Kathleen was about to accept a momentary defeat and leave, when Melanie stepped in.
“Kathleen, surely you’re not going without looking at Ben’s paintings,” Melanie said, merriment sparkling in her eyes. “Isn’t that why you came tonight?”
Ben looked as if he’d like to strangle his sister-in-law. Kathleen took her cue from that.
“Perhaps another time,” she said before Ben could utter a word. She smiled at him. “I would love to come back sometime to see your studio, if you’ll let me.”
He regarded her with a faint frown. “Sure,” he said, too polite to refuse outright.
“I’ll call to set it up,” Kathleen promised. She had no intention of doing that. She had a hunch she needed the element of surprise on her side. Meantime, though, let him get complacent, thinking that he’d have fair warning.
“There’s no phone in the studio,” Melanie chimed in.
“And Ben never checks his messages,” Beth added.
“You should probably just pop in whenever the mood strikes,” Melanie suggested.
Kathleen grinned. Obviously those two were on the same wavelength. They’d found a way to encourage her and warn Ben at the same time. Very clever.
“Perhaps I will,” Kathleen said. She gave him a pointed look. “If Ben doesn’t return my calls.”
He rolled his eyes. “I return my calls.” He gave his sisters-in-law a hard look. “At least to anyone important.”
The two women laughed, not the least bit insulted by the innuendo. “I guess you put us in our place,” Melanie said, giving him a kiss. “Don’t be a stranger. I expect you to come to dinner soon.”
To Kathleen’s surprise, his expression softened and he rested a hand on Melanie’s huge belly. “I’d better hurry before this little one steals all your attention.”
“We’ll always have time for you,” Melanie told him. “And we’re counting on you to give the baby its first set of paints and plenty of free art lessons, just the way Destiny did for you. Mack’s going to teach the baby the finer points of football.”
“Even if it’s a girl?” Ben inquired skeptically.
“There will be no gender discrimination in this family,” Melanie retorted. “Right, Mack?”
“None,” Mack agreed at once. “And if it is a girl and she’s really, really good, I’ll make her the first woman in the National Football League. Who cares about a few cuts and bruises and broken bones?”
“Hold it,” Richard said, scowling at his brother. “Nobody gets to tackle any daughter of mine.”
Beth nudged Mack in the ribs. “You knew your brother would forbid it, didn’t you? Obviously you inherited Destiny’s sneakiness. You sound very broadminded since there’s absolutely no risk that you’ll ever have to pay up.”
“Hey, my offer was genuine,” Mack insisted, looking hurt that his wife would think otherwise. “Now let’s get out of here. We’ve got some kids at the hospital we want to see tonight. I promised them pie for dessert.”
Destiny stood up at once. “I have the pies all ready in the kitchen. I’ll get them.”
Melanie and Richard left as Mack, Beth and Destiny headed for the kitchen, leaving Kathleen alone with Ben.
“You have an amazing family,” she told him.
“They’re good people,” Ben agreed, then regarded her curiously. “What about your family? Were they together today?”
“Of course. It’s tradition.” She knew there was no mistaking the harsh edge in her voice, but she was unable to contain it.
“But you weren’t there,” he noted.
“I’d had enough of tradition,” she said succinctly. “I decided it was time to do my own thing.”
“Something tells me there’s a story there,” he said.
“Not a very interesting one,” she insisted, unwilling to air the Dugan family laundry to this man she barely knew.
He studied her so intently that she felt herself flush under his scrutiny.
“If you ever change your mind, I’m a good listener,” he said eventually.
Kathleen didn’t talk about that part of her past any more than she talked about her marriage. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said with no intention of following up on it. Why reveal intimate secrets to a man she wanted to represent, not to date? Not that she’d ever shared any part of her family history with anyone. Keeping quiet had been ingrained in her from an early age.
“But you have no intention of talking to me about that or anything else personal, do you?” Ben guessed. “It’s all about the art with you.”
“Yes,” she said, seeing little point in denying it.
“Even if I were to tell you that I’d let you take a look around my studio, if you’d open up to me?”
She gave him a sharp look. “Why would you do that?”
“I’m not sure,” he responded slowly, looking faintly bewildered. “Maybe because I’m as fascinated with what you’re holding back as you are with the paintings I’m keeping from you.”
Kathleen was caught completely off guard by the admission. It was an opening, a chance to get what she wanted, but at what cost?
“I don’t think so,” she said at last.
“What are you afraid of?”
She wasn’t about to answer that. She couldn’t tell him that talking about the past would make her far too vulnerable, that it would create an illusion of intimacy that could be far too dangerous. There had been so many times in her life when she’d wanted to share all the secrets, to lean on someone stronger, but she’d kept her own counsel instead, because that was what Dugans did, damn them all.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” she said fiercely, desperately wishing it were true. She was terrified of shadows, of people who weren’t what they first seemed to be. Her faith in people, her trust had been shattered too many times to count, even by the mother and grandparents she was expected to respect and adore.
“Really?” Ben asked skeptically. “Nothing frightens you?”
“Absolutely nothing,” she insisted, meeting his gaze, then faltering at the intensity in his blue eyes.
“Then I guess there’s no reason at all not to do this,” he said, cupping a hand behind her neck and covering her mouth with his own.
Fire shot through Kathleen’s veins as if she’d been touched by flame. Every sensible cell in her brain told her to pull away from the heat, but like the moth tempting fate, she moved into the kiss instead, then moaned when Ben was the one who withdrew.
Feeling dazed, she stared into his eyes, saw the confusion and the passion and wondered what the devil had just happened. If anyone else had hit on her so abruptly, with so little warning, she would have been shaking with anger now. To her shock, while she was indeed trembling, it was because that kiss had touched a part of her she’d thought was forever dead.
“Why?” she asked, unable to form a longer, more coherent question. Besides, why pretty much covered it.
“I’m asking myself the same thing,” Ben admitted. “Maybe I just wanted to challenge that confidence I heard in your voice.”
“Or maybe you wanted to prove something to yourself,” she responded irritably.
“Such as?”
“That Destiny had gotten it wrong this time.”
“My aunt had nothing to do with that kiss,” he said heatedly.
“Oh, really? Then you don’t care that it was exactly what she was hoping would happen between us?”
“The damn kiss had nothing to do with Destiny,” he said again, dragging his hand through his hair. “I am sorry, though. It shouldn’t have happened.”
Kathleen sighed. She agreed it had been a mistake, but she couldn’t seem to regret it the way she knew she should.
“Let’s just forget about it,” she suggested mildly. “People kiss all the time and it means nothing.” At least, other people did. It was a brand-new experience for her to be able to participate in a kiss without wildly overreacting, without a hint of panic clawing at her.
“Exactly,” Ben said, sounding relieved.
“I should go. Please tell Destiny that I had a wonderful time. I’m sure I’ll see her soon at the gallery.”
“Tomorrow morning would be my guess,” Ben said wryly.
Kathleen laughed despite herself. “Mine, too.”
“Will you tell her about the kiss?”
“Heavens, no. Will you?”
“Are you crazy? Not a chance.”
Kathleen looked into his eyes and made a swift decision. “I’m still coming back out here, you know. You haven’t scared me off.”
He gave her a vaguely chagrined look that told her she’d hit the mark. That kiss had been deliberate, after all, not the wicked impulse he’d wanted her to believe.
He shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”
She laughed at having caught him. “I knew it. I knew that was what the kiss was about.”
He gave her a long, lingering look that made her toes curl.
“Not entirely,” he said, then grinned. “That should give you something to think about before you get into your car and head out this way again.”
It was a dare, no question about it. If only he’d known Kathleen better, he’d have realized that it was a point of honor with her never to resist a challenge. She’d survived her past, and when she’d come through it, she’d vowed never to let another soul intimidate her or get the upper hand. She didn’t intend to let Ben Carlton—despite his sexy looks, killer smile and devastating kisses—be the exception.
After that potent kiss, Ben was surprised and oddly disgruntled when Kathleen simply grabbed her coat and walked out without even waiting to say goodbye to Destiny or to Mack and Beth.
That was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? He’d wanted to scare her off. He should have felt nothing but relief that his plan had worked and his aunt’s plotting hadn’t succeeded, but he felt a little miffed, instead. That wasn’t a good sign. All of the Carlton men loved a challenge.
Which probably meant that Destiny had advised Kathleen to go with her patented “always leave ’em wanting more” maxim. Alone with Destiny now, he gave his aunt a grim look.
“What are you up to?” he asked as she sat on the sofa, her feet tucked under her. With her soft cloud of brown hair and bright, clear brown eyes, she looked to be little more than a girl, though he knew perfectly well she was fifty-three.
Destiny sipped her brandy and regarded him without the slightest hint of guilt. “You’re too suspicious, Ben. Why would I be up to anything?”
“Because it’s what you do. You meddle. Ever since you decided Richard, Mack and I were old enough to settle down, you’ve systematically worked to make it happen.”
“Of course I have. I love you. What’s wrong with wanting to see you happy?”
“I am happy.”
“You’re alone. Ever since Graciela died, you’ve been terribly unhappy and guilt-ridden. It’s time to put that behind you, Ben. What happened was not your fault.”
“I’m not discussing Graciela,” he said tightly.
“That’s the problem,” Destiny said, undaunted for once by his refusal to talk about what had happened. “You’ve never talked about her, and I think perhaps it’s time you did. She wasn’t the paragon of virtue you’ve built her up to be, Ben. That much has to be clear, even to you.”
“Destiny, don’t go there,” Ben warned. He knew that his family had never held a high opinion of Graciela, but he’d refused to listen then, and he was equally adamant about not listening now, even with all of the facts still burning a graphic image in his head. He’d seen her with that polo player, dammit. He didn’t need to be reminded of what were only rumors and speculation to everyone else.
“I will go there,” Destiny said fiercely. “She was hardly a saint.”
“Dammit, Destiny—”
She cut him off with a look that made her disapproval of his language plain. “Leaving her was the right thing to do, Ben. You’re not responsible that she stormed off that night far too upset and drunk to be driving, and crashed her car into a tree. That was her doing, hers,” she repeated emphatically. “Not yours.”
Ben felt the words slamming into him, carrying him back to a place he didn’t want to go, to a night he would never forget.
The argument had been heated, far more volatile than any that had gone before. He’d caught Graciela cheating on him that afternoon, found her with a neighboring Brazilian polo player, but she’d tried to explain away what he’d seen as if there could possibly be an innocent explanation.
In the past he would have accepted the lies, because it was easier, but he’d reached the end of his rope. Loving her and forgiving her had worn him down, the cycle unending despite all the promises that she would change, that she would be faithful. He’d been foolish enough to believe them at first. He had loved her unconditionally and for a time had thought that accepting her flaws was a part of that.
Then he’d realized that what he felt wasn’t love, but an obsessive need not to lose someone important again. He’d seen the truth with blinding clarity that afternoon. He’d realized finally that he’d never really had her anyway.
On that fateful night he’d told her to get out and he’d meant it. Her hold on him had finally snapped.
“You’ll change your mind,” she’d said confidently, slurring her words, her expression smug, beautiful even in her drunken state.
“Not this time,” he’d told her coldly. “It’s over, Graciela. I’ve had enough.”
If that had been it, he could have moved on with his life, buried the repeated humiliations in the past and kept his heart hopeful that someone else would come along. But Graciela hadn’t even made it out to the main highway when she’d crashed. He’d heard that awful sound and run outside, only to find the mangled wreckage, her body broken and bloody and trapped inside as the first flames had licked toward the gasoline spilling across the drive.
Frantic, he’d tried to drag her to safety, knowing even as he struggled that it was too late, that nothing he could do would save her.
From that moment on, as the car exploded into a fiery inferno, Ben had shut down emotionally. It had stirred the images that had haunted him from childhood of his parents’ plane going down into the side of a mountain on a foggy night. He’d been so young back then that he’d barely understood what had happened. Everyone was careful to tiptoe around the details of that crash, so he’d filled in the blanks for himself, envisioning the kind of unbearable horrors that only a child with an active imagination could spin.
Now he shuddered and tried to push from his mind all of those memories, forever intertwined even though they’d occurred years apart.
“There’s a huge difference between being alone and being lonely,” he pointed out quietly. “No one should recognize that better than you. I don’t see you trying to snag a husband now that your nest is empty, Destiny.”
She frowned at the challenge. “It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to have companionship if the right man came along.”
“There,” he said triumphantly. “The right man, and nothing less.”
“Well, of course.” She gave him a sad smile. “I had that extraordinary experience once. I know what it’s like. I won’t accept anything less.”
“Neither will I.”
“But you won’t find it, if you don’t get out and look,” she scolded.
“So you’ve decided to bring the likely candidate to my doorstep?”
She shrugged. “Sue me.” Then she gave him a sly look. “It worked, didn’t it? You’re intrigued by Kathleen. I saw it in your eyes. You were watching her.”
“Maybe I’d just like to paint her,” he said, unwilling to admit to any more. Kathleen had been right, if Destiny knew about that kiss, he’d never hear the end of it. Who knew what she might do to capitalize on the impact of that kiss? Throwing them together at every opportunity would be the least of it.
Destiny chuckled. “You don’t do portraits. If
you are genuinely interested in painting her, I find that very telling, don’t you?”
He refused to give her an inch. She would seize it and run with it for a mile. “Not particularly.”
“Look at your choice of subjects, Benjamin,” she said impatiently. “You’re more comfortable with nature than you are with people. Ever since you lost your parents, you don’t trust yourself to truly connect with anyone, much less to fall in love. Even Graciela was safe, because she was incapable of real love. You knew that from the start, and it suited you. You’re afraid we’ll all leave you.”
“I fell in love with Graciela,” he insisted.
“I don’t believe that for a minute, but let’s say it’s true. In the end, she only reinforced the pain,” Destiny said.
They’d been through this before. Ben had copped to it, so he saw no need to belabor the point. “Yes,” he said tersely.
“I haven’t left. Richard and Mack haven’t left. And you’re beginning to let yourself care for their wives, too. They’re here for the long haul. I’ll wager that you’ll lose your heart to the children when they come along, as well.”
“More than likely,” he agreed. Each time he felt Melanie’s baby kick, it set off an odd tug of longing inside him. He envied his brother the joy that awaited him, no question about it.
“Then why not open yourself to the possibility that there might be someone special out there for you as well?”
“I don’t need anyone,” he declared flatly.
“We all need someone. If I haven’t taught you that, then I’ve failed you miserably.”
“You don’t seem to need anyone.”
“But I have memories,” she said sadly. “Wonderful memories.”
“And those keep you warm at night?”
“They bring me peace,” she said. “Life is for living, darling. Never forget that.”
“Unless fate steps in,” he said. “Tricky thing, fate. You never quite know when it’s going to bite you in the butt.”
She sighed, her expression suddenly nostalgic. “No, you don’t, do you?”
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