Shoreline Drive (17 page)

Something like amusement flickered in Sheriff Shepard’s gaze as she accepted the signed papers from Sam Brennan. “Good. How about you, Matt?”

“This has been a big, stupid mistake.” Matt kept his face turned away, his profile as hard as stone. “A mistake I’ll never make again. I’m done with all of it.”

A chill roughened the skin of Taylor’s arms as Matt turned and followed his cousin out of the sheriff’s office without a backward look. She knew what Matt meant.

She was the mistake. And he was done with her.

Chapter Thirteen

Despite what Ben had told Merry about his reasons for entering into this marriage and adoption scenario, he wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to tell his parents about it.

They
should
be thrilled. After what happened with Ashley, his parents ought to bow down and kiss the ground at the prospect of a new daughter-in-law, complete with son and heir. He’d told them after the divorce that it would never happen—so this ought to be a dream come true for them.

The problem was, Ben had gotten divorced, quit his surgical residency, finished vet school, and moved to Sanctuary Island all to break away from his lifelong pattern of living his life to please his parents and make
their
dreams come true.

It was possible that an immature, resentful part of Ben didn’t actually want to make his parents happy. He knew that wasn’t likely to win him a nomination for Son of the Year, or even a nod at the Basically a Good Person Awards, but he hadn’t talked to his parents except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and their anniversary in years. And that had seemed to suit all of them perfectly well.

So he’d dragged his heels until a week before the wedding to tell them about it. Not that there’d been a lot of time for heart-to-heart phone calls since the engagement. Even with Ella and Grady back on the island and fully committed to helping them get this marriage off the ground in as little time as possible, it had still been a hectic whirl of days filled with wedding arrangements, meetings with lawyers, babyproofing his house, drama with Merry’s sort-of sister, Taylor, and oh right, his veterinary practice.

Just because Ben’s previously empty life was suddenly bursting at the seams didn’t mean he could abandon his practice. As the only vet on Sanctuary Island, Ben had a responsibility not only to his paying customers, but to his four-, or in some cases three-legged friends as well.

And not only that, but he had a brand-new assistant to train. Or maybe it was the other way around, because most of Ben’s workday was spent avoiding the office and the wild look in Merry’s eyes as she tried to make heads or tails of his “filing system.” Dramatic air quotes supplied by Merry.

So if Ben skipped out on things like setting a menu for the big picnic Jo Ellen was insisting on throwing in lieu of a reception, who could blame him?

Jo had decided to make the party open to the entire town and have it in the square at the center of downtown, which Ben balked at until Merry gave him a searching, serious look and said, “Actually, it was my idea—I thought it would be good for business, and make things easier for you if the whole town gets the chance to congratulate you all at once, in a giant lump. Was I wrong?”

And of course, she wasn’t. As happy as Ben was about this marriage—and despite the myriad ways it could all turn into a pile of cow plop in the blink of an eye, he was happier than he’d been in years—he didn’t particularly care for the idea of being on display.

That’s what it felt like to be congratulated. He dreaded the knowing looks and smirking smiles. He hated the idea of people he barely recognized except as “Cat owner, semi-interesting case of feline immunodeficiency virus” or “Five head of sheep, yearly vaccinations” knowing anything real about him.

But getting married on Sanctuary Island, it turned out, was one of those life events that turned a private man into public property.

Merry was right. It was better to get it over with all at once instead of dragging the congratulations and smiles and backslapping out over the entire next year. Besides, Sanctuary Island loved a town festival, and chances were good that he’d be able to fade into the background after the party got going, and no one would notice.

Except, quite possibly, Merry.

In the wake of her first night in his home and the misunderstanding he’d deliberately let stand, Merry had been … polite. Friendly, even, but she’d preserved a careful distance that perversely gave Ben hope. That kiss had changed things, had forced them both to acknowledge the explosive chemistry between them. If Merry wasn’t ready for the next step, that was okay. Ben could be patient.

After that first night, she’d never really gone back to her mother’s house. Instead, all her belongings and Alex’s began a slow migration over to Isleaway Farm—a suitcase full of clothes here, a high chair there. Ben didn’t say anything about it, he merely stood back and let it happen, counting every new toy, discarded shoe, and stack of baby bottles cluttering up his pristine home like a miser hoarding gold.

And every now and then, he caught Merry studying him a lot more intently than her casual friendliness seemed to warrant. Each time her gaze slid away from his, her long lashes lowering to fan out over her pinkening cheeks, that hope surged in Ben’s chest.

This relationship was so new, so fragile, Ben was determined to protect it. In this case, that meant avoiding a certain familial phone call until Merry marched up to him after dinner and shoved his cell phone into his hand.

“Why haven’t you called your parents yet?” she demanded.

“I’ve been busy,” Ben protested, fighting back a wince at how lame that sounded.

Merry thought it was pretty lame, too, if her narrowed gaze was anything to go by. “The whole reason you proposed was to get them off your back by getting hitched. Surely telling them about the marriage is part of the plan. Why are you dragging your heels about this? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Ben licked his lips, aware that his mouth had gone dry as the sand at low tide. He couldn’t have Merry getting suspicious now, just when everything was coming together. “Give me the phone, I’ll call them right now.”

But Merry stepped back, holding the phone up out of his reach. “Ben. What’s going on here?”

“Nothing, it’s just I know they won’t be able to make the wedding anyway. Not with their schedules. So what’s the rush?”

“The rush is that they’re your parents! You said us getting married and you adopting Alex would make them happy.” Doubt darkened Merry’s pretty face like someone had hit the dimmer switch on her inner glow, and Ben panicked.

“It will,” he insisted. Not necessarily a lie—his parents might be happy for him, simply because Ben was happy. There was a first time for everything. “I’ve been putting off calling them because we’re just … not close. Anymore. It’s been hard.”

He tried not to hate himself for using that excuse, even when Merry’s face softened exactly the way he’d predicted it would. “I get that. It’s tricky figuring out how to relate to our families as adults, isn’t it?”

Ben knew he could leave it at that, and Merry would smile and stop pushing, and everything would be okay. But somehow, he found himself saying more.

“It’s not only that. My parents—they’re very busy people. Both doctors, both active on the boards of hospitals and charities. They never had much time to spend at home.”

Pulling out the chair across from Ben’s, Merry perched on the edge and leaned her forearms on the table so she could give him her undivided attention. “And you felt … neglected? Unloved?”

“No, my parents love me.” Ben allowed himself a slightly ironic smile. “In their own unique ways.”

Merry frowned. “As a parent myself, the only way I can imagine loving my kid is with everything I am and everything I have. I love everything about him.”

“Ah, but that’s just it.” Ben shrugged. “It was never about me. My parents love me … but not the real me. It’s more like the idea of me they each carry in their heads, the way they wanted my life to turn out. Their love for me is a reflection of their own ambitions—my actual presence is not required in their lives. In fact, they’re happier when I’m not around. When I talk to them, well, the reality of me doesn’t mesh with their fantasy of Benjamin Alexander Fairfax the Third, noted surgeon and scion of the wealthy Fairfax family.”

Merry pressed her lips together, something sparking in her blue eyes. “Personally, I prefer Dr. Ben, small town veterinarian and noted crank.”

It was the perfect response. Ben felt a pressure he hadn’t even noticed release from around his rib cage, and he grinned across the table at his fiancée. “I’m not bitter about it. My parents are fine people, they gave me every opportunity in the world. I had it a lot better than most. I know that.”

“But it would be nice to feel as if your family knows you, through and through, and loves you anyway,” Merry finished.

A lump formed in Ben’s throat, but he managed to say, “Exactly. There’s nothing like having someone in your life who gets you.”

That made Merry smile, a slow, sweet stretch of those pink lips, until happiness seemed to shine from every pore of her perfect skin. Wordlessly, she held the cell phone out to Ben, and he took it.

“Okay, I’ll call them. But we’re not holding up the wedding long enough for them to clear their schedules and get here,” he warned, closing his fingers over the cold edges of his phone. “No more delays.”

They’d waited two weeks only because Jo shrieked at the notion she could organize a buffet dinner for the whole town in less than seven days. And because Merry had wanted to give her father a chance to see if he could get enough time off to make it to the wedding.

He hadn’t managed it. Or hadn’t tried, Ben wasn’t sure what Merry believed. All Ben knew was the resigned set to her sad face when she got off the phone with Neil Preston.

Neither of them was exactly batting a thousand when it came to their families.

“They don’t have to come to the wedding,” Merry said, “but I want to meet them. Alex should get to know his grandparents. All of them.”

Impulsively reaching for Merry’s hand, still extended across the table to him, Ben clasped her slender fingers and brought them to his mouth. He pressed a kiss to her palm and felt the way her fingers trembled. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She pulled her hand away, but it was a slow movement. Almost as if she were as reluctant to let go as he was. Encouraged, Ben watched Merry retreat to the guest room to put Alex down for the night, then went out to the front porch and made the call he’d been dreading.

Shivering in the frosty chill of a late September evening, his butt going stiff and numb at first contact with the cold porch swing seat. Yeah, that felt like the appropriate setting for dealing with his parents.

“Son.” Tripp Fairfax’s deep bass voice boomed into Ben’s ear, hearty and grating. “To what do we owe the honor? Your mother and I are on our way out to a function.”

If Ben closed his eyes, he could picture them perfectly. Standing on the antique Persian rug in their chandeliered foyer, his father was tall and lean in his black-tie duds, with a dignified receding hairline in tasteful steel gray. Pamela Fairfax would be at his side, pulling on a pair of cashmere-lined gloves and arching a quizzical, perfectly plucked brow at the delay.

As a kid, Ben had snuck out of bed nearly every night to peer through the banister railing of the wide staircase and catch a glimpse of his beautiful, poised parents sailing out the massive front door to one of their “functions.” Charity benefits, political fund-raisers, ballet galas, art gallery openings, hospital donor meet-and-greets … Tripp and Pamela Fairfax kept a busier social calendar than the heads of state of some of the smaller European nations.

“I won’t keep you long,” Ben said through a throat gone oddly tight. Damn, he shouldn’t have talked about his family with Merry, should’ve kept it shoved down and buried like he usually did instead of letting those emotions surface. “I know how busy you are.”

“Yes, well, we have obligations, Benjamin,” Tripp said sharply, as if he’d heard something critical in Ben’s tone. “Our position in society—”

Duty, honor, appearances … and, of course, the all-important sanctity of the Fairfax family name.

Already tired of this conversation, Ben cut through the bull. “I’m calling to let you know I’ve decided to get remarried.”

There was a moment of silence broken by a static thump or two, and when the breathless voice came back on the line, it was Ben’s mother. “Really? Oh, darling! That’s wonderful! Tell me everything. How did you meet?”

Ben stiffened against the eagerness of his mother’s tone and the onslaught of questions she was sure to ask. The edges of the phone dug into his palm. “She came to the island to stay with her mother, who owns the stables here.”

“The horsey set,” Pamela Fairfax said, a touch of disdain twisting the words into a sigh. “So athletic and dull, always inviting one to fox hunts and keeping packs of dogs. Ugh. Well, I suppose it could be worse. What’s her name?”

“Meredith Preston.”

“Preston,” Pamela mused. “Who are her father’s people? I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“You don’t know them,” Ben said, impatience making his words terse. “They’re not FFV.”

His mother’s voice went soft and hurt. “There’s no need to take a tone. You behave as if we’re terrible snobs, and we’re not! We don’t expect everyone in our circle to be on the First Families of Virginia register.”

Guilt scored over Ben’s nerves, even as he silently grimaced at the blatant lie. He’d personally heard his parents rip a new surgeon at his father’s hospital to shreds after learning of the man’s “low” antecedents. In high school, Ben had been expected to choose his dates from a strict list of white-gloved debutantes, all from the very best families, every single one of whom could trace her lineage back to the wealthiest early colonists to settle in Virginia.

But Pamela and Tripp Fairfax, snobs? Certainly not!

“Sorry,” Ben said tautly, “and I’m glad you don’t care about Merry being FFV, because she isn’t. She’s not a Daughter of the Confederacy, either. She wasn’t a debutante, and she doesn’t own a string of pearls. Her baby’s rattle isn’t even sterling silver.”