by T. L. Haddix
It was John’s turn to frown, and he asked Ben, “So let me get this straight. You saw Ainsley this morning, and you what? Propositioned her?”
Ben’s cheeks were truly flushed, and he dropped his eyes to his plate. “Something like that.”
Rubbing his smile away with his hand, John grunted. “And she responded by pushing you into the pool?”
“She did.”
“I think she threw something at him, too,” Zanny interjected. “If that helps set the scenario.”
John let his grin show. “Oh, it does. I thought she was acting a little odd this morning in the meeting with Hershel. That’s why.”
Ben had given up all pretense of eating, and he rested his elbows on the table with a sigh, his hands clasped together over his plate. “How’d you know who she was?” he asked Zanny. “You two never met.”
“Um, she knew the woman in the bakery, and I heard her mention Ainsley’s name. It’s unusual enough that I just asked her if she was the same Ainsley. Turns out she was.” She shot John a look, and when she didn’t mention Ainsley’s accusation about Zanny’s supposed relationship with Ben, he decided to let Zanny drive things. “She seemed nice enough. Horribly embarrassed and still a little angry, but nice enough.”
“And she told you she was thinking about taking me up on my offer? Or are you just giving me a hard time?” Ben was about as solemn as John could ever remember seeing him.
Zanny was clearly debating how much to reveal. “That’s something you’d have to ask her,” she finally said. “But she didn’t think you were serious. Were you?”
Ben shrugged. “Who knows?” He pushed back from the table. “I need to excuse myself for a minute.”
John and Zanny were quiet as he left the room, heading for the small bathroom off the kitchen. John waited until he heard the door close before speaking.
“Wow. That was revelatory. He’s hurting.”
Zanny’s face showed her concern. “I know. I just wish I knew how to help.”
He clasped her hand. “Sweetheart, I believe you did. You’ve given him something to think about. He wasn’t expecting her to be more than angry, I’ll bet. Maybe that’s the spur he needed to step up and do something more than run his mouth. He really propositioned her?”
“Oh, yeah. Pretty bluntly, too, from what she said.” The ghost of a smile danced around her mouth. “I’d love to have seen his face when she pushed him.”
“Me, too.”
As they got the boys cleaned up after the meal, a quiet Ben came back out to join them. John wondered if his brother would be able to put aside whatever insecurities he apparently had and make that first move. He hoped that would be the case. Speaking from personal experience, John knew that sometimes the bandage needed to come off before the wound could heal. His brother’s wound had been festering for several years. It was time to clean it up and let it scar over.
He just hoped Ben understood that.
Chapter Sixteen
Ainsley met Ben in her dreams Thursday night. She was home, in her bedroom at Dragonfly Creek. Something woke her in the dream, and restless, she went to the french doors that led to the balcony. The air around her was oppressively humid and eerily quiet. In the way that dreams often are, she knew it was summer, though she would have been hard-pressed to determine why she knew that. Fog rolled across the pastures that surrounded the house, but she could still see the partly cloudy sky. The moon was full, and as she lifted her head to inhale a deep lungful of fragrant summer air, she heard a whisper of sound behind her.
She wasn’t afraid. Instead, she was electrified. Hard, warm arms came around her waist, drawing her back into a firm body.
“Ben,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer, but spread kisses along her shoulder and down her arm. As he worked his way along, his other had glided down between her legs and unerringly found the bundle of nerves that had become the focus of all her attention. She realized then that she was naked, but she didn’t care.
She was close, so close, when she woke up. Sobbing with frustration, she curled her fingers into the sheets and cursed. After a few seconds, she uncurled her right hand and moved it between her legs. Gaining satisfaction didn’t take long, but once she had, she rolled onto her right side and drew her knees up to her chest, distraught.
He had felt so real and so solid she still felt the imprint of him along her back. She could smell his cologne on the sheets, and knowing it only existed in her memories twisted the knife deeper.
This wasn’t the first time she’d had an intimate dream about Ben. Far from it. But it was possibly one of the hardest times, since he was only a few miles away.
“Good thing I don’t know where he is exactly, or else I might go over there,” she told herself with a soggy laugh.
The clock showed her that it was nearly four in the morning. She’d gone to bed a little earlier than normal, and as the last dredges of the dream wore off, she realized she was wide awake. She tossed back the covers and got up. Pulling on a caftan, she padded into the bathroom. Once she was finished there, she headed to the kitchen for a glass of water, taking care to not wake Byrdie, whose bedroom was located just down the hall.
Might as well resume the search for the missing files, she thought and went upstairs to her mother’s office. The house was quiet, and unnerved by the silence, Ainsley opened the balcony doors, letting in the sounds of the pre-dawn morning.
Since she’d been in town, she’d discovered the depths of her mother’s depravity. The picture was ugly. Some of the files Ainsley had found went back to well before she was born. Most of them were dated after her father’s death, when Ainsley was thirteen. But they were all meticulously outlined, private files that Ainsley believed her mother had probably used as trophies. Many of the pages were worn and had obviously been handled often.
“Did you not realize that when you died, someone would find these files?” she wondered aloud. “Or did you just not care that lives would be ruined if the information fell into the wrong hands?”
Over the last few weeks, Ainsley had met with more than ten individuals who had been the subject of the files. She’d turned the papers over to them, and in some cases, destroyed IOUs the files contained. Some of the IOUs were private and personal, but some were more business oriented. In either event, if the debt owed was based on her mother’s blackmail and extortion schemes, Ainsley cancelled the debt. She had seen the itemized breakdown of Geneva’s estate. The debts weren’t included.
She didn’t cancel all the debts. In some cases, the people on whom the files were built had committed crimes Geneva had known about and used against them. Ainsley was still unsure how to handle those files. If she’d known someone trustworthy in local law enforcement, she would’ve turned them over and let the courts take it. But she didn’t know anyone, so she simply held on to them. She had discussed it with Jonah and Byrdie earlier in the week. They’d all agreed that until she knew what to do, it was best to not do anything.
The one file she wanted to find most, she couldn’t. She’d looked in all her mother’s hiding places, but the file on Ben’s family was not there.
Seated at Geneva’s desk, Ainsley sank back in her chair with a frustrated sigh. “Damn you, what did you do with that file? Where would you have kept it?”
Like before, her questions got no response. Standing, Ainsley went to the balcony and took in the view that her mother had gained great pleasure in owning. The city of Hazard was sprawled out below. The lights glowed like a handful of tiny diamonds tossed onto a folded velvet blanket.
Lifting her eyes to the still-dark sky, she was startled to see a meteor shooting across the inky darkness. Instinctively, she made a wish.
“Why couldn’t things be different? Is he serious? Could we try again without destroying each other this time? I wi
sh I knew. I wish we had the chance to try.”
Somewhere down in the valley below, a rooster crowed. Its call echoed through the valley and sounded so familiar that Ainsley couldn’t help but smile. Flaco, Ainsley’s right-hand man back home, had been trying to start a romance with Byrdie for a year and had brought them two chickens for their kitchen garden earlier in the spring. From Byrdie’s reaction, you would have thought he’d brought three dozen roses. Ainsley was still pushing her friend to accept the man’s attentions. She thought Byrdie was afraid to and reluctant to leave Ainsley on her own.
She and Jonah were plotting, though. So far, all their attempts had been met with resistance, but Ainsley was sure they were starting to break down Byrdie’s defenses.
Feeling weary, she closed and locked the doors, then went back downstairs to the guest room. She let the caftan fall to the floor and curled up under the sheets. She didn’t have to be up at any particular time, and she was grateful for that leeway. This time, when she closed her eyes, she fell into a dreamless sleep.
Her last thought was that maybe, if she showed some initiative and reached out for something she wanted, she might be able to convince Byrdie to do the same.
Chapter Seventeen
Ben stopped by a local produce and farmer’s market Saturday afternoon to pick up some homemade candles he’d ordered for Emma. She was getting close to her due date, and he’d wanted to get her something that was pretty, useful, and just for her. He was surprised to see Ainsley perusing the baskets and shelves. She looked up when he came in and acknowledged his presence with a stiff nod.
Detouring from his task, Ben eased up to stand beside her as she picked out fresh green beans.
“Ainsley.”
“Ben.”
With her hands full of beans, she looked awkwardly from him to the brown paper bags stacked neatly under the bin. He obliged her by opening one and holding it out.
“Thank you.” She took advantage of his courtesy and filled the bag before taking it from him to put in her shopping basket. “I owe you an apology.”
“No. I owe you one. I could have handled things better.”
Her smile was soft and a little lopsided, as color washed into her cheeks. “So could I.”
He moved out of the way as she continued shopping, following behind her to hold open bags as she selected produce. “I hear you met Zanny.”
That got him a wide smile. “I did. She seems really nice. A good fit for John.”
“They are a good fit. Went through a rough patch this year, but they’re stronger now than ever.” He cursed his talkativeness, not sure why he’d said that.
“She told me. I’m glad for them.” She brushed her bangs off her face. “I saw the portrait of your nephews. They look like sweet children.”
“Oh, they’re pistols, both of them.”
“And you’re a doting uncle?”
He grinned. “Hey, someone has to spoil them and send them home for Zanny and John to tame. I do my part.” The smile faded, and they both seemed to realize at the same time that they’d been having an honest-to-God conversation.
“Listen, I really am sorry for what I said. How I said it,” he told her solemnly. “I’m sorry.”
Ainsley looked away, at some honey on a shelf above the bananas. “Apology accepted. So does that mean your offer wasn’t serious?” She didn’t look at him, but she was very still as she waited for his response.
Ben felt a thrill of energy run through him, and his heart sped up just a little. “I didn’t say that.”
She reached for a jar of the amber sweetness. “Oh.”
They made their way around the bins, and she bit her lip as she examined the new potatoes inside. Her next words nearly floored him.
“Byrdie goes to bed around ten. I usually go out then and clean the pool, wind down for the day. If you wanted to stop by some night.”
Though the invitation was delivered casually, Ben could see her pulse fluttering in her throat. He was glad he’d left his shirt untucked because his body responded to the idea of accepting.
“I, uh, I’ll consider that.”
Ainsley looked at him then, her cheeks and lips flushed with soft pink. “I hope you will.”
When she went across the room to look at the fresh peaches, Ben almost groaned aloud. No way was he going to help her with that selection, given the fruit’s sexual connotation. “I need to get going. I’ll see you around.”
He paid for the candles and had them wrapped prettily, then fled to the privacy of his truck. He had to pretend to be looking at something inside for a couple of minutes as he waited for his erection to go down enough so that he could sit behind the wheel. He wasn’t sure if he would actually take her up on the offer, but his body was more than interested.
He used the drive to Emma’s to think. He hadn’t come to any conclusions by the time he pulled up in the driveway of the hacienda-style adobe house his sister had purchased after returning from Georgia. John had stayed with her temporarily during his separation from Zanny, and between them, he and John had gotten the house into good shape.
Ben was torn between joy at having a new niece on the way and sorrow for his sister. Emma was coming to terms with finding herself a single mother, which he knew was the last thing she’d ever expected. She was excited and wanted the baby, but she was scared. And that was an emotion Ben had never seen his indomitable sister display for long.
She’d relaxed quite a bit since Nonny had moved in, though. At intervals throughout the day on Tuesday, Emma had found him and wrapped him in long, tearful hugs.
“Thank you, Benny. That’s the best present I’ve ever had.”
He rang the doorbell and waited, then broke into a wide smile when Eliza answered the door. “Nonny.”
“Benjamin. Come in, but keep your voice low. Emma’s asleep on the couch. We can go sit on the back porch and visit.”
“I brought her a gift.” He held up the box. “Let me put it on the table.”
He sneaked into the living room and placed the box on the coffee table, where she would see it when she awakened. Then he joined Eliza.
“Is she okay?”
“Just tired. She’s eight months pregnant and doing maybe a little more than she should, but her doctor is happy with her progress. What kind of mischief are you getting into this afternoon?” She grabbed a glass as they went through the kitchen, and Ben smiled as he saw the pitcher of iced tea on the small table on the back porch.
“I am contemplating an affair with a beautiful woman,” he told her baldly as they sat down.
To her credit, Eliza barely blinked. She just poured him a glass of tea and passed it across the table. “Anyone I know?”
“Ainsley.”
“Well. Okay.” Eliza stood. “We’re going to need cookies for this.”
Ben laughed. His grandmother was absolutely priceless.
“Now, tell me what happened, and you can leave out any explicit details,” she said as she came back outside, a plate of chocolate chip cookies in hand.
He told her about seeing Ainsley for the first time and his own cutting comments. “She pushed me into the pool.”
“Good for her. Sounds like she’s gotten some backbone. That was very poorly done of you, Ben.”
“I know it was. I saw her today, apologized.” He ran a hand over his face and leaned back in his gliding rocker chair. “I don’t know what to do, Nonny. Part of me wants to do it, to be with her just to get her out of my system. And part of me wants to run as far as I can, to keep from getting hurt again.”
“And part of you wants to be with her forever. I know, Ben. I know.” She reached over and patted his hand. “You know how I feel about premarital sex. But this situation is a little different. I’d love to say go to her, just talk to her,
and find out why she left the way she did. I can tell from the look on your face that isn’t an option for you, though.”
“I’m not willing to just open myself up to her again. I don’t know if I ever would be, no matter what happens between us.” He frowned at his feet. “I had to close off that part of myself to keep from going insane. Picturing her with another man, having his name, bearing his children, sharing his bed. I don’t know if I can ever open that emotional door again, even if I want to.”
“I understand that protective instinct. When I lost your grandfather, I knew I had to leave Kentucky, or else I’d crawl in the grave with him. And that part of my heart that he held, well, I did bury that with Ira. That’s where you have an advantage over me, young man.”
Ben turned to look at her. “How so?”
“You thought you’d lost her forever. For all intents and purposes, you had. She belonged to someone else in the eyes of man and of God. But now she doesn’t. Now, she’s free, and so are you. You’ve gotten a second chance here, Ben. Don’t waste it.”
“It might not turn out well.”
“No, it might not. But what if it could? That’s a decision you have to make for yourself.”
He sighed and thought about what she’d said. “If it were you?”
“That’s not a fair question.”
“I know. But I still would like some perspective. Nonny, I’m too close. I don’t know if I’m seeing things clearly or as I want to see them.”
Eliza picked up a cookie and took a delicate bite. “Life’s too short to waste dithering on what ifs. This opportunity has dropped into your lap almost providentially. You’re here for the first time in years. So is she. You’re both free. Don’t let the chance to find out slip through your fingers. Just be careful and use protection. You don’t want to end up tied to her for the rest of your life if she isn’t the person you think she is. Do you understand me?”
