The Street Where She Lives

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BEN STOOD on the balcony watching the night go by. He’d figured that this would be preferable to being in bed where all he’d been able to do was stare at the ceiling.

But being out here turned out to be no different because watching the people winding their way through the streets, all he could really see was Rachel’s face as the truth had sunk in about why he’d come back.

He wondered if, when he’d been in the Brazilian jungle taking pictures of Asada’s compound, had he known what havoc his article would wreak, would he still have done it? Would he still have snapped those pictures and written down all the facts for the world to see?

Rachel’s silent and strong grief tonight had nearly brought him to his knees. Watching her piece together the puzzle, seeing her understand what danger he’d put her and Emily in had been nothing short of torture.

Grimacing, he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, but nothing changed. He was still scum. He’d still brought an element of his world to his daughter and the woman who’d once brought him more joy than anyone else ever had.

Pulled by a sudden overpowering need to see them, touch them, assure himself they were safe, he moved inside. He died a thousand deaths when he opened Rachel’s bedroom door and found her bed empty. She wasn’t in the bathroom, wasn’t in her studio, though Mel was, fast asleep on the couch against the far wall.

Palms damp, heart cold, he ran to Emily’s room. At what he found in her bed made him sag against the wall in weak-kneed relief, though he didn’t deserve that relief.

Her daughter was there, sideways, covers tossed to the floor, arms and legs sprawled wide.

Safe.

Next to her, in the smallest corner of the bed, turned on her good side, facing Emily, was Rachel.

Also safe.

How was it possible just looking at them made him want to smile and cry and run like hell all at the same time?

It took a long moment for his heart to settle. He tugged the covers back over her and, unable to resist, bent close to press his lips to her temple. In her sleep, she snuffled, mumbled something inarticulate, then sighed back into a deep slumber.

God, she was sweet. And his. He moved to Rachel’s side, covering her as well, yet he didn’t dare touch her. She was sweet, too. So sweet. But not his. She never would be; his own actions had guaranteed that.

He didn’t leave the room for a long time, wanting to watch over these two pieces that made up his heart. Nothing, nothing, would hurt them. He’d willingly die seeing to it.

RACHEL HAD DEALT with a lot of blows in her life. In fact, dealing was a particular forte of hers. So with little fanfare, she handled the new nightmares since her little “date” with Ben two nights ago. She handled the shock and horror of the accident all over again, knowing now it hadn’t been an accident at all, but the insane revenge of a madman.

And she’d handled the real reasons Ben was here, despite the fact that for a little while she’d actually thought Ben had wanted to be with her.

In any case, certain things made better sense now. She consoled herself with that. The police drive-bys, for example, which the FBI had arranged since in all likelihood she and Emily were being stalked by an international criminal on the run. The way Ben personally locked up the doors and windows every night, making sure he was the last one to bed.

That thought brought her back to his presence here and she still cringed when she considered it. Had she really believed he’d come back of his own free will, aided by Emily’s helpful manipulations?

Yes, pathetic as it was to admit, she’d really believed it. “Mom.” Emily bounced into her studio. She’d just walked the dog with Mel and was back, healthy and safe.

Rachel had never thought of South Village as a dangerous place, especially on a Sunday afternoon…until now. She’d never thought a lot of things until now, with Ben back.

God, he needed to get out of her life. “Hey, baby.” Unable to help herself, she held out her arms, holding her breath until Emily walked into them, letting Rachel hug and kiss her for a long moment. Ben had assured her that Emily was as safe as she could be, but Rachel doubted she’d ever relax again. She’d ordered Mace to keep with her and, holding Emily, her precious baby, she wished she’d bought a gun instead.

In her arms, Emily squirmed and reluctantly Rachel let her loose.

Pulling away, Emily grinned, one of those open and fancy grins Rachel hadn’t seen in a while. “Guess what, Mom?”

“You planned another embarrassing fake dinner date?”

She had the good grace to blush over that. “Um, no. That sort of idea shouldn’t be repeated.”

“Thankfully.”

“I’m going to stop bugging you to homeschool me.”

This was a first, and a moment that should have been cause for joy. But Rachel had been considering doing exactly that, homeschooling Emily, until Asada was caught. “Why the change of heart?”

“Okay, don’t freak.”

Uh-oh.

“There’s this boy…”

A boy. She’d been so locked up in the unbelievable nightmare of her life, she’d forgotten…Emily’s life hadn’t changed. “Is he cute?”

“Mom!”

“What?”

“We’re just friends! Jeez!”

Rachel laughed. “Friends is good.”

“Oh, goody! Are we talking boys?” Melanie walked into the studio wearing a pair of black hip-hugging jeans and a red bandanna as a top. “But I gotta tell you, sugar, boys make really crappy friends.” She caught Rachel’s long gaze over Emily’s head. “What? They do. Never trust a guy,” Mel said to Emily. “Never.”

The phone rang. With a sigh, Rachel punched speaker. “Hello?”

“So…how’s Gracie?” Gwen’s gravelly voice boomed into the room, so gravelly Rachel could almost smell the cigarette smoke. “I was thinking I could come by and pick her up.”

“Gwen, I…don’t have anything for you.” Rachel sighed when both Mel and Emily looked at her in surprise. She couldn’t blame them, she’d been disappearing into this very room every day, even today, a Sunday. If she wasn’t working on Gracie, what was she doing?

She had no idea.

“Rachel, you’re not still entertaining that silly notion of giving up on Gracie are you?”

Rachel rolled her eyes heavenward. “I’ll call you, Gwen.”

“But-”

Rachel disconnected. Smiled shakily at Emily and Mel, who were still staring at her.

“You’re giving up the biggest paycheck you’ve ever had?” Mel asked. “Why?”

“I didn’t say I was giving it up.”

“Mom, I thought you loved Gracie.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Rachel forced a laugh. “You’re all talking about Gracie like she is real.”

“Mom.”

Rachel sighed. How to explain that she was no longer creatively stimulated by the very thing that used to be her life? That she wanted to go in a new direction, that she had this deep burning desire-a desire she hadn’t felt since Ben had been in her life way back when-to make a difference?

He did that to her, she knew now. He fed her passion.

Damn him. “Sometimes,” she said carefully. “A person has to stretch herself or move on.”

“But…” Emily looked confused. “If you stop working, what will that mean? Will we have to move?”

“No.”

“Don’t be stupid, Rach. You’re not giving up Gracie,” Mel said. “That’s just crazy.”

Rachel ignored that and reached for Emily’s hand. “The truth is things aren’t the same for me anymore. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but nothing will change for you, okay? No moving.”

“Em…” Melanie was watching Rachel as if she were a live cannon about to go off. “Give your mom and me a minute.”

“You just want to talk about something good.”

“Emily.”

“Fine. Whatever! Don’t include me, I don’t care.” The door slammed behind her.

“That’ll cost you,” warned Rachel.

“I can deal with her. What I can’t deal with is you being skimpy on the details.”

“Mel-”

“Friday night at the movies, Em told me about her little stunt. Getting Ben here without either of you knowing. Keeping him here by binding him to a promise to stay until you’re better. And she told me about the dinner date that night, too, the little weasel. Good thing she’s so cute.” She looked Rachel over very carefully. “So…you didn’t say all weekend…how did that go?”

“What?”

“Cut the innocent crap, sis. The dinner with Ben. It’s Sunday. I’m leaving in a few. The least you can do is tell me how long it took you to figure out you’d been set up by a twelve-year-old.”

“Longer than you might think, actually.”

Mel raised a carefully plucked brow. “You really thought he’d set up a date with you?”

“And he thought the same of me,” she said, feeling defensive and unhappy about it.

“So what happened? You guys take a stroll down memory lane or what?”

Rachel thought of the things that had taken her down memory lane. The embraces, the kisses. The yearning for more. “Uh…”

Mel gaped. “My God. You’re blushing. What the hell did the two of you do anyway, knock it out right there in the garden? Hope you were smart enough not to break the condom this time.”

“Mel!”

“Sorry.” She actually looked it, too, which was a shock. “I guess I’m just floored the two of you are getting along, when for years I’ve been doing the traveling between the two of you, taking Em-”

“I know.” Rachel covered her tired eyes with her fingers. “I know,” she said again, more softly. “And we’re grateful-”

“You’re even speaking for him now, huh?”

Rachel had no idea what had caused this mood of Mel’s, but she didn’t have time for it. “Do you want to know what happened between us or not?”

“Sure, if you were stupid enough to do anything with the man who walks around here shimmering with resentment and dying to get the hell back to whatever far corner of the earth he came from.”

If that didn’t put it into perspective… “There are mitigating circumstances.”

“Do tell.”

Careful to keep all personal details out of it-including the numerous mind-numbing, bone-melting kisses-Rachel told her about Manuel Asada. About the extradition, his escape. Her accident. The letters, everything.

“Holy shit,” Mel kept saying over and over again. “Holy double shit.”

“So now you know why he’s here,” Rachel said. “And it’s not out of a misguided attempt to pick up where we left off, so stop referring to it that way.”

“Holy shit.”

“You’ve said that.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Yes, you are. You’ll lose your job if you’re not back for work tomorrow. I’m fine here. I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah.” Mel got to the door, then came back for a long, bone-crunching hug. They’d never said the words I love you. They didn’t say them now, though that wasn’t really surprising, as Rachel had never said those words to a single soul except Emily.

Not once…

When Mel had left, Rachel looked around the room she’d once loved and wondered…what held her back? What always held her back? Fear? Or an inability to share herself? Both, maybe.

Not liking what that said about her, she shrugged it off for now. They were things more important than love at the moment. Far more.

To get rid of the terrible tension within her, she needed a run. Not going to happen, but her physical therapist told her she could start walking. She went out into the backyard. It was big for South Village standards, and until the accident, she and Emily had spent a lot of time out here. Since she’d been unable to get down on her knees and rip out weeds, the place had become overgrown, but a few casts weren’t going to stop her anymore, nothing was. Pulling weeds had always been a particularly soothing therapy, and she could use some therapy now.

She walked to the back corner of the property, where she had a small fenced-in vegetable garden. She maneuvered the stone path slowly. It was a bit slippery, but she’d just decided to let nothing stop her.

Except her own stupidity. When the cane slipped out from beneath her, so did her casted leg and, without warning, she hit the ground hard enough to rattle her teeth.

For a moment she sat there in the dirt taking stock. She’d lost a sandal and her straw hat. Her sunglasses were on her chin. Her butt hurt, but that was to be expected as she’d landed on it. Her casted leg and arm seemed to have been properly protected, but she’d scraped up her knee and elbow. Amusing, really. She’d been hit by a car and hadn’t felt a thing for days. She took a tumble in her garden and wanted to cry.

Laughing at herself at that, she went to get up…and found she couldn’t. Her casted leg was at such an angle on the slight uphill grade that she couldn’t get it beneath her to push to a stand, not without support, and her cane had fallen out of her reach.

If that didn’t fry her already stinging butt. She refused to yell for help to Em, who was upstairs listening to CDs. Nor would she yell for Ben who, the last time she’d seen him, had gone into his makeshift dark room, aka her downstairs bathroom. With a lot of huffing and puffing, and quite a bit of inventive swearing, she rolled and grabbed her cane. Then, and this took a while, she managed to get her leg in a position where she could roll to her own good knee, which was now quite a bit bloody.

While she kneeled there in the dirt trying to figure out how to stand up on her own, she listened to the birds sing, the bees buzzing around, and realized life went on. No matter that she couldn’t draw, that her daughter had become an alien, that her ex-lover was in the house giving her looks that took her breath…life went on.

And so would she. Suddenly, she felt lighter and less angry than she’d felt since the accident. Gritting her teeth, she used her last bit of energy to stand up. She’d done it, all on her own, and was a wobbly, shaky but grinning mess when Ben appeared.

With the sun behind him, all she could see was his dark outline towering over her, and he did tower. His hands were on his lean hips, his hair wild.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“Well, I fell, and-”

“Are you all right?”

“Besides bruised pride and a sore butt? Yes.”

“You just can’t accept your own limitations, can you?” He reached for her. “No, not you. You have to go out and prove they don’t exist, because heaven for-goddamn-bid you allow yourself to lean on someone once in a while.”

“Gee, I guess you’re not going to kiss my boo-boos all better.”

He didn’t bother to respond to that as he checked her over. His face was utterly impassive, but she had a hard time feeling the same. His fingers checked her ribs-each and every one. His knuckles brushed the underside of her breasts and apparently her libido was in full working order because her nipples hardened. She looked at his face to see if he’d notice. “I said I’m fine.”

He might as well have been a stone wall for all he responded as he brushed dirt from her clothes. Then his eyes met hers. At the inferno of heat she saw there, she swallowed hard. Had she thought he hadn’t noticed her?

He’d noticed. And he was barely holding back. “Guess I owe you a thank-you-”

This ended in a gasp as he bent and lifted her in his arms.

“Ben, don’t be ridiculous, I can walk, it just took me a while to get- Ben.”

Ignoring her, he headed toward the house.

“Okay, listen. I-”

“You’re bleeding.”

She looked down at the abrasions that were minor in comparison to her other problems and had to laugh. “Just scrapes.” They were almost at the house now. “Ben, for God’s sake, I’m fine.”

He didn’t stop until he’d carried her into her bathroom and set her butt on the counter. Rifling through her cabinets, he wet a washcloth and proceeded to clean the dirt out of her cut knee.

“Ouch!”

Still silent, he hit the spots with first-aid spray.

Gritting her teeth, she glared at him. “Double ouch.”

He didn’t speak as he covered the abrasions with bandages, but his fingers lingered on her skin, her first real sign of any softening in him. She stared up at his granite features and remembered what Melanie had said about Ben resenting being here. His anger would certainly reflect that, she supposed…but in spite of his intense silence, she didn’t feel his resentment. No, what she felt was far more devastating. She felt his fear, his palatable fear. And guilt. The last broke her heart. “Ben…thank you.”

His thumb stroked over her jaw, removing a smudge of dirt there, and something in his eyes softened. “You’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, you know that?”

“You’ve mentioned.” And suddenly, she felt his searing hunger as well, an unfed passion.

From deep within her came an answering hunger, an answering passion. Even knowing this was temporary, that he’d be gone soon enough, she felt it. It consumed her, even as it terrified her. “If I’m the most stubborn person ever, where does that leave you?”

In a move that seemed to surprise him as much as it did her, he leaned in and touched his lips to hers. “It leaves me frustrated as hell, babe.” He scooped her up again and carried her to her bed, where he stood back and shoved his hands in his pockets as if he didn’t quite trust them. “Now, be good and stay there. Stay right there while I walk away.”

“Ben-”

“I’m walking away, Rachel,” he said hoarsely. “No matter what I see in your eyes. I have to.” And without another word, he turned and did exactly that.

FOR A WEEK, Ben felt like he was on pins and needles. It was too busy in the city, too crowded. He was angry at his own inability to keep his emotions in check, but he couldn’t admit that to anyone, especially the woman who hadn’t chosen to have him here in the first place.

Being with Rachel was breaking his resolve to keep an emotional distance. Watching her struggle to put meaning to her life, seeing her be a mom to his daughter, it was bringing it all back, why he’d fallen for her in the first place. She’d always made him want to be a better man, and that hadn’t changed.

God, he needed to go. The desperation to do just that was nearly as strong as when he’d been a young boy trapped in this same town.

Eventually, he promised himself. Eventually it would end. The authorities had assured him just today that they honestly believed Asada had gone underground and didn’t plan to resurface. If that was true, Ben could go, and soon. Knowing that, he spent time with Emily, taking her to breakfast every morning before personally dropping her off at school, before making her promise to get directly on the bus afterward, where he’d be waiting for her at home. This always made her roll her eyes, but he could tell it pleased her. It pleased him too, oddly enough, doing what he’d imagined were mundane things with his own flesh and blood. But he truly enjoyed her company and, while Emily appeared to feel the same, she still carried her laptop everywhere, still referred to her online buddy Alicia as her only real friend.

When he wasn’t writing, he took pictures, mostly to entertain himself. He continued to play basketball every day at lunch, keeping one eye on the house where he knew Rachel sat in her studio, chasing her own demons.

Today he came back inside, sweaty and exhausted, his mind still overcharged. He knew Rachel had gone to a late breakfast with Adam, who would then take her to the doctor’s appointment Ben had wanted to take her to. He made a face as he went up to the stairs. Immature of him, but there it was. Pulling off his shirt, he strode toward his bedroom, passing Rachel’s…and stopping so short he nearly plowed into the wall.

She sat on her bed in nothing but two towels, one around her head, the other around her body. Her damp body.

Galvanized by the sight, he didn’t move. “I thought you were with Adam.” Horror struck him. “He’s not in your shower?”

She let out a short laugh. “No. He went to his office to get my files. I’ve…been in my studio.”

“Working?”

“Still not making much progress in that area.”

Run, his head told him. Run like hell and never look back.

Instead his feet, directed by the part of his body in charge-and it wasn’t his brain-took him to the foot of her bed, where he looked her over hungrily, broodingly, wondering where exactly she and the good Adam stood, and wishing he didn’t care. Then all of those thoughts flew out of his head as… “Your leg and arm casts are off.”

She lifted the named body parts with a little smile. They were thin and white and shaking from exertion, but she looked so proud he felt his heart swell inside his chest.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“What do I think?” That he wanted her so badly he was the one trembling. That he was shocked at the ferocity of that wanting, and that he was terrified it had gathered even more strength this time around.

Once upon a time he’d loved her-wildly, fiercely, with everything he had.

He couldn’t allow it to happen again. He couldn’t. but he was terrified the matter had been taken out of his hands. Slowly, he pulled her to her feet. It was driving him crazy, having her so close yet so far. Tired of that distance, he actually reached for the towel around her, with some half-baked idea of yanking it off, tackling her down to the bed and reminding her how good it could be to toss their differences right out the window, if only for a few moments.

He felt her start to melt against him, and she wasn’t the only one. He was melting, too. He had his fingers curled in the front of her towel between her two lush, warm breasts, when she slowly shook her head. “Ben, we can’t do this.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Okay, fine. I can’t do this.” She took a big step back and he suspected an even bigger mental one. “I have a meeting with Adam in twenty minutes.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Right. This wasn’t on your day planner for today. Probably because it’s an unscheduled emotion, right? I know how you hate those.” Feeling nasty, feeling mean, feeling frustrated and hard and horny as hell, Ben stepped back, too. And right out of the room.

If only he could get her out of his head so easily.

Dangerously caged, that’s what he felt after a month and a half in South Village. Dangerously caged and brooding, not a good combination.

He took a good, long hot shower, then grabbed his camera bag and headed to the downstairs bathroom, where he had set up his darkroom. He’d lose himself in developing film.

But that turned out to be a farce too, because when his pictures came to life on paper, they were of Rachel sitting at her drawing table, looking as hauntingly beautiful as ever.

And as tortured as he.