from a sitting position with eighteen pounds of wriggling baby strapped to her chest. Right now, with her knees still wobbly and her balance shot, Merry didn’t stand a chance.
She plopped down onto her rear end right in the grass to wait for the moment when her legs would decide to hold her again.
“Need a lift?” Ben asked, putting his hands down for
her to grasp.
Merry shook her head but grabbed on to his big hands anyway. “Come down here with us. Help me get Alex to quit freaking out.”
In fact, Alex’s infuriated cries were already tapering off into sniffles, but Merry couldn’t let go of Ben. He didn’t seem to mind, if the way he sank into the grass beside her was any indication.
“You’re really all right?” His voice was tense again, now that Java was out of earshot. “Maybe we should catch the ferry to Harbor General, have you and Alex checked out.”
“Ben.” Merry jiggled the baby carrier with one hand under Alex’s little butt, and leaned into Ben’s side to feel him warm and breathing and alive. “There’s not a scratch on us. Because you jumped in front of a runaway horse to save us, you complete whack job. Oh my gosh, you could have been killed! That horse has already given you one concussion, this time it could’ve been so much worse. What were you thinking?”
“Wasn’t really thinking.” She felt him shrug under her cheek. “Just moving on instinct, I guess.”
“It’s weird,” Merry observed, her mouth pressed to his shoulder. “Part of me wants to yell at you for putting yourself in danger. But the rest of me just wants to thank you.”
“Go with the rest of you,” Ben suggested. “No yelling. That’s what got us into this in the first place.”
“What do you mean?” Merry struggled to sit up and get a clear view of Ben’s face.
“Nothing.” His mouth went flat and expressionless. “Put your head back on my shoulder, that was nice.”
Merry obeyed easily, since it was what she wanted to do anyway. “In case I wasn’t clear before, thank you. For saving my life and keeping Alex safe. Again.”
“Again?” She heard the frown in his voice and hid a smile in his shirt. So like Ben, not to keep track of the ways he’d been heroic—but maybe he didn’t think of it as heroism.
Just instinct.
“The night Alex was born,” Merry reminded him. “You rushed through a storm to help me through hours of labor in less than ideal conditions. And you got us both through it in one piece—just like today. So thank you, Ben Fairfax. That’s two I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything. I didn’t do it, any of it, to make you feel indebted.”
“I know that.” Reacting to the seriousness of Ben’s voice, Merry sat up and scooted around to look him in the eye. “Ben. I do know that. I’m sorry, it was only a figure of speech.”
The lines bracketing his mouth smoothed out a bit, although the shadows remained in his eyes as they searched her face and scanned over her body and Alex’s as if double-checking for injuries, stealth blood spurts or secret broken bones. “When I saw that horse coming for you—”
He broke off, his throat clicking with the movement of his Adam’s apple as he looked away.
Merry’s heart picked up speed. “We’re fine,” she said again, palming Alex’s downy head and shuffling closer to Ben. “But feel free to examine us for yourself.”
Ben didn’t move, so Merry did. Knee-walking between his spread legs, Merry matter-of-factly picked up Ben’s heavy arms, one at a time, and draped them around her. The moment she was in his embrace, Ben’s arms tightened, pulling her gently, carefully against him, ever watchful of the lump of Alex snuggled in between their chests.
Letting out a long sigh, Merry fit her head into that perfect curve between Ben’s neck and his shoulder. “This is nice. I’ve missed this.”
“So have I.” Ben whispered it, like a secret confession, and Merry let the words wash through her.
Perfectly content for the first time in days, she murmured, “It sucks that it took poor Java having a fit out of nowhere for us to get here.”
Pressed as tightly together as they were, Merry couldn’t miss it when Ben went rigid.
“What?” she asked.
Ben didn’t answer, but another voice did. “He doesn’t want to say.”
“Ivan!” She’d completely forgotten about him. He went to the bathroom so long ago, and she’d been a little distracted by nearly getting trampled. But still, guilt tugged at her until she sat up to stare at him. “Did you see what happened?”
“Oh, I saw it.” All his habitual cocky charm was gone, subsumed into a depression she’d only seen on him once or twice in the year they’d lived together. Self-loathing curled his upper lip and firmed his jaw. “What your husband is too stand-up a guy to tell you is that it was all my fault.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Your fault!” Merry pulled out of Ben’s arms, leaving them feeling cold and a little useless. He dropped them to rest on his knees as she moved away. “How could it be your fault?”
“It wasn’t,” Ben interrupted firmly. “Or if it was Ivan’s fault, then it was equally mine. We were talking, and it got a little … heated.”
“I yelled.” Ivan crossed his arms over his chest, his hunched posture making him look smaller. “Even though you told me about that horse, you warned me not to make loud noises or sudden movements, but when I got mad, I just forgot all of that and I yelled, and you and the kid almost got crushed to death.”
This opening brought back memories. Ivan was in full confessional mode. In a minute, he’d admit to every tiny wrongdoing he’d been feeling guilty about, offloading the whole lot in a giant dump with a sigh of relief and the happy expectation of imminent forgiveness.
When they were together, it had worked on Merry pretty much every time—all the self-blame and brutal honesty was attractive, and it felt good to be able to pet Ivan and forgive him. Making him feel better about himself had made Merry feel good, too.
Looking at him now, Merry had to hold in a sigh. She was about to let him off the hook again … but this time, it was because she wanted him to go away and let her get back to whatever was happening with Ben.
“Ivan, it’s fine. We’re okay, no one was hurt. You made a mistake, but honestly, you couldn’t even have shouted all that loudly—Mom and I didn’t hear it. It’s only that Java was abused, we think, by a male owner, so he’s sort of attuned to masculine voices raised in anger.”
But there was no stopping Ivan in confessional mode. He was determined to get through this part to the petting and forgiveness. “I should never have even come here—I’ve done nothing but cause trouble.”
Merry bit her lip and cast a sideways glance at Ben. That much was absolutely true, and she wouldn’t contradict it. But to her surprise, her rational, reserved husband’s eyes burned with outrage. Anger pulled every muscle of his body taut, jerking him to his feet like a marionette.
Hopping back a step, Ivan’s face went ashy. “Hold on, man! I’m trying to come clean and apologize.”
Wait. What else did Ivan need to confess?
“Just shut up,” Ben snarled, with a quick glance down at Merry, still sitting on the ground.
She was starting to feel at a disadvantage down here, at eye level with everyone’s knees. “Ben, help me up. Come on, heave.”
He grasped her wrists and pulled her off the ground, steadying her until he knew her knees would lock into place. “Maybe you should take Alex up to the office and put him in his playpen, see if he’ll nap. He’s had a lot of excitement this morning already.”
Pulling away to stand on her own, Merry looked back and forth between her husband and her ex. Something was going on here. “No. I want to hear what Ivan has to say.”
Even though, for some reason, Ben didn’t want her to hear it.
Something flashed through his gaze, too fast for her to catch, but he ignored her stiffness and put his arm around her shoulders, standing with her as they faced Ivan together.
“Okay.” Ivan sniffled, digging the toe of his Doc Martens boot into the grass. “The truth is, life’s been kind of crazy, you know—I lost my job, I was running out of money—and then these rich people showed up.”
Merry went cold all over, as if someone were cycling out her blood and replacing it with ice water. “Ben’s parents,�
� she said through numb lips.
Ivan nodded, shamefaced. “And they offered me money—like, a lot of money, enough to cover rent for a year—to come here and see my kid. And I was curious anyway! It’s not like I really never wanted to see you again, and I had plans to look you up as soon as things turned around for me, so when they said they’d write me a check if I came and asserted my rights … it was like, perfect.”
Perfect. Merry had almost wrecked her marriage fighting for her son’s relationship with a man who thought it was “perfect” that he’d had to be bribed into seeing him.
“You are unbelievable.” She barely recognized her own voice, it was so shaky and enraged. “Get out of my sight, Ivan, I can’t even look at you right now.”
Ivan’s big brown cow eyes went round with surprise. “But … I’m sorry! I want a chance to make it up to you!”
“This time, that’s not enough,” Merry told him, clenching her jaw. “And honestly, I don’t care what you want. I have to think about my family first.”
And find out exactly how Ben knew what you were about to say.
Understanding settled slowly over Ivan’s even features as he glanced from the inflexible look on Merry’s face up to Ben. “Oh. Right. Um, I’ll just … is there a place in town I could get some food? I’m kind of starving, and the next ferry isn’t for a while yet…”
“The Firefly Café,” Ben said briskly. “Corner of Main Street and Wildflower Bend, right across from the library. Tell Penny we sent you, she’ll take care of you.”
“Okay, I guess I’ll just…” Ivan gestured behind him, all his usual smooth charm evaporating like the morning frost melting off the grass.
Merry turned her back on him, barely aware of the halting sound of his boots retreating up the path to the barn. All her attention was for Ben, now. Ben, who stared down at her with shadowed eyes.
“You knew,” she said, cupping her arms reflexively around Alex. “Since when?”
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