Ben (The Sherwood Series Book 3)

by Lee Wardlow

  The face of the moon that you didn’t see at first glance was a shadowy image reflected off the surface near the rocks where the fairy hovered. I was more interested in the fairy and didn’t notice there was a distinct face on the moon.

  “What is she thinking?” I asked. “She seems sad.”

  “She is,” Disa responded.

  “Why?”

  I sat down glanced at Disa, but Asia distracted me from prodding Disa for a response. My daughter was fussing, heading for a full-blown meltdown. I unbuckled her and glanced at Disa. “She probably needs changed.”

  She nodded at me. Was that relief on her face? I had to focus on Asia and couldn’t question her about it. I lifted the baby out of the carrier then I dug through the diaper bag which was one that Jasmine had picked out for herself. It was kind of girlie. Maybe I should pick out one that was manlier if there was such a thing.

  I laid a blanket on Disa’s sofa then put my daughter down. I started unsnapping her sleeper and warned Asia, “Don’t make me look bad in front of Disa.”

  Her arms and legs were flailing. I had a bad feeling about this. Disa chuckled at me. I spread the diaper open and got the wipes out then removed the wet diaper. I cleaned her up. So far, so good. Then I held up the wet diaper, unsure of what to do with it.

  “I’ll take that for you.” Disa got up and folded the diaper then she headed to the kitchen. I couldn’t help myself, Dad’s employee or not, I watched her. Long, slender legs. Shapely too. Curvy ass. Disa was beautiful, coming and going.

  She was flirtatious with some of the men at the bar but not overly so. She reminded me a lot of Danni. Always friendly with everyone even the older guys. I thought there was more that met the eye to the woman I had known forever.

  In high school, we ran in different circles. I was a jock and Disa was well, she was I don’t really know what she was. A loner, I guess. Disa was genuinely kind who didn’t like a lot of attention, but she was always friendly. I realized she didn’t really say anything unkind to anyone but me.

  Disa returned to the living room and caught me watching her. “Are you going to put another diaper on Asia?” She asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied feeling the slow burn of embarrassment creep up my face because she caught me staring at her. I tucked the diaper beneath Asia’s bottom and pulled it up to cover her.

  “You’re pretty comfortable doing that,” Disa said.

  I snorted. “You should have seen me a week ago.”

  “Not so good huh?” She asked.

  “Nope, not at all. The first few hours I was terrible. I called Mom twenty times. She told me to call Jenny for the next question, she was going to bed. My sister and sister-in-law were very patient with me, taking calls at all hours of the night for the first forty-eight hours then they too told me I had this to stop calling in the middle of the night.”

  Disa laughed. The sound was deep and throaty. A nice sound that I wanted to hear more often. I smiled at her. “You have a nice laugh,” I complimented her. I tucked Asia’s sleeper back in place and began snapping it. Then I lifted her to me and cradled her in my arms.

  “Aren’t you going to eat your sandwich?” I asked.

  “Not really very hungry,” she replied.

  I glanced at Asia whose eyes were closing and opening while she tried to stay awake. Then I looked at Disa. “Tell me why you ran out on me.”

  She shook her head no while she played with her hair. Disa and Danni my sister was in the same class in school. They were a year younger than me and similar in so many ways.

  Danni wasn’t the most popular girl even though she was gorgeous like Disa. She didn’t like the in-clique like Disa didn’t. They were both hard working and kept to themselves. Danni liked her books. I guess I know now what Disa liked, her art.

  “Were you shy like Dan is that why you stuck to yourself?” I asked her, trying to understand her younger self better.

  “Not really shy but I couldn’t bring kids home to my house. Against the rules. I couldn’t go to anyone else’s house either. They might not be God fearing people like my parents were. It all became too much. That is one of the reasons I left home.”

  “You still go to church every Sunday.” I knew she did because she went to my mother’s church.

  “Your mom and I go to the same church,” she agreed with me.

  I nodded.

  “You go whether you’ve had a late shift or not.”

  “I do. I believe strongly and have my faith. I have a strong faith in God’s plan for me and yes, I do go to church every Sunday.”

  “You don’t drink, you don’t date, and you don’t have fun,” I declared not realizing how mean that sounded.

  Disa lowered her eyes. “I deserve that after calling you a man whore. I do have fun, Ben. I do date, remember Kevin? I just dated him for a year. Then before him was Alex Roberts for six months or so. Then,” I cut her off.

  “I don’t need to hear about all of the men in your life.” I rolled my eyes at Disa. I knew each one of them. I lived through them filled with regret that I had let her go.

  She laughed but it sounded hollow to my ears. “I just prefer to save myself for the right man. Most of the men I’ve dated have had a hard time with accepting that I’m not having sex until I find the one I’m spending my life with. Is that so wrong?”

  I hadn’t had sex in ten months. I knew what I was missing. She didn’t yet. “You might think otherwise if you knew what you were missing.” I tried lightening the moment between us with a little teasing. “Is that why you and Kevin broke up? He didn’t understand?”

  She twisted that curl around her finger and stared at me. “Part of it,” she declared. I wondered what other reason there was. “There’s a rumor that you aren’t quite as easy as you used to be,” she stated.

  Her eyes were focused on me. The color more intensely stormy-blue like a cloudy day in Ohio during the summer months when we had a bad thunderstorm that had just passed through. I was waiting for the thunder to boom and the lightening to strike. Her calm though maintained throughout. Disa took a lot before she lost her cool.

  “A baby tends to do that to you,” I agreed after several moments of silence.

  She nodded. “But you didn’t get tied down to Asia until a week ago,” she said to me. She wasn’t letting me off the hook that easily.

  “Why did you run from me?” I asked her again. Two could play her game. I put her on the spot.

  She didn’t flinch. She kept staring me down when she replied. “I told you Ben.” Her voice grew softer even though her gaze was bold. “I wanted to know what was wrong with me. Jasmine was nineteen for God’s sake.”

  “I explained to you that I didn’t know that.”

  “And I didn’t know that you didn’t know,” she declared. “I feel like I’m the only woman you won’t give the time of day to. We dated six and a half months then you walked away with that lame speech. It’s me babe not you.” Her voice dropped low like she was mimicking me. I almost chuckled at her but knew that she wasn’t in the mood for kidding. She was being serious right now.

  “Ben, I was happy. I thought you were too. You never tried anything with me which surprised me because of your previous reputation.”

  I frowned for a second. “Did you want me to disrespect you?” I blurted out the question without thinking.

  She blinked a few times. “Actually, I did,” she snapped. “I thought you had the prettiest green eyes that I had ever seen. The moon has your eyes. Your lips. I noticed you in high school Ben, every time I hung out with Danni, I hoped that I would see you, but you never noticed me until I started working for your dad.”

  “What?” I didn’t understand what she was saying, and she didn’t know what the truth was.

  “Look at the moon’s reflection in the water,” she said. I turned and carefully tried not to jostle Asia as she was sleeping. I tilted my head to the side and gazed at the moon’s reflection and could indeed see more of a man’s i
mage in the face of the moon.

  It wasn’t so obvious at first, I think because there was so much in the painting capturing your attention all at once that I had missed the likeness. The image she wanted to convey was that of a magical far away land like in a storybook that Mom used to read to us but darker, a little scarier even.

  “When did you do this?” I asked. Those were my eyes and my lips as she suggested.

  “My junior year in high school when you were a senior. Nobody, not even Danni caught on to the fact that the moon resembled you.”

  “Why is she sad?” I asked Disa again.

  She chewed on her lower lip. “Because I felt like I would always be the wallflower that you would never notice.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t know where you get the idea that you are a wallflower, because you aren’t one.”

  “Then why Jasmine?” She sniffed back the tears that threatened to consume her. “Why did you break up with me? What was the real reason Ben?”

  We could rehash this now. Get it out in the open and move forward, I hoped and become friends again. I missed this girl. This woman. I wanted to know her, the woman she was now. The girl she was at twenty-one had been so special to me.

  I stuttered a few minutes then I told her about the girl who was flirting with me at the bar that day. The lecture dad gave me about being like him. “He told me not to settle down too quickly.”

  She gasped. “I thought we were falling in love.”

  My eyes shot up to hers. “We were. I thought so too,” I agreed. “Disa, I was twenty-two years old. Still trying to find my way in life. I thought Dad was right. I thought I wasn’t good enough for you.”

  She shook her head no and wiped her tears. “Ben, you are a good man no matter what you believe or let your dad make you believe about yourself.”

  I grunted acknowledging her statement.

  Disa moved down by me. She laid her head on my shoulder and I inhaled, holding in the scent of her in my nostrils.

  “Ben, you are good. You shouldn’t have listened to him.”

  “Tell me why you broke it off with Kevin,” I said.

  Her face turned up to me. “Why is that so important to you?” She asked. Then she wiped away another tear.

  “Because for the entire year that you dated him, I had to watch him come to the pub and caress your cheek the way that I wanted to. I kept telling myself it should have been me.”

  Disa lowered her eyes and wiped away more tears that flowed from her eyes.

  “Then I kept waiting for an announcement that you were engaged to him but instead I heard that you were broken up. After a year, the relationship ended.” My voice was husky, and I knew why. I was relieved. She was still available. She might never be mine, but she didn’t belong to somebody else either.

  Then, Disa’s eyes traveled up to my face. “I was so jealous when Jasmine told me about your first date. I was dating Kevin,” she told me, “but I kept thinking, Ben is mine.”

  I wanted to reassure Disa that I understood her, knowing that over the years I had been jealous of her too when I saw her with another man around town or in the pub, especially Kevin because I was so sure that she would end up marrying him.

  “That’s why I broke up with Kevin.”

  I didn’t get it at first.

  “Ben, he wanted more. He wanted commitment and I couldn’t give him that because I was still thinking Benjamin Hatfield is mine.”

  I turned a little to face her. I wanted to put Asia in her carrier, so my hands were free, but I was afraid she would wake. I leaned in ready to kiss this woman who had been haunting me for a long time now, but her eyes were warning me. They were telling me to give her time. I sighed and leaned back into my own space. I could see that Disa was grateful to me for giving her that.

  “I’m sorry she lied to you about her age. You and I weren’t speaking, or I would have told you the truth.”

  I believed what she was saying. “I could have handled things better Disa. I just wasn’t good with things like that.” Confrontation. Open honest relationships. Friendships with women. Disa was my friend before I dated her. She should have been my friend always. “It was easier to run away than to talk about things like emotions. I guess I’m more like Dad than I realized.”

  She shook her head no as she gazed at me. “Some ways, you are like him, but you aren’t too. He was wrong about you then, Ben. He shouldn’t have interfered.”

  I smiled at her. “He liked you. His heart was in the right place, Disa. He thought I would hurt you and he wanted to save you that.” I hesitated just looking at her. She hadn’t changed much in the six years that we had been apart, but I knew what she felt like in my arms. I knew what her lips felt beneath my own and I wanted so much more with her than just a friendship.

  I looked away to keep from kissing her. “I’m trying Disa to be better for Asia. I want her to be proud of me. I don’t want my past reputation to be what she hears about me. Mom already confronted me with that.”

  “So, you just stopped sleeping around,” she declared.

  “I did.” I explained to her at first, I was kicking myself in the ass for not using a condom when Jasmine told me she was on birth control pills.

  Disa stopped me there. “Ben, I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think she was on the pill. She had no health insurance. Very little money. I don’t know how she could afford them.”

  “So, are you saying she set me up?” I asked.

  “No, oh no. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that she is young and naïve. She probably thought she wouldn’t get pregnant. Maybe?” Disa seemed to realize how ridiculous that statement sounded.

  “She’s not that damn young, Disa.”

  The anger I felt at Jasmine was increasing. So many lies had been told to me. Then I glanced down at the child in my arms. Something that Grandad always said clicked in. “It doesn’t matter now. This little girl was meant to be. She’s mine, Disa. I’ll do whatever it takes to make her happy and to protect her.”

  She nodded at me. “I’m glad she had such a profound effect on you, Ben. Being a dad looks good on you.”

  I nodded. “I’m glad we cleared the air. Can we be friends now?” I asked even though I wanted so much more with her. I would take friends for now.

  Disa lowered her chin. She looked away from me. “Sure Ben, we can be friends.” It was a good start for now.

  “I have to get going now. I need to stop by Jenny and Elijah’s house too.”

  She rose while I put Asia back in her seat and buckled her in. Before she could start fussing I popped the pacifier in her mouth then lifted the carrier.

  “Getting a good workout, aren’t you?” Disa teased me.

  “I am,” I agreed.

  Then I did the unthinkable. I leaned over and kissed Disa’s forehead. “I’m sorry, Disa if I ever hurt you. I never meant to,” I whispered. I wanted to tell her so much more about the years of regret, and how I still felt about her, but I left it alone.

  I inhaled. She smelled sweet like flowers or fruit. Her skin was soft beneath my lips. I closed my eyes then backed away after a moment so that Disa wouldn’t see the effect she had on me. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes so that I could gaze at her. She nodded at me.

  Then I headed for the door and glanced back once. “See you later.”

  “See you around,” she replied.

  Chapter 8

  When Jenny opened the door, she was happy to see me and Asia. She had missed my daughter not being at her house. She missed Jasmine too, I knew. During their pregnancies they had created a bond, a friendship even though there was a big difference in age.

  I thought Jen looked at Jasmine like a younger sister that she never had. It was good for them both then Jasmine walked away without saying goodbye. It hurt Jenny and I felt badly for her that she had taken this blow. She was a kind person.

  I asked if she had heard from Jasmine, but she hadn’t.

&
nbsp; I put Asia’s carrier in the overstuffed, yellow chair that came from Jenny’s house. My aunt, Penny and her fiancé, soon to be husband Dirk bought Jenny’s house shortly after the sale of the farm was finalized. It eased Elijah’s worries about them owning two properties and it brought Penny home. She was happy and so was the rest of the family.

  Dirk had tons of grandchildren, so the big house Jenny had once owned was now filled with kids every weekend which had changed my Aunt Penny. She was happier than I had seen her since we were kids.

  Jenny was leading me to the kitchen for tea and she drank a ton of it. I was going to have coffee. They had one of those single serving machines that would make a cup at a time. I needed one of those especially since Asia was keeping me up at night. Although, if I had one, I might be drinking more than I should.

  “Sit down, I’ll make your coffee,” Jenny told me. She knew which one I liked.

  “When are you going back to work?” I asked.

  I had given her and Elijah a rough way to go.

  Change wasn’t my friend. I had always had a tough time dealing with things that were in flux. My parents’ divorce. My brother moving out on me and falling in love with Jennifer Hart, his lifelong best friend at the time, while my world was turning upside down when I needed him had made me a little bitter about their relationship.

  I had to kick myself in the ass to get over it. Elijah had been with Jenny, practically joined at the hip since they were seven. It shouldn’t have surprised me that one day, the gentle giant would open his eyes and realize that he loved her as more than friends. It was just that I needed him then. I didn’t want him to move out when my world felt like it was crumbling around me.

  I didn’t want him to walk away from me and turn to her, but he did, and I survived in the bottom of a beer bottle for a while, knowing that was not the answer. Here she was, forgiving me for being an ass but that was her. Jenny was pretty, special.

  Jenny sat down beside me and handed me a cup of coffee. Her tea cup was in front of her, the string to her tea bag was dangling over the edge of the cup. She picked it up and dipped the bag a couple of times and then sipped from her cup. She was perfect for my brother. I realized watching her what she and Elijah had that Matt and Layla were missing.