by Jill Shalvis
“So you wanted me with Adam because that would make me only a little happy, and you could be happier than me and feel better about yourself.” She nodded. “In some twisted way I actually understand that. And not telling me about Garrett, well…that’s your business, I suppose. But Mel, what I don’t understand is lying about Ben.”
“Yeah, join the club.” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “Look, Rach, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you did. When you told me those things about Ben, I believed you, and it changed how I thought about him for years. Years, Mel. What you did was incredibly selfish.”
“Yes.” Okay, this was not going as smooth as she’d hoped. “But in all fairness, that’s really nothing new, right?” She tried a smile.
Rachel didn’t return it.
“I’m trying to make it right,” Mel whispered. “I’m trying to fix things.”
“You can’t always do that.”
“Rach—”
“Okay, stop.” She put her fingers to her temples. “You know what? I just need to think. I need to be alone.”
Her chest feeling restricted, Mel nodded. “All right, I’ll just go inside—”
“No. I think you should go home.” Then she turned away.
Rachel couldn’t help it, she was reeling. Mel had tried to sabotage her happiness. That was really nothing new or shocking. But that her sister of all people had come up with an astute, accurate and horrifying reason for Ben walking away from her. Twice.
And Rachel had missed it. How she had was beyond her.
Of course Ben was extremely sensitive to not staying where he wasn’t wanted—he’d grown up that way.
Of course he’d walk away without looking back if someone said to go. No one had ever cared if he’d stayed or gone, not ever.
She’d been trying so desperately to protect herself from hurt, and in doing so she’d hurt the one person who truly, unconditionally loved her. That ugly truth would haunt her forever.
And yet she had no idea, no idea at all, how to fix it.
MELANIE RACED through Rachel’s house like the devil himself was on her heels, emotions flogging her with every step—remorse, anger, humiliation, regret… Without Rachel’s forgiveness, her entire world had splintered.
Go home.
Well, damn it, she didn’t have a home, she had a leased condo she could no longer afford, with someone else’s furniture in it, and someone else’s tastes on the walls. Unlike Rachel, who’d taken from their childhood a need to settle and had followed through with that need, Melanie had done nothing for herself. She hadn’t really cared to.
By the time she slammed out the front door, her throat was closed, her heart shriveled, and she could hardly see for the tears pooling in her eyes, the tears she refused to let fall.
She took a step toward her car, or at least that’s the message her brain signaled to her body, but suddenly she found herself running, running like hell across the neighboring lawn and up to the front door there, knocking with three bold knocks.
After a moment, Garrett answered. He wore trousers and an open shirt exposing a wedge of hard chest spattered with dark hair, a chest she knew to be warm and perfectly capable of holding her weight while she burrowed in.
“Melanie,” he said with surprise.
She took one look into his face, with his dark, passionate eyes and wide, firm mouth that always, always, spoke the truth, no matter what, and did the most horrifying thing.
She burst into tears and covered her face.
A steady hand settled on her elbow, just a simple, comforting touch. It made her fall apart even more, and her breath hitched in her chest as she continued to sob, utterly unable to stop.
“Are you coming in?” His other hand came up to steady her as well. “Yes or no, sweetheart. You come in and we deal with this, all of it, or you run off again. You make the call.”
“I can’t….”
“Yes or no,” he repeated quietly.
“Yes!”
He drew her in. She heard the door shut, but resisted when he tried to pull her close because though her feet had brought her here, she still didn’t feel like she deserved his sympathy.
“Come here,” he said, and ran his hands up and down her spine, not grabbing her butt, not trying to cop a feel, just…holding her.
She couldn’t remember a time when a man had offered her such simple comfort, wanting nothing in return. Or if she’d ever wanted one to. But she wanted that now, so much. Gripping his shirt in her fists, she buried her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent, wetting his skin, feeling soothed by the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear. She had no idea how long they stood there, with buckets of her tears falling at their feet, the sounds of her crying muffled by his shoulder and the occasional wordless murmur he made as he held her.
Eventually she ran out of steam, which left her drained and weary. His hand swept back up her spine, gently stroking the back of her neck, before sinking his fingers into her hair to tug her face up. “Better?”
She sniffed, and for once didn’t care that her mascara was probably all over her face or that she needed to blow her nose. “Yes,” she said, marveling that it was true.
He led her through his living room to his kitchen, where he sat her at a bar stool and poured a glass of water for her parched throat. When she’d taken a long sip, he sat next to her. Reaching for her hand, he brought it up to his mouth. “Talk to me.”
She stared at him, feeling goose bumps rise on her arms from nothing more than the feel of his mouth on her palm. Lust, yes, but good God, this was more than any simple lust she’d ever felt. “Garrett…” She let out a surprised little laugh. “I can’t think with your mouth on me.”
“That’s new,” he said, and set her hand back on the counter.
“Yeah…no,” she corrected, and nervously licked her lips. She was anxious, she realized. With a man. She was never anxious with a man. “It’s not new. I’ve felt this way around you for a long time, I just couldn’t admit it to myself, much less you.”
His eyes lit with such emotion she could hardly breathe. “Can you tell me why you’re here? Why you came to me?”
“Because you’re the only one I wanted to come to.” Every time she spoke, revealing another little truth she’d kept to herself, it was like lifting a brick off her heart. “You were right before.”
“Really? About what?”
“That I was hurting Rachel. That I did it because I wanted a little tiny bit of what I saw in her eyes. Some of that happiness.” She put a hand on her heart as it hitched. “I didn’t know I had to get it from within me.”
“Have you found that happiness?”
“I’m not sure,” she answered honestly, and another brick came off her chest. “I went to Rachel, tried to tell her how sorry I was…it didn’t go well. I was running away, you know. Running home, but then I realized, I don’t have one. And then I ended up here.” She looked into his eyes. One more brick fell away. “I wanted to be with you all along. I was just terrified of that wanting. Oh, Garrett.” She reached for his hand and squeezed, hoping to God she wasn’t too late.
He cupped her cheek. “Are you talking love?”
She held her breath, then let it out slowly, no longer willing to cajole, coax or lie. Not ever again. “I don’t really know the meaning of the word. I was thinking…” She stared at his fingers.
“Yes?”
What was it about him that gave her such strength, such hope? She looked into his eyes. “Maybe you could help me out with that.”
His smile was slow and full and filled her with such hope it hurt to breathe. “How’s this for a start? I love you, Melanie Wellers. I love you with everything I’ve got. That means that I think of you night and day, and being with you makes me feel alive. I want you happy. Do you think that could work for you, love in that context?”
“Oh, yes,” she gasped, starting to cry again. “And in that context, Garret
t, I can honestly say…I love you back.”
“Be sure,” he said a little huskily now, getting off the stool to stand between her legs. He slid his hands into her hair. “Because I play for keeps.”
“For keeps is good,” she whispered, and reached up for a kiss to seal the deal.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ON TUESDAY, Ben drove them into Los Angeles. Rachel rode shotgun, staring silently out the window. Emily, in the back seat, sat surprisingly quiet as well, a set of headphones on her ears that might have been a brick wall between them for all she even looked at her parents.
The silence stretched, then stretched some more, until the tension in the car became the fourth passenger. Ben knew why Rachel was quiet; there was a whole host of reasons for that. She resented him for leaving, she didn’t want to be here, she didn’t want her daughter to be here.
But Emily, her silence seemed out of character for the preteen who lately had only two gears—fast-asleep and hyperspeed.
“You cool enough?” he asked Rachel, reaching for the air-conditioning.
She didn’t look at him. “Fine.”
He glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure Emily’s head was still bopping to the music only she could hear. “Look, Rach, I wish things could be different.”
“Really? What things?”
“Us, damn it. I know there are things about me that…”
“That what, Ben?”
“That scare you.”
Now her eyes frosted over to match her voice. “You don’t scare me.”
“Bullshit.” He checked the rearview mirror again. “Come on, Rach, truth. We don’t enough time left for anything else.”
“Okay.” She took off her sunglasses. “Truth. Because God knows how important the truth is when you’re getting on a plane in a couple of hours.”
“It is important.” He glanced at her, needing her to agree.
“Yeah, okay.” She closed her eyes. “You’re right. It is. And yes, you scare me.”
The victory was hollow. “This is who I am,” he said quietly. “It’s always been who I am. You’re the most important person in my life, you and Emily, and I’d do anything for you. Anything. Except hold back. I’ve tried and I can’t, not even for you.”
Her eyes filled. “I know.” She no longer looked cold and frosty, just…sad. “I know. Ben, let’s just do this, okay? And get it over with.”
Get it over with. The goodbye, she meant. But first they had Emily’s friend Alicia to meet, and suddenly, inexplicably, Ben felt uneasy about that. It made no sense, of course. They’d gone camping, they’d let Emily ride a school bus, they’d lowered their guard all over the place, slowly, gradually.
And Asada was dead.
He glanced at Emily again, his baby, his precious daughter whom he’d spent far too little time with. “God, I have no idea what I was thinking, urging her out of her shell, letting her do this. It’s crazy.”
Rachel sighed. “It’ll be good for her to stretch her boundaries, good for both of us. I’ve kept us so contained, Ben, and all because of my own fears and insecurities.”
He reached for her hand. “It’s not your fault, it’s the way you grew up moving around like a vagabond. You want to stay still now and have a real home. That’s understandable.”
“Well, you didn’t grow up any easier than I did, and you’re—”
“What? Consumed by the opposite need?” he asked wryly. “I guess we’re both screwed up.”
“There’s got to be a happy medium, for Emily.” She squeezed his fingers. “I want to give her that. No more hiding behind my insecurities and fear. If nothing else, you taught me that.”
Unbearably touched, he didn’t know what to say. And as Emily pulled off her headphones, it didn’t matter.
“We there yet?” she asked, scowling when both her parents laughed. “What?”
“The age-old question,” Rachel said, and pulled her hand from Ben’s.
The loss had his smile fading. It was really almost over. Within a couple of hours, he’d have what he’d wanted so badly. His freedom.
Only he couldn’t remember why he’d even wanted it so badly or what he was running to.
EMILY HAD ARRANGED to meet Alicia at five o’clock. It was ten minutes until the hour and Ben circled the block yet again, unable to find a parking spot.
“Let me out,” Emily said from the back seat. “I’ll go get us a table.”
“No way,” Ben said.
“I have to go to the bathroom, Dad!”
“I’ll go with her,” Rachel said to Ben.
“Mom!”
“Either you hold it or you go with your mom.” Ben shocked himself with how much like a father he sounded. He nearly laughed at the thought, except that he liked sounding like a father, and this was his last chance to do it for a while.
After one more circle of the block, Emily was bouncing off the walls in the back seat. “I have to go!”
“Fine.” Stressed out, and with no reason for it, Ben pulled over. He grabbed Rachel’s hand as she left the car. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”
He had no idea what the sudden panic was about, but his instincts had saved his life more than once.
“Ben—”
“Just promise me.”
And only when Rachel nodded did he let go of her hand. “I’ll be right there,” he promised, silently vowing to park illegally, ditch the car, whatever it took.
It was still an agonizing five minutes before he ran back to the restaurant, out of breath from adrenaline and anxiety by the time he got there.
Naturally, the place was packed. For a interminably long moment he couldn’t find either Rachel or Emily, and his heart stopped, though he had no idea what he thought could happen in such a busy place.
“Ben.” From behind, Rachel put her hand on her arm. “We’re waiting for a table, the hostess said it’d only be a moment because we had reservations.”
“Emily,” he said hoarsely. “Where’s—”
“Bathroom.”
“Which way?”
She frowned. “Behind the bar, but— Ben?” she called after him as he took off, weaving through the people to get behind the bar.
A waiter with a full tray growled at him when he nearly plowed him over in his haste. Then a three-hundred-pound woman inadvertently blocked his way, and they did a sort of dance trying to get around each other in the narrow hallway. Finally he dived under her arm to get around her.
Rachel did the same. “There,” she said, pointing to the women’s bathroom. “There’s only one stall in there, so she locked the door and I came back to find you.”
Innocent. Easy. So why were his instincts screaming? He tried the door handle, still locked. “Emily?”
To her credit, Rachel didn’t doubt the panic she could no doubt see in his eyes. She knocked on the door. “Emily!” She looked at Ben with her own sudden panic. “Why isn’t she answering?”
Because there was no Alicia. Ben knew that with a sudden, painful clarity. Alicia was Asada, who wasn’t dead at all. Ben should have never believed that without a body. And he’d just hand-delivered his daughter to the man. Using his shoulder, he plowed into the door. The wood jamb started to splinter, and he did it again.
“Hey!” The bartender got a look at what they were doing and started to round the bar. “Get back from there—” he shouted just as the door gave, propelling Ben inside the bathroom.
Emily was on the floor, bound and gagged, with a two-ton goon kneeling at her side shoving a needle into her arm. A second goon had removed the window and was reaching down for Emily’s lifeless body.
Ben lunged for him, and they both went down like a load of concrete to the tile floor. He got one punch in before he was rolled to his back and socked in the head. Stars danced across his vision, cutting off for a new pain when he took another in the gut. Using his knee as effectively as he could from flat on the floor, Ben leveled it into the guy’s crotch, then nearly suff
ocated when all two hundred pounds of solid muscle landed on him, knocking the air from his lungs. Trying to shove free of the dead weight, he died a thousand deaths at the sound of Rachel’s sudden scream.
The other goon had dropped Emily and turned toward Rachel, knife out, an unholy gleam in his eye.
Rachel lifted something and sprayed. Mace, Ben thought with a surge of pride as the man screamed and dropped like a sack of potatoes.
Rachel looked up at Ben, her eyes dilated. “Ben!”
He whipped around just in time to watch goon number one, still holding his family jewels with one hand, pull a gun from his pocket with the other. “I’m going to shoot yours right off,” he growled, and believing him, Ben took a flying leap at him.
Not quite quick enough though, because a shot rang out. And as things switched to an old silent film, Ben had time to lash himself with guilt.
His fault they were here, he thought as he crashed to the floor, a burning ripping through his upper thigh as the bone shattered under the speeding bullet. His fault Emily had come to any harm.
At least he landed on top of the guy, because the way the goon’s head bounced off that concrete, making the sound of a pumpkin squishing, couldn’t be good. And while getting shot had sent searing agony roaring through every part of Ben, he had to admit to being glad it was his leg and not the promised family jewels.
The other guy was sitting on the floor, screaming about his eyes.
Rachel weaved, then sat down hard, but unharmed.
Emily lay on the ground, facing away from Ben, far too still. He crawled toward her, dragging his bad leg. It took too long, and for a moment he couldn’t remember why the unbelievable agony was accompanying his every breath, until Rachel appeared at his side, touching his thigh, which made more fiery waves of agony go through him. Scooping Emily against his chest, he sank back against the wall and closed his eyes. Sirens sounded in the distance.
Sirens were good. He had Rachel on the floor beside him, teeth chattering, eyes glassy as she clearly went into shock, and Emily in his arms, unconscious and possibly overdosed from God knows what. Oh, and he needed to throw up.
