A Father At Last (7 page)

The look that passed across the woman’s face sent prickles down Kelly’s scalp.

“My husband is dead,” the young mother said simply, but she held her head up and there was a small smile on her lips.

“I’m sorry,” Kelly and Ben said in unison.

The woman shook her head, saying, “It’s okay. I know he’s up there, looking down, protecting us always. That’s why he made sure you were here on the beach, before, when Isabelle followed Jed down to the water.” She smiled towards Ben. “And my kids will grow up knowing their dad was a hero. He was a fireman, you see, and died saving people in a burning building.”

Kelly reached out and touched the young woman’s arm. Talking about a loved one’s death helped keep the memories alive for some people; she knew that. And the young widow seemed to want to keep talking.

“There was an explosion in a house that was being used as a P‐lab—you know, one of those places where people manufacture illegal drugs. Billy, my husband, had gone in to save a couple of kiddies who were sleeping in the house.”

“When?” Ben asked quietly. Something about his voice made Kelly glance sharply his way, and she saw a stillness about his face that frightened her.

“A year ago,” said the young mum. “Before I even knew I was pregnant with this little man.” She caressed the crying baby’s cheek. “Billy never knew…”

Kelly felt the woman’s pain as if it were her own. She looked away from Ben, afraid her face would advertise her guilt, but she needn’t have worried.

Julie Mac

He was looking down at his phone, his fingers poised to punch in numbers. “Is there someone else I should call for you? Family or a friend?”

“Thanks,” said the young woman. “You’ve been so kind, but I’ve called my parents already. They’ll be here in a minute. I rang them before all this happened, because I knew it was getting late, and we’ve still got a few minutes walk before we get to our house.”

So Kelly and Ben waited with the mum, her two children and the dog, and when her parents arrived, they helped them load her things into the car.

Back at their picnic rug, Kelly said, “That was so sad, Ben, that poor girl losing her husband.”

“Terrible,” he agreed, taking off his sodden shoes and rolling up the bottoms of his wet jeans. “An absolutely awful thing to happen. But she seems to be coping well.”

He topped up her glass and said, “I’ve got some stuff in the chilly bin. Come and sit on the rug and eat something.”

He handed the refilled glass to her, then pulled a plastic platter from the chilly bin, and proceeded to set out cheeses—a soft brie, a creamy blue—some crackers, a little pot of pitted olives from the supermarket deli, another pot of semi‐dried tomatoes and a packet of thinly sliced smoked salmon. He’d even packed a cheese knife and some paper serviettes.

He obviously wanted to change the subject, and she was happy to go along with him: any discussion about dads who didn’t know they had a baby was a little too close to home.

So they sat on the picnic rug, with the platter of delicious nibbles between them, and Kelly wondered how Ben, the teenager who’d lived on takeaways, toast and two‐minute noodles, had become so domesticated.

The answer came to her with disturbing clarity—a woman—or more likely, women.

He was good‐looking, personable, sexy. And sensuous. Only a man who loved women, who enjoyed and appreciated women, would kiss in the way he did. Of course there would have been women, probably lots of them, in the intervening years since she’d seen him.

She experienced a bolt of pure, sickening jealousy at the thought, followed immediately by a mental telling off.
Don’t even go there.
She accepted the cracker and cheese he handed her and reminded herself she had no claims on this man. She’d banned him from her life the best part of seven years ago, so whatever he’d done with other women in the meantime was none of her business.

And because she really didn’t want to think about what Ben Carter may or may not have done with other women, she gave herself up to small talk.

“I’ve always thought it was beautiful here on a summer evening,” she said. “And look at the sky. Don’t you love the way it gets tinged with that gorgeous soft pale pink after the sun’s set and then it turns purple?”

A Father at Last

“Oh, yeah, I love the sky,” he said. But he was watching her, smiling a little, and Kelly wondered what he was really thinking.

So she kept talking, about the beach, about their school days, about some of the old school friends she’d kept in touch with.

And it wasn’t that difficult, she decided, as long as she stuck to safe topics, as long as she told her mind to switch off every time it gave her a full screen view of the picture Dylan had drawn, every time it reminded her of her task ahead. But the champagne was making her feel relaxed and chatty, and really, Ben wasn’t bad company.

They talked and ate and sipped their drinks under the now black velvet sky. In the dark, the sea rolling into the narrow confines of the horn‐shaped bay sounded louder than it had in the daylight, and Kelly commented on it.

“That’s because darkness intensifies our senses,” he said simply, looking across at her. The glow of a nearby street lamp cast deep shadows across his face, so she couldn’t read his expression, but the sultry timbre of his voice sent shivers down her spine.

“Does it?” It was a question, but she knew what he said was true. Her own senses had gone into overdrive: he was heartbreakingly desirable to look at, his voice caressed her auditory senses, he’d used a subtle, fresh man‐fragrance that did great things to her sense of smell—which just left taste and touch.

“I have to get going,” she blurted out, moving to stand up, but he was one step ahead of her, leaning over the picnic platter and placing a large hand gently but firmly on her shoulder.

“Not so fast, my lovely,” was all he said, in an almost‐whisper, deftly removing the platter and the now empty glasses from between them, and then he was right beside her, his thigh pressed hard against hers. Both his arms went around her and he lowered her carefully onto the rug, so he was above her, leaning on one elbow, his mouth a couple of inches from hers.

“Hello, beautiful lady.” His words were full of hidden promise.

He dropped his mouth to hers and let his lips rove over her soft, sensitised flesh, igniting fires Kelly had no idea she harboured. Then he pulled back.

“Still want to go home?” A smile teased his lips.

She groaned and grabbed a handful of his shirt to pull his face down to hers.

She kissed him with a passion pent‐up for far too long, and he answered in kind.

Kissing Ben was as natural as breathing, she thought, exploring freely with her tongue, revelling in the tastes and sensations she’d given up for lost so long ago.

He was still propped on one elbow; his other hand ran up the length of her jeaned leg, skimmed over her bottom, traversed her stomach and came to rest on her ribcage.

Through the thick cotton fabric of her T‐shirt, he caressed her flesh, his fingers moving with a lover’s confidence, and sending her heart into overdrive.

Julie Mac

Fleetingly, Kelly thought of the blue silk top she’d taken off in favour of the T‐shirt. If she’d worn that, his fingers on the soft, lustrous fabric would have felt like skin on skin. For a moment she wished—fervently—that she’d worn it instead of the clunky corporate T‐shirt.

And that she’d left her hair down, and her makeup in version one mode.

At that moment, she wanted, more than anything in the world, to look beautiful for Ben—to be
hot
in his eyes. She wanted to please him, because right now, he sure as heck was pleasing her, not just with his hands but with his mouth too, which was currently running a string of little kisses from the corner of her lips, across her jaw, down the delicate skin of her throat, and back up to whisper against the super‐sensitive skin below her ear.

She couldn’t contain her whimper of pleasure, then his magic mouth was back on hers, teasing, tempting and more sensuous than the finest of silk fabrics.

When his hand moved up to rest on the downward slope of her breast, reality crashed in. Lying here on the beach, with the sand warm on her back under the picnic rug, with the sea singing its endless lullaby in the dark, and Ben kissing her, was bliss—

supercharged bliss—but it had to stop.

She was a grown woman, with responsibilities. She twisted her head to dislodge his wicked mouth, and clamped her hand on top of his, intending to pull it from her breast.

“Stop, Ben!” Her voice sounded oddly ragged. “We can’t do this.”

She tugged at his hand, but it stayed put, and she felt his fingers running over the thick fabric of her T‐shirt to explore the lacy texture of her bra beneath. Before she knew what was happening, he’d shucked his hand out from under hers to pull up her T‐shirt, exposing the lacy, ribbon‐trimmed confection of a bra.

“So you
did
dress up for me!”

His lips curved in a knowing smile as his eyes made an unashamedly appreciative traverse of the twin black and pink peaks and the gully in between.

Kelly wished her breathing hadn’t accelerated quite so fast, making the objects of his interest heave up and down. As he lowered his mouth to the smooth slope of skin above the pretty ribboned upper contour, she brought her hand up to tug at her T‐shirt, and cursed herself for not replacing her one and only fancy bra with a plain, utilitarian, everyday model when she’d changed.

“No!”
Yes!
What was it about Ben Carter that had her telling little white lies every five minutes? “Of course not. I wear bras like this all the time.”

“Really?” His cocked eyebrow told her he knew damn well she’d worn the fancy bra with him in mind.

“Yes, really. And we have to stop this.” She dragged the T‐shirt all the way down, registering the fact he made no effort to stop her. “We’re on a beach, for heaven’s sake. In a public place. Someone might see us!”

“Apart from the fact that it’s now dark, there’s only one other couple on the beach, and they’re way down the other end.” He moved his body so he was lying on his back beside A Father at Last

her, propped on his elbows. “I’ve been checking.”

“Thank goodness for that!”

Or maybe not. If there were people around he wouldn’t be doing these things to scramble her brain and make her act so…irresponsibly.
Like a teenage girl.
She had to get away from him, now, before she did something really stupid.
Like ask him to come home
with her.
She hoped he didn’t hear the sharp intake of breath that thought provoked.

Think about something else.
A picture of the young widow and her kids popped into her head.

“Did you get that young mother’s phone number, Ben? I could give her a call tomorrow and see how the baby’s getting on.”

He shook his head and smiled lazily at her. “Still the head prefect, mm‐mm? Still looking out for everyone else?”

“No. Just concerned.” And then another picture filled her mind, unwelcome as a cold house in winter, and she couldn’t stop the words tumbling from her mouth.

“You had a funny look on your face, Ben, when she talked about the P‐lab burning.

Did you know about that case? Did you know people involved?”

He sat up, and she pushed herself up, too.

“Maybe I did.” He wasn’t laughing.

Her heart plummeted. She nodded slowly. “So you’re admitting you move in criminal circles?”

He stood in one smooth move, then extended a hand down to her. She took his hand and let him pull her up so they stood facing each other. His dark brows were drawn together, and any trace of a smile was gone.

“Why do you always want to think the worst of me, Kelly?”

“I don’t.” But she knew that wasn’t true.

“Maybe I’m a good guy in disguise.”

“My eyes tell me a different story.”

“You see what you want to see.” He took both her hands in his. “And if you thought I was one of the good guys, Kelly, would we be here tonight, doing this?” He leaned in and kissed her slowly and so thoroughly, she thought her insides would melt.

At last he pulled back, saying, “I don’t think so.”

His eyes were steady on hers. For ten seconds, twenty maybe, he said nothing, then,

“I think you’d rather I was Ben the bad boy, unattainable, untouchable, because then you have an excuse not to get involved. You can kiss and cuddle. Hell, you can even make love to me and walk away, without so much as a goodbye, like you did when we were twenty‐one.”

Julie Mac

He was speaking softly. “But if I was one of the good guys, I think you’d run a mile because then there’d be no reason not to get involved. And getting involved—committing—means risking having a man leave you high and dry.”

She shook her head slowly, from side to side. “No, you’re wrong, Ben. Totally wrong.” But she felt a weakness, deep inside, like a dam wall about to burst.

“Am I wrong? You’re twenty‐seven years old, with a child, but you’ve never committed to a man. You look at me and see a criminal, but you don’t mind me kissing you.

If I had a normal law‐abiding job—if I was a fireman…a policeman maybe…would you want me? Would you be letting me kiss you?”

She thought of the young widow and her two babies. She knew he was right.

“I’d respect you, of course I would, if you were a policeman or a fireman. But—” she looked away, focussing on the nearest street lamp “—those jobs are dangerous, and yes, you’re right, I couldn’t be with you because I’d be afraid of losing you.”

Losing you?
This was crazy. Standing so close to him, breathing his scent, feeling the lingering heat of his lips on hers, was making her say the weirdest things.

She willed her eyes to find his again. “I’d be afraid…I’d be scared Dylan would suffer the same pain I knew as a child. It would be my childhood all over again.” She couldn’t believe she’d said those words out loud.

“Life’s scary, Kel,” he said. “Life’s one big risk. And we can hide and hedge all we like, but that’s not living, is it?”

They stood in silence for a long moment. His words reverberated around her head; hurtful, stinging, but true.