“The Rotunda? We’re going to the Rotunda?”
“Yes,” answered Ben, taking big strides. “I hope that’s all right.”
“Of course.” Cat struggled to keep up with him. “I haven’t been in there in a long time. Plus, it will be warm.” She pulled her coat more tightly around her. “It’s darn cold for Virginia right now.”
Reaching the south side Rotunda steps, he stopped for a moment to look down the expanse of the Lawn. “Isn’t it breathtaking?” he said.
She nodded. It truly was a gorgeous sight, one she’d taken for granted, having lived in Charlottesville for so long. “Yes.” Her teeth chattered. “Can we go in now?”
Smiling, he linked her arm in his and escorted her down the few steps to the entrance. Once inside, they strolled at leisure, taking in the various rooms. Ben was mostly silent, making an observation here and there about the furnishings, but she didn’t pressure him, figuring he’d eventually reveal why he had brought her here.
They climbed the curved stairwell to the Dome Room, passing by a few other tourists chatting with each other. At the top, he stopped and turned to the window. It was the same view as before they had come in, looking down the Lawn at the Pavilions and student rooms, with a glimpse of Old Cabell Hall at the far end. From up high, though, it was even more impressive, especially framed through the large white columns of the Rotunda’s back entryway.
“Wow,” Cat said.
“Yeah. Wow.” He took a deep breath. “This was my brother’s favorite view.”
She nodded. “I can see why.”
He dipped his chin in curt affirmation. A sheen of tears coated his eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Ben,” was all she could think to say.
“I didn’t come to the New Year’s Eve ball, Cat, because I was with my family, marking the anniversary of my brother’s passing. He had cancer—an aggressive pancreatic cancer— and it was on New Year’s Day of last year that he lost the battle.”
He remained staring out the window, not looking at her, one single tear rolling down his cheek. “He was so young. Twenty-nine. He had his whole life ahead of him. But he’s gone.”
She slipped her hand in his and squeezed it. “I know some of that pain. I miss my dad every day.”
He pressed back in acknowledgment. After a moment, he went on. “Wash was an architect. He loved buildings. He had begun working for a big firm in Richmond the previous year, and was so excited.” He took in a deep breath, still gazing blankly down the Lawn. “But he couldn’t figure out why he was so tired. He was losing weight. And then...” He broke off, fighting back a sob. “Then he admitted he’d been having some abdominal pain for a while, but had been ignoring it.” Ben snorted. “That was Wash, never wanting to go to the doctor for anything. When my mother finally convinced him to go—badgered him into it with guilt, rather—the cancer had spread.”
She let go of his hand and enfolded him instead in a hug, mindless of the glances from passing strangers. Ben grabbed her, clinging to her much as she had clung to him in the bookstore when she was pouring out her grief over Eliza. He didn’t say anything more, just held her. Finally, he stepped back.
“Thank you.” He reached for her hand again. “But I didn’t bring you here to express my grief, deep as it still is.” He led her over to one of the rows of chairs in the middle of the room and encouraged her to sit down. He took a place next to her.
“My family,” he said, “is not a religious one. Sometimes we’d go to the Lutheran service when we visited the grandparents on the holidays. But that was it.”
He broke off for a minute, casting her a brief glance. Cat smiled in encouragement, and he went on. “My brother went so far as to declare himself an atheist.” He paused again. “But on the night before he died, New Year’s Eve, I was alone with him in his room. He’d been slipping in and out of consciousness for most of the previous few days and was more out than in that day. We knew the time was near. But late that night—maybe around eleven-thirty, I don’t know—his eyes flew open. When he saw me, the most beatific smile spread across his face and he said, ‘Ben, I saw God. I saw God.’”
Ben turned to Cat as if to gauge her reaction. She put her arm around the back of his chair, stroking his shoulder.
“I didn’t know what to make of it. I don’t know what I believe myself. But he was utterly convinced, Cat. He said his pain was gone, and that God was calling him home. He told me Grandma forgave me for stealing that twenty dollars from her cookie jar when I was thirteen. No one else knew that. No one. I didn’t even think my grandmother knew it.”
He glanced at her again, and then went back to staring at the floor. “He closed his eyes at that point, but said with conviction, ‘I’m at peace. It’s okay to let me go. God is with me.’ It was the last thing I heard him say. When he lapsed into unconsciousness again, I paced the room. I didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t know what to think. The next morning he passed away. He was smiling when he died, Cat.”
She rubbed his back, unsure of what to say.
“My brother changed his entire sense of reality, or at least my entire sense of reality, in one day. I still struggle with it. I’m a computer scientist, for Pete’s sake. My brain thinks in blacks and whites. I expect logical explanations for everything. It’s hard for me to accept things that I can’t understand. But my brother...”
He broke off. “When you told me your story, everything in my brain screamed, ‘She’s nuts. This woman is nuts.’ It still does,” he admitted with a wry grin. “A part of me said, ‘If my brother the atheist can have a Paul on the road to Damascus moment ...’ But the rest of me, the rational side of me, couldn’t accept it.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Then you sent me that email, with those pictures. I’d accuse you of Photoshopping them, but given your, um, Luddite tendencies, I knew that wasn’t remotely likely. I knew you had to be telling the truth.”
Cat moved her hand from his shoulder and laced her fingers through his. “I’m so sorry, Ben, for the loss of your brother. I can tell you loved him very much.”
His eyes welled up again at her words, but no tears fell. They sat in silence for a while longer, watching people come and go.
At length, Cat whispered, “I’m so glad you came back.”
“Me, too.” He stood up and reached for her hand, drawing her up with him. “I don’t suppose I could buy you a cup of coffee? You know, like a normal, regular interaction between two non-crazy people?”
“Coffee? You’re a man after my own heart.” Realizing what she’d said, she bit her lip. “Um, I didn’t, I mean ...”
“It’s fine, Cat. Unlike Jack Nicholson, I can handle the truth.”
The tender look on his face made Cat melt. She’d nearly missed this, this connection with Ben. If she hadn’t tried again, if he hadn’t returned …
She knew there were no guarantees. She knew they were only at the beginning, although she hoped it was the beginning of something big, something long-lasting. But she was okay with that. The not knowing wasn’t nearly as terrifying as it would have been just a few months ago.
Images of Grayson, William, even Derrick, danced briefly across her mind. She was grateful to them, for what they’d taught her, and for what they’d brought her. They’d brought her clarity on what she really wanted. Guilt hit her in the gut over William, but she set it aside. She knew how she could make it up to him. Now was not about William. It was about Ben. Ben, who was running his fingers gently through her hair.
She laced her own fingers through his thick chestnut hair and drew his mouth down to hers. This time, there was no hesitation. He engulfed her in a fierce embrace, his lips meeting hers eagerly. She ran her hands around behind his neck, holding him to her. This kiss felt magical. Not magical in the sense of the medieval manuscript. Not even in the sense of the surprised passion they’d shared under the mistletoe. But in the sense of connectedness, of completeness, of the sheer rightness of it.
After a moment, they broke off. He set his forehead against hers, and they stood that way, savoring each other. She couldn’t have said if there were others in the Dome Room with them; to her, it was as if they were in a place all their own.
“Coffee,” he murmured. “Before we make a bigger spectacle of ourselves by making out right here on the floor of the Rotunda.” His mouth quirked up in a suggestive grin.
“Whatever would Thomas Jefferson think?”
“Eh, I’m pretty sure he’d root me on. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d engaged in scandalous behavior a time or two in this building.”
“For shame, Benjamin Franklin Cooper, suggesting such a thing of one of your illustrious colleagues.”
He poked her. She laughed.
Linking her fingers through his, they walked down the stairs together.
“Let me see if I get this right.” Ben turned to the barista. “Vente latte, skim milk, with a shot of butterscotch. Unless you want something else, of course,” he added hastily, looking back at Cat.
“No, no.” Her lips turned up in a grin. “That’s exactly right. How did you know that?”
“I, well. I’ve watched you with Eliza for some time in here.”
“Like a stalker?” She started humming Somebody’s Watching Me.
Panic crossed his face. “Well, uh, no, I mean...”
“I’m teasing, Ben. I’m flattered you know my order.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “How do you know that Rockwell song? I thought I was the only one who still loved all those cheesy seventies and eighties hits.”
“Are you kidding?” She retorted, leading him to her usual booth. “Wildfire? The Piña Colada Song? I’m so there.”
As she sat down, she started singing Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl). Ben joined in on the chorus, their voices blending in harmony together. Several customers frowned at them, but Cat didn’t care.
Ben set his coffee down, reaching for her hand across the table. “I have to ask. You’ve never written about me, right? Because I’d still like that smaller nose.”
Her cheeks burned.
His eyes grew wide. “You have written about me. I thought you said I wasn’t one of your characters?”
“You aren’t! You aren’t,” she reassured him. “But I did write about you once, to test it.”
Ben’s face relaxed, and his eyes took on a teasing gleam. “Did it work? Did I used to have blond hair or something?”
She fidgeted with the handle of her coffee mug. “Uh, no.”
“Good. Blond isn’t my color. But that red on your cheeks has me dying to know. What did you write?”
She took a quick sip of coffee, avoiding his eyes. “It was after the mistletoe night. I wanted to make sure it was real, that you were real. I needed to test if I could, uh, write you the way I wanted.” She stopped, but Ben waited, saying nothing. “So I wrote a scene in which you walked into the bookstore and declared you were madly in love with me and couldn’t live without me.”
“Oh, great,” he said. Her eyes flew to his, which were crinkled in amusement. “So now when I do do that, you won’t believe me.”
“Yes, I will. I mean, no. I mean ...” She broke off, flummoxed by the turn of the conversation.
Ben laughed heartily. “It’s all right, Cat. I’m touched that you’d try. More than touched, actually.” His thumb rubbed over her fingers. “But why didn’t you go for the nose?” he added, lightening the mood.
“I like your nose.”
“That would make one of us. I’ve tried to convince myself that if I had a smaller schnoz, the ladies would flock to me.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Cat smirked. “You know what they say: big nose, big hands, big ...”
Now it was Ben’s turn to flush. “Ms. Schreiber,” he said with mock severity. “Are you alluding to, well, to what I think you’re alluding?”
“A lady never tells.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “But as long as we’re playing this game, what should I change about me?”
“Nothing.”
“What?” she burst out. “You’re kidding. I’d kill to have Eliza’s looks.”
“Eliza’s beautiful,” Ben admitted. “But you’re pretty much what I’ve always wanted.”
“What?” Cat said, stunned.
“You are. You’re gorgeous, for one thing. But more importantly, you’re funny. You’re intelligent. You’re loyal. I’ve envied your relationship with Eliza; the closest I ever came to that was with Wash.” He swallowed. “You’re emotionally expressive in ways I’m not.”
“God, I know,” she broke in. “I wish I could control that better.”
“I don’t. It’s refreshing, at least to me.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. “I’ve felt drawn to you, since the day I first saw you in the bookstore.”
“You have?” Cat’s eyes went wide. She pulled her hands back from the table. For a moment, she panicked. Oh God, what if she really had written about him at some point years ago? What if? No, she told herself sternly. You wrote that scene in the bookstore and it didn’t happen. You did not create Ben Cooper.
Eliza had told her after the Grayson-Amy debacle that it was possible for a man to be interested in her, to want her, to love her for exactly who she was, not because she’d written him that way. “I promise,” her friend had said.
Cat took another sip of coffee, fighting to accept that Ben was exactly who he was—not one of her creations—and that he was into her.
She suddenly realized what he had said. “Wait. The first time we saw each other was in the coffee shop.”
He ran his hands along the tops of his thighs, exhaling. “Not exactly.”
“What?”
“It was earlier in the fall. My sister brought Alice to the Treasure Trove for some sort of story thing. I met them there, as we had plans to go to lunch.”
Alice? Alice had come to Story Hour? No wonder the girl had looked familiar.
“You didn’t notice me when I came in, because you were so involved with the kids. You had an eye patch across your eye, and a stuffed parrot on your shoulder, and you were reading in a rather impressive pirate accent. Something about whether or not pirates ever took baths.” He reached for her hand again, clasping it in his, resting both on the top of the table. “I was hooked. I wanted to know more about this woman. It’s not every day you meet an adult wearing a stuffed parrot as a fashion accessory.”
Cat ran her thumb over his. “Eliza always said you were interested in me. I didn’t believe her, especially since you were with a woman the very first time I saw you.”
Ben’s brow wrinkled. “I was?”
“Yes, a tall, reddish-haired woman. You gave her quite a hug when she came over to you.”
“Reddish-hai—that was my sister! Martha. We met for coffee that day because she needed to talk. An argument with her husband, Jack.”
“Your sister.” Not a girlfriend. “And Shakespeare?”
“Shakespeare?” His brow furrowed.
“You know, the day we ate lunch together. You told me you had a date that night, at the Shakespeare Center.”
“Oh! Yeah. No, not a date in that sense. Martha took me with her. She’d really wanted to see A Christmas Carol, but Jack had no interest. I’ve always liked Dickens myself.”
Cat sucked in a breath at the mention of A Christmas Carol. Scrooge. Eliza. Those other men. Ben. He’d been single. If only she’d asked. Then again, he hadn’t asked her out, and he had acquired a girlfriend soon after. “Okay, but when you started dating Mei, I assumed...”
“Cat, when I heard that you were dating those other men, I figured I had no chance. I don’t look like a Grayson. I’m not wealthy like a William. It’s not as if women fall all over me.”
“Why not? You’re pretty darn cute.”
He choked on the sip of coffee he’d just taken. “Uh, thank you. I’m not quite sure what to say to that. Computer scientists seem to be less in demand than, say, firefighters. Or doctors. Or...”
“ ...Dukes and earls?”
He ran his finger along the rim of his cup. “Yes. Dukes and earls, indeed. So when Mei asked me out, I said to myself ‘Why not? Give it a chance. You might not get another.’ But it was clear to me pretty quickly that while she’s a sweet lady, she wasn’t the one for me. And it wasn’t fair to her to keep pretending she was.”
They stared at each other.
“What now?” she asked.
“Now,” he said, “I’m hoping you’ll let me take you on a date. A real one. Although I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’m feeling intimidated again, given what you told me about Mr. Dawes, at least.”
“I’d like a date.” She took a last sip of her coffee. “Don’t worry about Dawes. Or any of them. Because the person, the only person, I’m interested in is you.”
She smoothed her hair back from her face with her free hand. “Getting everything you think you wanted isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know. I never thought I’d feel this way, but a little mystery, a little uncertainty, a little less-than-perfect feels so much more exciting than getting my dream man.” At his raised eyebrows, she grimaced. “Wait, that came out wrong.”
Ben gave her a tender smile. “No, I get it. I’m no Prince Charming. I’m full of faults. People claim I’m a pessimist, although they’re wrong. I’m a realist. I’m not good at sharing how I feel. I can’t have foods touch each other on my plate. And I can be overly frugal.”
“Frugality is a fault? That’s news to me.” She rubbed her fingers over his again, enjoying the feeling of warmth, the sense of connection. “But guess what, Ben? I don’t need Prince Charming. I’m no fairytale princess, either. I take people for granted far too often, including Eliza. I tried to fill my emotional holes with books instead of people. I’m not fond of going out in cold or hot weather. I’m not good with change. And apparently, I’m clueless about noticing when a man is interested in me unless he states so directly.”
Ben nodded. “So we’ve agreed we’re each quirky. I can live with that.”
“Me, too,” she answered with a grin. “But first, can I show you what I wanted to show you before?”
Ben stood up and shrugged on his jacket. “Lead on, fair maiden. Lead on.”
An hour later, they sat in the back room of the Treasure Trove, immersed in Eliza’s letters. Ben occasionally picked up the two photographs and the portrait, scrutinized them, and then set them back down. They had pulled out all the books and discovered that indeed most, if not all, of Dickens’ works had been added to the trunk.
“These have got to be worth a fortune,” Ben commented at one point.
“I know. But I’m not sure I can bring myself to part with them, especially since they’re from Eliza.”
“Do you have to?”
“Not yet,” Cat said. “Selling the Bible to William and finalizing the sale on that Pooh book have me set for a little while. But I’m still working on paying off the second mortgage and loans my dad took out to keep the store afloat and send me to college.”
She leaned back on the chair in which she was sitting and blew the bangs out of her face, clutching a group of letters in one hand. “To be honest, I’m trying to figure out if I want to keep going. In the business, that is. Without Eliza here, I have no extra help, no breaks, no one to take over when I go visit my family. I have Emily sometimes, but her schedule is limited, and of course, the less I pay someone else the better I do.”
Ben was silent for a minute. “I could help.”
“What?”
“I could. On the weekends. Maybe some evenings. I have teaching and research obligations, but I love this store. You and your dad obviously put your hearts into it. I love how passionate you are about books, how you work to draw in the community to engage them in reading, especially kids. Too many kids go around these days with their eyes glued to a screen, rather than their noses to a book.” He snorted. “Some might say that’s ironic for a computer science professor to say, but it’s the truth.”
Cat nodded. “Thank you.”
Ben swallowed nervously. “I guess maybe that’s putting the cart before the horse. Or carriage, as Eliza might now say.” He gave an uncertain chuckle. “I didn’t mean to put pressure on you before we’ve even officially gone out once. I want to help. And to be perfectly honest, I want another excuse to be near you.”
Cat’s insides glowed. She set down the letters she’d been holding and stood up, crossing the short distance to his chair. She dropped herself into his lap, giggling at his surprised expression. Smoothing her fingers over the hair that had fallen across his forehead, she leaned in and kissed his nose, then his cheek, then his chin, before coming back to his mouth. He returned the kiss with enthusiasm, his fingers snaking up under her shirt to rub the bare skin of her lower back.
“Thank you,” he said when she broke off the kiss. She didn’t get up, though, instead settling herself against him. His arm encircled her and his fingers stroked lazy circles along her hip.
He cleared his throat. “I have to ask,” he said. “I know why I want to be with you. I’ve shared that today. But I can’t help but feel insecure, knowing you can create the perfect guy for yourself. Who am I compared to William or Grayson? Or anybody you could dream up?” He glanced away as if embarrassed to have revealed such insecurity.
“You are the man who made my toes curl when you kissed me under the mistletoe, Mr. Cooper.” She slipped her finger under his chin and gently pulled his face back to hers. Smoothing her fingers down his cheek, she went on.
“You may say you’re no Prince Charming, but you are the man who slew my computer dragon. You’re the man who stepped in to help without being asked or wanting acknowledgment, numerous times, and you did it because that’s who you are, not because I wrote you to be that way. You are the man who understands my love for this store, and for my dad, and for my friend Eliza.”
She leaned in and peppered his face with small kisses. “You are the man who intrigues me, the man about whom I’m dying to know more. You are the man who makes me laugh the most. You are the man who knows mushrooms are not food, they’re fungus. And you are the man whom I truly believe likes me for me. Not because you have to—not because I created you that way—but because, for whatever reason, you want to. If I’ve learned nothing else from my experiences this winter, it’s that that is more precious than anything else.”
Pausing for a moment, she added, “I’ve spent years choosing the safe and known over the unsure and the unknown. But I’m finding I like not knowing how the story is going to end with you. I’m willing to accept the risk and knowing that has made me feel so much more alive than I’ve felt in a long time. Plus, you have incredibly attractive chocolate eyes.”
Ben’s gaze grew soft. “That’s quite a speech, Ms. Schreiber.”
She leaned in and kissed him gently, then again. “Well, you’re quite a character, Mr. Cooper.”