“See you later?” Ben asked as he rolled to a stop in front of the employee entrance of The Lodge at Canyon Creek.

Maggie glanced at him through long lashes, lids lowered and cheeks flushed. A leftover reminder of the morning sex they’d had. Sex that had rocked Ben’s world and had him aching for more.

“Yeah,” she whispered, ducking her head like a shy schoolgirl. Last night’s marathon proved she was anything but shy. No, Maggie was very aggressive in bed. And Ben loved every minute of it.

He could get used to sharing a bed with Maggie Lawrence.

He no longer had to question where these thoughts had come from. He was falling hard for this woman.

“See you later.” She pushed open the door and swung her legs out, going for a quick getaway but Ben reached out and grabbed her wrist, not willing to say goodbye yet.

“What? No kiss goodbye?” He gave what he hoped was his sexy grin. He assumed it worked when she swiveled in the seat, leaned over the center console, palm on his thigh.

“Have a good day.” Her voice was low and her hand squeezed his leg as her lips softly brushed his.

“Fuck,” he murmured against her mouth.

Maggie leaned back and stared, faux innocence on her face and in her tone. “What?”

“How the hell am I supposed to make it through the day, thinking about those lips, and your hands?” He glanced down at his thigh.

“Sorry,” she said, biting her lip as she squeezed again, her fingers inching up.

“Yeah, about as sorry as last night, right?”

She leaned in and kissed him again. “Something like that.” Without another word, she slipped out of the car, bending down to look inside. Her green eyes were bright and he couldn’t think of anything he’d seen that was more beautiful than Maggie Lawrence, sated and satisfied.

“Bring me some coffee in a little bit?”

“From the café?”

“No, from your mom’s,” she said. “She has the best coffee maker, and she uses those expensive beans with the grinder thing.”

Ben thought back to the elaborate contraption sitting on his mother’s kitchen counter.

Maggie laughed as though she could see he had no clue what to do with the machine. “She’ll have some brewed already.”

Ben looked at the clock on his dash. It was just after five in the morning and he doubted his mother would be up. “She’s not much of an early riser,” he said.

Maggie’s smile fell. “She doesn’t sleep well anymore. She’ll be up.”

Ben stared at her, the reminder that she knew his mother better than he did nowadays stung.

“She misses your dad. It’s understandable.” Maggie’s face softened.

Ben’s heart ached, thinking of his mother. “Okay, coffee. I’ll try to figure out how to make it if she’s not up.”

She winked and closed the door.

He watched her go. Last night he’d felt her uncertainty slipping. And it felt good.

As Ben drove away and turned the car toward his childhood home, he thought about his mother and wondered how she was doing. His way of being there for his mom meant doing what he did best—crunching numbers and running figures. He’d been so consumed with that, he really hadn’t given much thought to how his mom was coping with the emotional side of his father’s death. Or, maybe he was just being a guy and had his head stuck in the sand, avoiding his own emotions.

Slipping his car behind Emmett’s SUV, Ben walked through the side door and into the massive kitchen.

“You’re home late.”

Ben jumped at the sound of his brother’s voice coming from the kitchen.

“Or early.” Emmett laughed.

Ben rounded the corner into the kitchen, surprised to find Emmett sitting at the breakfast bar.

“What the fuck are you doing up at,” Ben glanced at the microwave clock above the stove, “five-seventeen?”

“Business never sleeps, my brother.” Emmett pointed to the laptop in front of him.

“What are you working on?” Ben asked.

Emmett closed the computer and turned to face his brother. He stared him up and down, one elbow propped on the bar. “Better question is, what are you doing, big brother? Or more aptly, who are you doing?” Emmett grinned. “Although judging from the way your lusty eyes glaze over every time a certain someone walks into the room, I think it’s safe to say Maggie Lawrence is what you’re doing. Or I guess grammatically, who you’re doing.”

Ben bristled and stepped closer. “Fuck you and your grammar.”

Emmett laughed and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Damn, dude, you’ve got it bad.”

“Got what bad?” His mother asked as she entered the kitchen, opening a shelf and pulling down her coffee beans.

Ben glared at Emmett, silently warning him to keep his opinions to himself.

“I think your eldest may be in love, Ma,” Emmett answered with a drawl, his eyes glued to Ben in challenge.

Ben shot him the finger and mouthed “fuck you.”

“With who?” his mother stopped prepping her gargantuan coffee maker and turned to stare.

“Grammatically, it’s whom, Ma.” Emmett smirked. Fucker.

“Have you been writing much lately, Emmett?” Ben asked, his brows raised. He knew any talk of Emmett’s writer’s block would shut him up.

Their mother continued to stare at Ben.

Emmett shot him the finger behind their mother’s back.

“Are you just now getting in, Benjamin?” his mother asked.

Benjamin. Uh oh, the full name was reserved for reprimands.

“Didn’t know I have a curfew, Ma.”

His mother shrugged. “You don’t.” She continued preparing her coffee, just like Maggie said she would. “How’s Maggie?”

How the hell did she know he’d been with Maggie?

Because she’s a mom with six boys who gave her a lot of practice at reading minds.

Emmett shot him a look and tapped his temple. “Mother’s intuition,” he whispered.

More like Emmett ran his big mouth last night.

“You made dinner for her, right?” His mother asked, her back still toward them.

“Um, yeah.”

“And breakfast too?” Emmett laughed.

“Fuck you, Emmett,” Benjamin retorted.

His mother twirled on her toes, her finger pointed squarely at him. “Benjamin Isaac Sumner, you’ve said that word four times now.” How the fuck did she know that?

“Five,” Emmett corrected.

“You watch your language, young man,” she scolded. “I hope you don’t talk like that around Maggie.”

Emmett snorted.

“And Emmett Daniel, don’t think I didn’t see that obscene gesture.”

Emmett’s eyes popped wide like they had when he’d been a kid and caught by their parents. “What the—” Emmett stared in disbelief.

His mother cocked a brow and gave Emmett a lethal glare.

That had his brother raising his hands in the air. “Fine, fine.” He scooped up his laptop and slid from the stool. “I’m out of here.”

“Where are you headed at this hour?” his mother asked.

“I need to upload a blog post.”

“A blog post?” Ben and his mother asked in unison.

“Yeah, I set up a blog for the lodge’s website.”

“What do you write about?” Ben asked, genuinely intrigued.

“Read it and find out.” Emmett shoulder bumped his brother and whispered “Dipshit,” then sauntered down the hall to his room.

“So,” his mother said, reaching in the cabinet and pulling down two mugs, “how’s Maggie doing?”

Ben reached for the second mug but his mother kept it by the coffee maker. Weird.

“She’s fine.”

She opened the fridge and removed the creamer, pouring a liberal amount into one of the mugs then lifted the other mug to her face.

“Uh, Ma, I don’t like creamer.”

“What?” she asked, blowing into her mug.

“The creamer.” He pointed to the counter. “In my coffee. You just poured it in and I don’t take creamer.”

His mother glanced down at the mug and stared. “I can’t believe I keep doing this.” She moved toward him with the mug, shaking her head.

Ben reached out to take it. He’d learn to deal with the cream.

Before he could grab it, his mother tossed it in the drain and put the mug back in the sink.

She stared blankly at the basin for a long beat but then moved back to the coffee maker and fixed a cup for Ben.

“It’s okay to talk about him, Mom.”

“Mom.” She laughed.

“What?”

“I’m Ma when you love me, Mom when you’re mad or concerned.”

“Just like I’m Ben when you love me, and Benjamin,” he used a high-pitched voice to mock his mother, “when you’re mad.”

“Or concerned.” She laughed.

“Yes, something like that.” She poured his mug full and passed it over this time. “So, you never answered my question.”

“What question?”

She sipped her coffee, slurping like she always did.

Ben laughed.

“What?” She pulled the mug from her mouth.

“Dad always used to complain about you slurping your coffee.”

“What? It’s still hot.” She offered in explanation

“That’s what you’d always tell him.”

“Then let it cool,” they both said in unison, mocking his father’s response, smiling with amusement.

His mother stared at him over the mug. “You’re avoiding the subject, young man.”

“What subject?” Ben took a sip of his scalding hot coffee, understanding why his mother slurped.

“Maggie,” she said. “How is she?”

“You know how she is, you see her every day.”

“I meant, did she talk to you last night?”

“Yeah, we talked, about a lot of things.” Ben rested on the counter, teasing his mother. She was on a fishing expedition and he was going to make her struggle.

“Did she talk about her father?”

“What specifically about her father?” Ben asked.

“Growing up with an alcoholic for a father can make it hard on a child,” she said.

“I can only imagine.”

“It does something to you,” she touched her chest, “inside. It breaks you and makes you feel inferior, less than you really are.”

Ben’s heart ached for his mother, and for Maggie.

“When you grow up in a dysfunctional home,” his mother continued, “you crave stability. You need the assurance that you’re enough, just as you are. That never comes from an alcoholic parent. At least I had my mother. Maggie had no one to reassure her.”

Ben had totally forgotten that Maggie’s mother had left them when she was young. God, she’d had it bad. His heart ached for the little girl who had no one to defend her.

“And you pray for a white knight in shining armor,” his mother said.

“Don’t all girls?”

“It’s different for adult children of alcoholics.”

“How so?” Ben asked, truly intrigued. He’d never talked to his mother on a deep level about her father’s abuse.

“You want stability and the knight and all,” she continued, “but you don’t know what to do with it when it comes along. It’s like, you grew up in chaos, so you create it. One of the places you’ll create it is in your relationships.”

Ben stared down at his mother. “What are you trying to say, Ma?”

She stared at him, her loving gaze penetrating down to the little boy’s heart who’d received unconditional love from his mother his whole life. Maggie had not.

“She needs reassurance that she’s enough. She needs stability, Ben. She throws up this ‘I don’t give a rat’s behind’ attitude when it comes to relationships, but I know she craves a knight in shining armor. She has a huge heart, capable of giving the kind of love she needs, but she doesn’t feel worthy.”

Love? Who the hell had added love into this equation? He was going to kill Emmett for saying the ‘L’ word earlier.

“Look, Ma, I’m not sure where you’re going with all this, but it was just one night.” Oh, hell. Did he just admit that he’d had sex with Maggie Lawrence?

She cupped his jaw. “Maybe to you, and maybe to her too,” she paused, “but I don’t think so.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just,” she struggled with her words, “be careful with her, Ben.”

“She’s already told me flat out she doesn’t want anything lasting.”

His mother snorted. “That’s what I told your father in the backseat of his ’79 Corolla right before—”

“Ma!” His mug banged on the counter as he slapped both hands over his ear. “That’s sick.”

His mother snickered, taking another sip of her coffee.

Ben slowly lowered his hands. “Are we done here?”

“You know, you don’t have to stay here, right? I fully expect you to return to Seattle, to your company. I know you have big things going on.”

“I know you have no expectations.”

“But…”

Oh, God, here it came.

“If you stay, please don’t use Maggie,” she said. “She deserves better.”

Ben raised a brow. “She deserves a knight in shining armor?”

“All girls do.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “If you can’t give her that, then bow out gracefully.” She stared at him but he didn’t say a word. “I’ve got to get ready for work.”

She walked out of the kitchen but glanced over her shoulder. “And we need to talk about all those budget cuts you made.”

“I know,” Ben sighed. “You have a vision. I fu—” Ben stuttered, “uh, messed up. I’ve already contacted the vendors and reordered the products I cancelled a few weeks ago. And I’ll email Shawn and the crew this week to tell him the original build-out plans are back on. You'll get everything you want, Ma.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. I'm glad you're on board. The cabins and the barn will be spectacular.” She waved one hand in the air as if presenting a stage show.

“I sure as shit hope so with the money we’re spending.”

“Language, Benjamin.”

“Yes, Mom.”

His mother blew him a kiss and strolled toward the stairs. “See you soon?”

Ben nodded, despite his desire to collapse into his bed. What he needed was a nap, and another evening with Maggie. Considering he’d never been in a long-term relationship, nor did he own a suit of armor, he considered his mother’s edict seriously.

They were short-term, a fling. They’d both agreed. Maggie didn’t want more.

Neither did he.

The one piece of the puzzle he couldn’t figure out was this nagging sense he was beginning to want more. Beginning to want to be her knight after all.