Ben (The Sherwood Series Book 3)

by Lee Wardlow

  I couldn’t help myself I reached out and touched her cheek, letting my fingertips trace over the smoothness of her skin. Her eyes lowered. Her lashes covering her beautiful eyes and I wondered what Disa was thinking. Hell, I wondered what I was thinking touching her like this.

  I withdrew my fingers and picked up a slice of pizza. “Want me to hold her? I have mastered the art of eating and holding Asia. I’m not saying she doesn’t manage to wear a little pizza sauce or a splotch or two of mayo or ketchup but for the most part she comes out of it unscathed,” I teased Disa.

  She burst out laughing. “You eat. I’m content right now. Then I’ll eat.”

  “Asia, I’m sure appreciates it,” I replied.

  I watched Disa wrap her finger through Asia’s. I knew this woman well enough to know that something was on her mind too. “What?” I asked.

  She glanced up at me. “I’m just worried about Jasmine.”

  I got that. She was nineteen. Looking at things with a clear head, she was more naïve and younger than twenty-five. I should have realized this. Somehow, I felt that she was all right. That young woman was scrappy. She had a way of taking care of herself.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” I declared. The hint of harshness was unexpected.

  “You’re angry at her,” Disa stated.

  “I have a right to be, don’t you think?”

  She nodded. “I do. I get it but try to understand that she was missing something in her life, Ben. Male attention from her father. She was always chasing after something because her self-esteem was low. She wanted you, I think sometimes because she knew once you were mine.”

  I stopped and stared at Disa, pizza halfway to my mouth. It sounded so heart wrenching when she said, once you were mine. I was hers too. I had foolishly allowed my father to interfere.

  “I’m sorry. I should have said something when I knew she was interested in you,” Disa said and I turned to gaze at her while she spoke. “Maybe I could have prevented this from happening to you, but I was hurt. I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.”

  “Not your fault,” I patted her thigh. “My mother would be the first to tell you that it’s my responsibility to protect myself no matter what Jasmine told me.”

  She chuckled. “Rachel is vocal about her opinions.”

  “That is putting it mildly.” I rolled my eyes to the ceiling.

  Asia began to fuss a little. I got up to get a bottle for her. I returned to the living room to find Disa gently rocking back and forth. She was singing to her.

  I stopped and watched just at the edge of my living room. She hadn’t noticed me because she was staring at my daughter’s face, so Disa continued to sing while I continued to watch her.

  Then she caught sight of me and she stopped suddenly. Her cheeks pinked, and she lowered her eyes. She was embarrassed. “You sing beautifully,” I informed her. “You didn’t have to stop.”

  “I used to do it all the time in church,” she explained.

  “But not anymore?” I asked.

  “Nope, I sit with your Mom and Danni. Sometimes, Jenny and Elijah come too.” I didn’t know that. “This songbird is silent now.”

  “Why?”

  “Brings back painful memories,” she replied.

  “You could be making new, happy memories now,” I suggested.

  “Maybe.” Asia was wiggling and starting to fuss. I took the bottle to Disa.

  “Want me to feed her so you can eat?” I asked.

  “You go ahead,” she replied. “Finish your dinner.”

  I sat down and watched this amazing woman I had known my entire life feeling like I didn’t know her at all. I had kissed her, held her, hell I had made out with her but never too much. I knew she had been at both my parent’s house and my granddad’s house too.

  “How did you manage to come home with Danni?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Snuck around with Danni,” she replied. “Told my family I had to stay after school and work on a project with a classmate or the teacher. That was the only thing they were dumb about. School. It was very important to them, so I could get away with a lot by using it as an excuse to escape the compound.”

  I nodded as I shoveled more pizza into my mouth. When I had swallowed and could speak, I teased her, “Sneaky.”

  “I loved Danni. She was like me. Quiet. Not really wanting to be noticed. Just trying to get by and get through.”

  That was my sister.

  “Jackson broke her heart.” She looked at me. Then she surprised me by saying the next thing. “She hid away from the pain at the cabin, where none of us could touch her except Walker, not even you Ben and she was close to you.”

  “She was.” I was ready to kick Jackson’s ass for hurting Danni so badly.

  “She was my friend,” Disa replied.

  “Was?”

  “We aren’t as close since high school ended. People lose their way. We hug when we see each other at the pub. She has Walker and their baby now.”

  I laughed. My brother-in-law has a daughter that has taken him to his knees. India Rose Wild. She was a beauty who was a perfect combination of her mother and father.

  “What do you want in life?” I asked surprising Disa.

  “What most women my age wants,” she replied.

  I didn’t know what that was. Our small town was different than other areas. The ones who wanted to do something more like a career got out of Sherwood and went to college. They didn’t come back except for holidays, weddings or funerals.

  The women who stayed, married their high school sweethearts. Some of those marriages lasted a lifetime. Some made it ten years, some twenty. Those divorces were the hardest when one partner got bored and left the other one.

  Should I ask what she meant by that? I decided to drop it. I wasn’t ready for her response and I wasn’t sure she wanted to discuss it with me anyway. Not after our painful history.

  I had my chance with Disa. I had hurt her. Even if she broke it off with Kevin because she was thinking about me didn’t mean she wanted a second chance. Even I could see that Disa was guarded with me. She was hiding herself behind Asia. I was smart enough about women, I could see that was why she kept encouraging me to eat while she held Asia.

  She wanted something to do with herself. She wanted to hold Asia and distract herself from me. She didn’t have to deal with me if she was holding my daughter.

  I sat my plate down after the third piece and I reached for Asia. “My turn. You eat.”

  Those eyes were like a skittish colt’s eyes. They focused on me for a moment, then she handed Asia to me. I leaned back and put Asia on my shoulder. She was fed, changed and content. She was a good baby. I held her while Disa ate. My hand ran over her back absently. Disa now watched me.

  “What was it like being a Hatfield?” She asked me. “I mean from all outward, appearances your family is practically perfect.”

  I snorted and shook my head at her. “All lies,” I told her.

  She frowned at me.

  How much should I tell her?

  I licked my lips. A nervous habit I had. Each of us had our own idiosyncrasies. She was Dad’s employee and I knew that she liked him very much. Hell, I loved the old man, but he was rough on us as kids, but we turned out as good men with a sense of responsibility and honor. I decided to sugar coat it a little to protect the old man. I didn’t want anyone thinking badly of him.

  “We’re all tight, but then you know that. Dad ran a tight ship too.”

  She cocked her head to the side and stared at me. Her plate was mid-chest like she didn’t want to get crumbs on my couch. I hated to tell her this, but if she moved the cushions away, there was a boatload of crumbs, probably chunks of shit that one of us dropped and had worked its way beneath the cushions.

  I needed to vacuum there, I reminded myself. I was sure in the cleaning spree the boys and Dad had done, they not thought to do that but everything else was spotless now.

  “What are you not telli
ng me?” She asked sensing I was hiding something.

  I was. In the night, when Dad dished out his discipline, I remember being held or holding one of my brothers, usually Elijah and I holding each other, or Matt holding one of us because Mom had given us the wait until your father gets home speech.

  Then he did get home. Dad was a spare the rod and spoil the child kind of father because his father was that way with him, but I knew that he loved us. I never doubted my father’s love for us one bit. He wasn’t around much because he worked massive hours at the pub to support us but if you needed him, you just had to drop by the pub and tell him that you needed him. He would drop everything and sit out front for a moment with you. I remembered those things, those moments in time when I thought about being a Hatfield and what it meant to me.

  “Let’s just leave it at my daughter’s punishments will be timeouts. If she’s as bad a kid as I was. Her butt will be numb, and it won’t be because she got a whooping.”

  She frowned at me, but she let it go for which I was grateful. After we ate, this beautiful woman offered to bathe Asia while I cleaned up the kitchen.

  “I knew you were an angel sent from Heaven.”

  Disa rolled her eyes at me then left the room with my daughter. I was serious. That was a compliment not my usual charming bullshit. I think the woman was immune to my charms now or I had lost my touch.

  Chapter 9

  Not much scared me in life but bath time with a small, infant. She was wiggly and slippery when wet. I would offer to pay Disa for coming over every night to give Asia a bath if I didn’t have to do it myself. I had fears of her slipping beneath the water in the baby bath and drowning before I could lift her out.

  Not a reasonable fear since she laid on an incline and the most water was at her feet but I still worried. Fretted. Obsessed. Was paranoid. All the above applied. I was acting like Elijah and that scared me more than anything.

  My brother was an anxious child. The gentle giant hadn’t changed much as a grown man. He was a helicopter husband and father to his small little family. Elijah loved with his entire big heart and that is why I loved the big guy.

  Me, I hated bath time simply put.

  After I had all the dishes put away and the leftover pizza was stashed in the fridge I headed down the hallway to the bathroom where Asia was lying in her pink plastic tub. Everything mom purchased that was for India, who got her name after the female doctor Danni had, and for Asia was pink.

  She loved having little girls after having so many boys. She thought for sure that Elijah and I were going to have boys too. She was tickled that I had a daughter while only Elijah had a son, so she had two granddaughters now and two grandsons.

  Walker and Danni’s child was the only one she knew for sure was going to be a girl, even before Danni had an ultrasound. When asked why she would simply say because Walker needs a girl the first time. She never clarified what she meant by that.

  Dad would laugh at her. Danni seemed to know what she meant and Walker, he didn’t care what she meant. Walker was the calmest father to be I had ever seen. When I said India had brought him to his knees…it was because he was the most adoring, loving father on the planet. I think Danni had taken second place in his life and I don’t think she even cared.

  Maybe I was talking to wrong sex. Maybe I needed some tips from Walker not the women in my life. He had it down as a new father. He was even better than Matt was when Justin was born. That declaration always made Matt snort in disgust.

  On her knees, beside the tub, Disa carefully washed my daughter’s face. She was gentle and sweet with Asia. She was loving but this woman had the most tender heart of any woman I knew. That is why I had fallen in love with her six years ago.

  A man could fall once again, watching this woman with his child and I was on the edge with Disa and needed to be cautious for both our sake’s.

  Her hands were small and delicate. Her voice was seductive and low while she cooed at Asia. She didn’t know I was here. She was saying the usual. Aren’t you beautiful? Who knew Ben would make such a pretty girl? That one almost made me laugh out loud. I refrained though because I was enjoying seeing her uninhibited.

  “Careful now,” Disa warned Asia. “You don’t want to get soap in your mouth. That would taste yucky.”

  “Had soap in your mouth before?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself. I had to let her know I was here. I went to the bathroom and sat on the closed lid of the toilet that was behind her. I propped my chin in my hand and watched her.

  “Many times, Benjamin,” she told me. “I was the sassy daughter.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Sassy to your family would be different than sassy to mine,” she said. She rubbed the cloth across Asia’s belly. “Does that feel good?” She cooed to my daughter.

  I chuckled because I could almost see the euphoria on Asia’s face. “She’ll be nice and relaxed for you, Ben.”

  “Seth and I moved her crib to Elijah’s old room. Jenny thought that would help me not jump up and get her at every whimper.”

  She chuckled at me, but she kept her eyes on my child.

  Then Disa finished washing Asia. “Grab the towel off the sink, Daddy. I’ll hand you the freshly washed baby, so I can dump out the bath water.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I snatched the towel off the sink top and sat back on the toilet. Disa laid Asia in my arms. I covered her with the towel and rubbed her dry. “Let’s get some clothes on you before you decide to bathe me in pee,” I declared knowing my child.

  Disa chuckled at me as I left the bathroom with my daughter. Soon, she joined me in Elijah’s old room as I was wrapping up with Asia. She glanced around the room that was now the baby’s room. I knew what she was thinking. The same thing I had been earlier. It needed work, so it looked like a baby’s room. “Help me fix it up,” I challenged her.

  She looked skeptical for a moment. Then she replied with a shrug, “Why not.”

  “We can go shopping one night this week then grab a bite to eat…as friends, of course,” I added as soon as I saw her eyebrows shoot up over those eyes of hers.

  After a moment, she said, “Of course, as friends.” I didn’t believe that statement anymore when it came out of her mouth than when I thought it myself. We were more than friends. She needed to get used to the idea.

  Disa stayed while the baby took a bottle then I laid her in her crib. She was going to leave when I was returning from Asia’s new room. She had her purse in hand and she was standing at the door waiting on me, so she could say goodbye.

  “Stay, Disa. I’m just going to watch a movie.”

  She hesitated like she wasn’t sure what to do. We were supposed to be just friends, but friends could watch a movie together. I reached out and took her hand. “Come on, you know you want to.”

  I was enjoying her company and I think she enjoyed mine too and not just Asia’s. I know the kid was adorable, but I think having adult company had to be part of the attraction.

  She shook her head at me and then she smiled. “All right, I’ll stay.”

  Disa laid her purse down on the coffee table. I was a gentleman I waited for her to pick her seat. She snuggled against the comfy pillow, in the corner of the sofa so I took the recliner. I wanted to be right next to her, snuggled near her like once a long time ago but I didn’t have that right to do so now. I didn’t want to scare her off either, so I kept my distance.

  I tossed her the remote and let her pick the movie. One blonde eyebrow raised over her eye then a smirk appeared on her beautiful, full lips and I knew that I was in big trouble.

  I waited for the woman to put a chick flick on, but I was surprised when she chose the latest action thriller I had been wanting to see myself. I tilted the recliner back and crossed my feet at the ankles. I lasted through forty-five minutes of the movie. I don’t know how long Disa lasted. She was awake when I felt asleep.

  Seth woke me when he came home from work.
My brother was silently shaking me trying to get me out of a deep sleep. Asia hadn’t woken one time.

  He knew to jump back. I had a tendency of coming up swinging. I didn’t this time. I simply pushed him backwards. “What?” I snapped at him.

  “You fell asleep watching television,” he whispered to me.

  “Why are you whispering?” I snapped at him again.

  He pointed at the sofa where Disa was curled on her side, sound asleep. Her hands were folded beneath her cheek. Her mouth slightly open while she snored softly. I remembered this well. She had fallen asleep on me once or twice.

  I pushed the button that lowered the footrest. Then I rose from the recliner and covered her with a blanket off the back of the sofa. I straightened and nearly ran into Seth who was hovering behind me. I was nearly the same height as my baby brother. I put both hands on my hips and stared him down.

  “What?” I knew Seth. He had something on his mind.

  He scratched his head. “Isn’t it a little weird to be dating the cousin of the mother of your child?” Seth asked.

  I shoved him down the hallway towards our bedrooms. He stopped outside his own room. “First of all, I’m not dating Disa. We’re just friends. We’ve been friends for a really, long time. Secondly, if we were dating, it is none of your business. Got it, little brother?” I asked him.

  “Got it,” he replied. Then he opened his door and went into his room, shutting it in my face. He wasn’t mad. Seth was exhausted. Friday nights at Ike’s were hard. He did all the cooking by himself and Seth was a fabulous cook who could put my mother and sister to shame, not that I would ever tell them that. I liked being alive and they would have my head for saying something so ridiculous.

  I walked to my bedroom and changed into loose shorts and no shirt. Then I climbed in bed and peeked at the monitor that showed me Asia. She was flat on her back sleeping peacefully in the position that I had left her in. She had been down since eleven. We were making progress. I put the monitor back on the nightstand.

  Since Asia had moved into the house, I hadn’t been sleeping in the buff. I couldn’t get to her fast enough if I was naked.