CARLIE COULDN’T BELIEVE her eyes. Ben? Ben was the contractor—the workman who was going to be walking in and out of the house, with his own set of keys, his own set of rules and his own damned swagger? She felt suddenly violated and insecure. The fact that he was in her apartment, her private sanctuary, made her blood boil. After the way he’d treated her, he was the last person she wanted prowling about her home. Let the windows rattle. Let the faucet drip. Let the damned roof leak, but for God’s sake, never let Ben Powell in here. “What’re you doing here?” she demanded as he placed a screwdriver to her window frame and played with the pulleys in the old casing.
“What does it look like?”
She ground her teeth in frustration. “I know about the work that has to be done, I just don’t understand why you had to do it!”
“I got the job.” He grimaced a little as the rope slid between his fingers and the window dropped suddenly. With a grunt, he shoved the old pane up again and tightened the screw.
“But you’re not living here, are you?” she asked, her world suddenly tilting as she remembered the empty studio apartment on the first floor that Mrs. Hunter had wanted to rent. Mrs. Hunter had mentioned that she might trade the rent for work around the house…. Oh, no! He couldn’t live here—no way, no how! This small set of rooms was her private place, her shelter! She wasn’t going to share it with the one man who had the ability to wound her.
“I’d be moving in tomorrow if your landlady had her way.” He shoved his screwdriver back into his tool belt and his eyes glinted a bit. “However, so far I’ve resisted.”
“She can be pretty persuasive.” Carlie tossed her purse on the couch.
“Can she?” he asked, one corner of his mouth lifting skeptically.
“Very.”
“I guess I’d better avoid her.”
“Like you do with all women,” she challenged, and his head jerked up, his smile fading quickly away.
“Only the ones that I think will be trouble.” He reached into his open toolbox, withdrew a plane and turned back to the sill, as if he planned to fix the damned window this very night.
“And that doesn’t take in the entire female population?” Carlie was spoiling for a fight and she couldn’t control her tongue. It had been a long week, worrying about her parents, thinking about Ben, wishing she could just start over.
“Not quite.” He glared pointedly at her and she blushed. He seemed so much more real today. The last time she’d seen him at Nadine’s wedding, he’d worn his military uniform and he’d seemed untouchable and remote. Distant. A soldier on a three-day pass. But today, dressed in faded jeans with worn knees and thin fabric over his buttocks, a tool belt and work shirt with the sleeves rolled over his forearms, he was decidedly more human and, therefore, more dangerous.
“You obviously don’t want me here,” he said as he shaved off some of the casing. Sawdust and wood curls fell to the floor.
“You got that right.”
“Look, it’s just a job, okay?” He scowled, as if he felt uncomfortable.
“A job in my house.”
“Live with it, lady.” He uncinched his belt and it fell to the floor with a thud that echoed in her heart. She averted her eyes for a second; she couldn’t even stand to watch him remove one article of clothing without thinking back to a time when she would have liked nothing more than to lie naked with him in a field of summer wildflowers.
But she couldn’t afford to feel this way; the strain on her already stretched emotions would be too much. She couldn’t be around him until they’d dealt with the past, cleared the air and started fresh. She wasn’t in the mood to pick up the old pieces of her life and start fitting them together, but she didn’t have much of a choice. Not if she was being forced to see Ben on a daily basis.
“This job going to take long?”
“Are you asking if I’m gonna be underfoot for the next couple of weeks?” He frowned, then ran his fingers over the newly smoothed wood. “That’s a distinct possibility.”
“I’m not crazy about the idea.”
“Neither am I.” He glanced up at her, and when their gazes touched, the breath seemed knocked from her throat. Damn the man, he had no right to look so sexy. “Couldn’t one of your men—”
“So far I am my men.” He set the plane back in the toolbox. “Does it bother you so much—that I’m here in your apartment?”
“It makes me uncomfortable.”
“Why?”
“Why?” She rested one hip against the back of the couch. “I guess there’re about a million reasons,” she admitted.
“Name one.”
“You’re an arrogant bastard.”
He grinned. “Name two.”
“You’ve tried your best to do nothing but insult me from the minute you stepped into town.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she added, “I can read all sorts of accusations in your eyes, Ben, but I don’t understand them.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“Like hell! Every time we’re together you insinuate that I’m some kind of…of criminal or something—that I did something terrible and wrong and God only knows what else.” She took in a long breath and asked the question that had haunted her for so many years. “Just what was it I did to hurt you so badly?”
“You didn’t hurt me.”
“I damned well did something. You took off out of town like a dog with his tail tucked between his legs.”
“My brother was dead, damn it!” He kicked the tool belt across the floor, sending it crashing into an ottoman. “Dead! And you…you…”
“I what?” she demanded, her lungs constricting, old memories burning through her mind.
“You didn’t care.”
“Oh, Ben—”
He held up a hand, to cut off further conversation. “Forget it, Carlie. Let’s just start back at square one. You didn’t do anything. Okay? Not a damned thing!” But a tic jumped near his left eye and the muscles in the back of his neck grew rigid.
“Wrong.” She shook her head and thought hard, rolling back the years, allowing the blinding pain of the past to surface. For over a decade she’d kept it bottled up, tucked away in a dark corner of her mind, collecting cobwebs, but now she let all of her suspicions surface. “It was because of Kevin,” she said quietly, finally saying the words that she’d denied so long. “Somehow you blame me for what happened to him.”
Ben didn’t say a word, just stared at her as if she were Eve in the Garden of Eden, offering him forbidden fruit, trying to open his eyes to things better left unseen, forcing him to face the truth.
Shoving away from the couch, she picked up his heavy belt and walked the short distance that separated them, her footsteps muffled on the worn Oriental carpet. He never stopped staring at her and she only quit moving when the toe of her shoe nudged the tip of his worn sneakers. She dropped the belt at his feet. “You’ve blamed me, though I don’t know why. There was nothing I could do. Nothing either of us could do. We couldn’t have stopped Kevin from driving into that garage and letting the engine run.”
The air grew thick with cold. Rain pelted the windows and dripped down the sill into the house. Ben’s eyes narrowed a fraction and a deep anguish shadowed his eyes.
“Whether it was an accident or suicide, we weren’t to blame,” she said, wishing she could touch him and erase the pain that still lingered in his gaze.
“You don’t know that.”
Her heart ached for all the years they’d let the past keep them apart, for all the misunderstandings, the hatred and mistrust. “What could either of us have done?”
“I could have been there for him. I knew he was having problems,” Ben said gruffly. His throat worked and he stared at her with a venom so intense, she shuddered.
“Did you think he’d take his life?”
“No.”
“Neither did I.”
Ben snorted. “But I suspected he was in love with you and I didn’t care. Nadine even warned me, but I still took you out, bragged about it, even told him I thought I might marry you,” Ben said. His face was filled with self-loathing.
“Marry me?” she whispered, her heart aching.
“I’d thought about it. He’d tried to talk me out of it, claimed that you weren’t the marrying type—too interested in seeing the world.” He slammed the window shut and the room seemed suddenly still.
“Ben, I didn’t know—”
“You knew a lot, Carlie,” he said, his lips curling into a sneer of disgust, his gaze suddenly dark and menacing. He grabbed her by the shoulders, his eyes fierce, his expression haunted. “He loved you, Carlie. We both should have known it, but we didn’t want to. We were too wrapped up in each other to care about someone else. I rationalized everything—he was dating Tracy so it was okay for me to start seeing the girl that he couldn’t forget.”
“You’ve got it all turned around,” she said, but she remembered the day on the dock when Kevin had surprised her and professed his love. She’d conveniently forgotten how wounded he’d been.
“Do I?” Ben snarled, his face flushed in anger, his hands clenching and stretching in frustration. “Why didn’t you tell me about the letters, Carlie?”
“The letters?” she repeated. “What letters?”
He offered her a smile that chilled her to the bones. “You know the letters. The ones that Kevin wrote to you.”
“I didn’t get any—”
“Liar!” His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her upper arms. “We found some of the letters he hadn’t gotten around to sending to you and they were pretty explicit about your relationship.”
“There was no relationship!” she said. “I’d broken up with him, if you can even call it that. There wasn’t even a reason to break up. We only had a few dates and I just told him I couldn’t go out with him anymore.”
“But those dates…they were powerful, weren’t they?” he said, his hold punishing.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, Ben.”
“I know about the baby.”
Her heart stopped suddenly and she hardly dared breathe. “What baby?”
“The baby you wouldn’t have. Kevin’s baby.”
“Kevin’s baby? What are you talking about? I never had a baby….” Her voice failed her as her heart tightened in painful knots.
“Because you wouldn’t,” he snarled in disgust. The look he sent her was pure hatred.
“Oh, Ben, if you only knew.”
“I do know. You were too selfish—”
“Hey wait a minute!” She shoved hard on his chest. “You don’t know me, Ben Powell! Not at all. You didn’t stick around long enough to find out, did you?”
“I know you wanted to get rid of the baby.”
“I didn’t want to get rid of any baby,” she said, her throat closing as she shook her head in misery. Anger rushed through her veins. “You’ve got everything all twisted around. You think I was pregnant with Kevin’s child and…and that I had an abortion?”
Horrified at his accusations, she watched the play of emotions contort his face. He was serious! He really believed this insane bunch of lies. He didn’t say a word, but condemnation sizzled in his gaze and she died a little inside. If only she could reach out, touch his hand, explain…but the censure on his face was devastating.
Her knees nearly gave way when she thought of all the wasted years. All the lies. All the pain. Leaning against the wall for support, she shook her head. “I didn’t…I never…Kevin and I…we didn’t ever get that far.”
“Don’t lie to me, Carlie. It’s too late.”
“You should know better, Ben,” she said, fury taking hold of her tongue again. Eyes shimmering with unshed tears, she inched her chin up a notch and pinned him with her furious gaze. “You are the one man who should know the truth!” Her heart shredded a little. It wasn’t Kevin’s baby she’d wanted all those years ago, it was Ben’s. She’d hoped for a miracle, that though they’d made love only one night, that she would become pregnant. At the time, she’d wanted desperately to bear his child, and she’d been ecstatic when she’d skipped her period. But her euphoria had been short-lived. Though she’d taken an in-home pregnancy test that had showed positive, within weeks, she’d miscarried. Alone. The doctor had kept her secret and she’d never felt more miserable in her life.
A tear drizzled down her cheek, but she sniffed hard before any other traces of her regret tracked from her eyes. “Don’t you remember?” she demanded, pride stiffening her spine. “I couldn’t have been pregnant, Ben, because when I was seeing Kevin, I was still a virgin.”
He had been reaching for his toolbox, but he froze.
“That night on the lake. In the rain? That’s the night I lost my virginity, Ben!” she said, wounded and furious all in one instant. “And I didn’t give it to Kevin. I gave it to his brother.” And I got pregnant. With your baby. Our baby!
He stared at her in disbelief and she shook her head. “I don’t know why you want to believe this ridiculous story—”
His face drained of color. “You were a—”
“Too bad you weren’t paying attention,” she said bitterly. “You could have saved yourself a whole lot of time and trouble hating me for something that was so obviously a lie!”
“I don’t believe—”
“I don’t care what you believe,” she said in righteous fury. “You can think what you want! But the truth of the matter is that I gave my virginity to you, Ben, and if I’d been lucky enough to get pregnant it would have been with your child!” It had been with your child!
“But—”
“Kevin never touched me!”
His jaw clamped tightly together.
“I can’t believe that you let some lie and your own guilt twist things around so that you hated me for all these years. Why didn’t you come to me, Ben? Why didn’t you let me explain rather than set yourself up as judge and jury?” Trembling inside, she motioned to the door. “You’ve always been wrong about me. You were wrong then and you’re wrong now. I think you’d better go,” she said firmly. “This is my place—my private place—and I don’t want you here.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She smiled bitterly. “Then you’re a fool.”
His lips curled and she thought he might grab her and shake her, but he muttered something under his breath, snapped his jaw shut, grabbed his toolbox and strode past. The door slammed behind him with a bang that rattled the old timbers of the house and caused the suspended light fixture to swing from the ceiling.
Carlie collapsed on the couch. Ben had thought she’d been pregnant with Kevin’s child and then had aborted the baby? She let her head fall into her hands and the tears she’d held at bay ran from her eyes. How could he have believed that she could have been that heartless? Shuddering, she drew an old afghan to her neck. God, what a mess! She wished she could stop the cold that settled deep in her soul. She’d loved Ben, believed he’d loved her and yet he could be swayed by such vicious lies. And he didn’t even know the truth. She supposed that he never would.
So why would he believe such horrid lies?
Because his brother died and he felt guilty. But he didn’t have the right to believe the distortions of Kevin’s letters. The least he could have done was face her.
Closing her eyes, she remembered all the guilt, all the pain that had seared through her soul. She’d felt somehow responsible for Kevin’s death because she hadn’t loved him, because she’d never felt for him what he’d sworn he felt for her, because she’d fallen in love with his younger brother.
Though Kevin had left no suicide note, the general consensus in town was that Kevin had killed himself. He’d been unhappy and troubled for years. Some final straw had caused him to drive into the dilapidated garage of his tiny house, close the door and leave the Corvette running.
Carlie had gone to the funeral hoping to speak with Ben, but the Powells had kept their distance from the rest of the mourners and the icy glares she received from Ben’s parents kept her from approaching the grieving family. Donna had returned from the Midwest to bury her son, and George, looking pale and wan, had made his wishes clear: no one was to bother the family. Especially not Carlie Surrett.
Carlie hadn’t wanted to intrude; she’d just wanted to talk to Ben. She’d seen him in the funeral parlor and again at the grave site but he’d never so much as glanced her way. Standing still and straight, like the soldier he would soon become, he’d stared at a point far in the distant hills while Reverend Osgood had given a final blessing over the coffin.
The entire town had been stunned by Kevin’s unfortunate death. Gold Creek was a small community and the loss of one of its young citizens was a shock. Friends, family and acquaintances had come out in droves, paying their respects and grieving. For weeks after Kevin was buried people had spoken of the Powells’ “tragic loss” while shaking their heads.
Carlie had tried to see Ben, before and after the funeral, but he’d refused her calls, and sent back her letters, unopened. Desperate, she’d even plotted to go to the Powells’ home on the outskirts of town where Ben was rumored to be staying with his father and demand that he see her.
Rachelle had tried to talk her out of it. Brenda had advised her to let time go by. Her parents had told her that the Powells deserved their privacy in their time of loss.
So Carlie had waited, working up her nerve, planning what she would say to Ben. By the time she’d found her courage and was ready to tell him that they were going to be parents, Ben had already taken off. She heard through the grapevine that he’d left town for the army. “That’s what Patty Osgood says,” her friend, Brenda, had told her three weeks after the funeral. They’d been seated at the counter in the drugstore and sipping lemonade. Brenda had swirled her ice cubes with her straw. “I usually take what Patty says as gospel, if you know what I mean. She hears all the gossip in town in church, y’know. If I were you, I’d forget him.”
But he’s the father of my child, Carlie had wanted to scream and had held a protective hand over her abdomen.
The rumor that Ben had joined up had proved true and Carlie had been left trying to mend her broken heart, hoping that Ben would call or write.
She’d started cramping the day after she found out that he was gone. The bleeding, just a few drops at first, followed. She’d lost the baby that one night and her romantic dreams of Ben had turned out to be the foolish wishes of a girl caught in a one-sided love affair: she’d never heard from him again.
“Oh, Lord,” she whispered, refusing to shed any more tears for a past that could never be changed. “Stop it, Carlie! Get a grip, would you?” Angry with her runaway emotions, she shoved herself upright and walked to the kitchen where she found a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass of Chablis.
“Not a good sign,” she told herself as she took an experimental sip and felt the cool wine slide down her throat. “Not a good sign at all. Drinking alone.” But she didn’t care, not tonight, and she wasn’t going to sit here in the dark crying over Ben Powell or his ridiculous accusations. Let him think what he wanted. It didn’t matter.
So why couldn’t she convince herself?
Her stomach rumbled though it was barely five o’clock and she remembered that she’d missed lunch. The photography shop had been busy and during the noon hour, she’d driven to the hospital and visited her father. Later, there hadn’t been any time to grab anything to eat.
Still, food wasn’t appealing. Without a lot of enthusiasm she fixed herself a small dinner of crackers, cheese and apple slices. Sipping her wine, she ate the less-than-exciting meal and didn’t taste anything, not realizing how the time was passing as she wasted the evening thinking about Ben, the man who had sworn he’d never wanted her. Not then. Not now. Not ever.
* * *
WRONG? HE’D BEEN wrong about Carlie? For long over a decade? Ben drove through the rain-washed streets and swore under his breath. He couldn’t trust her, of course. She was probably lying again, but the anguish in her clear blue eyes had nearly convinced him. She might be lying but she believed her lies!
“Damn,” he muttered, his eyes narrowing against the rain drizzling down his windshield. Could he have been so stupid not to realize that Carlie had given him her virginity that night so long ago? Had he been deluding himself, wasting time hating her for a decade? Not that he’d had all that much experience himself and he’d been so caught up in his own passion that he hadn’t been thinking clearly. She hadn’t said anything and he hadn’t asked.
Later, upon finding the letters in Kevin’s house and reading between the lines, thus learning of Carlie’s pregnancy, Ben had felt as if a hot knife of betrayal had been twisted in his heart. The thought that she’d made love to Kevin had burned like acid in his gut and he’d thrown up. What had been so special between them suddenly seemed dirty and incestuous and ugly. His blossoming love for her had withered quickly into hatred, a hatred his family had helped nurture.
So why was he half believing her and second-guessing himself? Because he wanted her. Even though he professed to hate her, he couldn’t help remembering the feel of her body against his, the way her lips rounded when she moaned, the curve of her neck when he held her close. His fingers clenched hard over the steering wheel and he nearly missed stopping for a red light. At the last minute he slammed on his brakes. A furious horn blasted from behind him.
“Damn,” he said under his breath.
Another impatient honk warned him that the light had changed yet again, and he tromped on the accelerator, the back wheels spinning on the wet pavement. At the next corner, he wheeled into the parking lot of a gas station and cut the engine.
He climbed out of the cab and waved to the attendant, Joe Knapp, a man who’d gone to school with him years before. Joe had been captain of the football team way back when and after school, when he’d had his leg crushed while working in the woods for Fitzpatrick Logging, Joe’s dreams of a career in football had been destroyed, as well. Kind of like Kevin. Only Joe had survived, married a hometown girl, Mary Beth Carter, and seemed happy enough with his wife and kids.
Scowling to himself, Ben shoved the nozzle of the pump into the gas tank and listened as the liquid poured into his truck.
He couldn’t trust Carlie. Couldn’t! Oh, but a part of him would love to. That same rebellious part that still wanted to kiss her senseless and make love to her forever.
That thought caused him to start and he nearly let the gas overflow.
“You’re losing it, Powell,” he growled to himself as he turned off the pump. With thoughts of Carlie trailing after him like a shadow, he walked inside the small Texaco station that had been on the corner of Hearst and Pine for as long as he could remember. The building had changed hands, but it still smelled of grease and stale cigarette smoke and oil.
“Good to see you around here again,” Joe said as he took Ben’s credit card in his grimy fingers. “I thought you’d said adios to Gold Creek forever.”
“So did I.”
Joe flashed him a toothy smile as he ran Ben’s card through the verification machine. “So you feel like the prodigal son?”
“Nope. Just the black sheep.”
Joe laughed and Ben signed the receipt. The conversation turned to football. The usual stuff. If the 49ers were going to the Super Bowl the following season, or if L.A. had a better chance. As if it mattered.
Later, as Ben drove away from the station and through the heart of town, he couldn’t remember any of the conversation. Retail buildings gave way to houses that bordered the eastern hills, but he didn’t notice any of the landmarks that had been a part of his hometown.
Because of Carlie. Damn that woman! Why couldn’t he get her out of his head?
Ben liked things cut-and-dried, clear and to the point and structured. That’s why he’d felt comfortable in the army, working his way up through the rank and file, and that’s why he’d planned to come back to Gold Creek, start his own business, settle down with a sensible small-town girl and raise his family. His future had seemed so clear.
Until he’d seen Carlie again.
And until he’d listened to her side of the story. Her lies. Or her truth?
“Hell,” he growled as he turned into the drive of his little house that wasn’t far from the city limits of Gold Creek. Ben had rented the place from an elderly woman, Mrs. Trover, who lived at Rosewood Terrace in an apartment just down the hall from his father. Ben promised to keep the house up, including minor and major repairs, which he could deduct from the monthly rent. It wasn’t much, two bedrooms, living room, single bath, kitchen, laundry room and a basement that leaked in the winter, but it had become home and he was certain, when the time was right, he could probably buy the house, outbuildings and half acre of land from Mrs. Trover on a contract.
He turned off the ignition and sat in the pickup for a second. The cottage needed more than a little repair—“TLC” he’d heard it called, but Ben knew it was just plain hard work. Even when it was brought up to code, the house wouldn’t be ritzy and Ben couldn’t picture Carlie living here with a tiny bathroom and a kitchen so small, only one person could work in it. Rubbing his jaw, he wondered why he kept trying to picture her in his future. She was all wrong for him. Kevin had told him as much long ago.
He should have listened. Maybe then Kevin would still be alive and Ben wouldn’t walk around with a load of guilt on his shoulders for falling for his older brother’s girl.
Trying to shove Carlie and all the emotional baggage she brought with her from his mind, he grabbed the sack of dog food he’d purchased earlier in the day and hauled the bag to the back door. “Honey, I’m home,” he said as he unlocked the door.
Attila growled from the darkened interior.
“Well, at least you still have your sweet disposition.”
A deep-throated bark.
“Come on, get out of here and do your business,” Ben said leaving the outside door open as he walked into the kitchen and found a mixing bowl. The dog padded after him, hackles raised, but not emitting a sound. “Go on. You don’t have to follow me around.” He sliced open the sack, poured the dry dog food into the bowl and set it on the kitchen floor.
Attila just looked at him.
“Go on. Dig in.” Ben waited and the dog slowly, as if he expected to be kicked or poisoned, cautiously approached the food. “Be paranoid if you want,” Ben said.
The shepherd cocked his head, then hurried outside. Within seconds he was back, his nose deep in dog food.
“That’s better.” Ben grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and walked into the living room. Flicking on the remote control to the television, he dropped into a chair near an old rolltop desk he’d shoved into the corner. The message light on his telephone was blinking. “Hopefully, this is about a dozen clients begging me to come work for them,” he said with a glance to the dog.
Attila didn’t respond.
He pressed the button, the tape rewound and a series of clicks were followed by the first message.
“This is Bill with General Drywall. We can be at the house on Bitner next week on Tuesday. I’ll send a crew unless I hear from you.”
The phone clicked again.
“Ben?” a female voice asked. “This is Tracy. I saw you today at the restaurant and I…we, Randy and I…were wondering if you’d like to stop by for dinner tonight. Nothing special—but we’d love to have you.” She paused for a second, then said, “How about seven? And if I don’t hear from you by six, I’ll just figure you had other plans. It was great seeing you today. Hope you can make it.”
He glanced at his watch. Five-forty-five. Why not have dinner with Tracy? A small-town girl. A woman who was content to live here with her son. Kevin’s son.
Carlie’s face flashed before his eyes and he felt like a Judas. But that was crazy. Even if she were telling the truth about her relationship with Kevin, she’d thrown him out of her house. Gritting his teeth, he reached for the receiver.
He owed Carlie Surrett nothing!
* * *
“THIS IS YOUR uncle Ben,” Tracy said to a young redheaded freckle-faced boy. His hair was straight and fell over his forehead in a way that reminded Ben of Kevin a long, long time ago.
Randy wrinkled his nose. “Uncle Ben? You mean like the guy on the rice box?”
Ben laughed and stretched out his hand. “Not exactly,” he replied, shaking Randy’s hand.
“Don’t give Ben a hard time,” Tracy gently chastised her son. They lived in a nice apartment in Coleville, as modern as Carlie’s was rustic. White rug, white walls, white appliances and white furniture with a few throw pillows of mauve and blue.
“He’s not giving me a bad time,” Ben said. “What grade are you in?”
“Fourth.”
“Same as Nadine’s oldest boy,” Tracy said, turning back to the sink. “But they don’t see each other much since we don’t live in Gold Creek.”
“Are you talking about John Warne?” Randy asked.
“You know we are.”
“He’s a creep.”
Tracy visibly stiffened. “That’s not very nice—”
“Hey, it’s the truth,” Randy said. “And I don’t care if he is my cousin because he’s a jerk.”
“You don’t really know him.”
“Well, I know Katie Osgood. I see her in Sunday school and she tells me all about John—like how he’s the biggest dweeb in the whole school. He’s always in the principal’s office.”
“That’s enough, Randy,” Tracy said, managing a forced smile. “Why don’t you show Ben your baseball-card collection?”
“He won’t want to see—”
“Sure, I will,” Ben said, anxious to diffuse the tension between mother and son.
Hanging his head, Randy led Ben down a short hallway to a small room covered with posters of baseball players. Within minutes, he’d opened several albums and was telling Ben about all the players. He was particularly proud of a few old cards of Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, “you know, those old famous guys,” he said to Ben, his face lighting up. “My dad had these cards when he was a kid. Grandpa kept them for me.”
Ben’s heart twisted. This boy was Kevin’s bastard, a kid George Powell had accepted. He spent half an hour with Randy and the cards before Tracy called from the kitchen, “How about something to drink?”
“I’ll have a Coke!” Randy yelled back.
“I was talking to Ben,” she replied, wiping her hands as she appeared in the doorway. “But I’ll get you something, too. By the way, it’s seven.” She glanced at Ben as Randy turned on a small black-and-white television. “There’s some sports show he always watches about this time. Come on into the kitchen.”
While Randy settled back on his bed, his cards spread around him, his eyes glued to the little black-and-white screen, Ben followed Tracy back to the kitchen. She was a pretty woman, but as he watched her hips sway beneath her black skirt, he felt nothing.
“Okay, the selection isn’t all that great but I’ve got beer and wine and…a bottle of Irish whiskey, I think.”
“A beer’ll do,” he said, feeling suddenly awkward. The apartment was clean and neat, not a magazine out of place, and on a table near the couch was a gold-framed picture of Kevin, a picture Ben recognized as having been taken only a few weeks before his brother’s death. Ben stared at the photograph and felt that same mixture of pain and anger build in him as it always did when he was reminded of his older brother.
“Belly up to the bar,” Tracy invited as she placed a bottle and empty glass on the counter that separated the kitchen from the eating area. She held up a frosty mug of dark soda. “I’ll run this down to His Highness and be back in a flash.”
He drank his beer and watched her work in the kitchen. She was efficient and smiled and laughed a lot, but there were emotions that ran deep in her brown eyes, something false, as if the layer of lightheartedness she displayed covered up other, darker feelings. Her smile seemed a little forced and there was a hardness to her that bothered him.
They ate at a little table by the sliding door and the food was delicious: steak, baked potatoes and steamed broccoli smothered in a packaged cheese sauce. She poured them each a glass of wine and made sure that Randy’s manners were impeccable. Ben had the feeling that the kid had been coached for hours. “No elbows,” she said when Randy set his arm on the table. “What did I say about your hat?” she asked, noticing the fact that Randy’s Giants’ cap was resting on his head. “Oh, Randy, you know better! Please…use the butter knife. That’s what it’s there for.”
When Randy finally asked to be excused, Ben let out a silent sigh of relief. “He really is a good boy,” she said as Randy ambled down the hall.
“Of course he is.”
“Straight A’s and pitcher for his Little League team. They won the pennant last year.” She smiled, all filled with pride and Ben got an uneasy feeling that she was trying to sell the kid to him. “He’s in the school choir, too. Last year he had the lead in their little play. It wasn’t much, you understand, only third graders, but he was the one they chose. Probably because of his voice and the fact that he’s smart as a whip. I’ve been into that school five times this year already, asking them to move him up a grade or two in math. He’s bored with what they’re teaching.”
Ben shoved his chair from the table. “Ever thought of private school?”
She sighed. “All the time. But that takes money and, well, being a single mother, we don’t have a lot of extra cash.” She picked up her plate and when Ben tried to carry his to the sink, she waved him back in his chair. “Sit, sit. I can handle this.”
“So can I.”
“But you’ve been working all day.”
“Haven’t you?”
She smiled and seemed flustered. “Just let me do it, all right? It’s been a long time since I’ve had a man to pamper.”
Warning bells went off in his head, but he ignored them. She was just trying to be nice. Nothing to worry about. She stacked the dishes in the sink and cut him a thick slab of chocolate cake.
“Won’t Randy want some of this?” he asked, when she sliced a sliver for herself and sat back down at the table.
“He’s in training. No sweets.”
“But—”
She shook her head and took a bite. “Baseball starts in a few weeks and tryouts are just around the corner. He’s got to be in shape. He’s lucky I let him have a soft drink tonight.”
“He’s barely ten.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, that underlying hardness surfacing in her eyes. “You, of all people, should understand. It’s kind of like being in the military. Randy wants to be the ace pitcher again this year and I told him that I’ll support him in that goal, but only if he works hard for it. No junk food. Lots of rest. Exercise. And he’s got to keep his grades up.”
“And sing in the choir and do higher-level math,” Ben added, unable to hide the sarcasm in his voice.
“Why not? He can do it all.”
“When does he have a chance to be a little kid?”
She sat on the couch and frowned when he slid into a white chair in the corner of the living room. “He is a little kid. A disciplined little kid.”
“But when does he build forts and play in the woods and ride his bike and swim and—”
“When he trains, he swims on the weekends in the Coleville pool and there are no woods right around here. Riding his bike is dangerous—too much traffic. Besides we have a stationary bike in my room. If he wants to work out—”
“I’m not talking about working out. I’m talking about just hanging around,” Ben said, his insides clenching when he considered how much pressure the kid had to live up to.
She was about to argue, thought better of it and kicked off her high heels. Tucking her feet beneath her on the couch, she sipped her wine slowly. “I suppose it does look like Randy’s on a pretty tough regimen, doesn’t it?” Sighing, she ran the fingers of one hand through her hair. “And part of the reason is that it’s easier for me to have him on a schedule. I work two jobs and don’t have a lot of free time so I have to depend on other people to give him rides. I don’t want him to spend too much time alone—that’s not good—so I encourage him to participate and be with kids his own age.”
“And win.”
She smiled. “Because he can, Ben. He’s got so much potential.” Her eyes glazed for a second, she licked her lips, and she whispered, “Just like Kevin.”
Ben’s stomach turned to stone. He suddenly realized why Tracy had never married; no one could compare to his brother. She didn’t give another man a chance. And over the years she’d created a myth about Kevin, the myth being that he was perfect.
“Kevin was an average student, Tracy.”
“He had a basketball scholarship.”
“That was taken away when he couldn’t keep up his grades.”
“He just had some bad breaks,” she said quickly. “How about a cup of coffee?”
“I can’t.” He stood, glad for an excuse to leave. “I’ve got a million calls to make before it gets too late. But thanks.”
“Anytime,” she said as if she meant it. She walked to him and touched his arm with featherlight fingers. “The door’s always open for you, Ben. It does Randy a world of good. He…he needs a…man. Just wait a minute and I’ll get him. He’ll want to say good-night.”
She hurried down the hall and a few minutes later, she practically pushed Randy forward to shake Ben’s hand.
The boy licked his lips nervously. “Glad to meet you—” he shifted his eyes to his mother, struggled for the words and added “—Uncle Ben.”
“You, too, Randy. Maybe I’ll see you at the ball field.” Ben clasped the kid’s hand.
His sullen face broke into a smile. “Would you?”
“You bet. Can I bring my dog?”
“You’ve got a dog?” Randy’s eyes widened and all evidence of his pained expression disappeared. “What kind?”
“A mean one.”
“Really.”
“I call him Attila.”
Tracy’s lips tightened.
“He just showed up at the office with his belly sliced open.”
Randy’s eyes were wide. “Wow!”
“He’s a German shepherd—a black long-haired one.”
“Cool!” Randy said, grinning ear to ear.
“You’re allergic to dogs, Randy,” his mother reminded him gently as she nudged him back down the hallway. “And so am I—at least I’m allergic to big dogs that shed.” She walked with Ben to the front porch and Ben felt as if she expected something from him, something he couldn’t give her.
“Thanks for dinner. It was great.”
“We could do it again,” she suggested, her lips curved into a satisfied smile.
“I’ll let you know.” He felt a jab of guilt when he recognized the hope in her eyes.
“Good night, Ben,” she said as he started across the parking lot. “Call me.”
He didn’t bother to turn around and lie to her. He wasn’t about to start a romance with Tracy and he felt that whether she realized it or not, Tracy hoped to use Ben as a replacement for his dead brother.
“What a mess,” he growled as he climbed into his truck and let out the clutch. He thought of Carlie again. Beautiful Carlie. Seductive Carlie. Lying Carlie.
The old Dodge leapt forward and he flicked on the windshield wipers. Women, he thought unkindly. Why were they so much damned trouble?