“Are you warm enough?” Ben asked her as he touched her cheek. “I had Dovie pack us a thermos of cocoa. It might be a little bumpy now to have some, but as soon as we stop I can pour you a cup.”
“I’m fine.” She leaned against him. “And if I forget to thank you later for tonight, thank you.”
*
Once they got to the lighting Dina wanted to get out and stand with the crowd. She had rung in the New Year in Times Square. She had been in the stands when the Yankees won the World Series. Both crowds had some sort of amazing electricity running through them, but there was something different about this crowd, something she really wanted to be a part of. Maybe because it was made up of families drunk on happiness and hot cocoa instead of booze. Or maybe it was that this gathering was what Christmas was really about.
“It hasn’t changed much since the last time I was here,” Ben said, breaking her from her thoughts. “It’s almost like I can feel my mother here. I haven’t felt her in a very long time.”
Dina looked up at Ben, who was looking away from her at the unlit tree. She thought she saw tears in his eyes for a moment, but when she looked again they weren’t there. Seeing him miss his mother made her miss hers; it made her wonder what her family was doing that night. It made her think about seeing them again. She slipped her hand into his seeking comfort. Their fingers locked. But that wasn’t enough for either of them, it seemed, because he pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her. She had never been hugged like this before. Held so close to somebody that she didn’t know where he ended and she began.
Suddenly people around them began to count down. He let go of her then. She missed his warmth, but it was only for a moment. He lifted a sleepy Dash from his stroller so he wouldn’t miss the magic and pulled her close to him again just as the tree lit. And as if on cue everyone around them starting to sing “Silent Night.” Even Ben in his beautiful baritone. Dina was speechless. She had never experienced anything like this and she didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want to go through the rest of her life without feeling this feeling again.
Ben looked at her, took her chin in his free hand and pressed his mouth to hers. She gasped at the contact, but he didn’t move away; instead he deepened the kiss, allowing her to taste the hot chocolate still on his lips. It was the sweetest kiss of her life and another thing that she didn’t want to end.
She loved him. In five days she had fallen totally and completely in love.
*
Dina was quiet the entire ride home, but the small smile never slipped from her face. He knew he had made her happy. The carriage ride was a nice touch, but he knew she would have been happy without it. It was the tree lighting, standing there in the cold night with the entire town, feeling the excitement in the air. He could see the wonder in her eyes. They mirrored how he was feeling.
“Ma Ma Ma.” Ben looked down at Dash in his arms. The boy had being speaking long sentences of baby babble the entire ride home and clapping his hands and bucking his little body. He was still wound up from all the festivities, a squirmy little ball of energy. Ben couldn’t blame him, though. It was exactly how Ben felt when he returned from tree lightings as a kid.
“He’s never going to sleep,” Dina said with a smile. “You’re a little party animal, aren’t you, baby?” She kissed his forehead and looked up at Ben. “Would you mind watching him for a little while so I can take a shower?”
“Take as long as you need. We’ll be in my bedroom.”
She looked at him for a long moment, placing her hand on his arm. “I didn’t realize how hard it was to raise him alone until I met you. You’ve been wonderful with him. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I haven’t done much.”
“You took me in, a stranger that you didn’t know from anywhere, and you were kind to me and my son. That’s a hell of a lot more than anybody has ever done for us.”
He didn’t know how to react to her gratitude, to the emotion in her eyes. He didn’t take her and Dash in to help them. He took them in because he was a selfish man. He took him in so he could feel a little bit of the happiness that eluded him for so long.
“Go take your shower,” he said, feeling uncomfortable with her gratitude. “We’ll be here when you get out.”
He walked into his quiet room, immediately noticing that it felt so different to him than it used to. It was no longer just an empty room to keep his extra clothes in. It felt lived in. It felt like a place he could truly feel comfortable. It didn’t feel lonely anymore. He set a still-babbling Dash on his bed and looked at him for a long time. He couldn’t help himself. The boy looked so much like his grandfather, like Ben, that it was hard to see any traces of Virgil in him at all. Ever since Dash had showed up he had been thinking about Virgil, about what he would think of all this, about how would he feel about Ben taking his place.
But he knew his brother well enough to know that Virgil never wanted this, a family of his own, a son.
It all made Ben think that things happened for a reason. That Dash was supposed to be in his life.
“Hi,” Dash said, shaking Ben from his thoughts.
“I’m staring at you again. I know. I can’t help it.” He brushed his hand over Dash’s soft hair. “I’ve become that creepy uncle. I’d much rather be your overprotective father. But what should I do about your mother?”
Dash gurgled something at him and then threw himself back on the bed and began to have a conversation with the ceiling. Ben lay next to him, holding his little hand as he let his thoughts overtake him.
Being with her at the tree lighting, seeing her happiness that night, had caused him to come to a realization. He didn’t want Dina to stay. It had gone way past that point. He needed her to stay. To fill up his days. To make him feel things again. If she left he couldn’t go back to the way things were. He would feel empty. He would miss his family.
“Is he sleepy yet?” Dina walked in. Her hair was loose around her shoulders. She wore a short pink nightgown, her longs legs bare and soft looking. He watched her walk closer, her hips swaying slightly as she did. He wondered if she had any idea what he really thought about her. If she had any idea what she did to him every time she walked into a room.
“I’m afraid not. He hasn’t stopped talking since you left. I’m afraid the boy is a blabbermouth just like his mother.”
“Hey!” She climbed onto Ben’s bed, her nightgown rising up, giving him a glimpse of her supersoft-looking thighs. “I’m not a blabbermouth. I just have a very highly developed vocabulary. I scored very high on that part of my SATs. I bombed the math part, though. Bombed it. With a capital B. I was surprised that I got into any college at all. But then again, when both your parents teach at the university it’s really hard for them to deny you. I wonder how many favors they had to pull to get me in there. I bet you my mother had to turn tricks just so they would pass me. Getting Dumb Dina through college must have taken a lot of them. No wonder they were so relieved when my sister got into two Ivy League schools.”
“You see, son,” Ben said to Dash. “She can’t help herself.” He looked up at her. “You’re not dumb. You’re just hyper.”
“A little,” she conceded. She climbed under his covers, lifting Dash up to snuggle with him. “Get in here with us, Daddy.”
He undressed, slipped into his sleep pants and settled in beside them. Even if he wanted to stay away from her, he couldn’t resist her pull tonight. He wanted to be near her and near Dash and nothing was going to change that.
“I feel like this night should end with something special,” she said. “Like we should watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Or … I don’t know. How did you end this night when you were a kid?”
“We fell asleep on the floor in front of the fireplace.” He lifted his hand to her cheek. “You want to do that?”
“Would you?”
“If you wanted to.”
“You’re insane, you know.”
“I know. I normally
would wait seven days before I let a strange woman and child into my bed.”
She grinned at him. “I always was fast.”
They grinned at each other for a moment before Dina returned her attention to Dash. “I think he’s finally settling down.”
“He should be. It’s been a long day.” Ben could see the sleepiness in her eyes too. He knew how hard she had worked to make the house look and feel like Christmas. “For you too, Mommy. The house looks beautiful.”
“You don’t think I went overboard? It looks like Christmas threw up in here.”
He shook his head. “Sometimes overboard is just enough.”
They fell quiet then, the day finally catching up with them. Dina’s eyes fluttered closed first and then Dash’s. Ben watched them sleep for a little while. Dash looked so much like a Rowe, but Ben could see Dina in him too. His forehead, the shape of his nose. The way he slept with his hand nestled against his cheek.
Ben lifted Dash away from his sleeping mother and put the boy to bed in the nursery. Dina didn’t wake then, nor did she when Ben returned to his bed and settled beside her. She moved closer to him in her sleep, pressing her warm, soft body against his, curling her arm around his chest like it was the most natural thing in the world.
In the back of his mind he thought about waking her up, about sending her to her own room, about sleeping alone, but he knew he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t send her away. So he gathered her closer.
She woke up then and blinked at him. “I dreamed I was in bed with a very sexy man. How disappointing to find you here.”
He grinned at her smart-ass remark, noting that she didn’t move away from him. If anything she got closer.
“I guess I should head to my own bed now.”
“Or”—he sat up, pulling her along with him—“you could stay here.”
He pulled her nightgown off over her head. She was nude underneath, no underwear in sight. He pushed her back on the bed, pulling the blankets away from her so that he could look at her body. He couldn’t take his eyes away from her. Smooth skin, soft belly, a body made up of nothing but curves. His mouth watered. His erection strained against his pants and for a moment he was paralyzed, because it was almost too much for him.
He bent and pressed a kiss to her stomach. She trembled, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Are you okay with this, Dina?”
“What? Being made love to by a man who turns me on just by talking? Yup.” She nodded. “I think I’m okay with that.”
“Good.” He knelt between her legs, wrapping each long limb around his waist. He smoothed his hands over her hips and groaned. She felt like a woman should feel, like a culmination of all his teenaged fantasies and adult dirty dreams.
“You really like this?” she asked, surprised.
“What? Sex? It may have been a while since I’ve attempted it, but I like sex very much.”
“The way I look. I’m not the same girl I used to be.”
“I’m supremely glad you’re not the same girl you used to be. I like your weight. I like your curves. I want to eat you like an apple.”
“Oh?”
He slid his hands up her torso, lightly cupping her breasts in his hands. She moaned a little, and when he brushed his fingertips over her nipples she arched her body towards him. “I don’t know where to start with you. Every bit looks good.”
“You could kiss me.”
“Where?” He pressed his lips to the undersides of her breasts. “Here?” He took her nipple into his mouth, enjoying the gasp of pleasure she made as he suckled. “Is that where you wanted to be kissed?”
He shifted himself so he could lift her long leg. He kissed the sole of her foot and then her ankle. He brushed his lips over her calf and the sensitive space behind her knee. He pressed his face to the inside of her thigh, smelling her sweet smell, wanting to taste her, but she stopped him.
“Is it my turn yet?” She reached for him, pulling his hard body on top of hers, rubbing her naked chest against his. “I need to kiss you.” But instead of connecting her mouth to his she kissed his Adam’s apple, and the seam of his jaw. She kissed his nose and eyelids and cheeks. He had never been kissed like this before. All over. With such sweetness. He never thought he wanted to be kissed like this, but now that he experienced it he knew he couldn’t go back to living his life without it. He had been feeling that way a lot when it came to her.
“You’re just what I needed, Benjamin Rowe.” She slid her lips to his and kissed him. And it all became too much. Her taste, her smell, the way she made him feel, what she did to his heart.
“Dina,” he whispered. He felt frantic, the need to be with her, inside her, overwhelmed him and he shook, his hands, his body. She seemed to realize this and hooked her fingers into his pants, pulling them down as she pulled herself closer to him. But he couldn’t wait; as soon as he was free he pushed into her slow and hard. She cried out and dug her fingers into his back and wrapped herself around him so tightly he didn’t think she was ever going to let go. And he didn’t want her to. For the first time in a very long time. He was exactly where he wanted to be.
*
Dina woke up the next morning with her limbs tangled with Ben’s. Their chests were pressed together; his hand was buried in her hair; their lips were inches apart. She had never slept like this before, completely wrapped up in another person, but she liked it. She liked it because she was wrapped up in Ben. There was nobody else she had felt this close to.
“Stop staring at me,” he said in a rough, sleepy voice. “It’s creeping me out.” She smiled at him as he leaned closer and sealed his lips to hers. “Your smile,” he said into her mouth. “It looks so good I could eat it.”
“Now who’s being creepy?”
He rolled her on her back, covering her body with his. He was ready to make love again. She could feel him against her leg, but he made no move. He just cupped her face in his hands and smiled down at her. “You bring it out in me.”
She reached up and ran her fingers through his dark hair, needing to feel that much closer to him. “How are you this morning?”
“A beautiful woman let me make love to her for hours last night.” He shrugged. “All in all it was a normal Friday night for me.”
“Oh, lord.” She rolled her eyes. “You sound like Virgil when you say shit like that.”
He froze at the mention of his brother’s name. She hadn’t meant to bring him up, especially now, but his name had slipped from her lips.
“Did you love him?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I feel guilty about it sometimes. He gave me Dash, I should love him, but it wasn’t like that. Who knew I would end up in bed with his brother?”
He didn’t say anything at first, just buried his nose in her neck.
“Ben?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you tell me about her?”
“Who?” He lifted his head to look in her eyes.
“Your wife. I want to know about Karen.”
He rolled away from her onto his back. She felt him go rigid again, but this time he wouldn’t look at her and she knew she had hit a nerve.
“I don’t want to talk about this now.”
“Why not? She’s part of your life and now so am I. I think I should know about her.”
He shook his head, continuing to stare up at the ceiling. And she realized that maybe she wasn’t going to be a part of his life like she thought, like she had hoped. He wanted her only for her son. He would never fully let her in.
“She had cancer. Cervical cancer. She knew she was sick. She knew she was dying, but she never said a word to me. I didn’t find out until after she died. Is that enough to satisfy your curiosity?”
“Yeah. Thanks for sharing.” She got out of bed, finding her discarded nightgown on the floor before she walked out.
Chapter 10
It’s That Time of Year When the World Falls in Love …
“Have you seen Dina?” Ben asked
Dovie after fifteen minutes of searching the house. He hadn’t seen a sign of her or Dash since he dragged himself out of bed over two hours ago.
Dovie looked up from the tiny blanket she was just starting to quilt. “You did something, Ben.”
“Did I?”
“The girl hasn’t said a word all day, and since she usually is unable to stop talking there must be something wrong with her. And since the two of you spent all night and half the morning in your bedroom I think you might be the cause of her silence.”
“Shit.”
Dovie raised one of her white brows at him, but he didn’t apologize. He knew his silence this morning bothered Dina, but he couldn’t talk to her about Karen. He felt guilty. The wife he sworn he would be devoted to slipped out of his mind when he was with Dina, and so did the heavy sorrow that came along with every thought of Karen. He didn’t think about her once last night.
She had been gone nine years and in that time there had been other women around him. The opportunity for him to move on had passed him half a dozen times, but he never did. He never thought he could. But now was the time. He could finally do it with Dina. If he could only convince her.
“Where is she?”
“She took Dash and headed out the door fifteen minutes ago.”
“She left?” Panic rose inside him. “But her things are here. Did she take a cab? Why didn’t you find me?”
“I didn’t say she left. I said she went outside. Is there something you want to tell me about you and Miss Dina?”
“Only that I want her to stay.”
He left Dovie then and headed outside to find his family.
He found them in the back of the house, in the formal gardens where the dahlias grew in the summertime. Dash was bundled in his down coat, snowsuit, boots and hat. Ben could barely see Dash’s little face, he was so covered, but he couldn’t help but notice what the boy was sitting on. A wooden toboggan that Dina found in the attic. It used to be Ben’s. But he hadn’t been sledding since … since … He couldn’t remember.
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