Hot and Bothered

by Jennifer Bernard

  As he spoke, his frown got more and more dire. That frown was the reason Ben ended up taking most of the flights. No honeymooners wanted to be scowled at.

  “Have you tried asking her?” he suggested.

  Tobias directed his glare toward Ben. “You make it sound so easy.”

  Ben lifted his eyebrows at him. “It’s pretty easy. You just open your mouth and let the words come out.”

  “A-ha.” Tobias pointed a big finger at him.

  “A-ha, what?”

  “Pretty much exactly what you should do with Julie, that’s what. If it’s so easy, what’s stopping you?”

  Now Ben was the one scowling, while Tobias grinned like a maniac. And there they were, right back where they’d started. Go figure.

  “I ought to kick your ass,” Ben muttered.

  “You could certainly try. But that wouldn’t help straighten things out with Julie.”

  “She fucking left town without a word. What’s there to straighten out?”

  “This is Julie. Julie. She’s a sweetheart. Something must have happened. Did you try to reach her?”

  “Of course. She never answered her phone. Savannah never called me back. I even went and knocked on the Reinhards’ front door.”

  “What’d they say?”

  “Not much,” Ben muttered. He could still remember the pitying look on Priscilla Reinhard’s face. He must have looked pathetic, begging for answers about why his girlfriend had kicked him to the curb. “They promised to pass along her new phone number and address when they had it. I tried again before I left for Miramar. The housekeeper said they hadn’t heard anything. And that was it.”

  Tobias leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. His gold wedding band caught the light, and Ben actually wanted to punch him. How’d he get to be the lucky one with a happy family?

  Ben was supposed to be the one already married with kids. It was always supposed to be him and Julie. How had things gotten so screwy? A year ago, all the Knight brothers had been single. Then Will had fallen head over heels for Merry, a reporter at the local newspaper. Tobias had fallen deeply and suddenly for Carolyn Moore, an art history teacher.

  Now Ben was the single one, flirting his way through Jupiter Point. And Julie was back and—

  Stop it.

  Love is a mind-altering substance, Ben reminded himself. No need to be jealous. The single life is the way to go.

  “The Reinhards were always jerks,” Tobias said. “The only decent thing they ever did was let Julie stay on after her mom died. You know there’s only one way to get this straightened out, brother.”

  “Swear to God, if you say ‘talk to her’ again, I’ll—”

  “Talk to her.”

  “Ah hell.”

  4

  Julie kept Felix out of school for another day. She didn’t have any other cleaning jobs lined up yet, so she decided to show him around the charming little historic downtown. Her pride had been piqued by Felix’s constant complaints that her hometown was boring.

  “Did you know that Jupiter Point is famous?” she asked him as they strolled down Constellation Way.

  “So what? My mom’s famous.”

  “True. But Jupiter Point’s famous for stargazing.”

  “My mom’s a star.”

  Yeah, so far this wasn’t going very well. “Not that kind of star, grumpy.” They passed the Milky Way Ice Cream Parlor. “Do you want to try the best ice cream sundae in the galaxy?”

  “That’s stupid. How can they know if it’s the best? No one’s tried all the ice cream sundaes in the entire galaxy.”

  She stopped in the middle of the charming street, with its ironwork lampposts and cedar-shingled storefronts. The Reinhards had wanted Julie and Felix to stay in the guesthouse where Julie had lived with her mother. But Felix flat-out refused, and Julie knew him well enough to pick her battles. So, they were staying in a little studio apartment just a few blocks away, paying by the month. Every few days she took him to visit the Reinhards. It never went well. Tomorrow was their next scheduled visit.

  Was that the problem here? Was he anxious about seeing his grandparents?

  “Felix. Kiddo. What’s wrong?”

  Felix hung his head and stared at his sneakers, which sported a cartoon depiction of a detonating bomb. “Nothing.”

  “You can’t fool me, sweetie. How long have I known you?”

  “Since before I was born.”

  “Yup. Now cough it up. What’s bugging you?” She decided to throw out some possibilities. “Is it school? Do you miss your mom? Is it your grandparents?”

  He screwed up his face at her. “When can we go back to LA? We’re only five hundred ninety-two and a third miles away.”

  Julie smiled at his accuracy. Felix was always meticulous with his facts. When he got into something, he learned it to the nth degree. They called it “pulling a Felix.”

  “You know, you could try giving your grandparents more of a chance. That’s why we’re here. Family’s important.” Take it from me, she wanted to say. She had no more family, just a faraway father who never called her. Savannah and Felix were the closest thing she had to family.

  “But they said that you—”

  Before he could finish his sentence, someone called to them from one of the charming little shops. “Julie deGaia, get your butt over here!”

  She swung around to see her old friend Suzanne Finnegan. She’d known Suzanne well in high school, but she hadn’t stayed in touch with her. In fact, all her old Jupiter Point friendships had fallen by the wayside.

  She guided Felix over to the shop, with its gracefully lettered sign reading Stars in Your Eyes. She and Suzanne shared a hug, then she introduced Felix.

  “This is Savannah’s son, Felix. My godson.”

  “Nice to meet you, Felix.” Suzanne’s blond hair was pulled into a twist, making her look grown-up and professional. “I’m Suzanne. I knew Julie waaaaay back in the day. By the way, any kid who steps into my shop gets a lollipop.”

  “Dentists give lollipops,” Felix told her, with his usual gift for moroseness.

  Suzanne smiled brightly. “That’s true, and I always thought that was strange. Why would you get your teeth cleaned, then get them all sugary? Not that I ever complained. But it’s okay, you don’t have to take a lollipop. You can just sign my guest book. I’d love that even more.”

  Suzanne herded them through the front door into a comfortable office space filled with cream furniture, a Keurig, a rack of brochures and a desk bearing a vase of fresh tulips. On the wall, the store’s name was written in flowing script, along with the tagline, “Where honeymoon dreams come true.”

  Julie’s honeymoon dreams seemed a million years ago. They’d all involved Ben, and maybe a convertible with the top down, and dancing on a beach in the Caribbean, or wandering through a cathedral in Italy…they’d changed depending on the day. The only thing that hadn’t changed was that Ben was there.

  Speaking of Ben…there he was.

  A picture of him, anyway. On a flyer. Next to a small plane, wearing a bomber jacket, grinning widely.

  As if drawn by a magnet, she drifted toward the brochure. Knight and Day Flight Tours, it read. See Jupiter Point from the sky. Offering a wide variety of tours, from wildlife to scenic. With a combined fifteen years of military flying experience, the Knight brothers are proud to be Jupiter Point’s only flightseeing service. Call now to book your trip of a lifetime.

  Tobias was in the photo too, standing right next to Ben, but she paid no attention to him. It was Ben’s beloved, familiar face that captured her attention and wouldn’t let go. She knew that face better than her own. Its smooth planes, its slightly crooked nose from when he’d gotten hit by a basketball. The way one eyebrow was just slightly higher than the other, giving him a quizzical look. His laugh-lined eyes, always so full of heart and love. His mouth, so kissable. His hair, so touchable. He used to forget to comb it for days; she’d run her fingers
through it and get stopped by knots.

  But in the photo, he looked different. He had a hardness to him, an edge, a cynical curve to his grin. It reminded her of the way he’d glared at her in the 7-Eleven.

  Also, his body had changed. In high school, he’d been fast on the basketball court, wiry, with quick reflexes, but not especially muscular. He’d been a boy. Now he was all wide shoulders and lean strength, powerful and fit. He looked like someone you didn’t want to cross.

  “Ben and Tobias are really doing great with their new business.” Suzanne startled her out of her reverie. “They just opened it a few months ago and they’re practically turning customers away.”

  “I’m not surprised. Ben loves to fly. He started accruing hours toward his license when he was sixteen.”

  “Well, I’m sure glad he kept with it. Everyone wants a flight tour on their honeymoon now. I can barely remember the days before they opened up. You should go by there and check out their operation. Have you seen Ben yet?”

  “Yes, of course I’ve seen him.” Julie felt her face heat up. Maybe “spied on him” was a better way to put it. “From a distance.”

  “Well, that’s got to change. You and Felix should come over for dinner. You can meet my little girl, Faith, and I’ll invite Ben and—”

  “No. Please, don’t do that.” Julie cringed just thinking about it. How awkward would it be to sit across a dinner table from Ben, as if they were nothing more than two long-lost acquaintances? She couldn’t bear that.

  “Why not? You can meet Josh, my husband. He’s a hotshot, which means he’s going to be gone soon, fighting wildfires. So we should do this soon, before he starts training and never has any time for a social life.”

  “Who’s Ben?” Felix piped up.

  Suzanne stared at him, then turned her wide-eyed gaze on Julie.

  “You haven’t told him about Ben?”

  Julie bit her lip. What exactly was she supposed to tell an eleven-year-old about the most passionate relationship of her life? One that Felix’s birth had pretty much screwed up? “I’m sure Felix will get a chance to meet Ben. It’s a small town. People run into each other all the time.”

  Then again, they’d been pretty good at avoiding each other so far. Why stop now?

  “Does he fly that plane?” Felix was asking in a tone of awe.

  Well, wasn’t that interesting? A temporary break from sullenness, thanks to a plane that looked like a kid’s toy.

  “He does. Him and his brother,” Suzanne told Felix. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Are you calling me cool again?” Ben’s laughing voice filled the little office as he swung through the door. Julie whirled around, her elbow slamming against the rack of flyers. It teetered backwards. She grabbed it to keep it from falling, and wound up with a handful of glossy brochures.

  At the rattling noise made by the rack, Ben looked her direction. As soon as he spotted her, the smile instantly dropped from his face. His expression turned blank, the blue-gray of his eyes shifting from summer to bleak winter. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his flight jacket.

  “I, uh…we should get going,” Julie stammered. My God, he looked so furious with her. “Felix, come on.”

  But Felix wouldn’t budge. He was staring at Ben. “You’re the man in the plane. The one in the picture.”

  Ben relaxed enough to smile. At Felix, not at her, Julie noted. “That’s me. Knight and Day Flight Tours.”

  “You’re Ben. They were just talking about you.”

  Oh God, worse and worse. Julie’s face felt like fire, she was blushing so hard. Luckily, Suzanne stepped into the awkward moment.

  “I was just telling them what a great addition Knight and Day Flight Tours is to Jupiter Point. How did the flight with the Coopers go?”

  Ben looked blank for a long moment, then laughed. “Chucky and his bride?”

  Julie snorted. Ben had taken her to one of the Chucky movies once. But horror movies were not her thing, and she’d spent the entire time with her head buried in his side. He’d wrapped his coat around her and covered her ears at all the scary parts. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she’d fled to the lobby. They’d gotten into a big fight that night because he’d thought the movie was ridiculous and hilarious, and she’d thought it was just plain horrifying.

  Of course they’d made up. So it had all been worth it.

  All those memories flitted through her mind in the brief moment between when Ben said “Chucky and his bride” and when he glanced in her direction. Right away, she saw that he was thinking of the exact same occasion.

  Suzanne laughed. “I hope you didn’t call them that to their faces. He could buy and sell Knight and Day about a hundred times over.”

  “No, he couldn’t.” Ben gave that gentle, stubborn smile that had always been Julie’s favorite of his smiles. “Because we’d never sell to him.” He shrugged. “The flight was just fine, if you don’t count them making out in the Cessna.”

  Felix made a gagging sound. “Ew.”

  Ben laughed and reached down to offer Felix a high-five. “You said it, dude.”

  It seemed to happen in slow-motion, Ben’s hand descending to touch Felix’s palm. He didn’t know anything about Felix, obviously. Didn’t know that he was hostile to strangers, that he didn’t like to be touched. He rarely even let Julie hug him. Only Savannah got that privilege.

  Felix shied away before Ben’s hand could reach him. He knocked into Julie, who stumbled backwards, causing the rack of flyers to teeter again.

  Ben looked horrified and, more than that, confused. He snatched his hand back, then started forward as if trying to help, then jerked back again, as it occurred to him that more physical contact probably couldn’t help the situation.

  Instead, he brushed past Julie and stabilized the rack of flyers. A few fluttered to the floor. All along the side of her body closest to Ben, Julie felt his presence. Sweet fire swept across her, something she hadn’t felt in so many years. Since the last time she’d seen Ben, actually.

  “Are you okay?” he asked her.

  She nodded, her heart pounding. “Yes. Sorry about—” She broke off. How to explain Felix’s issues? She couldn’t, not like this, not right in front of him. Besides, now she was lost in his eyes. For the first time since she’d gotten back, he was looking at her with concern, not scorn.

  Felix’s hand closed on her wrist. “I want to go, Julie.” He tugged her toward the door.

  Yeah, they should get out of there before he had a meltdown. Even at eleven, they still happened occasionally, and she could feel it coming.

  “I’m sorry about the mess,” she told Suzanne. Her glance flicked to Ben but it felt like looking into the sun. She couldn’t do it for too long. He was too beautiful to her, and too lost.

  “Seriously, don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal. Ben probably came with a new batch of flyers anyway, right, Ben?”

  He nodded, offering her a smile. And in that tentative, gentle curve of his lips she saw the old Ben. The sensitive, thoughtful boy who had claimed her heart because he saw her when no one else did.

  Then they were outside and the door of Stars in Your Eyes was closing firmly behind them. Julie freed her hand from Felix’s grip. “Kiddo, take it easy. What’s the big rush?”

  “I don’t like him,” Felix declared. He marched down the brick sidewalk. Julie hurried after him.

  “You mean Ben? He didn’t know that you don’t like to shake hands. How could he know something like that?”

  “I don’t care. I don’t like him. He’s mean.”

  “Well, I hate to say this, Kiddo, but you’re wrong. Ben Knight is the last person in the world anyone could call mean.”

  On the other hand, he’d stood her up. He’d ignored the message she’d given to the Reinhards after she’d left, the one Priscilla had personally delivered to him, word for word. Julie had made her write it down just to make sure. So maybe he was mean.

  Except he wasn’
t. She knew him down to his bones. He was the most caring and loving person she’d ever known.

  She looked down at her hand and realized she still held a fistful of flyers, a blizzard of photos of Ben, staring right back at her with those eyes full of smiles.

  “He was going to hit me.”

  “That was a high-five, Felix. And you know it was. I think you should give Ben another shot.”

  The stubborn set of his jaw didn’t offer much chance of that.

  Then again, did it matter? She and Ben had been over for about a thousand years. She sighed deeply as they passed one pretty storefront after another. On the bright side, Ben had spoken to her for the first time. He’d even smiled at her. She’d gone just as weak in the knees as ever.

  On the other hand, she’d made a fool of herself, and Felix had decided he didn’t like Ben.

  She’d heard that Will Knight was out of town, but as soon as he returned, she’d meet with him and tell her story. In the meantime, she’d better go back to avoiding Ben.

  5

  How hard could it be? Jupiter Point was a small town in feel, but it had a big enough population that it should be possible to avoid one particular person. Ben spent most of his time in the air, for heaven’s sake. Avoiding him shouldn’t be a problem.

  Besides, Knight and Day Flight Tours was located outside city limits, on a stretch of grassland along the coastline. It was a good half an hour drive away, in a direction she never went. She could do this.

  And yet somehow, she kept running into him.

  She stopped in at the Fifth Book from the Sun to pick up a check from Mrs. Murphy, and there he was, in the Books About Nature aisle. He was looking for a book on local wildlife so he could work some more details into his flight tours.

  She knew that because she’d slipped behind a shelf of mysteries, hoping he hadn’t noticed her. Mrs. Murphy hovered near him, pointing out various books that would be helpful, and slipping in sneaky little questions between recommendations. It went a little bit like this: