by Edie Claire
Ben did genuinely appreciate his sister’s hospitality. She was a generous soul by nature and she meant well — most of the time. But she was also maddeningly nosy.
Their gazes met, and Jenna’s shrewd eyes, the exact same shade of hazel as his own, flickered with a studious intensity. She smiled a small, mischievous smile and inched her hand towards Haley’s letter.
Ben slammed his fist down over it and slid it to safety.
Jenna laughed merrily. “I knew it! Who is she, Ben?”
Dammit! He’d been tricked. “Who is Harvey, you mean?” he asked stiffly.
She cackled. “This is the second letter I’ve seen from that address in a week, and the other days, I didn’t get the mail. I might buy ‘Harvey’ if you were gay, but I know you’re not, so I’ll ask again. Who is she?”
Ben’s jaws clenched. “I told you. A friend.”
Jenna shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Ben, Ben, Ben. You are so out of your league, here. Give it up. You think that when I handed you that first letter I didn’t notice how your eyes started to dance? How a little glow of red flared up in those adorable apple cheeks? Right now your entire face looks like a tomato. And if I tried to steal that letter back, I do believe you’d body slam me.”
Ben growled low in his throat.
Jenna laughed again. “What is her name, really? Holly? Hermione?”
Ben waited a long moment, his gaze locked on his sister’s. Further resistance was futile. “Her name is Haley,” he grumbled.
A brilliant smile spread across Jenna’s face.
“And we are just friends,” he qualified.
“How unfortunate,” she joked easily, leaning back in her chair. “So what’s the problem, little brother? Losing your touch?”
His answering frown affected her. Her smirk disappeared, replaced with a look of concern. “Seriously, Ben. What’s wrong? What’s keeping the two of you apart? You’re obviously crazy about her.”
Ben blew out a breath. He had no intention of divulging the whole story. His plan had been to confirm Haley’s existence and be done with it. He thought he might talk to Lara while he was in Seattle, or maybe his mother, whom he knew had treated at least one surrogate mother as a patient. The truth was, he really did want to talk about it. To somebody.
But Jenna? One word to her and every adult in the family would know. Not the kids; Jenna was always careful what she said around them. But everyone else he cared about would know about his relationship with Haley within days. Maybe hours.
He wondered, suddenly, if that would really be so horrible. He wasn’t ashamed of loving Haley. She was a wonderful person, and she was doing a very selfless thing.
“What’s keeping us apart,” he began slowly, “is that she’s serving as a surrogate mother for her twin sister. When I met her in Alaska she was four months’ pregnant. Now she’s six and a half. The other problem is that she lives and works as an attorney in Newport Beach. She grew up there, and her family is there, and she doesn’t want to leave there. Probably ever. Does that explain things?”
Jenna’s hazel eyes blinked. “She’s carrying a baby for her sister? Is it her first?”
Ben wasn’t sure which woman she was talking about, but the answer was the same. “Yes.”
“Wow,” Jenna said simply. She was quiet for a long time, gazing idly into space. “That’s pretty amazing, Ben,” she said finally. “I mean, you know I love the Sisters Parker, but I don’t know if I would do that. Being pregnant is… challenging, under the best of circumstances. And she’s taking a risk in terms of having her own children later. How old is she?”
“Twenty-nine,” Ben answered, growing anxious. “What risk are you talking about?”
Jenna looked at him a moment, her eyes sympathetic. “Are you going to stick your fingers in your ears and hum again?”
He frowned at her. “Just tell me.”
“It’s only a very small risk,” Jenna explained. “But you know how many things can go wrong, in rare cases. No one could guarantee her zero risk of a serious threat to her own health, or a hysterectomy. Even if everything otherwise goes perfectly fine, but she needs a c-section, she’d be putting future babies at slightly higher risk for placental problems. Do you know if she wants kids of her own?”
Ben stiffened. “I don’t know. We never talked about it.” The conversation had taken a distinctly disturbing turn. One he didn’t want to think about.
Jenna leaned forward and put her hand over his. “I’m not trying to scare you. The odds are hugely in favor of both her and the baby being perfectly fine. It’s just that I’m impressed that she would do something like that, as a single woman without children of her own. She must be a very giving person.”
Ben released a breath. “Yes. She is.”
“And smart, too,” Jenna said, smiling again. “An attorney in Newport Beach! I knew you’d eventually see the appeal of dating a woman who’s your intellectual equal. And might I say it’s about damn time.”
Ben gave a rueful smirk. The sad truth was, Jenna was right. None of his previous girlfriends had been particularly bright. “Maybe I was looking for someone as different from the four of you as possible,” he said jokingly, realizing only as he said it that that was exactly what he’d been doing.
Jenna laughed out loud and bounced back in her chair. “Well, if that’s the case, we apologize. If we’d all been brainless ditzes you might have been happily married years ago!”
Ben grinned back at her, heartened by his own revelation. Jenna obviously took no offense. His sisters were all well aware of the hell they’d put him through.
“So what happens now?” she asked. “When is she due? Around Christmas?”
“First week in January.”
Jenna’s lips twisted. “And she’s expecting you to wait around all that time, content with a bunch of letters?”
Ben felt another jolt of defensiveness. “No,” he explained. “I keep telling you, we’re only friends. She said specifically that I shouldn’t put my life on hold. That she doesn’t want to stop me from seeing other women.”
Jenna sat still a moment. Then she leaned slowly forward, her eyes trained on his. “Wait a minute. How often does this woman write you?”
Ben hesitated. “As much as I write her. Almost every day.” He was fudging a little. They wrote every day. Their letters crossed constantly, but it didn’t matter. They had been keeping up a steady stream of family anecdotes, thoughtful musings, silly quizzes, nature-related trivia, and the occasional heartfelt discussion, and they were both enjoying it immensely. His evenings spent by the fire, reading his daily letter from Haley and composing his response, had been the highlight of his autumn in Alaska.
Jenna’s mouth dropped open.
“What?” Ben demanded.
Jenna’s face flashed a sudden, brilliant smile. She popped out of her chair, moved around the table to where he sat and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Ben!” she cooed, planting a kiss on his cheek. “I like this one!”
He stared back at her in confusion.
She laughed. “Oh, come on!” she exclaimed, dropping down in the chair next to him. “Can’t you see? This woman isn’t just dazzled by your dimples! She really does care about you!”
He looked at his sister skeptically. He believed that was true. But how could she possibly know?
Jenna let out a contented sigh. “Listen, little brother. No woman sits down and writes a letter every day if she’s not crazy about the guy. But there are all kinds of crazy. An obsessive, infatuated type could do the same thing. But there are only two conceivable situations in which any woman would give a man permission to sleep around while she sits at home nursing her hemorrhoids. The first one is if she doesn’t give a crap about him in the first place, which the letter writing thing rules out.” She smiled at him again. “The second is a woman who loves you enough to set you free — all the while biting her nails till they bleed hoping to God you don’t take her up on it.”
Ben felt a mysterious warmth creep pleasantly through his chest. “She did hint rather strongly that she’d be jealous.”
Jenna beamed. “She adores you.” She rose and tousled his hair like he was a four-year-old. He would be offended if he didn’t feel so good. Besides, Jenna’s own hair looked worse than his.
She moved to pour herself a second cup of coffee. “When will you see her again?”
Ben’s pulse sped up a bit. “I don’t know. I’m hoping to do a layover in LA on my flight back to Honolulu. I’d only have a day and a half. But I need to see her again. We need to talk.”
Jenna studied him. “You’re really still ‘just friends?’”
“We were only together in Alaska for five days,” he answered, somewhat defensively. “Since then, it’s been nothing but the letters.”
“Then you absolutely have to see her,” she confirmed. “You have to tell her how you feel and let her know you’re willing to wait for her. She’s a keeper, Ben. Don’t screw this up.”
He looked at his sister reproachfully.
“I’m serious!” she shot back. “Don’t you think she deserves a little security at a time like this? No matter what she gave you permission for, if you so much as look at another woman before she has that baby, I swear to God, I will personally—”
“Jenna!” he protested hotly.
Her expression softened. “Sorry,” she apologized. “Old habits.”
Ben growled under his breath. All of his sisters had taken their anger out on him whenever one of their boyfriends cheated, which happened frightfully often. “You would think,” he said pointedly, “that now that all four of you are married to great guys, I would finally be off the hook for the collective sins of the male race. Will you give me a little credit, please?”
Jenna smiled sheepishly. She walked over and hugged his shoulders, dropping another kiss on top of his head. “I know you’re one of the good guys, Ben,” she said softly. “You always have been. That’s why I’m so excited. You deserve a woman who loves you like you should be loved.”
Ben was grateful his sister couldn’t see his face as an unexpected wave of emotion took him aback. He couldn’t remember he and Jenna ever having talked like this. They didn’t talk much, period. All they ever did was banter or argue.
But she understood about Haley. She understood parts of it better than he did.
“Thanks for that,” he managed.
She pulled away, and her expression turned mischievous again. “But for the record, and purely hypothetically, you understand,” she began, picking up her coffee cup again. “If you did take her generous offer at face value, and started screwing around with other women while she was suffering through her last trimester with no baby daddy to rub her back and massage her cankles, The Sisters Parker would tear your limbs off.” She flashed a stunning smile. “Just sayin’.”
Ben smiled back. He rose from the table, collected his dirty dishes, and put them in the dishwasher. “Knock yourselves out,” he quipped, pulling Haley’s letter from his pocket and eyeing it with anticipation. He headed for the door.
“You’re going to pick the kids up at school for me today and get Wendee to Brownies, right?” Jenna called after him. “I have that job interview at three.”
“No problem,” he threw back over his shoulder. “It’s on my calendar.”
“Thanks, Ben,” she called after him gratefully. “You’re a lifesaver.”
He waved back at her and moved out the door. He had been headed to his favorite recliner in the living room, but with Haley’s letter practically smoldering in his hand, he only made it as far as the hallway before he began to read.
Dear Ben,
Your appeal regarding your failing grade on the “What Every Boat Captain Should Know About Hot Yoga” quiz is hereby rejected. If you want to pass, you’ll have to study harder. And a little less sarcasm on your essays wouldn’t hurt either.
He chuckled to himself and leaned against the wall.
“Hey, Mags!” he heard Jenna saying in the kitchen, presumably on the phone. “Guess what? Ben’s in lo-ve!”
He shook his head and sighed. But a smile remained on his face.
Chapter 24
Haley pulled her chair away from her desk and rolled it up to the table by her window. The view of Irvine from her third floor office wasn’t nearly as refreshing as the view from her apartment, but it was better than staring at the stacks of papers on her desk. She dug into the shrimp salad Micah had packed for her and smiled with satisfaction. Her sister was becoming quite the gourmet. She wondered if Micah would keep it up after Fred was born or revert to mac and cheese and chicken tenders like every other new parent.
Her initial hunger satisfied, she reached into her bag and pulled out Ben’s latest letter for rereading. It was an especially interesting one, and she wanted to savor it all over again.
If you really want to know the grim story of the romantic life and times of Ben Parker, I’ll tell you.
She smiled to herself. She had debated forever about whether his dating history was any of her business, given their stated ‘just friends’ status. She had succumbed to her maddening curiosity just a few days before, by reasoning that if they really were just friends, she wouldn’t hesitate to ask him because then it wouldn’t matter. Of course, they weren’t really just friends and it did matter, very much, but she wasn’t above hiding behind the ploy. After all, she had confessed her own sad, boring history ages ago.
I dated a fair amount in college and grad school, but nothing that lasted more than a few months. I’ve had exactly three girlfriends who lasted longer, all of whom I met in Hawaii. The first one I gave up on because she drank too much. The second said she was okay with me spending the summer in Alaska, but after three weeks of being lonely she dumped me via text. The third relationship was the longest, but it was the worst. She also said she would be okay with my leaving for a few months, that it would be tough, but that she wanted to stay together. She did keep in touch while I was gone and we picked things up again when I got back to Maui. Three months after that, I found out she’d been sleeping with another guy all summer and that she didn’t break up with him until a week after my return. I guess I should have been grateful I was her first choice, but somehow I was no longer interested.
Haley’s jaw muscles clenched. As relieved as she was to know that Ben wasn’t still carrying a torch for some great lost love, the stupidity of his exes enraged her. Could they seriously not refrain from cheating for four freaking months? How could they possibly weigh their options and decide he wasn’t worth it? How could the wenches not understand how rare it was to find a guy willing to go all summer without cheating on them?
She chewed another bite of salad and considered. Come to think of it, why would a guy as smart as Ben date such idiot women in the first place? Her face twisted into a frown. She would inquire about that in her next letter.
She read further, but he had said nothing more about his love life. Just answered her previous questions about what his nieces and nephews planned to be for Halloween.
They voted on what I should dress up as, and the winning suggestion was Olaf the snowman. I was pretty happy about that, since the second place finisher was the Little Mermaid.
Haley finished the letter chuckling, but as she stuffed it back into its envelope, her smile faded. Oh, right. He had included more “environmentalist propaganda” with this one, and she had yet to open it. She always opened them, but rarely read them through. They were too damned depressing. She took a breath and unfolded the square of newsprint. It was an article from the local paper in Seattle.
Stirjon Chemicals Factory Linked to Fish Kill, Environmentalists Claim
Haley’s stomach soured. It was coincidence, of course. Ben had no idea that Stirjon was a client of hers. But he was in Seattle and he obviously read the local news. She was aware that the story had broken in the media — the fallout had kept her hopping for days. She should h
ave expected him to hear about it.
She crumpled the article into a ball and flung it into her trash can. She didn’t need to read it. She’d read it quite thoroughly already, along with every other news report on the topic. It said that the fishermen’s organization had been pushing Stirjon for discovery, but was getting nowhere fast. It did not include the words “thanks to a series of brilliant legal roadblocks placed by Haley Olson, Esquire,” but it could have.
Haley blew out a frustrated breath. She didn’t honestly know whether Stirjon was causing the problem or not. She had seen no science to back up the environmentalists’ assertion that the chemical in question was toxic to fish. She also knew that meant exactly nothing, because the scientific team at Stirjon had a long history of responding to unpleasantly suggestive internal data by killing the offending study.
She threw out the rest of her salad and whirled back around to her desk. What she did know, and what perturbed her immensely, was that the Stirjon facility was in fact leaching the chemical in question, and that despite her strongly worded advice, they had yet to stop doing so. She was certain she could make them see reason eventually, but her arguments, ironically enough, were being undercut by her own effectiveness at stalling discovery.
The powers that be at Stirjon saw no reason to sink precious resources into eliminating a theoretical problem. Not with the esteemed Haley Olson as their firewall. With her at the helm, what the hell? They could continue leaching the toxin indefinitely. It probably was safe. And if it wasn’t, what were a few dead fish, anyway?