by T. L. Haddix
Ben was uncomfortable with the emotional discussion, and John was fidgety, too. What he’d revealed was so personal and private that Ben felt like a voyeur for having listened. But John’s words resonated with him in a deep and poignant manner. He cleared his throat.
“You and Zanny have something special. You know that?”
John’s smile was peaceful. “I know.”
Ben stood and picked up the folder. “I need two favors, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Name it,” John said as he came around his desk.
“I need to apologize to your boss for acting the way I did the other day.”
“Okay. I can arrange that. What’s the second favor?”
Ben held up the file. “You all have a shredder here that you use on sensitive documents?”
John nodded, a hard smile forming on his face. “We do. And I can’t think of anything that needs to be destroyed more than what you’re holding.”
“I’ll want to keep the shreds. I have plans for them.”
He followed John down the hall, considering what his brother had said. Ben had lived the last few years without Ainsley. But did he want to live the rest of his life without her if he didn’t have to? The answer was immediate—no.
Being with her again had shown him just how empty his life without her had been. If he had any chance of repairing the relationship, he had to take it. God help him, he had to try.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ben headed for the farm after leaving John’s office. He needed the solitude of his parents’ property. After checking in with his dad, he headed down to the little pool located halfway down the mountain. A branch of water cascaded down through the granite and sandstone, forming a natural waterfall and pool. It was a peaceful spot, perfect for contemplation and clearing his mind.
His parents had courted each other around that pool, and so had John and Zanny. Ben had always wanted to bring Ainsley there, but the opportunity had never arisen.
He didn’t know what to do about her. He’d thought the pain from learning they’d created and lost a child was overwhelming. The pain of knowing she’d probably sacrificed herself in order to protect him and his family was just as crushing.
He couldn’t get his head around the concept of what she’d gone through. When she’d told him about the miscarriage and all its complications, he’d been heartbroken. Knowing that child had been his added another layer to the guilt and hurt. What she had to have felt, knowing that child was her only chance at having a piece of him to hold on to, tore him apart.
Ben knew that he couldn’t go to Ainsley and present her with what he’d learned until he had reconciled all of it within himself first. If he couldn’t reasonably expect to be able to wipe the slate clean and set aside any blame he felt for her, to go to her and open those wounds again would be cruel, regardless of whether they ended up together.
Hell, if what his mother had told him was the truth, he was the one who needed to be asking for forgiveness.
After some time, he was getting closer to making a decision. The sound of someone approaching drew his attention, and he turned to see his father coming down the path from the top of the mountain.
“Hey. I didn’t want to bother you, but you’ve been down here a while. Given what happened last time, I’d rather come across as paranoid than have you injured somewhere.”
Ben patted the warm granite beside him, and Owen sat. “You aren’t bothering me. Mom gave me quite a bit to think about earlier, that’s all.”
When he’d stopped by at the farm to let his father know where he would be, he hadn’t given Owen any details about what had driven him to the refuge.
“I’m sorry, Ben. Sorry about all of this. I know it hasn’t been easy for you to learn what you’ve heard the last few weeks.”
“It hasn’t been the most fun summer of my life, no.” Ben scrubbed a hand over his face. “I shredded the file. I’d like to keep the scraps, do something with it, if you don’t mind. I promise you, it will be destroyed.”
Owen put his arm around Ben’s shoulders. “It’s as much your right to do that as anyone’s. Any idea what you’re going to do yet?”
Ben wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. “Yes. I’m going to go to her. That’s the only thing I know to do. Is it selfish of me, Dad? That I can’t let her go?”
“No. What would be selfish, in my opinion, is letting things ride as they are. That would be cruel. She doesn’t deserve to go on thinking you hate her, Ben. I know you need to hear it from her, see her face when you ask the questions you must have, but if my opinion means anything, the girl loves you. And I want you to find love. I want you to fight for your happiness. Don’t just throw it away because you’re afraid.”
“You know your opinion means a lot to me. And I… I want her, Dad. I want to know if we can make it, if we can shove all this bullshit out of the way and get down to us.”
He went home not long after that, with a couple of stops along the way. He needed to get a few things in order to prepare for the meeting with Ainsley. He hoped that the symbolism behind what he would be bringing her was enough of an olive branch to get him in the door.
Jonah and Byrdie had been gone about five minutes when the doorbell rang. They’d all spent most of the day packing up what was left, in preparation of leaving for Lexington on Friday. Even though Ainsley’s period was over and she didn’t need him medically anymore, Jonah had stayed to offer both moral support and an extra pair of hands.
He and Byrdie had volunteered to run to the store and pick up a few things. Ainsley had been happy to stay behind. Sweaty and grimy from having worked hard all day, she wasn’t fit for company. She was still a little emotionally touchy from the withdrawal of the drugs, and a storm was brewing. She just hadn’t been up to going out in public and having to mask her emotions.
She’d started the water for a shower and left it running while she hurried to the front door, figuring they’d forgotten something. She swung it open without looking to see who was on the other side. “What’d you forget?”
Ben’s head jerked up. They stared at each other, and Ainsley would have been hard-pressed to say who was more surprised.
“Um, hi.” He shifted his weight and glanced behind him. “I’m not who you were expecting, I guess.”
Ainsley was clenching the doorknob so hard she was surprised it didn’t break. “Why are you here?”
He shrugged and looked down at the small package he held in his left hand. “Can we talk?”
She wasn’t able to prevent a flinch when lightning flashed and thunder rumbled across the valley. Mutely, she stood back and let him in.
“Excuse me. I need to turn the shower off.” Moving around him, she went down the hall to the guest room. Her mind was racing. She wondered if Sarah had spoken to him as she’d promised. Ben didn’t look angry, but that didn’t mean anything. Suddenly wishing she weren’t alone with him, she told herself she was being ridiculous.
When she came out of the bathroom, he was waiting for her at the door to the bedroom. Ainsley stopped in the bathroom doorway, waiting for him to speak. He set the package, a plain brown box, on the dresser and crossed the carpet to where she stood.
For what felt like hours, they simply watched each other. Another loud rumble of thunder sounded, and Ainsley jumped. A flash of what looked like pain crossed Ben’s face, and he raised his left hand cautiously to her face. A hint of cologne wafted to her nose. His touch was gentle and kind, and if she hadn’t been afraid he would disappear if she closed her eyes, they would have drifted shut.
“Did you use me, Ainsley? To provide him with a child?”
The question was delivered softly, but she still sucked in a sharp breath. She shook her head and swallowed around her tears.
“No.”
&nbs
p; Ben’s breathing was as ragged as hers as he searched her eyes. After an interminable minute, he groaned and pulled her into his arms. Ainsley went gladly, her own arms coming around him to lock them together.
“What happened to us?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. “How the hell did we get here?”
Ainsley couldn’t answer. All she could do was hold on to him and cry loud, racking sobs that came from her very soul.
“I’m so sorry,” she managed to tell him. “Ben, I’m so sorry.”
“Shhh, it’s okay. I know, sweetheart. I know. I’m sorry, too.”
“I didn’t mean for you to get h-hurt,” she stammered. “I was trying to keep you safe.”
He put enough room between them that he could tip her face up. “Ainsley, I know that.”
She couldn’t calm down, though. “I l-love you s-so much. And all I c-could do was h-hurt you.”
At those words, his arms tightened around her convulsively, and he buried his face in her neck. Thunder rolled across the sky again. Within seconds, rain started falling in a loud downpour that beat against the french doors in waves. Ainsley barely noticed. All she could feel was Ben. He was running his hands over her back with almost desperate movements. There was a warm wetness against her neck, where his face was hidden, and when she realized he was crying, her own tears fell harder.
He cradled her in his arms, and Ainsley burrowed closer to him still. It wasn’t enough.
“Ben, I need… please,” she gasped through her tears. She reached for the hem of his shirt and started tugging. All she knew was that if she didn’t get her hands on him, her skin next to him, his body inside hers, she wasn’t going to survive. Fortunately, Ben seemed to feel the same.
They didn’t even manage to get fully undressed. His pants were still half-on when they hit the carpeted floor, hands reaching for each other with desperation.
It wasn’t a smooth or particularly skillful coupling, but that first slide of his body against hers, that breathless fullness and clenching, had them both on the edge almost instantly.
“I love you,” she told him as she lifted her hips up in an undulating movement, trying to get him exactly where she needed him. “I always have. Always will.”
“Say it again,” he ground out. “I need to hear it again.”
She did. Over and over, she told him she loved him. As she came apart in his arms, and he followed her, she cried out, still telling him how much she loved him.
While her heartbeat slowed down and her breathing returned to something approaching normal, she stroked his naked back, pressing kisses to every inch of his face, neck, and shoulders she could reach.
Ben captured her mouth with his when she came back up to kiss along his jaw. When he released her, he pulled back enough that she could see his eyes.
“I love you. I never stopped. I tried, but you were always there. Always in my heart. And I never thought I’d feel you again like this. Not just here.” He flexed his hips where they were still joined and sent an echo of pleasure through her body. “But with me, in the flesh, where I can hold you and touch you and hear you. I was beginning to think you’d haunt me forever.”
Ainsley touched his cheeks, brushed his hair back off his forehead, and threaded her fingers through the silky locks. “How can you say that to me, after what I’ve done to you?”
He was shaking his head before she even finished her sentence. “What is it that you’ve done to me? Protected my family? Almost died because I got you pregnant? You have nothing to feel guilty for. Nothing.”
As wonderful as it was to hear those words coming from him, she had doubts. “A few days ago, you were cursing me to hell. Now you believe I didn’t deceive you. What changed?”
“Cooler heads prevailed.” He let his weight rest against her, and Ainsley welcomed the crush of him. “Mom came to me this morning, told me what they’d learned. Gave me the file. It just made sense, what she said. And if we’re being honest, I wanted to believe it was the truth. So I chose to do that.”
The rain was still pounding outside as he pulled out and grabbed her discarded shirt. With a hot flush of embarrassment, Ainsley took it and pressed it to herself. “I need to get cleaned up. It’s a good thing Byrdie and Jonah aren’t here,” she told him as she got to her feet. “We didn’t even close the door.”
Ben kicked off his pants and tossed them onto the loveseat, then crossed to do just that. “Do you mind if I take a shower with you?”
Ainsley shook her head. “What do we do about the cast?”
“If you have a bag and some tape, we can seal it up.”
“I have both. Wait here.” She opened the door, and even though they were alone in the house, she sneaked into the living room for the items. Ben smiled solemnly when she came back through the door in a rush.
Once his arm was covered, she got the shower adjusted to the perfect temperature, then they stepped into the large space. She soaped up quickly and started washing her hair. When she noticed that Ben was just watching her, touching her occasionally, she paused.
“What?”
He shrugged. “I’m just enjoying being here.”
Ainsley rinsed her hair and, with the water off her face, stepped close enough to him that they touched from chest to hips. She cupped his face with her hands and tilted her head to the side. “You don’t look happy.”
“I don’t know what I am,” he admitted. When he brushed the back of his left hand against her abdomen, Ainsley connected the dots.
“Oh, Ben.”
“Our child would have been just a little younger than Noah,” he whispered. “This weekend, at the farm, I hugged John’s boys so much I think I scared them a little. But I couldn’t stop thinking about our baby. Would he have looked like you or me? Would he like dinosaurs or spaceships?”
Ainsley could barely speak through the tightness in her throat. “He could have been a she. I don’t know—it was too early. And the same questions haunt me, especially after I saw the portrait of John’s sons. I could see you in them, and it hurt so much. I wanted that baby so much. I would have died for him or her.”
They were both crying slow tears filled with sorrow as the water from the shower cascaded down around them. When Ben kissed her, she didn’t feel passion so much as the raw emotion of loss.
Somehow, being able to finally talk openly with him about the past, Ainsley felt a weight lift off her shoulders. That weight didn’t disappear, but it was perceptibly lighter. She figured he’d taken on some of it, and that was the last thing she’d wanted, but being able to share the load with someone filled a hole up inside her.
“We need to talk about everything,” he said. “Everything. No matter how upsetting it is.”
Ainsley agreed. “Jonah and Byrdie will be back before long. They’ll give us privacy if we ask for it.”
“Or you could come with me. Come to my apartment.” He watched her warily, as though expecting her to turn him down. Ainsley realized that for most of their time together, both recently and in the past, he’d been the one to do the giving. It was her turn.
“Okay.”
They hurriedly finished the shower, and once they were dried off and dressed again, Ainsley picked up the box on the dresser. It was a small, plain, brown cardboard cube. Maybe six inches square, it weighed hardly anything.
“What’s this?”
“That is something I wanted to share with you. But if we’re going to my place, it should wait.”
Byrdie called out from down the hall then, and Ainsley blew out a tense breath. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be. After the way I acted the last time I was here, I’ll be lucky if a skillet is all she tries to go after me with,” he teased.
“Oh, I think she understands.” She grabbed her purse and tucked the box inside
. Then, together, they headed down the hall to the living room. Sounds emanating from the kitchen told her where Byrdie and Jonah were.
“Whose car is that?” Jonah asked as Ainsley went through the door. When Ben stepped up behind her, Jonah’s eyes narrowed, and he paused in the act of opening a food container. “Oh.”
Byrdie had stopped what she was doing, as well, and was staring at them. “Huh. This is interesting.”
Ainsley’s cheeks heated. “Ben, you and Jonah haven’t been properly introduced.” She made the introductions, then held her breath as the two men shook hands. The tension was so thick in the kitchen, it was like the presence of another person.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Ben said. “And I apologize for my behavior the other day. I was out of line.”
“You were. What are you doing here?”
“Jonah!”
Her friend scowled. “It’s a valid question. He hurt you.”
Ainsley bit her lip as Ben’s jaw clenched. Instead of snapping back at Jonah or storming out, though, he rested his hand low on her back. “I know. And I’m sorrier than I can say about that. I’m here so we can hopefully get things settled once and for all.”
Byrdie tapped her fingers on the countertop. “If you hurt my baby girl again, I’ll dunk you in the pool myself. And I won’t let you out,” she warned.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’re going to go to Ben’s apartment. We need some privacy.” Ainsley looked up at him. “Do you mind giving Byrdie your phone number, in case they need it?”
