Ben turned on his stool and his heart plummeted to somewhere around his knees. Her head was thrown back and she was laughing, her arm looped through her date’s. In his excitement over the afternoon’s developments, he’d completely forgotten that she’d told him she had a date tonight with some guy she’d met at the deli.
Sure you did, his subconscious chided. You knew she’d be here, and that’s exactly why you showed up too. You wanted to get a look at the competition.
Begrudgingly, Ben realized that was true. Which said a lot more about his frame of mind than he liked. He couldn’t fault Maeve for agreeing to go out with somebody else. It wasn’t like he’d actually gotten up the balls to ask her himself. He’d been giving her all kinds of mixed signals, talking about friendship and then staring at her mouth for far too long. This was his own damn fault. So here she was, on a date with some other guy. He’d just have to hope that it didn’t go well. Which was remarkably uncharitable of him. He winced internally.
It was only when he took a second look at the pair that Ben realized just who her date was. And that was when he saw red. He was off his stool and shouldering his way through the crowd toward them before he realized what he was doing.
11
“What the hell is this?” Ben’s angry voice startled Maeve out of her laughter, although she was really only being polite. The joke hadn’t been that good to begin with.
“Ben?” She stared at him uncertainly. Why did he look so mad? Movement caught her eye, and she saw Angelica standing behind Ben, her eyes wide as she held onto Noah’s arm, murmuring something to him. She felt Steve stiffen next to her, but then he suddenly relaxed and threw his arm around her, tugging her in close to his side. She looked up just in time to see him smiling at Ben. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant smile. It looked … predatory.
Great. She hadn’t come here to be fought over. She’d come here for a drink. “Come on, Steve,” she said. She tugged him toward the bar, ignoring Ben stalking after them like some kind of giant predator. His hair was kind of lion-esque. But she didn’t need to be thinking about how he’d look right before he sprang at her.
She slid onto a stool at the bar, meeting Max’s eyes.“A beer, please.” For some reason she wasn’t in the mood for cocktails, even with her own whiskey.
Max pulled her a pint of her favorite without saying anything. He slid it across the counter with his eyes mostly on Ben, communicating something she didn’t understand. Exasperated, she turned to the looming presence behind her while Steve ordered his own drink.
“What?”
“You can’t possibly be here with him,” Ben announced flatly.
“She is, buddy, so let it go. Take the loss.” Steve emphasized the word oddly, and Maeve glanced at him, feeling her eyebrows draw down.
“Do you know who this guy is?” Ben stayed focused on Maeve, ignoring her date. Being the center of his undivided attention was making her tingle in places friends usually didn’t, damn it. That searing focus she’d seen when he was explaining his plan to save Youth Mentors was suddenly applied directly to her, and it felt like she was stepping directly into the sun.
“What does it matter?” He was the one who wanted to be friends. He’d thanked her for not having sex with him. She drew that memory around her like a cloak as she glared at him. “We met at the deli. I told you about it.”
“Do you know what he does for a living?”
Her patience snapped. “Not yet. If you’d let me have my date, maybe I could find out.”
His lips thinned in what appeared to be fury. “He’s a lawyer, Maeve.”
“So are you.” Had Steve just snorted? What was going on here?
Ben raised his arm as though he might hit the other man. Suddenly Noah was there, his big form dwarfing all of them, as he gently put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. The pressure kept Ben’s arm from going any further. He settled for pointing at Steve, his finger jabbing as far forward as Noah would let it. “He’s the lawyer who served Youth Mentors with paperwork. He’s the one trying to shut you down.”
Maeve’s entire field of vision went blank. “He’s what?” She turned and stared at Steve, who was looking back at her with a bored expression.
“I work for a developer, yeah. You do something with that kids group? Too bad, I guess.” He shrugged. “Maybe you can find some other way to spend your time.” His grin gave every indication that he had some ideas he wouldn’t mind exploring with her.
Her beer glass was in her hand before she had a conscious thought, and she’d upturned it over his head before she’d even processed that she was holding it.
He came to his feet sputtering and swearing. “You bitch!”
Ben did hit him, then.
“Oops,” Noah said mildly. “Lost my grip.”
Steve clung to the bar top, the red mark on his cheek glowing as he shook his head. “You’re going to regret this,” he told Ben viciously. “None of that crap you filed is going to come through. And your shitty town doesn’t even deserve the revenue from the condos Hartwell wants to build.”
“Joan Mayfield has done more for this ‘shitty town’ than you could ever dream.” Angelica’s voice was hard. “And we don’t need the kind of revenue people like you would bring.” The actress was an active member of River Hill’s tourism board. For all that she’d only lived here a few years, she seemed to know everyone and everything.
“I think you’ll find that no matter what happens with the property, you’re done here,” Ben said. His voice was flatter than Maeve had ever heard it, but it softened when he turned to her. “Maeve?” He was asking all sorts of things, she suspected, but she was too confused and horrified to focus on anything but the immediate.
“Please, get him out of here,” she whispered. She’d poured a beer on somebody’s head. And she hadn’t been the least bit nauseous or nervous about it. Maybe she could handle conflict after all. Just a little.
Max came out from behind the counter and took Steve by the arm. The other man was still yelling at Ben, something about the EPA and birds. Now she was starting to understand why he’d seemed so annoyed when he met up with her earlier. She suspected his day really hadn’t gone well. Thanks to Ben.
“Come on,” Max said. “You’re not welcome here.”
“You better call your manager about the behavior of your guests,” Steve snarled at him.
Max quirked an eyebrow and visibly tightened his grip on the other man’s elbow, making him wince. “I’m the owner, actually. And I didn’t see anything but you insulting my friends and making an ass out of yourself.”
“Like hell you are. No s—” Steve stopped abruptly, showing some sense for possibly the first time in his entire life, Maeve suspected. “Whatever.” He tried to shrug off Max’s hand and failed. “We’ll see who’s laughing in court. Your stupid restaurant serves crappy beer anyway. It’ll probably go out of business before the condos are even finished.”
Somebody cleared their throat, and Maeve turned to see Naomi standing directly underneath the plaque that held Max’s James Beard award certificate, tapping it with her fingernail. “Seems unlikely,” she drawled. “Can somebody get this moron out of here? I just got here and I’d really like some fresher air.”
Max muscled a mostly-silent Steve over to the door while everybody watched. When it slammed behind him, applause erupted from several corners of the restaurant. Max rolled his eyes and waved it off, heading back behind the bar and into the kitchen to check on the food that was being assembled on the large open counters that were visible to diners.
Then it felt like all eyes were on Maeve. She shriveled into herself as she felt the weight of her friends’ stares.
“You went on a date with the lawyer who was trying to close down Youth Mentors?” Angelica finally asked.
“I didn’t know that’s who he was,” she protested.
“You didn’t take five seconds to verify that he wasn’t a murderer? You didn’t Google him?” Naomi demanded.
“Pot, kettle,” Iain murmured from behind her. Maeve hadn’t seen her brother come in after Naomi, so focused had she been on her own misery.
“Our situation was different,” Naomi countered. “At least I knew what you did for a living, and vice versa.”
“You’re the one who told her to have sex with a stranger,” Noah pointed out.
“I didn’t mean some random jackass lawyer! I meant him!” Naomi pointed at Ben, whose ears turned red.
But not nearly as red as Maeve suspected her own face was. She opened her mouth, but Max had returned just in time to interrupt her. He cocked his thumb toward Ben and said, “To be fair, he’s also a random jackass lawyer.” The chef seemed to think the entire situation was hilarious, now that Steve was gone.
“Thanks a lot,” Ben said.
“Even if you didn’t know who he was, what I don’t understand is how you could agree to go out with a guy like that.” Sean scowled. “Grade-A dickwad.”
“He wasn’t exactly hiding his stripes,” Angelica agreed.
“He didn’t seem that bad at the deli.” Although now that she thought about it, he’d spent a lot of time looking at her boobs. And that whole liking the same sandwich thing seemed like a line. Nobody liked the same sandwiches she did. Not even Ben.
She glanced over at him, but he was scowling at the floor. Apparently he thought she was a colossal idiot, too. Her heart sank.
“I just wanted to go on a date,” she said quietly before turning to Angelica. “I thought I was taking your advice.”
Angelica sighed. “Just…be more careful next time, okay?”
Maeve hated it when her friends treated her like a child. They might be older than she was by a few years, but it wasn’t as though she wasn’t an adult. And Jess was the exact same age she was, yet everyone seemed to think she had it all together. Where was Jess, anyway?
The door burst open, and her best friend flew in, breathing hard. “I had to run here! No parking close by. Did I miss it? Are they—oh.” She caught sight of Maeve, surrounded by annoyed friends, drooping on a barstool. “Oh, honey, what happened?”
Even Jess pitied her now. Maeve was too overwhelmed by anger and humiliation to speak, but it didn’t matter. Sean was already giving Jess a brief overview of the situation.
“The same lawyer? Ouch.” Jess winced.
“Yes, let’s all keep talking about how stupid I was,” Maeve burst out. “Preferably without including me in the conversation. It’s great. Super great.”
There was dead silence. Finally, Max broke it. “Nobody thinks you’re stupid, Maeve.”
“Well, I do. You guys are right. I should never have gone out with him. I should have been able to tell what a jerk he was right away. I’m the idiot who went on a date with the person trying to shut down her own organization. Yay, Maeve.” She dropped her head onto her forearms on the bar and sighed as she listened to her friends whisper to one another.
They clearly had no idea what to do. Neither did she, honestly. She’d thought she’d reached her limit on humiliation, but apparently the universe and her own terrible taste in dates had other ideas. God. She’d willingly showed up to Frankie’s with the sort of man who thought organizations like Youth Mentors didn’t matter...thought a place like River Hill would actually benefit from some stupid trendy condos. And literally every single person she knew and loved, not to mention—she raised her head and looked around at the full tables and booths—practically half the town, had been here to witness Steve calling her a bitch. In that moment, it seemed like everyone was staring at her, pitying her, judging her.
She felt tears pricking the back of her eyes as she tried to take deep breaths. A hand landed on her shoulder, and the warmth sliding through her clued her in to whose it was. She raised her head and saw Ben angling his body to block other people’s view of her. “You okay?” he murmured.
“Not really.”
“I didn’t think so. Want to leave?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“Okay. Come on, I’ll take you home.” Somehow, he managed to get her up and moving and past their friends with only the briefest of goodbyes.
12
Ben and Maeve sat in his car outside of her small ranch-style home on the edge of town, neither of them saying a word. Next to him, she wrung her hands.
“Hey,” he said, reaching across the dark cabin to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t know.”
She turned her face to him and huffed. “Story of my life.”
“No,” he said, his hand slipping forward to rest against the exposed skin at the base of her neck. He’d seen her hair tossed into carefree ponytails countless times, but for her date, she’d worn it up an elaborate mix of twisted coils and braids. Small tendrils were escaping from their confinement, and he resisted the urge to twine them around his fingers. Instead, he let his thumb brush back and forth over her nape. “The story of your life is that you’re the kindest, most trusting person I’ve ever known.”
Maeve’s eyes filled with unshed tears. “Which translates to being the most naive person you’ve ever known. Just once, I wish … ” She sighed and turned her head to stare out the window. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
She sounded so bleak, so utterly lost. It was a feeling he knew all too well. He’d been there himself a time or two over the last year. And as cliche as it may have sounded, talking about it had helped. He wanted to be the shoulder she leaned on now the way Max had been his.
“What do you wish?” he asked, his tone gentle, yet probing.
Her shoulders slumped forward. “Let’s pretend I never said that.”
Ben stared at her for a beat, but when she didn’t continue, he reluctantly drew away and busied his hands with knobs on the dash. If he didn’t keep them occupied, he was liable to reach out and draw her into his arms instead. She was hurting, and he wanted to comfort her. Yeah, comfort. That’s all this overwhelming desire to hold her close and never let go was.
It had absolutely nothing to do with seeing her with another man earlier. Nope, not a thing. His lips twisted as he recognized denial. Ben wasn’t a jealous man, but watching Maeve laugh with Steve Smith had pulled at some primal urge he’d never felt before, triggering some deep-seated need to claim her. To call her his own. To protect her.
But Maeve didn’t need his protection. She was strong and capable, regardless what their mutual friends seemed to think. So what if she’d made a mistake by trusting someone she shouldn’t have? While he’d never really trusted anyone outside of Max (and now Maeve, he conceded), her ability to open herself up to possibility was one of the things he lo—.
No. He shook his head. He didn’t love her. He couldn’t. You didn’t fall in love with a woman you’d never even kissed.
Shit. He gripped the steering wheel tight. He was losing his fucking mind over her. The air in the car felt suddenly stifling, and he couldn’t seem to pull enough of it into his lungs to breathe properly. He needed to leave.
Ben leaned forward to look out the windshield. In the last couple of minutes, fat droplets of rain had begun to fall, and fog from the river had rolled in. In the distance, the light from her front porch glowed, but otherwise, the landscape was a muted, milky gray.
“I’ll walk you in.”
She turned back to him and nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
“Wait there,” he said, opening his door and running around the front of the car to the passenger side. He tugged his jacket off and made a sort of makeshift shelter of it. Maeve stepped out and looked up at him. Damn, she really was the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. “This should keep you dry,” he said, swallowing past the unwelcome lump that had formed his throat.
“Thank you,” she whispered, stepping up onto the curb.
Together, they dashed up her front walk to her door. He held the jacket aloft while she rooted around in her purse for her keys. When she found them, she tossed him a look he
had trouble interpreting, and then she moved to unlock the door. She missed the lock, though, and her keychain tumbled to the floor. Simultaneously, they bent to retrieve them, and their hands touched. Ben moved to pull away, but Maeve’s fingers twisted around his. With her free hand, she scooped up her keys, and when she looked up at him, she licked her lips.
Ben’s heart kicked wildly in his chest as rain pelted down on them, the makeshift umbrella all but forgotten. He forgot everything, in fact, except for how badly he wanted her. And if the heat in her eyes was any indication, she wanted him, too.
“Maeve?”
Her eyes flicked between his for a few brief seconds, and he watched as she drew a breath deep into her lungs, stretching the thin cotton of her dress tight across her chest. “That thing I wished for before?” Her voice was a breathy sigh, and it made him think of all the ways he wanted to make her sigh in the future.
“Yeah?” he asked, his own voice coming out as a rough rasp.
She pushed to her feet, bringing him with her. Ben tried not to fixate on the fact that she hadn’t let go of his hand. In fact, she was holding it even tighter, her fingers now laced with his. “How familiar are you with Demi Lovato?”
Ben’s brows scrunched in confusion over what seemed like an abrupt change in topic. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
Maeve stepped close and lifted her face to his. “She has this song called ‘Ruin the Friendship.’ It’s about someone she can’t stop thinking about but has stayed away from because he’s her good friend—maybe even her best friend. But she’s willing to risk the friendship for the sake of one night in his arms.”
Ben swallowed deeply. “Are you saying that’s what you want? To risk our friendship for what—one night together? And then what? We just pretend it never happened?” Frankly, he didn’t know if he was capable of that. He was pretty damn certain that once he got a taste of her, he’d want another, and another, and another. He already ached with desire every damn time he was around her. How bad would his cravings be if he was given a sample of heaven only to have it snatched away?
The Barista's Beloved (The River Hill Series Book 4) Page 8