Everything She Wanted (8 page)

“I have no doubt that over the years if Margo had raised him, you’d have been like a second mother, a real and important presence in his life. Margo and Donald would have wanted to repay your gift by making sure Alex always knew the amazing person you are and that despite the fact they
raised him you were always there for him.”

“I would have been.”

“You will be now.”

“I’d do anything for him.” She yawned so big he followed suit.

He leaned his cheek against her head again and relaxed into the sofa with her at his side. Alex slept peacefully across his belly and in the crook of his arm, sucking on his pacifier.

“I should put him to bed.” Kate tried to move
away, but he held her close.

“He’s fine.”

Kate yawned again. “It’s late. I’m so tired. I should see you out and go to bed.”

He held back a smile when she settled into him again and tucked her legs up on the couch.

“Yeah, you probably should.”

Neither of them moved, content to sit close and let the quiet envelop them after such a difficult night. Her breathing evened out as
her weight settled into his side. He waited for that part of himself that always pulled away to rear its head and tell him to go home and sleep in his own bed. Kate snuggled into his chest. Her soft hair brushed against his face. Her sweet rosy scent filled his nose and made him turn and inhale the heady scent again. He didn’t want to go. In fact, he’d like to stay right here with her for as long
as she’d let him.

B
EN WOKE UP
to Alex fussing and wiggling against his chest. He’d lost his pacifier sometime during the night. He needed a bottle and a diaper change. Happy to do both for him, but still Ben hesitated for one very good reason. Kate slept soundly curled at his side, her face in his neck, hand on his chest beside Alex. She had his full attention, but his focus remained on his
hand planted smack over her ass, holding her close to him. He’d never actually slept with a woman. He’d never wanted that kind of intimacy. Yet here he was with a woman and a baby. He thought about having a family in the abstract, but this was reality up close.

Not even a hint of anxiety crept into his system. He didn’t feel the urge to hurry up and get the hell out of there. In fact, if Alex
didn’t need anything, Ben would be happy to sleep another ­couple of hours.

Unfortunately, he had to see to Alex and get home to shower, change, and get to work. He needed to make plans with Kate for what was to come with her sister’s and Donald’s estates. He needed to be sure she’d be safe with Evan on the loose and looking to keep what belonged to Alex.

The baby planted his hands on
Ben’s chest and raised his head, staring right at him. “Hey, buddy, you hungry?”

Alex head-­butted him in the chin and rubbed his forehead against him. He raised his head, smiled, and did it again. The kid liked his beard stubble.

Ben planted his right hand on the couch beside him, balanced Alex on his chest, and slid out from under Kate, slowly lowering her to the spot he vacated. Exhausted
from staying up so late last night and crying herself to sleep, she barely stirred as she settled into the warmth he left behind on the sofa.

Stiff from sleeping with his legs out on the table and his head tilted back on the sofa, he stood and stretched his back, bending forward, then back and side to side with Alex pressed to his shoulder. The baby smiled and gurgled.

“You’re easy, kid.
Let’s get you cleaned up.” Ben dug through the diaper bag next to the playpen beside the side chair. He pulled out a diaper, the wipes, and a clean set of clothes for his little buddy. He laid Alex on the play mat on the floor and kneeled beside him. How hard could this be? He’d seen Cameron change a dozen diapers like it was nothing. Ben removed Alex’s dirty clothes. Alex giggled and flapped his
arms, kicking his legs ready to play. He grabbed hold of Ben’s finger and tried to pull it to his mouth. Ben gently pulled free and tore the tabs on the diaper free. The smell hit him all at once.

Ben wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Wow. That’s deadly, buddy.” Ben made quick work, holding his breath and using the wipes to clean Alex and rediaper him. Finished, he folded up the soiled
diaper, secured it with the sticky tabs, and set it aside. Not bad. Easy. Alex rolled to his belly, planted his hands on the mat, and raised his head up to look around at everything. He kicked his little feet up and down. Not exactly steady, or in control of his head, he worked hard to move about the mat.

“Where are you going?” he whispered, eyeing Kate asleep on the sofa. Her hair fell over
part of her face. Her eyes remained closed. She looked so pretty and soft in sleep.

Alex fell forward and nearly face planted on the blanket. Ben rolled him back over and stuffed his little feet into the dark blue sweatpants. He bunched the shirt in his hands to find the head opening. He sat Alex up on his butt, pulled the shirt over his head and tried to put his hand through the sleeve. Not
as easy as it seemed with Alex struggling against him and falling over on his side. Ben left him on his back and worked the shirt over his belly, finally getting his hands to poke out the sleeves. Dressed and happily trying to grab at the toys hanging over him, Ben rubbed Alex’s belly and left him to play.

He hated to take liberties in Kate’s place. They barely knew each other, but Alex needed
to eat before he started crying and woke his mother. Ben wondered how Kate would feel this morning knowing today was the first day she’d truly be Alex’s mom.

The can of formula and several clean bottles and nipples sat on a dish towel on the kitchen counter. A tablet with notes and instructions sat beside the container of milk. Ben read through several of the items Margo instructed Kate to
do, including how to make him a bottle. Ben followed the instructions, heated the water, poured in the scoops of milk, gently shook the bottle to mix it, and poured several drops on his wrist to test the temperature. Warm, but not hot. He went back to the living room to give it to Alex. He spun around at the last second and went back to the kitchen to make the coffee since Alex seemed content to
stare at himself in the little mirror on a bear’s belly.

Ben got over his trepidation about rummaging through the cupboards in search of the coffee and filters real quick. He’d only been up for twenty minutes, but he felt hungover and exhausted after only four hours of sleep. He dumped the old grounds in the garbage under the sink, fixed up a new pot, and hit the on switch. The machine hissed
and spit, then gurgled to life, dripping coffee into the pot. Ben exhaled with relief, hoping the thing would hurry up with his caffeine fix.

The smell helped wake him up. Alex too, with his sudden cries for his bottle. Ben scooped him off the floor, sat in the soft oatmeal-­colored chair next to the couch, and stuffed the bottle in Alex’s mouth. Some of the milk dripped down his chin. The
kid gorged, hungry after his crying jag and sleep. Ben leaned over and snagged a blue and white polka-­dotted rag off the side table and wiped Alex’s face, then tucked the towel under his chin to catch whatever else the kid spilled.

Ben studied Alex’s face. He had his mother’s blue eyes and even her eyebrows. Ben traced his finger over one, following the soft arch. Alex reached for his finger,
grabbed it, and held tight, staring up at him, completely trusting and content to lie in Ben’s arms and drink his breakfast.

“Sorry about your mom and dad, buddy. Kate loves you. She wants to be your mom. She’ll settle into it today. She’s strong and tough on the outside, but she’s got an amazing heart. Once, I saw her break up a fight between two street punks who thought the only way to solve
a fight was with guns, knives, and fists. She stood between them. They towered over her, but she didn’t back down or show any sign of fear. They could have roughed her up, but instead she said something to them that made both of them take a step back. All the fight went out of them. She kept talking. I don’t know what she said. The guys yelled at her, each other, tried to brawl once again, and
went around and around like that for about ten minutes. In the end, she got them to shake hands and do garbage duty together at the group home.

“Another time, she called me in to help with a mother and her teenage daughter. The girl was beat up, hurting, crying, knowing her mother would never leave her abusive father. Your mom spoke to the mother, got through all the layers of her feeling
like she caused all the problems, thinking her husband really loved her but he just needed a chance to change. He’d promised. She got through all those years of fear and self-­doubt and convinced the woman that the best thing for her to do was take her daughter away from that man. One week at Haven House and the woman changed. She found her courage and strength and protected her daughter. Your mom
did that for them.

“She’ll do the same for you. She’ll never let anything bad happen to you. I won’t either. I’m going to work with your mom to make sure that asshole who killed your father and mother is locked behind bars for the rest of his life.”

Maybe he shouldn’t swear around the child, but hey, the kid didn’t understand the words. He hoped he got the meaning. Ben meant every word.
He admired Kate for the work she did and the amazing way she connected with the ­people who came to her needing help but not necessarily open to receiving it, or doing what they needed to do when it went against everything they’d ever known. Change scared ­people. Scared ­people feared the unknown. The promise of something good wasn’t enough to get them to try sometimes, because not many good things
happened to them. When they did, they were always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kate got that and worked with her clients in a way that encouraged them to trust.

Ben hoped she’d trust him now to help her with the Faradays and everything that came next. She’d let him past her walls last night. Her grief may have compromised her usual resolve to keep everyone at arm’s length. When she
woke up, would he find her walls up, the windows black, and the professional woman he’d known back to being all business? Or would she show him some of who she really was, like the night they danced and kissed, like the open and honest woman from last night? He really wanted to get to know her better. Explore the fluttering feeling living in his gut that made him want to stare at her and ask a million
questions to discover what lay beneath Kate’s surface. He liked the surface. Her pretty face, those blue eyes that saw far more than he wanted her to see. She did that. She delved deeper when she looked at a person, and summed that person up with astounding accuracy. What happened in her life that made her need to hone that skill? She’d hinted about her past last night. He wanted to know the
whole story of where she’d come from. What made Kate the woman he knew now?

His gaze roamed over her from her cute feet, up her smooth legs, the curve of her hip, the dip in her side, the fullness of her breasts, the long column of her throat, and back to her face and that gorgeous dark wavy hair.

What really drew him to her?

Everything.

Chapter Nine

K
ATE FELT HIS
gaze on her. She’d heard everything he said to Alex. She appreciated his vote of confidence in her taking on the role of Alex’s mother. Actually, she
was
Alex’s mother. It wasn’t something she had to do, but what she was at the heart. He was her son. She loved him more than anything in this world. She hated to give him up and struggled every day since
with the loneliness in her heart that opened a deep dark pit in her soul of wanting him back. Now, she had him. She hated the way he’d come back to her, but she’d spend every day from now on grateful to have him in her life permanently.

She’d rewrite the story of their lives and tell him that once she’d tried to give his aunt Margo the child she wanted and deserved. He’d have had a happy life
with her and Donald with Kate a constant presence in his life. By the time he was old enough to understand what she’d tried to do for Margo and him, he’d know how much she loved him and didn’t want to be without him. He’d understand she never wanted to give him up.

That fear resolved in her mind, she vowed to spend the rest of her life as the person Alex needed. As his mother. Someone he could
always count on. She’d be the family he deserved and she never had.

She opened her eyes and stared across the room at Ben working in her kitchen. Alex sat strapped in his bouncy seat on the kitchen table. Ben walked over, tickled his belly, making Alex smile and shake his puppy and kick his feet with excitement. The smell of coffee and eggs filled the room. Her stomach grumbled. She’d missed
dinner last night when she decided to go and check on Donald and Margo. She’d been too upset to eat last night when she got home.

Alex squealed with delight at Ben, who smiled down at him. Did Ben know how much she liked him? He made her nervous every time they met. Those brief encounters always set something off in her system that charged her nerves, made the butterflies in her stomach flutter
to life, and her heart beat faster. She tried to hide it even now and wondered why. Something inside of her told her to reach out to him. Try for something more than colleagues or casual dating with no strings attached. She’d never relied on a man, never given herself permission to trust that she wouldn’t end up like her mother—­devoted to a man who only wanted to use that love against her and
break her down until no matter what he did she’d never leave him.

The rational part of her knew that she had more strength and conviction than that, but she’d never been in love, or experienced feelings and emotions like that for a man.

Except that one time with Ben. The kiss she shared with him rocked her. He’d tilted her world off balance, and she ran, afraid she didn’t have anything
to offer an amazing man like him.

She loved Margo and Alex. But that was very different than loving a man. Did she have that kind of love in her? A kind of love that wouldn’t destroy her but fill her life with happiness?

The few times she felt even a glimmer of attraction for a man, she’d walked the other way. She enjoyed dating. She liked sex. On her terms.

Maybe she truly was ready
for something more. She certainly didn’t feel like running now—­unless it was into Ben’s arms.

The intense attraction she felt toward Ben eclipsed all the other times her hormones made her tingle with lust. Ben sent her body into overdrive. The ache deep inside her made her squeeze her thighs tight and imagine what it would feel like to have him cover her body with his and make love to her
right here on the couch.

She needed Ben to help her with Donald’s estate. He was a lawyer. A damn good one. He promised to help her. For free. Who would pass up free legal ser­vices and advice? She couldn’t afford to turn him down just to avoid complications. Like the fact she wished he was still next to her, holding her close and making her feel safe. There had been too few times in her life
she’d felt that way.

Her gaze swept up his lean legs, over his flat belly to his wide chest and shoulders, and up to his gorgeous face with that square jaw, perfect mouth, and intense brown eyes staring back at her. One side of his mouth quirked up in a slight grin.

“Breakfast is ready.”

Great. Not only had she been caught ogling the guy, but did he have to look that damn perfect in
the morning when she probably looked like a rag doll dragged through the yard?

His deep voice resonated through her like an echo of something long forgotten but still cherished. The tingling that swept over her skin settled in her chest and made her breasts heavy and her nipples harden. She tried not to squirm or press her arms to her aching breasts. In fact, she avoided eye contact, rolled
up to sitting, and raked her hand through her messy hair, dislodging the band that most of the mass had fallen from as she slept. She shook out the strands. Ben’s gaze narrowed on her. She swore he inhaled and leaned forward like he meant to come to her. A trick of the mind? Wishful thinking? Either way, she couldn’t deny the effect he had on her. Judging by the way his eyes strayed to her breasts,
she couldn’t hide it either.

Ben’s gaze met hers again. “Is there something you want, Kate?”

Avoiding the awkward answer that she wanted him to hold her, kiss her, make everything that happened yesterday disappear for a little while longer, she went with the practical. She was always practical. “Coffee.”

His smile spread. “Sure. Anything you want.”

So many naughty things flashed
through her mind. Her fingers gripped in his dark hair as his mouth latched on and sucked her aching breast. His mouth kissing and hands caressing every inch of her naked body. His body, every sculpted muscle on display, pressed down on hers as he filled her, rocked against her, and made her pant out his name.

God, how she wanted to do all those things and more and avoid reality.

It had
been far too long since she let a man that close to her. Way before she got pregnant with Alex. But this went deeper than the physical. Ben called to something deep inside of her. Something that answered only to him.

What was she going to do about it? What did she want?

She wanted her sister to still be alive. She wanted this to all be a dream. She wanted Alex to still have his father
and Margo. She wanted to be the perfect mother to Alex. She wanted to know he’d always be happy and healthy. She wanted someone else to carry the load she faced.

She wanted life to finally be simple and not so complicated.

When Ben came toward her with a cup of steaming coffee, she admitted she wanted him to be the man she’d wished for as a little girl, scared and lonely locked in a dark
closet, hoping that one day she’d find the one man who would love her and never hurt her. She’d long forgotten that hopeful girl existed. Life taught her some hard lessons. You had to work hard to get the things you wanted. You could never count on someone else to give you what you really needed.

You had to love yourself.

She’d been alone a long time. Since she was ten and spent some time
in juvy before she got dumped in the foster care system and met Margo. It would be nice to have someone to help her. Someone to count on. Someone she trusted as much as she’d trusted her sister.

Tears shimmered in her eyes. She’d let her mind go there. The images of Margo lying dead on the floor, her head blown open, the blood everywhere.

“Kate, honey, breathe.”

She responded to that
sweet term with ridiculously too much longing to hear him call her that again.

She tried to suck in a breath, but only ended up hyperventilating. Not one to lose her shit, she shook her head and tried to erase the images in her mind, or at least change them back to her and Ben setting their bodies ablaze in passion. It didn’t work.

“They’re dead. The blood. She’s gone. She’s not coming
back. I’m all alone.” She admitted her worst fear. That for all her bravado and thinking she didn’t need anyone, she’d always known Margo had her back. Someone cared. Someone loved her.

“You’re not alone. I’m here. I’ll see you through this. I’m not going anywhere.”

She sucked in a ragged breath and let it out. Ben kneeled in front of her. He reached out and touched the side of her face,
sweeping his fingers through her hair and holding the side of her head. She leaned into his touch, sucking in his warmth and kindness. She needed it right now, because the cold reality of all she’d lost when Margo died hit her hard.

“Why are you doing this?”

Ben looked her right in the eye. “Aside from the reasons I gave you last night, the same reason you haven’t told me to go. I want
to be here with you. You want me to stay. Let’s at least admit that.”

“I barely know you.”

“We’ll work on that while we set things right for Alex. Let’s start with having breakfast together.”

He made it seem so simple and easy. Why did she think it had to be complicated? Why couldn’t she just have breakfast with him? Every friendship had to start somewhere. They’d start here, because
he was right—­she didn’t want him to go.

“I’ve never had a man make me breakfast.” She cocked her head and thought back over her “relationships.” “I’ve never had a man stay overnight.”

“See, something we have in common.”

“You’ve never had a man stay over and make you breakfast either?” she teased.

“No.” Ben laughed. “And I’ve never been the guy who does that either.”

“But you
did it for me,” Kate pointed out, not letting him off the hook so easily. She wanted to know that he did it for her because it meant something, not because he felt bad about her sister and her circumstances.

“I wanted to.”

Those words conveyed so much more than his simple truth. She appreciated his honesty.

“Let’s eat before it gets cold,” he coaxed.

Kate caught the nerves in his
rushed words. He avoided looking at her, turned, and went back into her kitchen to plate up the eggs he’d left warming on the stove. She left him to rummage through her drawers to come up with forks and went to the table. She smiled down at Alex, picked up the puppy he’d dropped on the table, and pounced it up his belly to his nose all the while saying, “Ruff. Ruff. Ruff.” Alex smiled up at her
and just like that all the fun and joy disappeared, replaced with the overwhelming sadness that ebbed and flowed since last night.

Tears spilled down her face. Ben set the two plates on the table beside Alex’s bouncy seat. His big hands pressed on her shoulders. He squeezed her tight and aching muscles. That and the warmth of his body at her back eased and reassured her.

“It’s going to
be okay, Kate. You’ll get through this.”

“I know. It’s hard. I look at him and it hits me all at once.”

“You need time to grieve. The shock will wear off and you’ll settle into your new reality. You’ll adjust to being a mother. In fact, I came up with a few things you need to do right away.”

Ben pulled out her chair. She sat. He handed her a fork and stared down at her, waiting for
her to eat. The man didn’t just scramble up some eggs. He’d added cheese and some green onion. She didn’t think she was hungry until the food touched her tongue. The taste, the yummy melted cheese, brought her stomach back to life.

Ben took the seat across from her. “You need to call work and take family leave. Time to sort out day care or a babysitter for Alex when you work, to figure out
this mess with Margo’s and Donald’s estates and how that plays with his divorce. I’ll help you with funeral arrangements for your sister and Donald. You’ll want to go get her stuff before the Faradays swoop in and take over the property.”

“They can’t. It’s in my sister’s name. Donald gave it to her.”

“Wow. That’s quite a gift.”

“To prove how much he loved her. To give her a sense of
security. You know, she may lose him, but she’d get to keep her home.”

“I bet that’s important to the two of you after living in the foster care system.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Do you want to live in your sister’s house, or stay here?”

She looked around her tiny place and sighed. She liked it here. The place belonged to her. It’s the first real home she’d ever had that no one could take
away. Still, she didn’t have a yard for Alex to play in, or a room to make his.

“Even if I wanted to live in that mansion, I can’t afford the utilities, taxes, and upkeep.”

“Are you sure about that? What else did your sister leave you? We have no idea what Donald set up for Alex.”

“If anything, right? He might not have done anything for Alex.”

“He was a smart businessman. He didn’t
rush into asking his wife for a divorce even after he and Margo had Alex. He waited. Why? My guess is so that he could plan and make sure Christina and Evan didn’t take more than he wanted them to have. He’d have protected Margo and Alex if anything happened to him. You said it yourself—­he gave her the house to make her feel safe. To protect her.”

“I’ll call work, then go down to the bank.
I’ll see what Margo left in the safe deposit box for her go-­bag.”

“Excuse me, what?”

“Margo and I only shared two foster homes together. The other three were close by each other. We always kept a stash of what we’d need if we had to run.”

“Damn, five different homes. In how many years?”

“About eight.”

Ben shook his head, his eyes filled with sorrow. “Tough life.”

“I got
by. Margo and I got by together.”

“Why’d you have to run?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Ben pressed his forearms on the table and leaned forward, intent on her. “Actually, I do.”

“You like hearing about abusive fucks who get their kicks hitting kids, or worse, using them for their sick and twisted sexual fantasies? Or teenagers who prey on younger kids because they’re so angry someone
preyed on them they want to make someone else feel just as bad? There are some good foster homes with ­people who give a shit, but those can be few and far between when you’re a kid and all you want is someone to pay attention to you. You get stuck in a cycle of making poor choices and even worse mistakes just so someone will notice you. You get labeled
bad
and
difficult
and no one wants you,
so they pass you from one foster home to the next until you never know when that social worker will show up and take you to the next place until they dump you out of the system on your eighteenth birthday.”