The Street Where She Lives

CHAPTER NINE

BEN GOT CAUGHT in traffic on the way to meet Agent Brewer, delaying their meeting. The lead on Asada turned out to be a known accomplice, who’d been picked up in South America and was being detained and questioned.

“What did he say about Asada?” Ben asked.

Brewer shook his head. “He’s not telling. Not yet. But that he was picked up in South America is an excellent indication Asada is still there. They’ll find him. Soon.”

But Ben wanted more than just a promise. He wanted… Hell, he wanted this over. Unaccustomed to such fear, as he rarely got involved this personally in a story, he didn’t know what to do with it all.

But this wasn’t a story-this was his life. Emily’s life.

Rachel’s.

At the thought of her, his mind took him places he wasn’t prepared to go. Like back to the sponge bath incident from the day before. Rachel had stood in that bathroom nude, wet, glorious…and glared at him. Hadn’t mattered, not when he couldn’t tear his eyes off her curves, shimmering and molded by the water streaming down her tall, lithe body.

He was just a man, and a weak one at that. How was he supposed to maintain any sort of mental distance under these circumstances?

Thinking about Asada on the loose helped. “Soon could be too late.”

Agent Brewer, a twenty-year veteran and dedicated to his job-evidenced by the various awards on the walls of his small office-nodded. “I know your fear. But we’re doing all we can.”

Ben would be impressed only if Asada was caught. “If Asada’s still in South America, with his old contacts and in terrain he knows like the back of his hand, he can hide forever.”

“Better than being the States, hunting you down.”

“He could have men here. Men willing to do his bidding.”

Brewer sighed. “We’ve been reviewing tapes from L.A. International near the date of Rachel’s accident.” He pushed play on the remote on his desk, and images rolled across the TV on the wall, showing two dark-skinned men carrying briefcases, leaving a terminal at LAX. The date stamp was from six and a half weeks earlier. “These two men arrived from South America. We’re trying to track them down. Just wanted you to know what they look like.”

Terror sat in the pit of Ben’s belly like a rock. Terror and guilt. He’d brought all this on Rachel. The hospital stay, the pain, the limitations, everything…his fault.

The weight of that crushed in on him, making him stagger, then sink to a chair. “So why aren’t they making another move on either Rachel or Emily?” he asked hoarsely.

“Our theory is that with most of Asada’s assets seized, they can’t. He’s just watching, biding his time.”

And the cat-and-mouse game continued.

BY THE TIME Ben left Brewer’s office, South Village was well on its way to another prosperous day. Having lived elsewhere for so long, it was hard to reconcile the obvious wealth here with the world he knew, which could be full of suffering and hunger.

Stuck in traffic gridlock, he used his cell phone to set up some work for himself, writing a few stories he’d been collecting for a rainy day. He could do this from Rachel’s house during the day. Had to do this, in order to maintain his sanity.

“A home base?” his editor asked in joking horror. “You mean you’ll actually have an address? A land line?”

“Hard to believe, huh?”

“Well, this I’ve got to see. Stay in touch.”

Ben promised and turned onto Rachel’s street. Blissfully unaware of his world and all it contained, Emily sat on the top step of the house. She wore black jeans with a hole in one knee and a snug T-shirt that invited him to Take a Hike in the Angeles Crest Mountains. She had Patches in her lap, sleeping, and the laptop precariously balanced on her knees. Her head was down as she concentrated, her fingers flying over the keys. He could see the twenty-five-foot phone cord attached, running beneath the front door and back into the house.

Was it possible for his heart to squeeze any tighter? How could it be that this beautiful, sweet creature didn’t have friends except for her computer? The urge to hide her, to protect her from the big, bad wolf of life was overpowering, and for a moment he simply watched her, feeling such an ache he didn’t know what to do with himself.

When she noticed him standing there, she closed her computer and grinned, and just like that, his aching heart tipped on its side. God, he loved her. And except for the grace of God it could have been her Asada had gone after. Could still intend to go after.

That hardened him, made him determined to see that nothing, nothing, happened to this child of his heart. He came closer and scratched the groggy Patches on the head. He got his hand licked for his effort.

“I tried to tell Mom about Patches,” Emily said. “But she’s always sleeping. Or grumpy.”

“She’s hurting. Emmie, don’t wait outside for me.”

“South Village is a safe place, Dad.”

“Please, Em.”

“Jeez, okay.”

“And about the dog. You tell your mom today, or I will.”

“Man. You’ve gotten strict.” She glanced at her purple sparkling watch. “We don’t have enough time for artery cloggers.”

Strict? He was strict? Hell, he hardly knew how to be a dad and she thought he was strict? She didn’t know the meaning of the damn word. “How about McDonald’s on the way to school?” he asked.

She put her face next to Patches-who’d been scrubbed in the downstairs bathroom and brushed until the puppy practically shined-wordlessly asking for a sloppy doggy kiss. Patches obliged happily. “Mom hates McDonald’s.”

“So, I’ll pick her up something disgustingly healthy on the way back.”

She let out a slow grin that went a long way toward dissipating the chill he’d had since the early morning phone call. “Okay.”

“Seriously, though, you’re going to have to tell her about the puppy, Emily. I’m tired of hiding her.”

From smile to frown in a heartbeat. “I know.” She kissed the puppy right on the mouth, making him wince.

“Now,” he said.

“Oh, Dad. I can’t tell her now, she’s sleeping again. But I promise to do it first thing this afternoon.” For added effect she blinked her big, huge, adoring eyes at him.

Ah, hell. Strict? That was a joke. He was a sap, a complete sap. “The minute you walk in the door.”

“Promise. Dad?” She tilted her head and studied him more closely than he usually let people study him. “You care about Mom, don’t you? You know, like you used to, when you first had me?”

He’d been long gone by the time Emily had been born, though he’d come back right afterward for a rare visit to South Village. Rachel had refused to see him, but even now he could remember standing in front of the glass partition of the infant nursery, hands wide on the glass, nose pressed to it, staring at her, his baby. “Emily-”

“Because I know you used to love each other. I can see it in the picture Mom has.”

He blinked. “She has a picture?”

“In her jewelry drawer, beneath her ring box. You guys look really young, and you have your arms around her. She’s laughing.” Her gaze went wistful. “She’s laughing really hard and you’re looking at her like you really love her.”

Rachel had kept a picture of them. Hidden. Why would a woman who’d told him to go far, far away do such a thing? It made about as much sense as Emily hoping they still loved each other. “That was a long time ago, Em, you know that.”

“But that doesn’t mean your feelings have to change. Did you love me when I first was born?”

“Very much.”

“Do you love me now?”

Ben closed his eyes. “Of course I do. Em-”

“See? It could happen. You guys could make it happen, if you wanted.”

He sat down next to her, his long thighs brushing her shorter ones. Patches put her little head on his knee and looked at him with hero worship that matched his daughter’s. “Emily, I’m only here because-”

“Because I called you,” she said earnestly. “And I know I kinda fooled you, but you came. You came really fast. That means something, Dad.”

Ben thought of why he’d really come, and of what he’d learned this morning. “And I’m staying.” For as long as it took, no matter how badly he needed out. “I’m staying to help you both out. But that’s it, Em. That’s it.” Liar.

Emily’s eyes told him the same thing.

BALANCING THE squirming puppy, some sort of green cucumber protein shake, and a container of a very un-appetizing-looking soup that the pretty redheaded owner of Café Delight had sworn was Rachel’s favorite, Ben walked toward Rachel’s front door. He’d dropped Emily off at school and now needed to face Rachel with the knowledge of what he’d done to her burning a hole in his gut.

And he wasn’t talking about just the damn puppy, which he somehow had to keep quiet for a few more hours.

The front door was unlocked, which just about stopped his heart. Damn it, he’d talked to her about this, about being careless. He dumped the puppy on the foyer floor. “Stay,” he said firmly, and rushed through the house toward the murmur of voices in the kitchen.

Rachel sat at the table looking whole and unharmed, and Ben stopped short, drawing an unsteady breath. “You unlocked the front door, damn it.”

“Oh, I did that.” Adam came in from the walk-in pantry holding an old-fashioned, decorated tin. “Cookie?”

Ben stared at Rachel’s accountant. “No.” He turned to Rachel. She was dressed in a long slip of a sundress he imagined she probably could have gotten on herself with effort, but he couldn’t help but wonder if the saintly Adam had helped her.

If so, had her pulse raced the way it had when Ben had had his hands all over her? Had her lips parted, inviting his?

Goddamn it, it didn’t matter. And he had to make this quick before the puppy did something more stupid than Ben had done leaving the thing alone in the foyer. “You can’t just leave the damn door unlocked.”

Rachel’s face was utterly closed off to him. “Would that have anything to do with your phone call that had you rushing off at dawn?”

He stared at her for one long beat before Adam came to the table and set the tin in front of Rachel. “And anyway, she wasn’t alone.” Adam smiled. “Did you know this is actually a very low-crime district?”

A headache began right between Ben’s eyes. Asada didn’t give a shit about low crime districts; all he wanted to do was destroy Ben. Nothing could do that except by bringing more pain and suffering to Emily or Rachel. Again.

Not that Rachel understood that, because he hadn’t told her, and honest to God, the depth of his own deception was going to bury him. “Look, Adam, I appreciate that, but-”

“You appreciate that?” Rachel marveled, pure fire in her eyes.

Whoa. Had he thought her emotions closed off to him? She was furious. At him.

What had he done now?

“Why do you appreciate that, Ben?” she almost purred. “You don’t own me, you don’t even belong here. You don’t have responsibility over me at all.”

Ben carefully set the food he’d brought in front of her. Put his hands on his hips and tried to figure a way out of this mess.

But there was no way out.

Inanely, he wondered what the puppy was up to and how much damage she could cause in the two minutes she’d been alone.

Adam opened up the containers from Ben and smiled at Rachel. “Your favorites. Maybe now you’ll eat.” He looked up at Ben. “She’s lost weight.”

Given that Ben had had his eyes and hands over every single bare inch of her body only yesterday, he thought she was pretty damn fine. But he was going to forget that, forget the feel of her, the scent of her. Everything. “Adam’s right, you should eat.” He went to the swinging doors to recapture the loose puppy. “I’m outta here.”

“You always have one foot out of here,” she said. “You’ve had one foot out of here since the day you showed up.”

Wasn’t that the truth? It was ironic, he thought, to be using Adam as an excuse to vanish, when just days ago he’d wanted to knock Adam’s socks off for kissing Rachel on the cheek. Even more ironic when one considered what Ben himself had done to Rachel since he’d been back.

A lot more than a kiss on the cheek.

Ben glanced back. Rachel had her casted leg up on the adjacent chair, casted arm resting on the table. The bruises on her face were fading, but the scar over her left eye was not. She wore a handkerchief on her head but he knew that her hair, while still a beautiful light gold, had barely begun to grow back. For that alone, he hated himself. She’d suffered so much because of him, and suddenly he couldn’t even stand to be in the same room with her. He didn’t deserve to be in the same room with her, and pushing through the doors, he left the kitchen.

Once in the living room, he scooped up the errant puppy, who was cheerfully chewing on a black sparkly sandal he figured to be Emily’s. He brought both the ruined sandal and Patches to Emily’s room. “This afternoon, your secret is out,” he warned. “Until then, you’ll go outside when I take you, and sleep when I tell you. No trouble, no messes, no accidents, you hear?”

Patches panted her agreement.

Emily had made a dog bed out of a box and an old blanket, but he knew Patches preferred Emily’s bed. Only problem, she wasn’t big enough to climb up by herself. She stood on the floor at the side of the mattress doing flips to try to get up, to no avail. When she saw Ben looking at her, she started in on the aren’t-I-adorable wriggle, her entire hind-end moving back and forth so fast she could hardly walk.

“Let’s hope Rachel finds you half as cute as you think you are.” Ben squatted down to stroke her head.

She fell to her back, exposing her belly, madly licking Ben’s hand and wrist, tail waggling back and forth at the speed of light. When he stood and moved to the door, she followed.

“Oh, no,” Ben said with a laugh. “I’m not getting between mom and daughter, I’d be crazy to. You’re Emily’s news, dog.”

Big puppy eyes blinked sadly.

“Hey, you’re just lucky Rachel isn’t on top of her game, because believe me, if she was, you’d be Dead Puppy Walking.”

Yeah, when Rachel was sharp, nothing got past her. Not a single thing. And if she’d made her mind up about something, forget it.

Abruptly he remembered his last day in South Village all those years ago. He’d been sent a plane ticket, had his assignment and his bag packed. More than anything, he wanted to leave South Village far behind, but still he’d hesitated.

He couldn’t leave without seeing Rachel one more time.

With pride weighing him down, he’d marched up to the Wellers’ house. It’d been so big he’d figured fifty people could live in there and never cross paths.

He could still turn around and walk away, and no one would ever know he’d come to beg her to want him, the way no one had ever wanted him.

Pathetic. He was pathetic, but before he could take off, Mrs. Wellers answered the door, a glass in one hand, her other gripping the doorway as if she needed a life-line. Far younger than his foster parents, it was odd to see how alcohol and careless living had aged her. She’d looked right through him, not recognizing him, even though by then Ben had been in Rachel’s life for six months.

“It’s Ben, Mrs. Wellers. I need to talk to Rachel.”

She’d hiccuped, then with a wide wave that sent her vodka or gin or whatever she was drinking sloshing over the edge of the glass, she shook her head. Tossing back her well-tended hair and downing the rest of her drink, she’d swallowed hard and said, “Rachel doesn’t want to talk to the likes of you.”

The likes of you. Par for the course for Ben Asher, aka no good son of a bitch. In school, out of school, every-damn-where he’d been a no one from nobody and no place.

He didn’t remember running out of there, but the bus ride to the airport had been interminably long. He hadn’t taken a good deep breath until he’d met up with his new peers on the other side of the world, where he’d been treated like an equal. Like a somebody.

God, he needed a damn walk, he thought, shrugging off the old and unwelcome memories. Needed air. He glanced at Patches, who had fallen asleep on her back, and carefully shut Emily’s bedroom door.

He could still hear Adam in the kitchen, talking to Rachel in that gentle voice that made the peace-loving Ben want to clobber him.

What the hell was wrong with him? Adam was a good man who obviously relished taking care of Rachel. Ben should be thrilled she had someone like that. It would make leaving all that much easier.

Yeah. He should be thrilled. And he would be when they located Asada.

Figuring Rachel was safe enough for the moment, Ben let himself out. He’d like to hop on a plane but a walk would have to do.

He walked past the market, past the art gallery. Kitty-corner from Rachel’s house was a small park, lush and green, where he found an intense game of three-on-two basketball in the middle court. The men looked to be in their thirties, and given the amount of swearing, illegal moves and outrageous fouls, they were quite serious about the game. The three players were shirted, the two players against them had stripped to the waist. One was tall, dark and had the meanest jump shot Ben had ever seen. The other was average height, and had a carrottop to go with his temper, but he moved like lightning.

Something about them drew Ben closer, then closer still, and he pulled his ever present camera off his shoulder. He’d just gotten a great shot of a layup when he was stopped by the redhead.

Chest heaving, sweat running down his face, the guy jerked his head toward the court. “We’re short a player.”

Ben pulled his face away from the lens. “Yeah?”

“You any good?”

Ben had been born naturally athletic, but couldn’t say if the gift had been inherited, since he knew nothing about his genes. He’d played ball in high school, but since then had only played in makeshift courts in any given Developing Nation, with people he’d had to teach. “I’m okay.”

“Then ditch the camera, we need you.”

Ben ditched the camera and his shirt. And played the most cathartically vicious basketball game ever. By the time it was over, they’d won by the skin of their teeth and one basket.

The other team took off. Limped off. Ben had learned the redhead was Steve, his partner Tony. Slouched against a brick wall, nursing various injuries and sucking down water, Ben also learned his teammates were a lawyer and a cop.

“We beat the shit out of each other three days a week, if you’re interested,” Steve said, swiping at a bloody lip.

Ben had released quite a bit of tension in the past hour. He had hated this town and all the people in it. No one had ever looked at him in this town.

But these guys were looking at him now. “I’m not here for long…” He hoped he wasn’t here for long.

“We’ll take what we can get.” Tony smiled grimly. “Because damn, you’re a tough son of a bitch.”

Ben glanced at the refurbished firehouse he hadn’t let out of his sight during the game. “Yeah.” Some of the weight he’d just played off was coming back. He was a tough son of a bitch. But tough enough to take on Asada?

God, he hoped so.