So did the dog’s.
And, when Ben looked at her, so did his.
But when he started across the room toward her, she blinked back the tears that threatened and braced herself, literally, against the door.
She had to get him to take back that dog.
The minute he reached her, she spoke, her voice low so the kids wouldn’t hear. But she’d bet he would have no trouble reading the anger in her eyes.
“Ben, what do you think you’re doing?”
“You said you’d like to have a dog.”
“Yes, I did. But I said someday. I can’t—” She choked on the word and had to start again. “I told you, we can’t have a dog. I work all day.”
“Clarice said she’ll keep an eye on her for you.”
Wonderful. The whole town would know what he’d done. “You told Clarice about the dog?”
“Clarice and Ellamae told me. When I said I wanted a puppy for the kids, they came along to help me pick her out at the pound.”
Even better. Now all of Flagman’s Folly would know she’d turned away a poor homeless puppy. A puppy who now yelped in the background. A puppy who had just made P.J. and Lissa laugh.
How would she manage to explain this to the kids?
“I don’t want a dog cooped up in the house,” she said.
“Let her out in the yard.”
“It’s too hot in the summertime. And there’s no shade.”
“So I’ll build a doghouse and plant a tree.”
She groaned. Would he never give up? “I don’t like the idea of staking a—”
He raised his brows.
She snapped her mouth shut in instant understanding. “The fence,” she hissed when she could speak again. “That’s why you put up the fence, isn’t it?”
He smiled.
He means well. He always does. Take a deep breath before you blast him.
Instead, she sighed. Blasting wouldn’t work. She needed to be truthful and explain her most important reason for digging in her heels. She kept her voice low but made her tone uncompromising. “We can’t keep the dog.” Quickly, she put her fingers to his lips to prevent him from responding. The warmth of his skin almost made her forget what she’d planned to tell him. “I can’t—” Her voice broke.
He smiled again, his mouth tickling her fingertips.
She snatched her hand away. Her cheeks burned, partly from allowing him to see her reaction and the rest from knowing what she had to admit. “I can’t afford to feed him,” she muttered.
“Her.” He kept his voice low, too. “And she comes with a lifetime supply of dog food and unlimited veterinary care.”
“I can’t accept that.”
“Why not? We’re still friends, aren’t we? Just like you said the other night?”
She swallowed a sigh of both relief and disappointment. So, they were back to that again. How quickly he’d managed to come to his senses.
With anyone else but Ben, she would have thought he’d repeated her words to hurt her. But, no, he meant them. Chances were, if she let him, he’d pay for her grocery and doctor bills, too. He only wanted to help.
She needed to remember that the next time her expression threatened to give her secrets away.
He moved closer. She could feel the heat radiating from him. Had to look up to see his eyes. Had to curl her fingers to keep them by her sides.
“Dana.” His voice rumbled her name. She would swear she’d felt it vibrate through her. “Let me do this. For them. Because, like it or not, I will be here for you and your kids for the rest of my life.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Have you had your talk with Ben yet?” Tess asked as they crossed the Double S parking lot.
Always busy on a Friday night, the café already had customers seated outside. Tiny lights strung around the patio twinkled like fireflies in the twilight.
Dana tried not to groan at her friend’s question. She’d had plenty of talks with Ben. Too many talks. But none she could share with Tess. “No. Not yet. Jared has kept me busy.”
“Well, now he’s left town, he can’t stop you from having your chat.”
“No.” She wished she could argue that point.
And when she followed Tess through the front door of the restaurant, she immediately wished she could turn around and leave. Even as the thought struck, Caleb waved at them from a booth on the opposite side of the café. Across from him, Ben turned to look and smiled.
They had held the closing for Caleb’s new ranch earlier in the week, and he’d wanted to celebrate at the Double S. She hadn’t realized he’d planned a party for four.
When she had walked over to the Whistlestop to drop the kids off just now and caught a ride here with Tess, her best friend hadn’t said a word about Ben joining them for supper. Well, she’d give Tess the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he and Caleb had just run into each other.
Gripping her handbag with suddenly damp fingers, she took the seat beside Ben.
Caleb wrapped his arm around Tess. “Hey, Dana,” he said. “You get Jared up to Santa Fe all right yesterday?”
“Yes, in plenty of time to catch his flight.” In her effort to avoid Ben, she had volunteered to drive their newest client to the airport. “He hadn’t made any decision before he left, though.”
And Tess still hadn’t let up with her teasing. “I’m surprised he left at all,” she said now. “But he told Caleb he’ll be back soon. He seemed to like your personal attention.”
Beside her, Ben shifted, giving her more room. She dropped her bag on the seat between them. Refusing to look his way, she said lightly, “Well, you know what we tell all our clients. ‘You’ve come to the Wright Place.’”
Caleb chuckled. “Yeah, I heard that not too long ago.”
“And it turned out to be true, didn’t it?” Tess asked.
“Yep. That’s why we’re here celebrating tonight.”
She elbowed him. “I’m not talking about the ranch.”
He dropped a kiss on her temple.
Ben turned to Dana. “Kids home with Anne?”
His voice sounded stiff to her ears, but the other two didn’t seem to notice. “No. She has a date tonight.”
“With her high school hero,” Tess said.
Dana grabbed a taco chip from the bowl on the table and nearly buried it in the salsa.
“The kids are at the Whistlestop with Nate,” Tess went on. “She had a fit when she heard supper was adults-only.”
We’re adults, Ben had said the night Dana had almost let him kiss her. Again. We can stop bickering all on our own.
But they couldn’t.
“Mom promised her a barbecue,” Tess continued, “so naturally, she wanted Lissa to come and stay the night. Mom and Aunt El are thrilled to have all the kids sleeping over, too. They were just complaining the other day about not sitting for them in so long.”
Just as Ben had complained about not getting to see enough of the kids.
When Dori came to the booth, Dana ordered the first thing that came into her head. Tacos. A bad choice, reminding her of the day Ben had bought lunch for her family and Lissa’s friends. Reminding her of all the days he’d spent at the house lately.
And bringing her thoughts to Monday night after the meeting. He’d gone from amorous to arrogant, in the space of a few heartbeats. All for the best, of course. His response had only made her more determined to keep her distance, before they did anything else they would both regret.
He seemed to remember the wisdom of that, too. When he’d dropped by the office the day before, he’d kept his visit all business and brief. Too brief for her liking.
Now, nothing seemed to satisfy her about their relationship. Maybe because the only thing she wa
nted was a close relationship. One everyone could know about. And she couldn’t have that.
Sitting beside him, listening to his voice, hearing his laugh... Every minute felt like a punishment for a longing she had no way to control.
During supper, she struggled to keep her mind on the conversation. At the same time, she counted the minutes until they would finish eating and she could go home.
Late in the evening, she caught Tess eyeing her, making her sit up and—belatedly—pay attention. What had she missed? And why did Tess look so uncomfortable?
“Aunt El’s spent a lot of time pounding the pavement this week,” Tess said. “To prove there’s support for the monument, she’s getting names on a petition and plans to bring it to the next council meeting.”
“Has she?” Ben asked. “Going to be an interesting night.”
“Kayla and I aren’t worried.” Dana spoke with an assurance she didn’t feel. The council members would vote for the playground. They had to.
If she needed to depend on Ben and his deciding vote, she might as well put their proposal through the office shredder. He would never support her, even if she tried to win him over to her opinion. Besides, how could she get close enough to talk to him at all, when he claimed he could read her so well?
If he could truly see into her heart, what he found would drive him away from her. Would push him toward voting against her.
What did it matter? They could never come to an agreement.
He wanted to honor his best friend. And she wanted no part of the memorial.
* * *
SUPPER FINISHED, THE FOUR of them strolled outside to the patio. Dana half listened as Ben told Tess and Caleb about a new mare he’d bought for the ranch. While they talked, she looked beyond the patio to a sky studded with stars.
A beautiful night, a night for lovers.
As if Caleb had heard Dana’s thought, he pulled Tess close and said, “Since Nate’s spoken for this evening, the two of us are going off for some alone time.”
In the light of the tin lanterns on the patio tables, Tess blushed and looked at Dana, who swallowed her smile.
Caleb turned to Ben. “You don’t mind taking Dana home?”
She caught her breath. Her earlier suspicions returned, and she shot another look at Tess. Did the color in her face really come from a blush, or had her cheeks flushed in guilty embarrassment? Had Tess known what Caleb was going to ask Ben? Had she put him up to it to begin with? Dana tried to push away the thought that Ben’s invitation to supper had all been part of a plan. Not Tess.
Besides, as Dana had told Kayla, even Ellamae and Roselynn wouldn’t have dreamed of matching her up with Ben.
“No problem,” he said now. “I can drop Dana at the house.”
And what could she say in return? She couldn’t insist that the newlyweds drive her home. Feeling guilty for harboring even a fleeting suspicion of her own best friend, she simply nodded.
They walked out to the front of the café, where Tess had left their SUV and where Dana now noted Ben’s truck parked up near the corner.
She wrapped her hands around her arms, chilled not from the October air but from the knowledge that she’d have to accept the ride home with Ben. After all the objections he had raised the night of the council meeting, she would never convince him to let her walk home alone.
Not at this hour.
Not even in the safest town in the state.
They said their farewells and walked away. Dana held her head high and kept her eyes focused on his truck. He claimed to be able to read her face. To see her feelings in her eyes. Though she wouldn’t admit it then, even to herself, she acknowledged now that she knew exactly what he’d seen in her eyes on Monday night outside Town Hall.
The same thing he’d seen the night they’d stood so close together in her utility room.
Well, he wouldn’t see it tonight. Not if she could help it. She continued to keep her eyes focused and her face forward and her tone light as they chatted all the way home.
All the way to the house Ben owned.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said, her hand on the passenger door handle.
“I’ll walk you in.”
That’s not necessary had been her battle cry for weeks now, and where had it gotten her? Nowhere with Ben. He never listened to anything.
Other than that, she had to admit, he excelled at everything, whether it involved ranching or handyman chores or caring for her kids. And as a perfect gentleman, since he’d driven her home—not just followed her—of course he would insist upon seeing her to the door.
To her surprise, as they went up the front path, he said, “Since we didn’t stay for one of Dori’s desserts, I thought you might pour me a cup of coffee.” From inside the house, the dog yipped. “I haven’t seen Duchess in a couple of days. And,” he added, “I’d like to talk for a bit.”
“Talk?”
“Yeah, talk. You know, conversation. Words back and forth. You and me.”
More than likely, he wanted to discuss something to do with the house or the office. “I don’t know. The last time we tried that, things didn’t work out very well.” She held back a sigh of exasperation at herself. Did they really need the reminder?
“If you keep the cookies coming, we ought to be fine.”
Shaking her head, she said, “You’re as bad as the kids.” But Duchess had begun barking in earnest now. Dana led him inside.
While he greeted the dog, she went to the kitchen to fill the coffeemaker and the teakettle. Duchess padded into the room and bounded into her bed in the corner.
“The cookie jar’s in the utility room,” she told Ben. “Second shelf on the left. Beside the box of cereal.”
To quote him, those directions “ought to be fine,” too. They would have to, because she wasn’t venturing anywhere near that room with him again. Her face warmed, reminding her of Tess’s flush earlier. Now she couldn’t tell if her own warmth came from a blush or guilty embarrassment. But she knew the trigger came from her memory of what had happened in that utility room a few short days ago.
Crossed signals.
She’d attempted to make that plain to him, too. She’d tried to explain about the mixed messages between them, though she knew in her heart she was to blame for most of them—bickering with him one moment and staring at him like a starstruck schoolgirl the next. Staring openly enough to give him the idea she’d wanted him to kiss her. Again.
Yet, that night in the utility room, all he had done was touch her wrist, and she had melted against him.
Well...all right, she hadn’t quite let herself go to that extent.
But she’d wanted to.
For sure, she had trembled. For certain, he had felt it. No denying that. She could tell by the way he’d looked her up and down and then stared, his expression frozen.
She’d wanted him the night of Tess’s wedding, too.
She would want him forever….
“You okay?”
Startled, she placed a couple of dessert plates on the table with a clatter. “Yes.”
“You look out of it. Maybe you need a good night’s sleep.”
“Maybe.”
“Lucky for you, all the kids went to stay at the Whistlestop again.” He lifted the lid of the cookie jar. “Chocolate chip, huh?”
She nodded, on the verge of nervous laughter. Obviously good old Ben didn’t feel he’d gotten lucky. Or maybe he felt he had—with the cookies. She ought to be glad to have such an...honorable friend. She ought to be doubly glad he hadn’t mentioned that other night when quiet surrounded the two of them and no children slept upstairs.
“You wanted to talk?” she prompted, pouring her tea and his coffee.
“Yeah.”
He took a cooki
e from the jar. “Chocolate chip are my favorite. Remember when you used to make them for me in your cooking class in eighth grade?”
She remembered. She’d thought of it the night of the wedding, too, when he’d asked her about “his” cookies. Was that why she’d baked these yesterday before taking Jared to the airport?
“Not just for you,” she said. “Tess and I gave the burned cookies to all the guys.”
He laughed.
Turning from the counter with their mugs, she saw he had taken P.J.’s place at the table, which put him closer to her than usual. But if she walked all the way around to Lissa’s side to get some distance from him, they would sit facing one another.
She took her regular seat next to the baby’s high chair. “I’m sure you didn’t come in to discuss the cookie of the week, even if they are your favorite. What do we need to talk about, the house or the office?”
“The memorial.”
She had lifted her brimming mug almost to her lips. Her hand jerked. Boiling water sloshed onto her fingers. She nearly dropped the mug onto the table, then grabbed her napkin and dabbed at her hand.
“Did you get burned?”
He reached for her, but she jerked her hand away, deliberately this time. “Don’t worry about it. I told you, how I feel about the monument is my business.”
“I heard that. I can see it. Tonight at supper, Caleb and Tess could, too. Didn’t you notice how they reacted? Do you want everyone else seeing it, too?” His voice rose.
Duchess yelped. He waited until she had settled down again before continuing in a lower voice, “I have to tell you, folks are damned excited about that memorial, and even more excited about the fact they’re dedicating it to a man they admire. How are they going to feel, every time they make mention of it, when that man’s own wife looks like she can’t stand to think about it?”
“I don’t look—”
“You sure as hell do. And is that what you want them to see? Is that what you want your kids to notice every time their daddy’s name is mentioned?” He stood abruptly, the chair legs screeching on the kitchen floor. “Come with me.”
“What?”
But he had left the room.
Honorable Rancher Page 17
