King of the Mountain

by Fran Baker

  Patience, he reminded himself when he spotted Kitty helping the girls clean the fish they’d caught. That was the key. He started down the slope he’d successfully reclaimed to lend them a hand. If patience would do the trick, he’d be patient. He’d be patient if it killed him—and it damned well might.

  Kitty fried the fish; Ben made his “famous” jalapeño corn bread; Jessie and Jamie set the table.

  It was Jessie’s idea that he stay for dinner. He’d supplied the fishing poles, she’d pointed out in the forthright manner of a twelve-year-old, so it was only fair that he get to eat his share of the catch.

  One pleading look Kitty could have handled. But when Ben had bent his knees to bring his face down on a level with her daughter’s, she’d felt anew the tug at her heartstrings at the thought of him going home to that empty house on the hill. And she’d known she was outnumbered.

  “Get a whiff of this,” he said, passing the warn pan of pepper-studded corn bread under her nose

  “Whew!” She fanned at the jalapeño steam rising toward her face. “Brings tears to my eyes jus to smell it.”

  “Wait’ll you taste it.”

  “Is that a threat or a promise?”

  He set the pan on a wire rack, his smiling eyes turning somber and his commanding presence shrinking the walls of her U-shaped kitchen.

  She retreated a step, but there was nowhere to go. The sink caught her in the small of her back and his broad shoulders effectively blocked the doorway.

  “I’d never threaten you, Kitty,” he said quietly. “And that’s a promise.”

  Catfish fillets sizzled in the expectant silence.

  She cleared her throat and took a deep breath, trying her darnedest to say she believed him. But so many times in the past her credulity had been stretched to the snapping point that she couldn’t bring herself to voice the words he waited to hear.

  “The table’s set.”

  “The water glasses are full.”

  Jessie’s and Jamie’s timely announcements from the dining room broke the tension in the kitchen.

  Kitty turned away from those steely silver eyes and spoke to the iron skillet on the stove. “I’ll take up the fish.”

  Ben studied her in profile—her hair falling like a black curtain across her face as she slid the spatula under the fillets, her breasts thrown into sharp relief against the white wall when she opened the cupboard over the stove for a plate to put them on—then reached for a butcher knife. “I’ll cut the corn bread.”

  Dinner was like a family affair, with Ben and Kitty facing each other across the table and Jessie and Jamie flanking them on either side. Appetites took precedence over conversation, at least during the first round. But as stomachs filled, the talk began to flow.

  “This coleslaw is delicious,” Ben said as he spooned a second helping onto his plate.

  “Jessie made it,” Kitty said proudly.

  “From Mom’s recipe.”

  Ben winked at the daughter, but his words were meant for the mother. “She’ll have to share it with me.”

  The furnace cycled on in the sudden silence.

  “May I have some more corn bread?” Jamie asked politely.

  Kitty grabbed the serving plate and all but shoved it at the poor girl.

  Jamie took a square, then just sat there as if she didn’t know what to do with the rest of it.

  “Your mother tells me you play basketball,” Ben said to Jessie, smoothly relieving the bewildered Jamie of the serving plate.

  Jessie took a deep drink of her milk, leaving a thin mustache of white around her drooping mouth. “I used to.”

  “Hey,” Ben said, “the Cougars need all the help they can get.”

  Jamie perked up. “How’d you know the team’s name?”

  “I went to Cooperville Junior High too.”

  That was news to Kitty. “I thought you went to a private school up north.”

  A grimness settled over his features. “I left to go to high school and didn’t come back until I’d finished college.”

  “Eight years,” Jessie calculated aloud.

  “Then I went to Vietnam.”

  “You sure were gone a long time,” Jessie observed.

  His eyes went opaque. “Not long enough, according to some.”

  Kitty felt her heart going out to him and didn’t know why. Geographically they’d grown up in the same place, but the realms of their upbringings were worlds apart. She’d been reared in poverty but with plenty of love; he’d been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, yet made it sound as if that precious metal had been terribly tarnished.

  Jessie thumped her fist on the table now, making the dishes rattle. “Well, I’m glad you’re back.”

  Ben smiled and reached over to waggle her tip-tilted nose. “So am I, darlin’, so am I.”

  “May I be excused?” Jamie asked softly.

  “You certainly may,” Kitty said, then looked in her daughter’s direction.

  But Jessie had eyes only for Ben. “Did you play basketball for the Cougars?”

  “Sure did.” Finished eating, he laid his knife and fork diagonally across his plate.

  Jessie followed suit. “What position?”

  “Forward.”

  “That’s what I play!”

  “I play guard,” Jamie volunteered in a small voice that begged an interested ear.

  Ben turned the full sun of his smile on her timid face. “You must be really fast on your feet.”

  A tinge of pink blossomed in the twelve-year-old’s cheeks. “I run wind sprints at practice.”

  He shoved his sweater sleeves up and pushed his plate aside, then crossed his arms on the place mat. “Let me tell you about the year the Cooperville Cougars played for the state title.…”

  Kitty blinked to keep her tears back as Ben regaled the girls with tales of that championship season. Jessie sat enraptured, lapping up his every word. And Jamie, her spirits battered but not broken, might have been listening to the patron saint of basketball.

  She finally realized she was fighting a losing battle and slipped away from the table, taking refuge in the kitchen. What she’d feared most had finally happened, and it was all her fault. She’d let a man into their lives and now Jessie would never be content with just the two of them again.

  It didn’t matter that he treated her like a queen, her daughter like a princess, and her daughter’s friend like visiting royalty. It didn’t matter that he’d turned her rusty old Chevy into a shiny new Blazer that rode like a magic carpet. This was real life, not a fairy tale.

  In real life bones got broken as easily as hearts, wives quaked in bed while husbands quaffed their thirst in bars, and children prayed that their parents wouldn’t have another shouting match in the middle of the night.

  The roar of laughter and the chorus of “Radical!” coming from the dining room snapped Kitty out of her pensive mood.

  She pasted on a smile, hoping it would stay, then left the kitchen determined to put a stop to the levity before things were completely out of hand.

  She was too late.

  Ben was doing a balancing act with her dishes. The serving plates rested in his outstretched palms and their dinner plates nested atop them. He stooped over so the girls could add glasses and silverware to the stack, then straightened when he saw her standing in the doorway, the smile in his eyes like a visual caress.

  It was then that she realized she could fall in love with him if she wasn’t careful.

  And careful was the operative word as, hands full, he started toward her. “I told the girls I’d clear the table if they’d wash and dry.”

  Kitty stepped out of his way.

  “While we’re doing the dishes,” Jessie informed her importantly, “Ben’s going to show me how to strengthen my wrist for shooting free throws.”

  “He’s going to show me how to steal the ball and not get a foul,” Jamie added excitedly.

  Ben just winked in passing.

>   Kitty left them washing and drying and demonstrating winning skills while she retreated to the living room. She picked up the two pairs of tennis shoes the girls had kicked off the minute they’d come into the house. After she set them by the door, she started a fire in the hearth and sat back on her heels, listening to the laughing and clinking and thumping in the kitchen.

  It sounded so right, but she knew it was all wrong. Jessie and Jamie were at that whimsical age where every male was a potential knight in shining armor. She knew their romanticism was a healthy part of growing up, an escape when the going got rough. She also knew it made for a rude awakening when the flesh and blood man didn’t live up to the dream.

  “All done,” Ben announced, pushing his sweater sleeves down as he came out of the kitchen.

  “I’m going to walk Jamie home,” Jessie said, sliding her stocking feet into her shoes without untying them.

  “Don’t be gone long,” Kitty cautioned. She didn’t want her to become embroiled in any family feuds.

  Jamie thanked Kitty for dinner, then smiled shyly at Ben. “And thanks for the pointers.”

  “See you Friday night,” Jessie said at the door.

  Ben gave the girls the okay sign in lieu of a good-bye.

  “Friday night?” Kitty looked at him, puzzled.

  He shrugged. “I promised Jessie I’d come to the game.”

  She felt tears of gratitude threatening and turned her face to the fire, thinking she was going to need salt tablets if he stayed much longer. “She decided not to quit the team, then?”

  His chuckle rumbled deep in his chest. “I borrowed that old line about winners never quitting and quitters never winning.”

  “I wish I’d thought of that,” she said softly.

  “What’s wrong, Kitty?” He crouched beside her, elbows on his knees, and studied her fragile ivory face in the flickering firelight.

  She kept her eyes on the leaping flames, afraid to meet his knowing gray ones. “This won’t work, Ben.”

  He reached for her hand, as white as a child’s, and held it loosely in his own bronze one. “It will if you let it.”

  “We’re too different.”

  His thumb moved along her knuckles. “We’re more alike than you know.”

  She shook her head. “I’m just not in the market for a relationship.”

  “Because you’ve been hurt before?”

  The fire popped, a protest as she pulled her hand out of his and got to her feet, saying in a pained whisper, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He stood, fingers of orange and gold light caressing his features. “Silence won’t solve your problem.”

  “My ‘problem.’ ” she mimicked him bitterly, “is none of your concern.”

  “The hell it’s not!” He knew he was pushing her, but he was at the end of his rope in the patience department. “You’re a warm—”

  “I think you’d better go.”

  “Beautiful woman.” He stepped forward.

  “Get out of here.” She stepped backward.

  “And that … you were married to made you afraid of men.”

  “I’m warning you—”

  “Afraid to go with your feelings.”

  Kitty felt the chair cushion at the backs of her knees but stood firm in her fury. “If you don’t leave, I’ll call the sheriff.”

  Ben wanted to shake her, to kiss her—anything to shatter that rigid control. “I’m going.”

  “Good,” she said tightly.

  “I’m going,” he repeated grimly. “But not until—”

  “No!” she cried when his hands gripped her upper arms.

  “All men aren’t like your ex-husband.” His voice was rough, but his mouth came down on hers with a tenderness that atoned for all the violent kisses that had gone before.

  With a gentleness that was new to him, Ben broke the soft barrier of her lips and went in search of the sweetness beyond. He realized she wasn’t fighting him, and released her arms, then opened his hand wide across her bottom and fit her to his hard body. Her breasts, full and firm against his chest, burned a fuse to the very core of him.

  Kitty made a small yearning sound deep in her throat, her need overshadowing her fear. Her hands, free at last, found their way around his waist and under his sweater. They went on a journey of sensual discovery then, basking in the heat of his body, luxuriating in the ridge of his ribs and gliding over the swell of his muscles.

  The front door opened and closed, separating them as swiftly as a sharp knife.

  Ben recovered first, jerking his head toward the hallway and planting his hands on his hips in full view of all present. Kitty took a little longer, tugging at the bottom of her sweater and trying to think how she could explain being caught in such a compromising position.

  “Hi, Mom.” Jessie, with her ripe-apple cheeks and wind-reddened nose, beamed at each of them in turn. “Hi, Ben.”

  Seven

  “I didn’t expect you back so soon,” Kitty said breathlessly.

  “You told me not to be gone long,” Jessie reminded her.

  “Right!” Kitty wet her lips, tasting Ben’s kiss on them and hoping against hope that it wasn’t visible.

  Without untying them, Jessie toed off her tennis shoes and headed straight for the sofa. She sat in the corner, her shoulders slumped as if they bore the weight of the world. “Besides, Jamie’s dad was passed out in the bedroom and her mom was afraid we’d wake him up.”

  Kitty sat down beside her daughter and thumped her fist on her thigh. “I knew he was drinking again.”

  “Jamie said he lost his job.”

  “Little wonder.”

  “What does he do?” Ben asked.

  “The minimum,” Kitty snapped. “Why?”

  “I was thinking maybe I could help.” Ben shrugged. “You know, offer him a job.”

  Kitty came off the sofa and aimed a finger at the center of his chest. “At the same time you’re demanding that the miners take a pay cut, you want to put that … that drunken bum to work?”

  Ben backed up a step and said calmly, “Forget I even mentioned it, okay?”

  “He’s not a bum.” Jessie defended her best friend’s father. “He just drinks too much sometimes.”

  Kitty’s lips formed a thin, bitter line. “And terrorizes his wife and children when he does.”

  The room grew silent in the aftermath of her telling statement.

  Ben realized now why she was so upset.

  Kitty wondered if her daughter remembered how it used to be.

  Jessie just looked down at her lap, giving no indication whether she did or she didn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” Kitty finally said, turning entreating eyes to Ben. “I shouldn’t have jumped on you for offering to help.”

  “Or called Jamie’s dad a bum,” Jessie added stubbornly.

  “Or called Jamie’s dad a bum.” Kitty reached over to ruffle her daughter’s dark hair, realizing she’d have to be more careful of what she said in front of her in the future. “It’s just that I worry about Carol’s safety when Bob is drinking.”

  Ben shook his head in bafflement. “Why doesn’t she leave?”

  “Where would she go?”

  “To a women’s shelter.”

  “The closest shelter is almost a hundred miles away.” Kitty knew of what she spoke. The memory of having to run for her life, of wondering if she would ever get there, of worrying if there’d even be room for her, haunted her still.

  Her face was pensive. “Once she got there, she’d have to locate affordable housing and child care. Then she’d either have to go on relief or find a different job.”

  “And Jamie would have to go to a different school,” Jessie said glumly.

  Agitated by all he’d heard, Ben raked his fingers through his hair. “That’s still better than getting beat up.”

  “Starting over is difficult enough when you’ve got the support of your family and friends.” Kitty rubbed her throbbing temp
les. “But when you have to do it alone—leave the people you love, plus your home and your job all behind you—it’s really hard.”

  Ben eyed her with new respect. “It also sounds like an act of real courage.”

  She sighed resignedly. “Try telling that to the good-ol’-boy network of policemen and judges who still believe that a husband has the right to ‘chastise’ his wife.”

  The resulting stillness inside was broken by the rumble of thunder outside.

  Jessie stood and stretched. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

  “Good night, darling.” Kitty kissed her daughter’s cheek, still pink from the cold, then hugged her close and murmured into her hair, “Sleep well.”

  Ben studied the serene picture they made and felt a longing as fierce as it was sweet for the loving woman who’d melted in his arms just moments before.

  “G’night, Ben,” Jessie said quietly.

  “Good night, Jessie.”

  The twelve-year-old hesitated only briefly before rising up on tiptoe. Ben received the girl’s shy peck and whispered, “Thanks for everything.” Then quick as shadows passing, she was gone.

  Kitty and Ben were alone again, but neither knew where to look or what to say. She sought equilibrium in the ordinary, wiping an imaginary speck of dust off the end table. He simply watched her dainty hand, as white as milk glass against the sugary maple surface, making busy work.

  Their delaying tactics failed to dissolve the tension. She was keenly aware of the hard male shape hovering behind her, and he was going crazy imagining those butterfly-like fingers skimming over his body.

  Ben finally put some distance between them. “I’d better go before it starts raining.”

  Kitty raised grateful eyes, knowing this was probably for the best. “I really enjoyed the picnic.”

  “We’ll do it again,” he promised, his tone implying more than just sharing a meal.

  “I’d like that.” Her heart lifted with a fluttering expectancy.

  He tore his gaze away from her mouth and spun on his heel. “I’ll see you at the game Friday night.”

  She trailed him to the door. “You’re not going to the mine on Monday?”

  “I’m meeting with the energy and environmental people in Washington next week to discuss that coke-fired power plant I mentioned at breakfast the other morning.”