The Street Where She Lives

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

BEN AWOKE to the sun in his eyes and his arms empty. No big surprise, he’d always awoken alone. Different bed, of course, different continent and time zone, but always with the same vague feeling that he was missing something.

Now he knew exactly what that something was. Or who.

Rachel.

Last night had been nothing short of earth-shattering. The way she’d given herself, the way he’d responded. He hoped to hell she didn’t hate him for it, because he was afraid he’d just fallen in love with her all over again.

He might as well have jumped off a three-hundred-foot cliff because it wouldn’t change anything. He still wasn’t meant for this kind of life. He still didn’t want the same address and same view from the same porch every morning. In light of that, it was past time to get the hell out of this bed with the fluffy white pillows and thick comforter. He rolled from his belly to his back, then nearly had heart failure. His daughter was sitting at his hip, grinning at him.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, he sat up and had enough wits about him to be grateful for the sheet at his waist since he was still quite naked. “Uh…hi.”

She just kept grinning.

He checked the sheet to make sure it was still covering the essentials, not wanting to be the one to educate this girl in the ways of male morning anatomy. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re in Mom’s bed.”

True. And he had no idea how to explain this. He wasn’t in the habit of sleeping with a woman all night long, not when by morning he’d always been overcome by claustrophobia. Actually, that claustrophobia was overcoming him now. “About that-”

“She’s downstairs drinking her coffee and pretending you’re not in here. In case you were wondering.”

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“Well, I came up to borrow a sweatshirt. And found you instead.” She hopped off the bed and twirled. “Think I’ll go mention to Mom I found you here. And that you’re awake.”

“No!” He forced a smile to soften his tone. “Um…maybe you’d just let her keep on pretending? You know, that I’m not here?”

She cocked her head thoughtfully. “If that would help your cause.”

Oh, now he was a cause. “Em-”

Bouncing closer, she tossed her arms around him and gave him a bear hug. The feel of her, thin and sweet, so goddamned sweet his throat tightened, had him wanting to hold her forever.

“I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to work,” she whispered against his throat. “Getting you to come here.”

Ah, hell. He put his hands on her arms and pulled back enough to look into her face. “Emily, I know you think you planned this little reunion, but I’ve got to tell you-”

“It was wrong,” she admitted. “And manipulative. I know. But I did the right thing, Dad. I can see that I did. Mom is down there glowing. She never glows, even when I make her put on makeup!”

Ben let out a slow breath. “Maybe she’s glowing because it’s sort of chilly.”

“Dad.”

“Or she’s catching a cold. You know, that’s probably it, all that physical therapy she does. And those meds she’s on lowered her resistance, and-”

“It’s you, Dad. She’s glowing ’cause of you and you know it.”

He stared at his beautiful, precious daughter and had no idea what to say or do. For most of her life she’d been out of his reach, and the rest of it would probably be more of the same. But for right now, for this little slice of time, he had her. He could be more than a casual dad, and suddenly he wanted to strengthen their relationship, make it worth something that they could both hold on to in the years to come.

Only he had no idea how to do that.

Then Rachel walked into the bedroom, indeed looking quite rosy. At the sight of Emily sitting on her bed, the bed with Ben still in it, she stumbled.

“Look who I found, Mom.” Emily tucked her tongue into her cheek and baited her mother with shocking ease for her age. “Right here in your bed. Can you believe it?”

Ben closed his eyes and wondered what she’d be like when she was eighteen. Hell on wheels, he thought weakly. And also, unfortunately, a chip off the old block. Either old block.

“Uh…” Rachel sounded a little breathless, so Ben opened his eyes again and found her looking a little panicked.

And majorly adorable. “Would you believe I sleepwalk?” Ben asked Emily.

She giggled. “Nope.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Emily, we…I…” She broke off with a disparaging sound, obviously at a complete loss. “It’s true. He sleepwalks.”

Enjoying herself, Emily leaned back in the bed next to Ben. She crossed her bunny-slippered feet and slipped an arm around his shoulders, surveying her squirming mother. “Okay. So he sleepwalks. And even though you sleep with one eye open, he somehow managed to get in under the covers without your knowledge, is that it?”

“Well…” Rachel glared at Ben. Help me, her eyes demanded.

When Ben left this time he wanted it to be on good terms, and he didn’t plan on thirteen years going by before he made his way back into this very bed. In light of that, he smiled. “How ’bout this, Em…it’s none of your business why I’m in here. We’re the adults, you’re the kid, and from now on, you’ll knock before you barge in.”

Em’s mouth opened, then shut.

“Starting five minutes ago,” he added.

“You mean…”

“Exactly. Start this episode over.”

“You want me to, like, actually go back out?”

“Like, actually, yes.”

Emily stared at her mom, who was looking as though she liked that idea very much. “You heard your father,” Rachel said primly.

Emily let out a rude noise, but got up. Halfway to the door she turned back. “You know, this having two parents in the same house is bogus.”

“Knock,” was all he said.

She slammed the door behind her, and Rachel lifted a brow at him. She looked good first thing in the morning, he noted, with her short, short, out-of-control hair and her cheeks quite pink…wearing that robe he’d so eagerly peeled off her last night.

Emily’s knock came, and he regretted he hadn’t sent her farther away…like into town.

“Aren’t you going to tell her to come in?” Rachel asked.

“I still haven’t worked out a good reason for being in your bed.”

“Maybe you should have left it by now,” she pointed out.

“Yeah.” As if he didn’t know that. With regret, he tossed the covers off and stood. Where had he left his clothes…? Ah, he saw them now, littered across the floor.

Another knock. “Dad? Mom?”

Rachel was staring at his very naked body, her mouth open a little as if she couldn’t quite get enough air. “Hold on, Em!”

Picking up his jeans from the floor, Ben slid into them. His shirt was across the room, draped over the top of her dresser where it had landed in his hasty strip.

Another knock, more loudly now. “Dad?”

“Em, we need another minute here.” He didn’t take his eyes off what he’d found beneath the shirt. An opened artist’s pad displaying a beautiful colored pencil rendering of nighttime South Village. The lights, the people, the shops and theater…it was all there, and in such vivid clarity and detail it could have been a photograph. Mesmerized, he turned the page, and the next picture caught him by the heart and squeezed.

It was of Emily, Patches and himself, all sitting on the small patch of grass in front of the house, laughing, touching…so absolutely, stunningly real he could almost see Emily breathing, could almost hear the puppy barking. “My God, Rachel.”

“Those are personal.”

“They’re incredible.”

She shut the pad on his fingers.

“I thought you weren’t able to work. That you were struggling.”

“Do those look like Gracie columns to you?”

“So it’s not Gracie, they’re still amazing.”

“You can’t make a living off renderings, Ben.”

“You can do whatever you want to do, you damn well know that.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Of course it is.”

“Look, ever since the accident, I need my job to be…important. And it’s not,” she finished lamely.

“Yes, it is. People wait all week for your witty take on whatever is going on in the country.”

Rachel laughed. “Right.”

“They do.”

“Ben…I look at you and your work, and then turn back to my easel and…” Her face fell. “It just feels insignificant. Silly.”

What was she saying? That she wanted to do what he did? That she suddenly wanted to travel with him? No, that was his fantasy and his alone. “Listen to me.” He took her shoulders, made her look at him. “My work…it’s not for normal people, okay? You know that. I travel all the time, I have no home, nothing to call my own except my equipment. I go to countries people have never heard of and see stuff no one could put together in their worst nightmares, and-”

“Exactly!” She shoved free. “You want to fix the world, Ben, and you’re not afraid to do it.”

“You do, too, just in a different way, that’s all.” He softened his voice, stroked a hand over her hair. “Don’t doubt yourself because of me, babe. I don’t think I could stand that. You are who you are, a damn strong, beautiful, intelligent woman, with the sense to keep her feet firmly planted. Me…I’m missing that gene entirely. What I do…that’s all I know.”

She lifted her gaze to his, and must have seen some of his thoughts, because resignation came into her eyes. “Last night…was that goodbye?”

Emily knocked again. “Hey! Can I come in or what?”

Ben couldn’t take his eyes off Rachel, the woman he’d seen in the face of every woman he’d been with in all these years. The woman who’d given him Emily. The one woman who, if he were crazy enough to consider settling down, would be the one to make him want to do it.

Too bad he was missing that gene, too. “Yeah. That was goodbye.”

She stared at him, still a little dewy-eyed, and he felt his heart crack. “It has to be,” he whispered back.

She nodded, and went into the bathroom.

A FEW HOURS LATER, Agent Brewer called Ben. “We’ve got news.”

Ben sat down, gripped the phone. “Tell me you have Asada in your hot little custody.”

“Not our custody. The South American authorities claim to have him.”

“Claim?”

“They say he was found dead in his hometown village.”

“Are they sure?”

“They think so.”

“And what do you think?”

“I’d like it better if we’d been able to ID the body before they cremated him.”

Shit. Ben rubbed his eyes. “No one from the States IDed him first?”

“No, but he was reportedly identified by a handful of people who have known and hated him for years.”

“So…it’s over.”

“It’s over.”

Ben hung up the phone, then waited for the relief to overwhelm him.

But oddly enough, the relief never came.

From: Emily Wellers

To: Alicia Jones

Subject: Sucky days…

Alicia, my dad is leaving on Tuesday for Africa. I know I told you he was going to stay, that’s what I had hoped for, but it’s okay. I think he and my mom got close on this trip, and I’m going to make sure there’s more trips in the near future.

Emily stopped typing and sat back. What else could she say? She felt bad because Alicia had gotten lonely in the past few weeks when she’d been so busy. But the truth was, suddenly Emily didn’t feel like doing e-mail every single day.

Before my dad goes, we’re taking a short camping trip over the weekend. Summer is almost here and Dad says we’re celebrating the upcoming season. He even talked Mom into coming. Can you believe it? The homebody out on an overnight camping trip. Shockers. She must really like him to agree, don’t you think?

Emily grinned. She thought about how her mother had looked just that morning while staring at her father in her bed, as if not quite sure exactly how he’d gotten there. Oh yeah, things were heating up.

Anyway, I know you wanted us to meet tomorrow but it’ll have to be next week, okay? I still haven’t asked my mom, she thinks there’s only psychos on the net. I’ll start easing her into it today.

Emily

THEY WERE ON their way to Joshua Tree National Forest. Rachel had never been and she had visions of-not to mention serious misgivings about-spiders, rocks beneath her sleeping bag and more spiders.

She also had visions of Asada coming back from the dead, but Ben assured her even if Asada hadn’t died, he’d never find them in the desert. The authorities knew they were going and seemed to think it was a good idea for them to get away. But still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this Asada thing wasn’t over. She shivered and glanced at Emily, who was smiling in anticipation from ear to ear, with her head bobbing to some noisy group coming out of her headphones.

Rachel glanced at Ben, who took his gaze off the road briefly and shot her that smile that never failed to turn her heart on its side.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

She thought about that in a way she never used to, but the truth was, she felt…moderately okay. There were still aches and pains, and she still tired far too easily, but overall, things were so vastly improved, she had to smile back. “Fine, actually.”

He grinned. “This is going to be great.”

Well, at least two of them were excited, so that had to be something. How she’d ended up in the car was beyond her. One moment Ben and Emily had been planning this last thing together, just the two of them, and the next, they’d included her as if…as if they were a family.

But they weren’t, not really.

And what would happen tonight? Alone in the dark? When their hormones kicked into gear again? Yes, they had Emily as a chaperon, so nothing much could happen, but Ben was nothing if not inventive. Would he want to sleep with her again? Instincts said yes, no matter that they’d already said goodbye. She knew resisting him would be her biggest challenge, especially when just thinking about it made her body feel soft and needy. And hopeful.

Rachel watched the scenery change and found herself putting aside her anxiety. Instead, she itched for a pad and pencils to capture the vast open space, the rock formations…everything. Spring had been extremely wet this year, and the primroses, sunflowers and other showy varieties bloomed madly across the desert floor. So different and yet so beautiful. The Joshua trees, for which the area had gotten its name, sprouted out of the dessert floor, some up to twenty-five-feet tall. From a distance, they looked like spiny, reaching ghosts.

“It’s like being on another planet,” she said in wonder as they pulled into a campground.

The place appeared deserted except for one other party, who’d gone much farther down the road and around a rock outcropping, leaving them with the illusion of being completely alone.

“It’s early in the season yet.” Ben pulled out the equipment they’d rented-a tent, stove, lantern. He wore jeans sinfully faded and threadbare, with holes in both knees, and one threatening the back of his left thigh. He had a red flannel shirt opened over his T-shirt that looked as soft and ancient as his jeans, and boots that had been around awhile. He was outdoors personified. “Spring can still get pretty brutal weatherwise out here.” He tipped his head back to study the sky.

She tore her gaze off his body at that and looked upward. Was that a thundercloud? “And so we came here because…why?”

Emily grinned and danced around. She wore jeans, too, and though they were relatively new, she’d cut holes in the knees to look like her father’s. Rachel’s heart tugged just looking at her.

“This is going to be so much fun! Can we roast the marshmallows now, or should we go for a hike, Dad? Or how about taking some pictures? Can we?”

Because of that, Rachel. You’re here, already freezing your tush off, to make her happy. To see her smile.

“How about we set up the tent?” Ben pulled lightly on Emily’s ponytail, smiling into her happy face, making Rachel swallow hard at the bittersweet feelings just looking at the two of them together provoked.

The late-afternoon sun reflected off the desert floor. She would have said the desert was brown, brown and more brown, but here in the flesh, she was stunned by how wrong she’d have been. The Joshua trees reaching out for the sky were a vivid green, with dark-brown trunks. The jagged rock formations were a myriad of colors, red and purple and yellow…she couldn’t stop looking around her, feeling the urgent need to get it all down on paper.

They put together camp. Rather Ben put together camp, with assistance from his eager daughter, while Rachel, feeling stiff and achy due to the surprising chill in the late-afternoon air, was forced to sit in a chair and watch.

The wind kicked up, blowing the flannel away from Ben’s body, tossing his hair around his face and shoulders as he put together the tent without directions.

Rachel needed directions just to run her coffeemaker.

Ben laughed at something Emily said, laughed again as the poles Emily was working on fell to the ground, dumping the tent as well. Frustration bubbled over that she couldn’t get up and help, be involved, but watching had its own merits. Her daughter-their daughter, she reminded herself-was in heaven.

Had her father have ever laughed with her like that? Smiled at her with such love shining from his eyes? Swallowing hard, she had to admit, Ben had turned out to be an amazing father, and Emily deserved every second she could get with him.

The tent did eventually go up. The tag on it claimed to sleep four people but Rachel eyed the tiny thing and wondered exactly what size those four people were supposed to be, as it hardly looked big enough for one sleeping bag. The three of them would be packed in there like sardines…

At least they’d have Emily with them, because being so close to Ben in nothing more than a sleeping bag sounded…damn tempting. In spite of her chill she started to warm up a little, from the inside out, just thinking about it.

“Mom, we’re going to go on a hike up that peak over there.” Emily was still bouncing around as she pointed to a rock formation a ways off, one that looked high and formidable. “Want to try to come?”

“Uh…” Now that she’d stopped thinking about Ben in a sleeping bag, and was looking at that mountain they wanted to scramble up, her warmth dissipated. Every single one of her injuries, healed or otherwise, had made itself known in the chill. “I don’t think so.”

Emily’s smile faded. “You okay?”

Other than feeling ancient? Other than the fact that just a few months ago she could have outenergized her own daughter? “I’m fine, hon. Just a little sore today.”

“I thought you were all better.”

Her own fault, as pride had made her hide any lingering problems from the accident. “Mostly.”

Ben started a fire, then came out of nowhere with her artist pad and pencils, which he set in her lap. “To help you pass the time.”

She stared down at her things and was shocked to find them blurring with her own tears.

“Just do it for fun,” he said softly, mistaking her emotion for distress. “Don’t think of it as work, just think of it as-”

She put her hands over his and squeezed, swallowing the lump in her throat. “It’s perfect, thank you.”

He smiled into her eyes, then leaned forward to give her a kiss that brought back some of the warmth. “Look for us, we’ll wave to you from the top.”

“Ben-” She grabbed his hand when he would have pulled away.

He touched her face. “You’re safe here, Rachel.”

“I know.” She felt safe. She always felt safe around him, she realized. “Be careful with our daughter, she’s a bouncing bubble of energy waiting for disaster.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the girl in question, who was already on the edge of their campsite, shifting impatiently back and forth with a camera around her neck. No laptop in sight. Ben turned back to her, his eyes lit with such heat it took her breath. “That’s the first time you’ve ever said ‘our’ daughter.” His voice was low and a little thick. “It’s always been your daughter or my daughter, never…ours.” He stroked a finger over the hand that held her pencils. “I’ve never really thanked you for her-”

“Ben-”

“So thank you,” he said, and kissed her again, just once, just softly, and by the time she opened her eyes Ben and Emily were nearly out of sight already. But for the longest time she could still feel him. Taste him.

To keep her mind off that, she opened her pad. Surprising how she could jump right in to sketching out here in the wilderness, when she was still a little cold, not so comfortable in the chair, and worried about her precocious daughter stepping off a mountain and falling to her death, but jump she did. Maybe it was the absence of telephone calls, doorbells, clocks to watch…but whatever the reason, without the day-to-day distractions, she worked as she hadn’t in months.

Thirty minutes later, she stared down in surprise. She’d drawn Gracie at the helm of a rowboat with her pencil high in the air pointing the way, towing her daughter and Patches, forging on against all odds. Out of nowhere, she’d pulled out a full Gracie column. No agony, no anxiety, nothing but the pure joy of the work.

She leaned back and looked at the startlingly blue sky. A few white clouds. No sound except a light wind whistling through the canyon and a few scattered birds. And a distant cry of…Mom? Someone was yelling Mom!

Emily!

Forgetting her aches and pains she leaped out of her chair, dropping her pad and pencils onto the ground as she scanned the horizon, heart in her throat. She knew it, Emily had gotten herself hurt or-

There. On top of the nearest rock outcropping, just where Ben had promised they’d stop and wave to her, stood her daughter and the man who’d changed her life forever with just one smile so long ago. Even from that distance she could sense he was giving her another of those smiles now, and she waved wildly, grinning in spite of herself, relief and something else crowding the heart that had stopped in fear only a second before.

They both waved back, Ben putting an arm on the exuberant Emily before she danced herself right off the cliff.

“Love you, Mom!” came Emily’s voice, and then they were gone from view.

“Love you, too,” Rachel whispered to no one, not even sure which of them she was talking to.

NIGHT FELL with shocking swiftness. No simple dusk for this place. One moment the sun slowly sank in golds and yellows and reds behind the rocks, and then the next, utter and still blackness.

Rachel crossed her arms in front of her, watching as Ben resurrected the fire she’d managed to kill. On his knees, he poked at the embers with a stick and the flames leaped to life for him. He glanced at her and she rolled her eyes.

At that, he laughed. The sound made her stomach tingle.

They’d met their neighboring campers-Joe, Matt, Liz and Shel, a group of four twenty-somethings claiming to be camping their way across the States before settling down to “real” life. The two couples had seemed a little wary of them until Ben had introduced himself, and within five minutes had made everyone feel quite at home.

Later, when Emily expressed worry at their new friends’ lack of a home, lack of things and family, Ben told her that he suspected they were happy with the life they’d chosen, and could always change it if they wanted. Not everyone had to have a home or things. Or even family.

Rachel had watched him explain this to Emily and had to swallow hard. He was like that, happy without a home, things. Family.

She might have brooded over that, but Emily pulled out a deck of cards and challenged them to a gin rummy tournament. They played next to the fire, surrounded by wide-open vast space and a blanket of stars, with only their own laughter for company.

It was perfect. Rachel looked at Ben. Oh, yes, so perfect. She knew she should be sad, regretful, even resentful, that this would be it, their only foray into the whole family dynamic, the three of them, but suddenly she felt something else as well. Grateful.

Ben looked up, caught her looking at him. His hair had been long when he came, but it was longer now, and fell across his forehead. He shoved his fingers through it, shoving it out of his way. He looked tall, lean…beautiful. When he looked at her, she had to close her eyes.

He was leaving. Tuesday. Couldn’t wait to leave.

“Let’s hit the sack,” he said abruptly, putting the cards aside, as if his thoughts had turned as troubled as hers.

“Dad-”

“Storm’s blowing in.” He pointed to the dark cloud mass coming in from the north, slowly blotting out the stars. “Let’s get warm and cozy inside before it hits.”

Five minutes later Rachel was kneeling in the center of the miniscule tent, staring at the three overlapping sleeping bags.

“I want the door,” Emily said, having a good time whipping the beam from her flashlight over everything.

“I got the door, sweetness,” Ben said.

Rachel waited for the inevitable argument, as Emily never accepted anything less than her own way, but at Ben’s no-nonsense tone, she simply grabbed her sleeping bag. “Well, then I get the far wall beneath the window.”

“Fine,” Ben said.

Fine? That wasn’t fine. Emily by the wall would put her in the middle, where Ben’s hard, warm strength would be against her all night long. She couldn’t handle it, she-

“Get in, Mom.” Emily pointed to the bag that overlapped Ben’s by a good third. “Tonight, I tuck you in.”

Kneeling on his bag, Ben pulled off his flannel shirt, leaving just the T-shirt, and slid into his sleeping bag. He looked at Rachel, his brow raised in a silent, amused dare.

Rachel lay down, pulled the bag up to her chin. She shifted her body around, expecting rocks beneath her. “Hey, this is…soft.”

“Dad put a mat down for you.” Emily grinned. “Didn’t want you complaining.” She kissed Rachel’s cheek, then turned over, facing away from her and Ben with obvious delight. “I could sleep in the car, you know.”

“No,” Ben said in that dad tone, and once again Rachel was shocked when her daughter turned off the flashlight and stayed silent. Her breathing evened out, faked or otherwise.

In the dark Rachel could feel Ben looking at her, could feel the warmth of his body. Hard to miss it when they were practically pinned side to side.

“You doing okay?” he whispered.

Depended on his definition of okay. “I’m…good.”

“Warm enough?”

Hard not to be with his body acting as her personal furnace. “I’m good,” she repeated, and listened to his soft, sexy laugh.

“Then why are you holding your breath?”

Yes. Yes, she was. She let it out slowly. Outside, the storm moved in, the wind howled, the tent walls flapped noisily. Inside was like their own personal cocoon. A sinewy arm snaked out, gripped her waist and tugged her against a hard chest. “You’re awfully quiet,” he murmured, his mouth to her ear. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m…” His fingers were playing lightly over her ribs, stealing her thoughts.

“Good?” he tested softly. “You’re good?”

Lord, she was trying to be. “Go to sleep, Ben.”

Another soft laugh escaped him, and he snuggled his face close to hers. “I will if you will, babe.”

Babe. “Ben-”

“Dream of me.”

Not surprisingly, she did.

From: Emily Wellers

To: Alicia Jones

Subject: We’re back!

Camping was so cool! A storm came in the middle of the night and knocked our tent down, LOL. And then when we crawled out from beneath it, it started to snow. Snow! In May, can you believe it? And then while my dad helped my mom and I into the car, the tent blew away, just went rolling across the desert like a toy. You should have seen my mom’s face, it was pretty funny. Dad laughed like crazy when he saw her.

Then, before we left, my dad gave all our leftovers to these two couples we met. I think they were homeless. I thought that was so cool of him. Mom did, too, though she didn’t say so. She just looked at him with a sort of mushy look.

And oh! The best part of the weekend! I got an e-mail from Van, that cute guy from my history class I told you about? He said he wants to keep in touch over the summer! scream!

Anyway, I got your letter. I’d love to meet you this week. If Mom will let me get a bus into Los Angeles, it’s on. I’ll let you know which day.

Emily.

From: Alicia Jones

To: Emily Wellers

Subject: Best friends forever

Dear Emily,

Your camping trip sounded like fun, maybe next time your parents would let you bring a friend. Like me!

Cool about Van, but don’t forget me, okay?

Beg your mom to let you take the bus to LA. Can’t wait to see you.

Your best friend,

Alicia.