Once in a Lifetime
Page 20“I know,” Aubrey said. “It was a rotten thing to do.” She paused. “You work with troubled teens.”
“Yes,” Sue said, looking suspicious. “Aren’t you a little old to be a troubled teen?”
Aubrey ignored the jab. “You’ve funded a special program for them at the teen center. You bring in career women once a week to meet with the girls and talk with them about their options. Doctors, lawyers, chefs—”
“I do.”
“I thought maybe I could volunteer to do that,” Aubrey said casually, even though she felt anything but casual. She felt…nervous. Sick with it, actually. But it was something she wanted to do to help others, especially those who were as emotionally adrift as she had been.
“You want to talk to troubled teen girls,” Sue said dubiously.
“Well, who better than a once troubled teen girl?” Aubrey asked quietly.
Sue looked at her for a long moment. “The people I have working with those teens are no longer troubled.”
“I’m no longer troubled,” Aubrey said.
“Just a few months ago, you slept with your boss and lost your job because of it.”
When would that stop following her around? “No,” she said. “I slept with my date, who turned out to be screwing half the town. I quit my job because he also turned out to be slime.”
Sue just looked at her.
“Okay, so he was also my boss,” she admitted. “But…” Aubrey started to say it wasn’t what Sue thought, but the truth was…it’d been exactly as Sue thought. She met the judge’s gaze. “You know what? Never mind. It was a ridiculous idea.”
Ben had been eating nachos and nursing a beer with Jack and Luke when Aubrey had walked into the Love Shack. She’d gone straight to the bar without seeing him, her gaze locked on someone already there.
At his table, Jack was telling them the story of having to rescue one of the world’s dumbest criminals on the job yesterday. Some guy had climbed a tree outside the convenience store to reach the second-story window, where the office was. Presumably the idea was to break in from above, but he got stuck in the window, half in and half out, hanging twenty-five feet above the ground, screaming for help.
Ben laughed at this right along with Luke, but his gaze kept being drawn back to the bar.
And Aubrey, as she’d sat sipping a wine, talking to Judge Sue Henderson.
The two women had looked incredibly cool and calm, but Ben knew Aubrey—knew the telltale signs that revealed the real Aubrey beneath the veneer. Her smile wasn’t reaching her eyes. Her legs were crossed, her body still, except for the slight movement of her fingers nudging her glass back and forth. She appeared to be taking a breath every two or three minutes. He supposed that’s how she’d survived her rough patches—by going into hibernation mode.
But he’d also seen her looking very much alive and breathing, like she’d just run a marathon, and he much preferred that look to this brittle one.
She seemed to be near a breaking point. How was it that no one but him saw that?
Then the judge had said something, and though Aubrey didn’t move, he could tell whatever it’d been, the barb had hit deep. Aubrey nodded, tossed back her wine, and stood. She said something. Sue didn’t respond, and Aubrey walked off.
And right out the door.
Ben stood and tossed some bills on the table. “Gotta go.”
Luke, gaze also on the door, just nodded thoughtfully.
Jack, having never been particularly thoughtful, said, “Anything to do with the beautiful leggy blonde that just left?”
“Bullshit.”
“Leave it alone,” Ben told him.
“Did you leave it alone when I was making a fool of myself over Leah?” Jack asked, leaning back lazily in his chair.
“Hell, yeah,” Ben said. “I left it plenty. And no one’s making a fool of himself here tonight, especially me.”
“First of all,” Jack said, lifting a finger. “You delivered Leah to my doorstep drunk as a skunk and then left her with me. How was that possibly ‘leaving it alone’?”
“Okay, you know the real truth, which is that Leah delivered herself to you that night,” Ben reminded him. With Aubrey’s help, in fact. “I just helped her find you and then made sure neither of you drunk idiots drowned.”
“And second of all,” Jack went on, as if Ben hadn’t spoken, “you are so about to make a fool of yourself. I can tell these things.” He looked to Luke for confirmation.
Luke lifted his hands. “Don’t look at me. I can’t tell shit.”
“Says the guy who found himself wrapped around Ali’s little finger before he could so much as blink,” Jack said in disgust. “Never mind him,” he said to Ben.
“I’m not going to make a fool of myself,” Ben said testily.
Jack just grinned. Luke toasted him with his beer.
Ben swore, flipped them both off, and walked out into the night. It was a mild one as far as winter nights went. A little chilly, but dry for a change.
He’d expected Aubrey’s car to be long gone, but it was still in the lot. Empty. He walked through the lot to the street and looked both ways.
No tall, willowy, enigmatic blonde in either direction.
He walked to the church, one block away, but tonight the building was dark. Ben stood there, the cold, salty air blowing over him, and suddenly he knew where she’d be.
He crossed the street and hit the pier. Far below, the waves smashed against the pylons and rocks. Everything was closed, but strings of white lights had the entire length of the pier glowing into the dark night. He stilled to listen and heard the soft click, click, click of heels. Gotcha, he thought, and followed.
He didn’t catch up with her until the very end of the pier. She’d sunk to a bench, pulled her legs up, and had her arms wrapped around her knees. Facing away from him, she was looking out into the inky night.
When he sat next to her, she jumped a little and then glared at him. “I swear I’m going to buy you a bell for your neck.”
He didn’t smile. Couldn’t, because her face was wet, and her mascara was smeared slightly beneath her eyes. The sight made his heart stop. “You’re crying.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Aubrey—”
“Damn it, I told you sometimes I get something in my eyes.” She swiped angrily at her face.
Sighing, he slid a little closer and put an arm around her.
She resisted, but he simply held on, and then suddenly she sagged against him. “You really piss me off,” she murmured, and turning to him, buried her face in his chest.
She fisted her hands in his sweater and gripped him tight. “You’re still insensitive and a first-class jerk,” she said soggily, reminding him of the things she’d said to him when he’d pulled her coil wire.
“I know that, too,” he said.
She shuddered and tightened her hold on him.
Something deep in his chest squeezed. It was never easy to watch a woman cry, but when a really strong woman like Aubrey let go, it was even harder. He stroked a hand down her hair. “What’s wrong, Aubrey?”
She laughed mirthlessly against him. “You mean you don’t already know? You know everything.”
He didn’t say anything to this, just held her while she cried for a few minutes. Then she sniffed, and if he wasn’t mistaken, wiped her nose on his shoulder. “I need to walk,” she said, and got up.
He went with her. He could have gone back to Luke and Jack. He could have gone home. He had no reason to stick with Aubrey. No reason except that he wanted to.
They walked off the pier, and she kept going. Past Eat Me, the Love Shack, the post office, the flower shop, the bakery, her own bookstore. They walked the length of Commercial Row and ended up at the rec center.
“You’ve been working here,” Aubrey said. “With the kids.”
He nodded.
“I heard you’ve turned Craft Corner into a huge success,” she said. “Leah said more kids show up each time.”
He wasn’t comfortable with taking the credit. “I’ve gone twice. And it’s all Jack’s doing.”
Her expression said she wasn’t fooled. “You’re enjoying it.”
What the hell. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m enjoying it.” He was still surprised at that. But when he’d gone for the second time a few days ago, the director had found out he was certified as an EMT and had asked him to be a staff member. They’d given him a key to the building and a big welcome in lieu of a stipend. Which was fine. His old job—the one that was now going to be his new job—would provide a surprisingly decent salary.
“And you took your old job back,” Aubrey said, as if reading his mind. “You start soon.”
He laughed low in his throat at the power of Lucky Harbor’s gossip mill. “Leah?” he asked. “Or Ali?”
She laughed, too, a little guiltily, he thought. “Facebook,” she admitted. She paused for a long beat, studying the rec center quietly. “If Hannah were still alive, you’d probably have a bushel of kids enjoying this place by now.”
A few years ago, just the thought would’ve given Ben a stab of pain. But whoever had said that time heals wounds had actually been right. His wounds were healing. Their gazes met. “Most people tiptoe around the subject of my dead wife.”
“I don’t tiptoe very well.”
No, she didn’t. It was wrong of him to even try to compare the two women. It was wrong to compare anyone to Hannah. Especially since, with her death, her image had changed in his mind, and her imperfections had faded. He knew that it was simply a coping technique, and that it probably wasn’t all that healthy. But Hannah had always been his calm, his eye in the storm, his refuge. She’d had such a quiet, soothing energy, and it’d suited his adventurous soul well.
He hadn’t been lying when he told her he’d been with women since Hannah, but his attention wasn’t captured. He’d not been tempted to go for another relationship.
Not once in five years.
So the fact that he was suddenly, irrationally tempted by Aubrey made absolutely no sense to him, not a single lick. Aubrey was…not quiet. Not soothing. She was wild and unpredictable.
Hannah’s virtual opposite.
“Show me what you’ve done with the kids here,” she said.
He grimaced. “It’s not all that impressive.”
“Show me.”
He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and opened the door for her. The place was empty, closed up for the night. Leaving the lights off, he took her hand and led her down the darkened hallway to the room he’d been using. The moonlight slanted into the classroom through the wall of windows, illuminating a series of hanging dream catchers. He’d been taught how to make them by the children on a Native American reservation in Montana when he’d been there several years ago after a devastating flood.
“Pretty,” she whispered, standing there in the dark room.
Sadness seemed to come off her in waves. Sadness and…loneliness. God, she was killing him. “Aubrey.”
“You give back,” she whispered. “You were gone for five years, and still you came home to a place that loves you and you found a way to give back to your town.”
“You’re trying to give back,” he said.
She didn’t respond to this, didn’t confirm or deny. Or even move. So he moved instead, closer to her, putting a hand low on her back, letting her know he was there. “Tell me what happened tonight.”
“It’s not important,” she said, and shifted to move away, but he caught her.
“It is to me,” he said. “Talk to me.”
“Sometimes,” she murmured quietly into the night, her head turned away from him, resting on his shoulder. “I feel like a really bad person.”
He stroked a hand down her back, physically aching for her. He’d like to tell her she was a really great person, but she wouldn’t believe him. The only thing he could do to coax her out of this mood was to do something he was really good at—which was annoy her. “You’re not all that bad,” he said.
She went still, and then snorted. “And maybe you’re not a total first-class jerk.”
“Oh, I’m still a first-class jerk.”
She lifted her head. “No,” she whispered.
“Yes. Here’s why.” And he kissed her.
Chapter 19
Aubrey was never prepared for what Ben’s kiss did to her. It was like she spent ninety-nine percent of her time walking around in a black-and-white world, and then when he kissed her, colors bled into her vision like a painting.
Not that she needed a man in order to see or feel. No, she had the ability to do those things all on her own, but it was as if being with Ben reminded her of that.
“I love kissing you,” he breathed, holding her close against his warm, hard body.
And hell if that didn’t melt her bones. “You don’t need to work at charming me,” she said a little breathlessly.
“No?” His mouth made its way to her ear, giving her a delicious shiver when he licked at the sensitive skin just behind her lobe. “Are you already charmed, then?”
“Just about everything you do charms me,” she admitted, goose bumps breaking out all over her body, thanks to his questing mouth. “And we both know I’m a sure thing here tonight. You don’t have to work so hard.”