Montana Cherries (16 page)

Dani remembered that part of it. A freak accident, the doctor had said.

Or was it karma having the last laugh?

Either way, their mother had died and Cord had stood by while it happened. Chances were good he felt he should’ve been able to save her.

“The pregnant lady?” Dani inquired about the other woman.

“Was fine.”

She nodded. That’s what she thought. “You couldn’t have saved Mom,” she told him. What could a sixteen-year-old have possibly done with an internal bleed that he didn’t even know about?

His jaw tensed again, and she shivered at the hardness in his eyes. “That’s just the thing. Probably I couldn’t have. But the truth is, I’m not sorry I didn’t.”

And neither was Dani, though she’d forgotten that part until now, too.

She’d not been sorry that their mom had died.

She chewed on her lip before saying the only thing she could think of. “No wonder you never want to come home.”

“It’s a wonder any of us ever do,” Nick added solemnly.

Dani looked at Nick then. He appeared as ripped apart as the rest of them.

“We come home for you,” Jaden told her.

Tears slipped down her cheeks. “To protect me?” Because she’d been so out of touch with reality, she hadn’t even remembered how destructive their mother had been. She didn’t understand how she’d blocked that out for so long.

“Because we love you,” Nate corrected.

chapter fourteen

T
he rest of the house had gone quiet, and it ate at Ben to sit in his room and wait them out. Dani’s mother had killed herself?

He would never have guessed that.

He’d hung out in the hallway after Cord’s proclamation, long enough to hear the words Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Then he’d come into his room to google it. The stories he’d read over the past few minutes had turned his blood cold. It was hard to imagine a mother who not only didn’t love her own kids, but also by turns ignored, bullied, criticized, and manipulated them, all to feed her own needs.

It made of him think of his own mother. And Lia.

He didn’t think it was the same for them. He hoped it wasn’t, for Haley’s sake. Those two seemed more like they simply had no time for others rather than needing to use others for their own gain.

Dani’s mother, though. She sounded like an emotional vampire. As if her children had been pawns in a very strange game of making sure the world revolved only around her.

He wondered how badly that had messed them all up. But he wondered most about Dani.

And what he could do to help.

Because he couldn’t leave her alone to deal with this on her own. He’d already been playing with the idea of suggesting they see what this thing was between them. And yes, there was a thing. Even if they were both pretending it didn’t exist.

He’d spent approximately sixty hours away from her over the past three days, and she’d appeared in his thoughts a surprising number of times. He’d missed her. He’d wanted to tell her all about his days with Haley.

Hell, he’d just wanted to talk to her.

So yeah, there was a thing. And he’d come back to Montana giving serious consideration to letting her know how he felt.

But now he couldn’t tell her anything. What was happening out in the family room was far more important than his feelings, and it sounded like something that would have long-term effects.

Which meant, Dani was priority number one. This
thing
between them? This thing had to be forgotten.

His door suddenly opened, and Dani stepped into his room.

In the next instant he had her in his arms. Her hands lifted as quickly as his, closing around his waist and holding tight. She buried her face in his chest.

They stood like that for several minutes until her brothers’ low murmurs registered from the other room. Ben shifted the two of them so he could quietly close his door. This was no time for one of her overprotective siblings to decide they needed to safeguard her against
him
.

She continued clinging without uttering a sound. She wasn’t crying, and she was so quiet he couldn’t even hear her breathing. But he felt her heartbeat against his chest.

He scooped her up, her arms going around his neck, and a whimper finally slipping from between her lips. Then he carried her to the chair in the corner of the room. After he settled them both on the cushion, she buried her face in his neck and her body began to tremble.

“Ben,” she moaned.

“Shhh.” He rocked her in his arms. “I’m here, baby. I’ve got you.”

He crisscrossed his arms around her back, holding her close, and they sat like that for a long time. She never completely broke down, just let out the occasional sob. Finally, her body quit shaking and she lifted her face from his neck. Watery eyes sought him out.

“My mother,” she whispered.

And he felt like he’d died.

Her gorgeous blue eyes pleaded with him. As though begging him to fix it. But he had no clue what to say. What to do. He’d been as floored as she. “I know,” he finally muttered. He squeezed her to him and buried his nose in her hair. “I know,” he said quietly once again.

“I hate my brothers,” she muttered.

He gave a sad smile because he understood. She was a proud woman. She’d come home and taken over the care of her family, and they’d kept life-altering information from her. No doubt it had been done with the best of intentions, but now they all had to live with the outcome.

Her eyes were still on him, watching him carefully. The moisture had slowed, but the sadness remained abundant. He pressed his lips to each eyelid, one at a time, tasting remnants of tears and wishing he could do more.

“I need . . . something,” she murmured, sounding lost. “I need . . .
you
.”

“You’ve got me.” He hugged her tighter and resumed his previous rocking. “I’m not going anywhere.” He would hold her until tomorrow if he needed to. Or longer. Whatever it took to make her not seem so destroyed.

“No.” She shook her head and peered up at him. “Not like that.”

He halted his movements. “What’s wrong? Tell me and I’ll fix it.”

“I just need
you
,” she stressed. “All of you.”

“I don’t—”

Her fingers touched his lips then, and he saw in her eyes what she meant. She was hurting. Desperate to feel something other than pain.

And that something was him. Sex.

Pleasure.

Oh, Christ.

“No, babe.” He shook his head while his lower body woke up. “That isn’t what you need right now. Just let me hold you.”

“Please,” she begged, and he almost broke in two. The word was filled with so much misery. “Make love to me, Ben.”

He stroked a hand over her arm, fighting with himself to do the right thing. “That isn’t what you really want. You’re just hurting.”

“It
is
what I want.”

“Babe.” He momentarily closed his eyes. “You just turned me down out at the beach thirty minutes ago, remember?” He tried to tease her. “You wouldn’t even let me flirt with you.” He stroked the back of his finger over her heated cheek. “If I made love to you right now, you’d only regret it like you did the last time.”

“I didn’t regret it last time.”

Her words were spoken clearly, and as bad a person as it made him, he desperately wanted to believe her. He desperately wanted to make love to her.

But he knew better. He remembered the past precisely.

“You disappeared from my bed that night, Dani. You were gone before I woke up. Gone the entire next day. I had to leave for school, and I didn’t even get to tell you good-bye.”

After he’d taken her virginity.

She shook her head. “I didn’t regret it. I cherished it. I still do. But I was ashamed.”

His eyes narrowed in surprise.

“I’d used you,” she explained, the words spoken softly.

“You didn’t.”

“I did. I threw myself at you out on the dock, and after you turned me down, I still came into your room uninvited. I used you because I wanted to lose my virginity that night. Because I was tired of being different than other girls, and tired of not getting to do anything but be right here raising my brothers. And now I understand why I thought it was okay to do that. I manipulated you to get what I wanted because that’s what I’d grown up with.” Her brows scrunched together as if in contemplation before she groaned. “Oh, God. I’m just like her.” She shook her head in denial and pushed at his chest. “I should go.”

“No.” The word shot out of him, and he pulled her back. “No,” he said again, more calmly, while holding her steady in his arms. “To both of those things. You didn’t use me. And you’re nothing like her. Nothing, Dani. Listen to me. I googled ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder’ after I heard Jaden say it.”

“You heard?” she asked. She sounded mortified.

He swallowed his guilt. “Yes. I stood in the hallway and listened. But only for a minute. I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t just walk away. You looked so scared. I wanted to come to you. When Jaden mentioned what it was, I came in here to find out more. So I could help,” he told her. That was what he wanted most right then, to help.

She blinked up at him and he noticed that her eyes had gone hollow. That was worse than being sad. “She manipulated people,” Dani said. “She manipulated
me.
” She licked her lips. “And I did the same to you.”

“You may have behaved in ways similar to what you’d grown up seeing, but there’s a world of difference in you and her. She didn’t care about you. She
couldn’t
care. You care about everyone.”
Too much
, he often thought, but now he understood why. “And you came to me that night for a reason.”

“Because I was tired of being a virgin.”

He almost smiled at her blunt statement, but it wasn’t the time for laughter. “Or because you were drawn to me, sweetheart.” He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Her skin was soft beneath his. “We’ve always been drawn to each other.”

We still are.

“None of it is an excuse for what I did to you. I shouldn’t have come in here that night. I shouldn’t have taken off my clothes.”

“Dani, listen to me. You didn’t
do
anything to me.
We
made love. And I enjoyed the hell out of it. Every second of it. I only wish you’d still been in my arms the next morning.”

He tucked her back against his chest, afraid she would leave him, and tried to force his own heart rate to slow. When she once again pulled back, he tensed. Her eyes were watering again, but no tears fell.

“I did too,” she told him solemnly. “Enjoyed it. Every second.”

“Then no more worrying, okay? Just let me hold you.”

The instant he had her face back against his neck, she whispered, “I still want you to make love to me.”

His heart seized, and this time he looked down at her with serious contemplation.

Could he do that?

“I’m using you again,” she stated when their gazes met. “I know that. Maybe that’s all I know how to do. But it’s the only thing in my life that makes sense right now.
You.
You’re what makes sense, and I need that. I need you.” She reached up, and when her fingers trailed across his lips again, he damn near moaned out loud. “I need to feel like something in my life fits,” she said. “And you fit me.”

Ah, hell. He was going to do it.

And he realized that in doing so, he just might get his heart broken again. Because yeah, she’d broken it the first time. It wasn’t like he’d been planning to stay back then, or even to carry on a long-distance romance, but he’d thought their night together was more than sex.

Then she’d disappeared. And he hadn’t talked to her in ten years.

Before he could make up his mind, she pulled her shirt over her head and his blood told his brain good-bye.

“Dani,” he warned. Her breasts were small in the pale lacy bra, the top curves capturing his attention as she pulled in breaths of air, and he remembered how perfectly she fit into his palms. How her nipples had pebbled at his touch.

It had been ten years, yet every detail rushed at him as if it were yesterday.

“Make love to me, Ben. Please.”

“Babe. You don’t play fair.”

Her mouth reached for his then, and it was hot and seeking. Her tongue slipped past his lips as her hands held his head between her palms. And he wasn’t innocent in the action, either. One hand slid to her rear. He squeezed the curve of her butt in his palm and groaned into her mouth.

Her behind had a way of making him restless even with the best of intentions, but with her in his arms and her mouth hot on his, his intentions were shot to hell.

“Dani.” He tried again, thinking he had to say no.

But knowing that he wouldn’t.

“I know what I’m doing,” she told him. “And I promise, I won’t regret anything.” She leaned back and looked at him, her eyes serious. “I just hope you won’t either.”

Fuck.

He probably would.

“Don’t you dare leave my bed while I’m sleeping this time,” he demanded. “Not again.”

A slight smile curved her mouth. “I promise.”

Ben’s mouth returned to hers, and Dani shook in his arms. He captured her head with his hands, replicating how she’d held him, and he took their kiss from heated to blazing. He possessed her. And she loved every second of it.

She had Ben again.

He devoured her only for a short moment, the scruff of his unshaven jaw scratching over her, intensifying the sensations, before easing up and sipping at her mouth. He moved to the tip of her nose to place a tiny kiss there, then headed farther from her lips. She groaned, nudging her mouth after his, but he refused to allow her to capture him.