In Hope's Shadow

by Janice Kay Johnson

Okay, Ben’s mood took an upswing. He grabbed what he needed, too, and the two men started toward the door.

  “We’ve worked it out.”

  Seth stopped dead. “You’ve what?”

  “You heard me. We’re back on. You may duly report to your girlfriend.”

  “Fiancée,” Seth said with satisfaction.

  Ben grinned at him without malice. “Caught in a noose.”

  “You’re jealous,” Seth said amiably.

  “We’ll see.” He just laughed when Seth hooted.

  * * *

  “OH, MY GOD,” Eve said, when Ben told her what the freshman girl had seen. Delight burst in her, even if he hadn’t been able to get the warrant he wanted to search Gavin’s bedroom and locker at school. He would; of course he would. Then her mind took a sideways jump. “This was yesterday? I wonder why Vivian didn’t call me right away. I mean, I’m not her client, but...”

  “I haven’t told her yet.”

  “What?” She gaped at him, setting down her glass of wine on his table. She’d been watching him cook. “Why? Isn’t full disclosure a rule?”

  He turned from the stove. “Before trial, sure. In the middle of an investigation, we have more flexibility. Plus, you and I know Joel won’t be going to trial.”

  “But...”

  “Eve, I want him to stay where he is. You know that. It’s even more important now, because I don’t want Gavin wondering if someone saw him and who that could be. I asked the girl not to wait where she usually does for her mom until I clear her, but you never know with kids. Or Mom may insist. If Gavin gets nervous and lurks after school for a few days, sees her just outside those glass doors every day...”

  Chilled, she said, “He might decide to take care of her.”

  “She saw him hit a dog with his car, she thinks on purpose. I know the old dog she was talking about. I wondered not long ago why I hadn’t seen him, figured his owner had had to put him down.” His voice was grim. “Instead, the son of a bitch saw his chance and took it. Quick thrill, no conscience.”

  “I hate him,” Eve said fervently, fists clenched. “I’m so glad he’s not part of my caseload.”

  “What would you do if he was?” Ben sounded really curious.

  “What I absolutely had to do for him, and I’d cooperate with the police investigation. And breathe a huge sigh of relief when you made the arrest.”

  “Good to hear.” He smiled at her. “Grab the silverware, will you?”

  They sat down to a stir-fry that turned out to be good. He laughed at her when her first bite must have been noticeably cautious.

  “Think I’m going to poison you?”

  “You don’t sound like you do a lot of cooking.”

  “Not as much as I should, but I don’t like eating out all the time, either.” He shrugged. “You learn.”

  “Your mother didn’t make you learn?”

  His face went blank. Bang. She’d intruded unknowingly, and he was shutting her out.

  Eve concentrated on eating for a minute.

  “I was mostly raised by my father.”

  Surprised, she looked at him. He was frowning, his gaze unfocused. His voice was slow, reluctant. Didn’t want to say, or didn’t want to remember, she wasn’t sure.

  But he surprised her by going on. “She took off when I was seven. She and Dad fought a lot,” he said, divesting the simple statement of emotion. He might as well have shrugged. It happened. No big deal.

  “You mean, they got a divorce?”

  “Huh?” His eyes, darkened to navy, met hers. “Oh, eventually. But no, she just...packed and went. I came home from school and no one was there. There was a neighbor lady who watched me sometimes after school. We both figured Mom had had something come up and forgotten to clear it with Mrs. Gunderson, or else I’d forgotten what Mom told me to do. Mrs. G called Dad, who I guess figured the same. Only, when he came home he found Mom’s half of the closet and share of the drawers empty. Plus,” his mouth tilted wryly, “their joint checking and savings accounts were just as empty. Mom did a flier.”

  “Oh, Ben,” Eve whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  His eyes focused again, briefly, on her. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Dad was... I don’t know if he was hurt as much as enraged. I was bewildered. She was kind of careless, as mommies went, but really beautiful and special to me.”

  Remembered pain bled into his voice whether he knew it or not. Eve hurt for him, and was ashamed at how much she’d whined about her own wretched childhood without ever wondering how wholesome his had been.

  And then his description of his mother as beautiful hit. Just...oh. Oh. I get it. Finally. No, she thought, shaking her head, more like, I should have guessed.

  “Your looks came from her, didn’t they?”

  His smile was almost genuine. “Good one. Must be that degree in psychology.”

  “No wonder you aren’t full of yourself, the way most guys who look like you are.”

  He picked up and pondered his glass of wine. “I could always tell it bothered my father some, seeing her in me.”

  “Did you keep a relationship with her?”

  “You mean, did she bother doing the every-other-weekend thing? No. I’ve...never seen her again.” He tipped the glass up and took a long swallow.

  Her hurt deepened, spread, but she suddenly became conscious of wariness, too. Rachel might have inherited the bright blue eyes and sunny blond hair from Ben, but...

  “What’s Nicole look like?” Eve blurted.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  WELL, SHIT. WASN’T it just yesterday Ben had reminded Seth how smart Eve was? Too smart, he thought now.

  But he also knew this subject would have arisen eventually. He didn’t have any photos of Nicole out here at the apartment, but sooner or later Eve would have asked to see one.

  “Yeah,” he admitted, “I’ve been thinking about this lately. Are you going to find me too creepy if I say, although it never occurred to me until recently, that Nic looks a lot like my mother?”

  Eve had withdrawn some, and he couldn’t blame her. The idea had been oozing out of his subconscious and bothering him, too, even as it illuminated a whole lot of his psyche.

  “No-o.” Although she sounded doubtful. Then she frowned at him. “How could you not know?”

  “I thought I liked blondes.” He shrugged. “A lot of guys do.”

  “Did you ever date women who weren’t?” She sounded a little combative this time.

  He lifted his eyebrows. “You mean, until you? Of course I did.” He grimaced. “It’s just... I told you Nicole grew up in foster homes, right?”

  Watching him with her beautiful chocolate-brown eyes, Eve nodded.

  “She was placed locally about halfway through seventh grade. One day, there she was in a couple of my classes. First time I saw her, I felt a punch in the chest. She was, shall we say, more mature at that point than I was?”

  “Physically?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He had a flash of memory, extraordinarily vivid. The swell of the pretty new girl’s breasts, the way her hips swayed. She’d give her head a small shake, making her shiny blond hair shimmer. He saw it, like a slo-mo in a movie when the stunned boy gapes. He could still feel that punch, if muted by time. “Of course, I was skinny and clueless about how to get the girl. Until her, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I wanted the girl.” Yeah, make a joke out of it. He’d been getting too serious. “Except in fantasies, which involved buxom women who didn’t look anything like middle school girls.”

  Eve rolled her eyes. “I can imagine.”

  “Yeah, you did middle school, too.”

  “And have something like fifteen middle-school-age kids on my ca
seload.”

  He found himself grinning, another surprise. Instead of feeling scarred because he was remembering himself at that age, he was amused.

  And instinct had him wanting to shut the door now, but he knew Eve well enough now to be sure that would be a mistake. He had to get this out, a realization that stomped dead any amusement at all.

  He cleared his throat. “Despite a certain amount of yearning, I didn’t ask my friend to ask her friend if she’d go steady with me.”

  That earned him a quick smile, and the tightness in his chest eased.

  “In fact,” he continued, “nothing started for us until our sophomore year in high school, and, like I told you, we split up while I was away at college. Even though I wasn’t that far away. I went to Seattle U,” he added. A smile twitching irresistibly at the corners of his mouth, he said, “A good part of the student body at SU is female. So I can’t claim to have gone into a decline, or been celibate.”

  Eve made a face at him.

  “Still, Nic was always there, in my head. And, honest to God, I never once thought, hey, does she remind me on some subliminal level of my mother? Although you’d think I should have.”

  “Most of us aren’t that self-aware. Especially—” she wrinkled her nose “—when we’re eighteen or twenty. And anyway, do you think it was that straightforward?”

  “No. No, I don’t.” He hadn’t known until now how much thought he had been giving this. Or maybe thought wasn’t the right word. It had been more like a computer working, just a quiet, background hum. If he was to let go of what he’d felt for Nic, he had to figure this out. And before he let his relationship with Eve move forward, he had to be sure he had let go. Mostly, he thought he had. But there were pangs of regret and maybe still something more when he saw Nic’s name on the screen of his phone and knew she was calling, or when she let him see her unhappiness. To Eve, he said, “I didn’t—don’t—point like a setter every time I see a pretty blonde.” Bailey, for example, hadn’t done anything for him.

  No, he’d convinced himself he was desperately in love with one particular woman. Other pretty blondes wouldn’t have measured up. Which gave him the idea that Eve had broken through initially because she didn’t remind him in any way of Nic.

  When she’d broken up with him partway through fall semester his first year at SU, he’d been shattered, sure, but also, deep down, believed he’d find her again. As he had.

  Too bad he hadn’t been smart enough to see she’d been an echo for him, one that kept bouncing off walls, never quite going silent. His mother was long gone, out of his reach, and always had been. But Nicole, she was there, attainable.

  “Man.” Now he rubbed a hand over his face, feeling exposed and even pathetic. “I’m an idiot.”

  “No.” Eve pushed away from the table and came around to his side, bending to wrap her arms around him. “No more than me or anyone else who got messed up as a kid.”

  He pushed his chair back, too, enough so that she could sit on his lap and he could not only hold her, he could rub his cheek against her thick, glossy, black hair and remember how it felt tumbling over both of them in bed.

  Part of him wanted to drop this subject. But he had to get it all out. Say aloud what Eve needed to know.

  “Nic was screwed up, too. She had a lot in common with my mother. Always dissatisfied, restless, hungry for something she didn’t have.”

  Eve’s head bobbed, bumping his chin. “Kids who don’t receive the validation and love they need from parents or anyone else are left with a hollow place inside. I must have had one myself, but I was lucky because the Lawsons filled it. It doesn’t sound like Nicole had anyone.”

  Of course she understood.

  “I thought I could be that person for her.” He was just as glad Eve still had her head tucked in the crook between his neck and shoulder so she couldn’t see him when he said, “What I didn’t get was that I was looking for her to fill a hollow place in me, too.”

  But she straightened, then, so she could look at him. “Hindsight is a wonderful thing.”

  “Yeah, it is. The moral of this story is, I was stupid. I set myself up for a replay of the worst thing that happened to me when I was a kid. And then I was hammered when it did happen—twice, once when she broke up with me after high school, second time when she suddenly announced she wanted a divorce.” He shook his head. “What I called love was a lot more complicated than that. Which makes me realize I can’t blame it all on Nic. If I’d been a happy, completely stable guy, I might have had more to give her.”

  Eve was shaking her head and a finger at him long before he finished. “No, no, no. First thing, don’t use the word blame. Nicole can’t give what she doesn’t have. The fact that she doesn’t have it is not her fault. The fact that you didn’t recognize it was missing in her is not yours, either. Who even thinks to look for something like that?”

  “At least until we have a degree in psych.” He went for light again.

  “Often, not even then. There are majorly screwed-up psychotherapists.” She wrinkled her nose. “And social workers. God. Look at me.”

  “I am.” His voice went husky. “Eve, you give and give and give. You aren’t missing a single thing.”

  Just like that, her eyes were wet. “That’s...wow.”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No, right.” Her smile shook. She bent forward to wipe now damp cheeks on his shirt. She went very still for long enough to worry him. Before he could say anything, she lifted her head again. The expression in them deeply serious, her eyes held his. “One last thing. I doubt love is simple for anyone. We’re all looking for someone to fill our own needs. Plus, what woman doesn’t look for a man who shares some of her father’s qualities—or is totally unlike him. Ditto for men and their mothers. Our childhoods form us. Don’t...denigrate what you felt for Nicole.”

  Compelled by her eyes, a rich color that brimmed with a whole lot he couldn’t quite interpret, Ben couldn’t seem to so much as blink. He felt a muscle twitch in his cheek. At last he said, “Okay.”

  She slid off his lap. “You can’t tell me it hasn’t occurred to you to wonder why I’m attracted to you.” Her voice had an edge. It was almost hostile.

  Ben was taken aback for an instant before he got it. Same song. He shook his head in disgust. “Don’t start with that crap. You’re harking back to my idiocy, right? I’m supposed to be worried that you only want me because I fit your image of what ideal people look like.”

  “Isn’t it true?” she yelled.

  One minute she’d been rational, compassionate, the next she’d flipped out. What had happened here? He fought to keep calm, to understand and not just react. Was this a deliberate attempt to push him away? Or had she panicked because it suddenly struck her that this was a logical follow to what he’d said about him and Nicole?

  “Bullshit!” he heard himself snap.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because, yeah, we had a ping of attraction that was physical. Of course it was.”

  Eve blinked a couple of times. Confused. Good, he thought.

  “I’ve met plenty of beautiful women. I bet you’ve met plenty of guys with my coloring. This is the Northwest. We have our share of Scandinavian descendants.”

  She couldn’t argue, because it was true. Forget Kiwanis, Freemasons, Elks—around here, Sons of Norway were big. “Why me?” he asked.

  “I...don’t know.”

  He had her on the run now, he thought with satisfaction.

  “The first hit for me was when you smiled at Rachel,” he told her. “You were genuine, gentle, not condescending. Then you hugged Bailey, when I knew—” He stopped, bracing himself for outrage.

  “Seth has a big mouth,” was all she said.

  He let himself grin. “He does.” The
n he let the silence ride.

  Her forehead crinkled. “I liked the way you were with Rachel, too. And you touched me.”

  Had he?

  “You listened to me. You expressed some of the same worries I have, about letting people down who depend on you.”

  “You care,” he murmured. “That’s what got to me.” He lifted a shoulder, determined to be honest. “Plus, back to the beginning. You’re incredibly sexy.”

  Miracle of miracles, she laughed. “Lucky for me, so are you.”

  “Eve, I know why you’re sensitive. I can only tell you I want everyone to know you belong to me.” Hearing what he’d said, he hid his wince. With me. That’s what he should have said.

  Once again, she confounded him. She whispered, “Thank you. For saying that. And...”

  His eyes narrowed. She’d better not thank him for his interest or kindness or any other crap like that.

  “Putting up with my insecurities.”

  “Funny thing.” He held out his arm, inviting her to come to him again. “Mostly, when I look at you, I see strengths.”

  “Well, damn.” She swiped at her face. “Here I go again.” But she also sat on his lap, wrapped an arm around his neck, and pressed her lips to his scratchy cheek.

  The combination of tears and touch had his heart swelling.

  * * *

  EVE LET HERSELF into the house. “Mom?”

  “Eve?” Her mother popped out of the kitchen. “Honey, I didn’t expect you!”

  “No, I just, um, brought my lunch—” she lifted the brown paper sack “—and thought I’d see if you were home.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Karen beamed. “But I’m sure we can do better than whatever you have in there.”

  “Actually, it’s not half bad. Ben made a really good stir-fry last night, and sent me home with leftovers. If I can use your microwave...” She hoped she wasn’t giving away the nerves she was battling. Maybe this was a really terrible idea.

  “Of course you can.” Her mother, trim as always, in jeans and a tucked-in striped blouse plus polished loafers, led the way to the kitchen. “I’ll share my salad with you, if I can have a taste of your stir-fry.”