Chapter Twelve
I opened the pantry and then slammed the door closed. There wasn’t anything in there! Damn it. Where had all the food gone?
“Mom!” Blake and Abby called from the entryway at the same time.
“What?” I attacked the refrigerator and searched through every drawer.
“There’s a guy at the front door!” Blake yelled again.
I stood up and spun around. I stared at the stove. If I stared long enough would something magically appear?
“Who is it?” The staring trick was not going to work. I needed to figure out something fast for dinner or my kids were going to mutiny. Grilled cheese?
“The guy with the pool!” Abby shouted as an explanation.
“Ben?”
“Yeah,” Blake confirmed. “Ben!”
“Let him in!” Poor Ben had probably heard every single word exchanged between us, but there was nothing I could do about that now.
Dinner needed to be made ASAP.
I heard the front door open and a low voice greet my kids. Jace ran for my feet, hiding between my legs. I opened the refrigerator again. There had to be something in here.
“I’m in here!” I yelled for Ben’s sake. Lucy and Abby started fighting over something. Girlish screams erupted from the kid craft table.
“I just followed the deafening sounds. I found you.”
I whirled around to greet Ben face to face. He looked like he’d come straight from work. His tie had been pulled off, his top button undone and his cuffs rolled to his forearms. His dark hair was more tussled than usual, as if he’d run his hands through recently.
“Hi,” I smiled at him.
He stared at me for a few long seconds. “Hi.”
His gaze unnerved me so I went back to searching through the cabinets. Nope, no dinner waiting for me in the Tupperware drawer.
“Is this what it’s always like over here?” he asked on an amused chuckle.
“Always,” I said with my head back in the pantry.
“I like it.” From the tone of his voice, I could tell he actually believed he liked it too.
“Give it some time,” I warned. Blake and Abby started fighting about which pencil they were supposed to use for homework. “Blake you have the orange Ninja Turtle, Abby you have Raphael!”
“What are you doing?” Ben asked in a genuinely interested tone.
I glanced over my shoulder to see him leaning on the kitchen island. “Trying to stop the fighting. It will only last a second though. Just wait.”
He grinned at me. “No, I meant in there. What are doing to your kitchen?”
“Oh! I’m, er, trying to come up with dinner. I need to get to the store, but I just… haven’t gone. So, now I’m trying to figure out what kind of meal I can make from a bottle of ketchup, parmesan cheese and frozen peas.”
Ben made a sound in the back of his throat and said, “Please don’t try to make anything with those three ingredients.”
“What’s in your refrigerator, Mr. Bachelor?”
“A bottle of Ranch and a six-pack of beer.”
“No judging.” I whirled my finger at his smug smile. “At least I have peas.”
The three oldest kids started fighting again over pencils and homework and I had to abandon my conversation with Ben to break them up. Then Jace decided he would rather stand on the craft table then sit around it and color, so I had to deal with him.
By the time I got back to Ben, he was just ending a phone call.
“Alright,” I teased. “Let’s pool our resources. What can we make if we combine your bottle of Ranch with my bottle of ketchup?”
“No, need to try to figure out that perplexing puzzle. I just ordered pizza.”
My brain refused to accept his words. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Your children seem hungry.” He waved at the hooligans who had just broken out into a fight over an eraser. “You seem hungry.”
“But I-”
“And I really am hungry. I’m afraid of a dinner that consists only of condiments. I thought I would solve both of our problems.”
I was too overwhelmed with his generosity to protest anymore. “Thank you, Ben.”
His smile softened with friendly affection. “It’s my pleasure, Liz. I’m happy to help you.”
“You didn’t just help me, you saved my life tonight.”
He leaned forward so that we were only a few inches apart and he could look directly into my eyes. “Elizabeth, any time I can save your life by ordering pizza, please let me know. It’s a sacrifice I am more than willing to make.”
“I, er, um, thank you.” My words were a rushed whisper. I whirled back around to busy myself with something, anything, in the kitchen. “So what did you really come over for? Unless we’re so loud that you could hear us over at your place?”
“I brought some of your mail. A few pieces got mixed up with mine. Thought you might need your water bill.” He waved a couple envelopes in front of him before setting them on the counter.
“Oh, wow, thank you! That would have been bad. My kids can eat peas and ketchup for dinner occasionally, but they cannot go without baths. They are surprisingly smelly.”
“I don’t think that’s surprising,” he countered seriously.
I laughed and watched Abby try to pencil in a mustache on Jace’s wiggling face. He was probably right about that one.
“Abby, be careful of his eyes!”
She squinted studiously at Jace’s upper lip. “I know, Mom!”
Turning back to Ben, I caught him looking at me, not Abby. “I thought you came over to talk about Emma!” I blurted when panic burst to life inside of me.
“Oh, no. Uh, I didn’t come over here to talk about that, or, uh, her.”
“She says you haven’t called her. I thought you said she was fun.”
His eyebrows bunched together. “I’ve called her. She’s called me too.”
“What? She told me you two hadn’t really talked since the first date.”
“Oh, right. Well, we haven’t been on a second date .Maybe that’s what she meant.”
I narrowed my eyes on the giant boy-man in my kitchen and realized he was a terrible liar. “Why not? You said she was fun!” I knew I was repeating myself, but I couldn’t help it. What was his deal with my sister?
He broke into an amused grin. “Yes, she was fun. But that was it. We had a good time. I knew that night I wasn’t going to ask her out again and I know she didn’t expect it to go any further either.”
“How do you know that?” My tone lashed out, a whip biting at the air around me. The rage monster had taken up residence under my skin again. I couldn’t stop my overreaction from happening even though I desperately wanted to.
“Because she told me.”
“She did not.” My hands gripped the counter top so tightly my knuckles turned white.
“Liz, she did.” His voice gentled. “Your sister is smart, funny and downright gorgeous. But she is not into me like you want her to be.”
I whirled around, unable to face him. His words spun around in my head, trying to land in one place long enough for me to make sense of them. But I couldn’t. Emma and Ben were perfect for each other. And even though he put this on her, like it was her decision, I couldn’t help but blame him.
I threw open the refrigerator again and yanked out the last of the milk. “Damn it,” I cursed as I poured just enough into four small cups.
“What’s the matter?” he stepped forward and took the empty milk carton from my hand.
“I need to go to the store.”
“I can see why that would make you angry.”
His teasing words only pissed me off. “Do you know what it’s like to go to the store with young kids, Ben? I don’t have the time! And I really don’t have the patience for the headache. And my sister is perfect for you!”
His big hand landed on my shoulder and turned me toward him. His other hand came next and directed my chin so that I had to look at him. His touch confused me in the worst ways. No man besides Grady had ever touched me like this. Not with this kind of command and intimacy.
I couldn’t pick one of my feelings out of my tumultuous head that would make sense. I couldn’t even figure out why Ben’s touch felt intimate or invasive. But the warmth of his skin seeped through my thin blouse and wrapped around my bones.
I hadn’t been touched by another man besides Grady, but I also hadn’t been touched by another man since Grady.
I missed human affection, a strong man’s touch. My body awoke in ways that had been dormant for a very long time, even before Grady had passed.
My brows furrowed and I pressed my lips together in a frown. These feelings couldn’t have been more inconvenient or ill-timed. I desperately needed to get control of my body and thoughts.
But then Ben spoke in a low rumble of authority and I knew I had no defense against him in that moment. My only saving grace was that I knew nothing would come of it because Ben was Ben and I was the hot mess that I was. We were friends and we were becoming good friends, but that was all that there was between us.
“Liz, I admire how much you think of your sister. I think she’s great too. But you have to understand that we had a great time, there just wasn’t that spark between us. We make great friends though. And we plan on staying friends. She’s even going to help me pick out some furniture this weekend. I didn’t break her heart or treat her badly. And I swear to you, she is not sitting around waiting for my phone call to ask her out. Please believe me.”
I swallowed beyond the lump in my throat. “Okay,” I whispered.
His hand that gently held my chin dropped to my other shoulder. He stood up to his full height but took a step toward me.
He stared down at me with those deep, dark eyes and for a moment I got lost there. I fell into him in a way that scared me. He held my gaze and dipped his head. For a crazy second I thought he wanted to kiss me.
After long seconds, he finally spoke, breaking the spell that had settled over the two of us. “You’re a very aggravating woman.” The doorbell rang just as I opened my mouth to defend myself. “I’ll get it,” he said instead. “They’ll need my signature for the pizza.”
He took his hands off me and left the kitchen. I collapsed against the refrigerator with weak knees. Who was this guy?
I looked over at my kids, but they were blissfully unaware. They’d settled into their drawing projects, not paying attention to me at all.
“Go wash up,” I told them. They finally looked up at me. “Ben ordered some pizzas, go wash up and we’ll eat dinner.”
“Who’s Ben?” Abby asked.
“The pool guy,” I told her.
The kids watched in wide-eyed fascination as Ben reappeared with four large pizzas and two boxes of breadsticks.
He set the food on the counter and smiled sheepishly at me, “I didn’t know how much would be enough.”
“That’s, um, plenty,” I promised him, trying to process that amount of food.
He leaned forward and in a low voice, as if it would offend the children, said, “You have a lot of kids.”
I suppressed a smile; he was trying to help. “Go wash up!” I reminded the kids. “And then come eat pizza!”
“Pizza!” They squealed, rushing off to the half-bath in the hallway.
Ben helped me set out paper plates and the milk. I decided to make this dinner as easy as I could. I opened the boxes to find that he’d picked a cheese, pepperoni, supreme and Thai from our favorite pizza place.
He somehow managed to walk in here tonight and not only save dinner, but order perfectly for us. I started to wonder if maybe he wasn’t real. Maybe he was only a figment of my imagination.
The kids monopolized his attention at dinner, asking him a hundred questions about his job and house, if he had a wife, why didn’t he have a wife, if he had pets, why didn’t he have pets, when would he fill the pool up again.
He hadn’t found the right girl yet. Lots of girls he liked, no girls he loved. Yet. My curiosity had been sated.
He stayed for a few minutes after we finished, helping me pick up and even wiped down the table. I shooed the kids upstairs to get ready for baths and walked him to the door.
“Thank you. For tonight and for the pizza.”
He looked down at me with a burning warmth. I felt it all the way to my toes. “I’m glad to help,” he promised. “Thank you for forgiving me for genuinely liking your sister.”
“You’re a very brave man to bring that up,” I warned with little real anger.
“I genuinely like you too.” His words shocked the hell out of me. “But I think in a completely different way than Emma.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
He grinned at me. “That’s okay with me.”
“Goodbye, Ben.”
“Bye, Liz.”
I watched him walk across my yard to his own. His long, confident gait ate up the distance quickly. He turned around just once more to wave at me and disappeared into his dark house.
I closed the front door and moved upstairs to get the kids ready for bed. I smiled through bath time and story time, thinking about how Ben probably never expected to spend the evening with us. His dinner plans were most likely vastly different than sitting at a crowded table, sharing pizza with four wild kids.
Just as I tucked Jace in and kissed him one last time, there was another knock on the door.
“What now?” I muttered to myself as I bounced down the stairs.
I could see Ben’s tall figure through the mottled glass. I glanced toward the kitchen wondering what he forgot.
“Hey,” I smiled gently when I opened the door for him. He held out a paper grocery sack. “What’s this?”
“I called Emma, like you wanted me to.” I rolled my eyes at his accusing tone. “She’s going to come over tomorrow morning around ten so that you can go grocery shopping alone. If you ever need a few things, I can always stop on my way home from work.”
“Ben, I can’t-”
“Liz,” he cut me off, “You have people that care about you, that want to help. Let us.” He wiggled the paper bag, so I took it from him.
I looked into the bag to see a gallon of milk, a box of brown sugar Pop-Tarts and my favorite K-cups. Emma must have told him my preference.
Tears glistened in my eyes, when I lifted my head to meet his intense gaze, “Thank you.”
“You’ll call me if you need anything?”
I nodded. Yes, I would. Ben had proved himself to be someone I could trust.
Someone I could rely on.
“Have a good night, Liz.”
“You too.”
This time I didn’t watch him walk away, I was too absorbed in the little miracle he’d left in my arms. A gallon of milk might not seem like much to anyone else, but to me it was the difference between getting through the morning tomorrow and crashing and burning in a blaze of failure.
He had saved me tonight.
And I couldn’t figure out why.