An authoritative rap on the bedroom door diverted Ben’s attention from the response he was drafting to an email from Swish asking a) how his foot was doing and b) how he was taking to married life. The first question was a helluva lot easier to answer than the second.
“It’s open,” he called out, expecting Alex.
Instead, a dark-haired sprite pushed into the room carrying a bright yellow bowl. “I brought you some fried ice cream. It’s my favorite dessert,” she informed him. “But I want you to have it ’cause you bought me an iPad.”
Ben accepted the magnanimous offer with appropriate gravity but couldn’t fail to note her air of noble sacrifice. “This is a big serving,” he commented when she passed him the dessert. “Too much for me. Why don’t you get another bowl and we’ll share?”
Accepting with an eager nod, she left the door open behind her. As a result, Ben caught most of her brief exchange with Alex, the most emphatic part of which was a clear, distinct “...and don’t bother him!”
When the girl returned with a bowl and spoon, her expression had given way to one of wounded dignity. “Alex says I’m not supposed to bother you. Am I?”
Pinned by those dark eyes and that demand for a straight answer, Ben struggled with what was looking like an unworkable strategy of isolation and containment for a few moments before answering truthfully. “Nope, you’re not bothering me.”
“That’s what I told her.” Claiming half of the ice cream, Maria settled cross-legged at the foot of the bed. “Dinah’s got Baby Dragons II on her iPad. Can I get it on mine?”
“We’ll have to ask Alex.”
* * *
Ben enjoyed the ice cream interlude more than he would’ve expected. Although some of the foster parents who’d taken him in had other kids, the survival instincts he’d developed early had made him pretty much a loner. Since striking out on his own, his exposure to young children was limited to brief interactions with the offspring of his squadron mates and even briefer operational contacts with children battered by war or nature’s fury.
According to Alex, Maria’s childhood so far had been almost as unsettled as Ben’s had been. Yet he couldn’t see any signs that it had made her sullen or introverted or distrustful. She was most definitely her own person, he discovered as her conversation jumped with dizzying speed from baby dragons to the latest Disney movie to the book she’d downloaded from the library.
“It’s called Anne of Green Gables. Alex says it’s a classic. That means it’s really old. Have you read it?”
“’Fraid not.”
“I just started but it’s really good so far.” Her lips pursed around her spoon, wiping it clean. “If you want, I can send it to your iPhone so you can read it, too. Then we can talk about it.”
Ben refused to think of the ribbing he’d take if he got caught with a kid’s classic on his iPhone. “Sure, send away.”
“’Kay.” She hopped off the bed. “I’ll do it now. You can start reading it tonight.”
Why not? Ben thought sardonically. It wasn’t like he was going to be otherwise occupied.
* * *
Despite the tantalizing prospect of a children’s classic, Ben opted for the paperback thriller Alex had dug up for him and stretched out on the bed. As master bedrooms went, this one was fairly small, with barely enough room for the bed, dresser, two nightstands and the desk tucked into an alcove that looked out on the enclosed back patio. Yet Alex’s personal flair showed in the soft turquoise walls, the pierced tin mirror above the dresser, the burlap curtains and the headboard constructed of peeling birch logs.
With the door to the room still cracked open a few inches, Ben could hear Alex preparing Maria for bed in the next room. He picked up bits of their chatter about school tomorrow and a long debate on Maria’s part over whether to wear her Cinderella or Princess Elsa pj’s. That thorny issue resolved, Ben heard a faint gush of water and what sounded like a habitual admonishment.
“Up and down, Kitten. Brush up and down.”
Ben had to marvel at Alex’s patience. He knew she’d turned twenty-five last month. He’d made a note of her birthday when they’d filled out the forms for the marriage license in Vegas. That meant she’d barely graduated from college and begun her career in costume design when they’d met in Vegas two years ago. Yet she’d put her life on hold to move to Albuquerque and take care of her sister, then jettisoned it completely to assume temporary custody of her sister’s stepdaughter. A little over a year later she’d married a near stranger to try and make that custody permanent.
Now, he discovered, as Maria’s high treble floated from the other room, she intended to sacrifice her bedroom to the cause.
“Why’d you put blankets and your jammies on the other bed in my room?” the girl wanted to know.
“I’m bunking with you tonight.”
“I thought married people were s’posed to sleep in the same bed.”
“They usually do. But I don’t want to risk kicking Ben’s injured foot in my sleep.”
“It’s got a cast on it.”
Out of the mouths of babes, he thought wryly.
“Davy Jenkins had a cast on his arm,” the girl continued. “You could thump it ’n’ write on it ’n’ everything.”
“I know, but Ben just got his this morning. He’s not used to it yet so we have to be careful. Say your prayers now.”
“I should write on Ben’s cast. Or draw some daisies.”
“I don’t think he’s the daisy type. Say your prayers.”
“Stars, then. Or butterflies! He’d like butterflies.”
“Prayers, Kitten.”
* * *
Ben wasn’t surprised when Alex knocked on the partially open door a few moments later. “C’mon in.”
She slipped in, closed the door behind her and grimaced. “I assume you heard the bit about cast decorations.”
“I did. Thanks for putting the kibosh on daisies. You can’t imagine the ration of grief I’d get if I waltzed into the squadron sporting a spring bouquet.”
“You’re not home free,” she warned. “Although I will say Maria’s actually pretty good at butterflies. She’ll probably want to glue some sparkly crystals on their wings, though.”
“Oh, Lord. Maybe I can talk her into doing a Spider-Man design instead.”
“Or none at all,” she said pointedly.
The message was about as subtle as a 20 mm cannon.
“Got it. You want me to keep her at arm’s length.”
“I do. It’ll help close the hole when you disappear from her life.”
“The way her father did.”
“Exactly.”
She was right. Ben knew she was right. Still, being lumped in with a deadbeat, drug-dealing dad stuck in his craw. Swinging his legs to the side of his bed, he grabbed the crutches.
“I heard the part about you sleeping on the other bed in Maria’s room, too. I caught a glimpse of it earlier. It’s kid-size.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Sure it does. I’ll take the couch and you can have your bed.”
“No way. You’re the patient. I’m the ‘responsible party,’ at least according to the air force. So I’m calling the shots for the next few days, Cowboy.”
“Guess again, sweetheart.”
Her hands went to her hips again. Ben figured they’d end up there a lot before she was shed of him in a day or two. Then his glance flicked from those slender, seductive hips to the breasts so deliciously outlined by her tank top, to her set jaw and tired eyes.
Crap! She hadn’t slept much more than he had in the past twenty-four hours. She had to be totally wiped...and in no condition to camp out on a sofa.
“Sorry,” he said, disgusted with himself for adding to her stress. “I don’t mean to come on like such a Neanderthal. It’s just
...well...”
“Are you hurting?”
“Some,” he lied.
More than some. Ben had been kicking himself six ways to Sunday for almost an hour for refusing to take the pain pills. “As much as I hate to admit it, I need those meds the doc prescribed.”
“Why didn’t you say so!”
She hurried across the bedroom and snatched the plastic bottle off the dresser. After wrestling with the childproof cap, she dumped two pills into his palm, disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a tumbler of water. As reluctant as Ben was to dull his senses with opiates, he tossed back the pills and eased his legs onto the mattress.
“It’ll take a while for the wonder drugs to work their magic.” He patted the covers beside him. “Keep me company until they do.”
When she hesitated, he grinned. “What? Remembering the last time we were in bed together?”
“And you aren’t?”
“Oh, yeah. That weekend’s been on my mind more than you can imagine the past few days. But we’re both fully clothed and I just popped some pills. You’re safe.”
Tonight, anyway. Ben wouldn’t make any guarantees about the days or nights to come.
“Tell me about your business,” he prompted, patting the comforter again. “How’d you get started and build up so fast to those thousand-plus orders?”
Alex hesitated. Her head told her stretching out next to him was a mistake. She couldn’t seem to quell the ridiculous flutters his proximity caused. Or the erotic memories it generated!
Yet every instinct she possessed said she could trust Ben to hold to his word. Strange, really, given how little time they’d actually spent together. But trust him she did. At least enough to kick off her flip-flops, ease onto the bed and stuff a pillow behind her back.
“It didn’t feel as though the business grew very fast during that first, scary year,” she admitted with a grimace. “Maria and I lived on my sister’s small insurance policy and my pitiful savings for almost that entire year. I used the time to experiment with designs and search for wholesalers selling supplies I could afford. At one point I took a job flipping hamburgers while Maria was in school and set up a miniproduction line in the living room at night.”
“You didn’t think about quitting?”
“Every day. I even set a drop-dead date. If Alexis Scott Designs hadn’t broken even by that date, I would’ve packed it in.”
“What got you past the deadline?”
“Not what,” she corrected with a smile, “who. Chelsea strong-armed every gal in the Flamingo chorus line into buying at least one of my T-shirts. The guys, too. Then she sent them out with strict instructions to strong-arm their friends. I had to hire my first employee to fill all those orders.”
“The first of how many?”
“I’ve got six full-time now, two part-time.”
She wiggled her back against the pillow to get more comfortable. The birch-pole headboard was unique and beautifully Southwestern but not exactly the most comfortable for propping her shoulders against.
“Here, scoot closer.”
Uh-oh. Another mistake. She knew it even before she inched sideways. She held herself stiff but had to admit the arm Ben slipped around her shoulders added considerably to her comfort. The blue scrub shirt just inches from her nose carried the faint scent of hospital starch and warm male. She was taking a surreptitious sniff when a question rumbled up from the chest so close to her own.
“Where do you get the ideas for your designs?”
“Anywhere and everywhere.” Despite the warning sirens going off inside her head, she relaxed against him. “Most of the time, though, I tend to stick to colors found in natural combinations. Turquoise and silver. The black, brown and gold in tiger’s eye. The pearlescent and pink of opals. Then I arrange the beads and crystals in a way that tells a story, at least to me.”
“Yeah?”
“The first shirt I made for Maria had a kitten on the front. I did the fur in silver and gray beads and gave it a little pink nose. She wouldn’t take it off for a week. That’s how she got her nickname.”
“Mmm.”
The rumble was deeper this time. More drawn out. Cautiously, Alex angled her head and saw his eyes had closed. She bit back a smile as her gaze tracked down from the dark lashes curved against his cheeks to his nose to his lips. They were parted just enough to let his breath rustle in, then out, with each rise and fall of his chest.
She was still conducting her leisurely inventory when the rustle gained volume. Within moments it was perilously close to a snore. Alex debated whether it would wake him if she eased off the bed. Probably. Best to let him sink a little deeper first. She’d just nestle her cheek on his shoulder and rest for a few more minutes...
* * *
“Wake up!”
The petulant demand was accompanied by a sharp poke in Alex’s arm.
“Huh?”
“You hafta walk me to school.”
Blinking owlishly, Alex pushed up on one elbow. Or tried to. The heavy weight draped around her waist pretty much anchored her in place. Squinting, she brought Maria’s scowling face into focus.
“What time is it?”
“Late. I already ate my cereal ’n’ banana.”
She’d dressed herself, too. In the same white blouse and navy blue plaid skirt she’d worn yesterday. Alex frowned at the wrinkles in the blouse but a quick glance at the digital clock on the nightstand nixed all thought of ironing.
“Yikes! It’s almost eight fifteen. We have to get going!”
The girl’s scowl stayed in place while Alex detached the dead weight from around her waist and tossed aside the covers that had somehow wrapped around her during the night.
“You said you weren’t going to sleep in the same bed with Ben,” Maria reminded Alex as she shoved her feet into the flip-flops she’d discarded last night.
“I wasn’t. I didn’t. I mean, we didn’t sleep...”
Okay, she’d better not go there.
“Ben’s foot was hurting,” she said instead, “so I gave him his medicine and was waiting to make sure it did the trick when we both just fell asleep.”
She tugged down the T-shirt that had twisted around her midriff and made a beeline for the bathroom.
“Two minutes, Kitten. Two minutes, then we’ll head for school.”
* * *
The three-block walk through the soft May morning wiped the cobwebs from Alex’s mind. At the tall, old-fashioned wooden gates of the San Felipe School, she gave Maria a quick kiss and nodded to the volunteer who made sure only students and authorized adults entered the campus.
Then she watched while her charge joined the stream of kids in blue-and-white uniforms hurrying to their classes. The school formed part of a compound that included a convent, a rectory and the church started by Father Manuel Moreno in 1705. Dominating the north side of Old Town Plaza, the historic mission church featured twin towers and five-foot-thick adobe walls.
Jesuit priests had taught boys at the school for more than a hundred years. The Sisters of Charity had done the same for girls. Although most teachers were laypersons now, they still held to their predecessors’ teaching methods. Thank goodness they offered greatly reduced tuition to needy and exceptional students. Maria had qualified on both counts, and loved the strict order and discipline. Even the uniforms. Probably because she’d lived through so much uncertainty and disruption elsewhere in her young life.
And now, Alex thought with a sigh, she’d added yet another element of uncertainty in the shape of a here-today, gone-tomorrow air force pilot. The thought made her cringe and send decidedly unfriendly thoughts zinging through space to the judge who’d driven her to drastic action.
She needed to call her lawyer, she reminded herself as she started to walk home. Inform him...and the court...that her
marital status had changed. She’d also better prepare for a court-directed home visit by the hearing officer assigned to Maria’s case. Judge Hendricks might be stuck in the last century, but he wasn’t completely senile. He might well suspect the quickie marriage was a sham and could demand hard evidence to prove otherwise.
The realization stopped Alex in her tracks. If the judge found out Ben hadn’t deployed with his unit...that he’d been injured and had subsequently moved into the Transient Lodging Facility on base because his loving wife couldn’t be bothered to care of him long-term...
Hell, hell, hell!
Suddenly overwhelmed by the web of deceit she’d spun, Alex dropped onto one of the decorative iron benches ringing the plaza. The plan had seemed so quick and simple when she’d devised it less than a week ago. Now it loomed in her mind like a potential disaster of epic proportions.
Visions of being hauled in front of the judge and charged with contempt of court or intent to defraud or whatever the old fart decided to throw at her cut through her mind like a jagged knife. What would happen to Maria then? To Ben, who’d participated in the sham marriage?
Half a heartbeat away from a full-blown panic attack, she wrapped her arms around her middle and bent over at the waist. Oh, God! What she wouldn’t give right now to tuck her tail between her legs and scurry back to Vegas. To be single and unattached and stupid again. No responsibilities except getting to work on time. No invoices waiting to be paid or orders to fill or employees depending on her for their next paycheck. No seven-year-old demanding her constant attention or court proceedings hanging over...
“Alexis?”
The hesitant query barely penetrated her incipient panic.
“Alexis, are you all right?”
Gulping in a ragged breath, she unbent. The mother of one of Maria’s classmates stood beside the bench. Alex couldn’t remember the woman’s name. Or her son’s. Only that the kid had a wide gap between his front teeth and had nursed a sort of crush on Maria for a whole week, or so she’d claimed.
“Are you ill? Do you need help?”
“No. No, thank you. I just...skipped breakfast and felt a little faint for a moment. I’m fine now.”
Marry Me, Major Page 7
