Amy and I joined the others, and we all looked over the back fence together.
Most days, the canal floor would be visible here, pale as chalk in some places, bright green with slippery algae in others. But today, because of the unusually rainy fall season, the waters churned, high and brown with sediment.
Amy’s question whirled in my mind like the rushing waters below. A question that would have to be answered, but perhaps better answered by Ben. I wanted to talk to Amy, to help her work though her questions about Melody’s passing. But maybe my willingness to help enabled Ben to distance himself from his children when they should be growing closer as a family.
“Look!” Maryann grabbed Jake’s arm. “I see a snapping turtle!”
“That’s a Red-eared Slider, Doofus.” Jake shook Maryann’s hand off his arm.
Maryann stamped her foot. “I am not a Doofus!”
Seeking distraction from the brewing argument, I walked back toward the house. “Come look at the climbing tree. See that bunch of leaves there at the top?”
“Yeah, I know,” Jake said, his voice bored. “It’s a squirrel nest.”
“Really?” Maryann asked, “Are there any baby squirrels in it?”
I put my arm around her shoulders. “Not now. But I’d bet this tree houses a new batch of babies every spring.”
“I’m hungry,” Amy whined.
I held out a hand to her. “Who wants to go to Bo’s Diner and then to the park?” For once, Jake offered no opposition, and we locked the door on the empty house and piled into the car.
*
On Sunday, Lois took the kids to Sunday school and planned to keep them through the afternoon, so Lizzie and I headed home. On the way, I called Ben to tell him to pick up the kids at Lois and Herb’s house when he got back into town.
“I’m almost home now,” he said. “I left Birmingham at dawn, so you and I could look at the new house together while the kids are at church with Lois. You still have the key?”
I don’t know why I suddenly wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for days. I suppose I was just tired of dealing with other people’s junk. Even if it was good junk, I was sick of it.
“Ben, can’t you look at it by yourself? The key is on your kitchen table.”
“Where are you?”
“I told you, Lizzie and I are going home.”
“I’m pulling into my driveway right now. I’ll get the key. Meet me at the new house.”
I sighed. “Ben, please. I’m tired, and I need to do laundry.”
“Come on, Angel.” His voice was cajoling, sweet, boyish. The same one he’d used to convince me to take my bra off when I was sixteen. “I want us to talk without the kids around. I promise you’ll be back at your house before ten a.m.”
“Fine,” I snapped. Parking in front of my house, I let Lizzie out of the car and marched across the morning-damp grass to let her into the back yard. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I made it in ten, but Ben was already there. His empty car was in the driveway, its hood making pinging noises as it cooled. He had left the house door open a crack, so I went in. “Ben?”
“Up here.” I heard a door close upstairs and then the sound of footsteps in the hall. Looking up, I watched him come down the stairs, wearing jeans and a travel-wrinkled T-shirt, a lopsided grin on his handsome face. “The house is perfect.”
“I’m glad you like it,” I said. “I thought it would work for y’all.”
Ben met me at the bottom of the stairs and pinned me with his intense blue gaze. “This doesn’t upset you, does it? The fact that I want to move out of the house where Melody and I...”
His voice trailed away awkwardly, and I knew why he felt strange talking about this. I had a history with Ben that didn’t include Melody, but I also had a history with Melody that didn’t include Ben. She was my best friend, and I might have felt outraged on her behalf that Ben was ready to abandon the home where they’d shared so many happy years together.
“It’s okay.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “I wasn’t sure moving was the right thing for y’all at first, but I’ve come around. I think this will be perfect for you and the kids.”
Ben sat on the bottom stair and drew me down to sit beside him. “What about you?”
I fiddled with the laces of my Keds. “What about me?”
Ben sighed, and leaned against me. “It’s too early for me to be thinking about starting a relationship, but one of these days, I don’t know when, I will be ready. And when that time comes, you’d be the perfect—”
“Stop right there.” I held up a hand. “I refuse to be anybody’s most convenient choice. Even yours.”
“It’s not that.” Ben put an arm around my shoulders when I would have pulled away. “You know I love you. Like I said before. Always have, always will.”
“I know you’ll always love me. And I’ll always love you. But it’s not the same kind of love you had with Mel.”
“It was, once. And it’s more than a lot of people ever get.”
“Well, I want more.” I leaned my head on his shoulder and snaked an arm around his waist. “Don’t you?”
“I’ve had more. I had more with you, then I had more with Melody. Maybe that’s all I can expect in one lifetime.”
“Ben, I don’t think that’s true.” I squeezed his hand, and held him close with the arm I still had around his waist. “I was your first love, just like you were mine. But Melody was your soul mate. That doesn’t mean you can’t have another. I’d be really sad to see you settle for less. I’d be sad to see me settle for less.”
“You’re my soul mate, too, Casey. You’ve always been a part of me.” Ben looked down at our clasped hands.
I squeezed his hand. “If I hadn’t left, things would have been very different, wouldn’t they?”
“Yeah.” He cuddled me close against his side, and I felt for an instant what it would have been like to have been sheltered by this man for all of my adult life.
“Ben...” I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know. “If I had stayed here, would you have chosen me instead of Mel?”
He was silent for a moment, and I knew I shouldn’t have asked the question. To even think it wasn’t fair to Melody’s memory.
“Angel...”
“I’m sorry.” I drew my hand out of his grasp and placed my fingers over his lips. “That was selfish and stupid of me.”
Ben clasped my hand and kissed my fingers. “I don’t think Melody would mind if I told you this. I did choose you. I had already packed my bags to leave for New York when she found out she was pregnant with Jake. We’d gotten drunk together and consoled each other, just once, because we missed you. Jake happened, and I couldn’t afford to look back. I had to make it work with Melody, no matter what my heart wanted.”
I burrowed close against Ben’s side and savored the comfort his lean body offered. I had already guessed as much. To have it confirmed didn’t give the rush of vindication I’d expected, but I felt a warm flow of acceptance that events had unfolded exactly as they should. Maybe the things we’d wanted hadn’t been the right things, so fate had intervened and helped each of us to follow the path that had been pre-ordained. “So you and Melody made it work.”
“We did.” Ben unglued his hand from mine and wiped his eyes. “If we hadn’t, we’d have ruined our lives, and yours, and Jake’s. We had to forget the past and learn to love each other as more than friends. We had to learn to be more than two of the Three Musketeers. We did what we had to do to stay together, and somehow we created something bigger than both of us. I guess we turned into soulmates, despite ourselves.”
I leaned against his shoulder. “I wonder why you and I keep circling back to this place, when we’re obviously not meant to be together.”
Ben stiffened. “I don’t know what’s so obvious.”
“Ben, I love you, and I love your kids, but I’d always feel like I was betraying Melody if we ever... you know.”
&nbs
p; Ben pulled me into a full hug, turning me toward him so he could put both arms around me. “You were never second choice with me. And if Melody had a choice, I know she’d choose you to take her place.”
His words were so close to what Melody had said, a shiver skimmed along my spine. I hugged Ben, then pulled away. I loved Mel, and I loved Ben. We had been the Three Musketeers, once. But now, we had to move on and find our own identities, separate from each other, but maybe still connected in all the ways that mattered. “We need to talk.”
Ben took his cue from me and put a little distance between us, leaning back on his elbows against the stairs. “About what?”
“I don’t know if you’ve looked at the school calendar, but the kids have Thanksgiving break all this week.”
“Yeah. Lois invited us to her house for Turkey Day. You too, of course.”
I brushed the invitation away, a fly at my shoulder. “Sometime this week, you need to take the kids to get a Christmas tree. The best ones are at the tree farm in Ferndale. The grocery store trees aren’t fresh. You’ll spend all your time sweeping up dead pine needles.”
Ben smiled, just a little upward curve at the corners of his mouth. “You are so bossy.”
“I’m just telling you what Melody would want you to do.” I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees and looked back at him. “Christmas will sneak up on you before you know it. Take each kid separately to buy gifts for the others. I’ll babysit if you need me to. Go out for ice cream or some other treat while you’re shopping. It’s important that you spend quality time alone with each child. And I’m not just talking about this shopping thing. Understand?”
Ben nodded. He was beginning to look a little shell-shocked, but I wasn’t done.
“I’ve made a list—top drawer of your roll-top desk—of who each child needs to shop for, in case you don’t know. Teachers, best friends, relatives.”
“God, Casey.” He made the little “Tsss...” sound between his teeth that meant he was getting a belly full, so I hurried with the rest.
“Take Amy to visit Santa at the mall. Listen to what she asks for, and buy it as soon as you can. The stores run out of the most popular toys. Jake and Maryann won’t do the Santa thing. You’ll have to ask. But buy everything early, or you’ll never be able to find it all.”
“You are so mean,” he teased, trying to lighten the mood.
“I’m almost finished.” This was the hard part. I hadn’t meant to say any of this, but laying my burden down on Ben’s capable shoulders suddenly felt like the right thing to do. “You know I love you.”
Ben leaned forward. “Of course I do.”
“You know I love your children, and I would lay down my life for any one of you.”
“Oh, Casey.” He reached out to me.
I pushed him away. “If you or the kids ever need me, I’m there for you. But.” I took a deep breath. “Y’all need to stand on your own feet. If I keep showing up, interfering, then you don’t get the chance to grow together the way Melody would have wanted. I’ve sacrificed part of my life to allow you to be absent from yours.”
“Angel.” I heard all the words he couldn’t say—I’m sorry, I love you, I’ll always love you, I wanted you but I couldn’t change what happened. “I didn’t mean to take advantage.”
“I know you didn’t. Everything I did for you or the kids, I did because I wanted to. Because I love them, and I loved Melody, and I’ll always love you, no matter what. ”
He tugged me close, and this time I let him.
“Even though you’re an idiot,” I felt I had to add, “a lot of the time.”
“Point taken.” We sat there for a while, absorbing each other’s energy. After a second, we moved apart. He leaned against the wall and I leaned against the stair rail. He nudged my knee with his, his blue eyes solemn. “Go on. I know you’re not done.”
I took a breath before the plunge. “The thing is, we all need to move on. And when you find someone to share your life, it needs to be because you love her more than you need her.”
“I’m not sure I agree, but I’m listening.” He reached for my hand, straightening out my fingers and stroking down their length the way Ian had done.
Ben’s touch imparted cool comfort. Ian’s had ignited passionate heat. “Ben, it’s my turn to find my soul mate.”
“You and the Newspaper Nazi?” Ben squeezed my hand.
“Don’t you ever tell Ian I called him that.” I scowled and pointed a finger at his face. “I know people who’d murder you for fifty dollars and toss you into the canal. And some owe me money for their kids’ ballet lessons.”
“I won’t.” But his promise was made with a grin that looked a little too devilish for my liking.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” I said. “Ian is leaving, and we all know how well long-distance relationships work out.”
Ben took my face in his hands and pinned me with his intense blue gaze. “I was stupid back then, punishing us all because I couldn’t have you in exactly the way I wanted. I won’t be that stupid again.” His hands slid from my face to my shoulders. “I understand that if you don’t try with Ian, you’ll always wonder what might have happened if you had. If he’s what you want, I’ll back off. At least for now. But if it doesn’t work out, I’ll be waiting.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Back home, before ten a.m. as Ben had promised, I dumped my dirty clothes into the washer and started weekend house-cleaning.
I planned to call Ian later, but first I was going to take this time alone, scrubbing and vacuuming and mopping and thinking. I had already made my decision, but I still needed to make peace with it. My ego rebelled against my heart’s choice, but I planned to offer to drive—Hell, I’d walk, if I had to—all the way to South Carolina on weekends. I was willing to work at building a lasting relationship. What I was not willing to do, was to be Ian’s no-strings-attached weekend-fuck-buddy. He could take me or leave me on those terms.
The church bells down the street signaled the end of the morning service. I didn’t hear the doorbell, but Lizzie’s happy bark announced Ian’s tall, broad-shouldered form standing behind the thick beveled glass door.
I’d been cleaning for a good hour and a half, so I looked like a dirt-smeared homeless person. I wrenched open the door and faced him with a belligerent yet hopeful stare. “Yes?”
He grinned a sexy, lopsided grin that was totally unwarranted given the fact that we weren’t exactly on speaking terms. “Hi.”
I cocked my weight back on one hip and pretended I was wearing motorcycle leathers instead of slouchy socks and ratty sweats. “Your dime, start talking.”
He shouldered past me, petting Lizzie on the head and breathing all the air in my living room. “Pack a bag for the night.”
I drew myself up. “What makes you think I’m going anywhere with you?”
He strode down the hall, veering into the laundry nook to pick up the empty duffel bag I’d left in front of the washer. “I’m not asking permission.” He marched into my bedroom and tossed the duffel onto the freshly-made bed. “I’ll kidnap you, if that’s what it takes to make you listen to me.”
“You’ve had success with this caveman attitude in the past?” I trotted after him, hovering in my bedroom doorway while he opened my closet door.
“Where’s that black velvet dress?”
“I have no idea which dress you’re talking about,” I lied, remembering his fully clothed body spread across my naked one.
“Ah, here it is.” He took down a hanger and whipped off the dress, then wadded the velvet into a ball and stuffed it into the duffel.
“Wait!” I rushed forward and retrieved the dress, holding it against me to fold it properly. “You’ll wrinkle it.” Washable velvet didn’t wrinkle easily, but he didn’t know that.
“Underwear.”
Turning toward my dresser, he opened the top drawer and took out the first scrap of fabric he touched, a tattered old pair of yellowed gr
anny panties I reserved for the heaviest days of my period.
“Not those!” I snatched them out of his hand and buried them at the bottom of the drawer.
Ian backed off and crossed his arms over his chest. “You pack, then.”
I brushed past him and took out black thongs, a lacy, high-rise pair with just enough spandex for tummy control. “Where are we going?”
He looked smug. “I’m not telling.”
I eyed him. He wore a tan cotton sweater that draped deliciously over every ridge of his divine torso, and tight-enough faded gray jeans. “Do I get to change before we go?”
He eyed me right back, his gaze roaming over my sweaty, tangled hair and grimy, holey sweats. “Do what you want. You look fine to me.”
It would serve him right if I didn’t bother to change clothes. Whipping the sweatshirt off over my head, I tossed it aside and skimmed sweats, panties, and socks down in one smooth stroke. Enjoying his widened eyes and the slight flare of his nostrils, I stood before him naked. “Maybe I should go like this?”
He grinned. “I doubt we’d get far.”
“Go wait in the living room while I take a shower.”
I took the quickest cold shower in the history of the world. I had used up all the hot water doing laundry, but the cold water didn’t dampen my mixed emotions. Crackling with energy, desperate hope, and sexual excitement, I drew the black dress on over my wet head and stepped into the sexiest black pumps I owned.
I stuffed the panties I wasn’t wearing, the hairbrush I’d just used, and a change of clothes into the duffel. Yanking open my pajama drawer, I added a peach-colored silk-and-lace nightgown. Tromping into the bathroom, I grabbed the still-packed toiletry bag and shoved it on top, then zipped the whole thing up.
“I’m ready.” I threw the words out like the challenge they were.
Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1) Page 23
