The Street Where She Lives

That means something, Dad.”

Ben thought of why he’d really come, and of what he’d learned this morning. “And I’m staying.” For as long as it took, no matter how badly he needed out. “I’m staying to help you both out. But that’s it, Em. That’s it.” Liar.

Emily’s eyes told him the same thing.

BALANCING THE squirming puppy, some sort of green cucumber protein shake, and a container of a very un- appetizing-looking soup that the pretty redheaded owner of Cafe Delight had sworn was Rachel’s favorite, Ben walked toward Rachel’s front door. He’d dropped Emily off at school and now needed to face Rachel with the knowledge of what he’d done to her burning a hole in his gut.

And he wasn’t talking about just the damn puppy, which he somehow had to keep quiet for a few more hours.

The front door was unlocked, which just about stopped his heart. Damn it, he’d talked to her about this, about being careless. He dumped the puppy on the foyer floor. “Stay,” he said firmly, and rushed through the house toward the murmur of voices in the kitchen.

Rachel sat at the table looking whole and unharmed, and Ben stopped short, drawing an unsteady breath. “You unlocked the front door, damn it.”

“Oh, I did that.” Adam came in from the walk-in pantry holding an old-fashioned, decorated tin. “Cookie?”

Ben stared at Rachel’s accountant. “No.” He turned to Rachel. She was dressed in a long slip of a sundress he imagined she probably could have gotten on herself with effort, but he couldn’t help but wonder if the saintly Adam had helped her.

If so, had her pulse raced the way it had when Ben had had his hands all over her? Had her lips parted, inviting his?

Goddamn it, it didn’t matter. And he had to make this quick before the puppy did something more stupid than Ben had done leaving the thing alone in the foyer. “You can’t just leave the damn door unlocked.”

Rachel’s face was utterly closed off to him. “Would that have anything to do with your phone call that had you rushing off at dawn?”

He stared at her for one long beat before Adam came to the table and set the tin in front of Rachel. “And anyway, she wasn’t alone.” Adam smiled. “Did you know this is actually a very low-crime district?”

A headache began right between Ben’s eyes. Asada didn’t give a shit about low crime districts; all he wanted to do was destroy Ben. Nothing could do that except by bringing more pain and suffering to Emily or Rachel. Again.

Not that Rachel understood that, because he hadn’t told her, and honest to God, the depth of his own deception was going to bury him. “Look, Adam, I appreciate that, but-”

“You appreciate that?” Rachel marveled, pure fire in her eyes.

Whoa. Had he thought her emotions closed off to him? She was furious. At him.

What had he done now?

“Why do you appreciate that, Ben?” she almost purred. “You don’t own me, you don’t even belong here. You don’t have responsibility over me at all.”

Ben carefully set the food he’d brought in front of her. Put his hands on his hips and tried to figure a way out of this mess.

But there was no way out.

Inanely, he wondered what the puppy was up to and how much damage she could cause in the two minutes she’d been alone.

Adam opened up the containers from Ben and smiled at Rachel. “Your favorites. Maybe now you’ll eat.” He looked up at Ben. “She’s lost weight.”

Given that Ben had had his eyes and hands over every single bare inch of her body only yesterday, he thought she was pretty damn fine. But he was going to forget that, forget the feel of her, the scent of her. Everything. “Adam’s right, you should eat.” He went to the swinging doors to recapture the loose puppy. “I’m outta here.”

“You always have one foot out of here,” she said. “You’ve had one foot out of here since the day you showed up.”

Wasn’t that the truth? It was ironic, he thought, to be using Adam as an excuse to vanish, when just days ago he’d wanted to knock Adam’s socks off for kissing Rachel on the cheek. Even more ironic when one considered what Ben himself had done to Rachel since he’d been back.

A lot more than a kiss on the cheek.

Ben glanced back. Rachel had her casted leg up on the adjacent chair, casted arm resting on the table. The bruises on her face were fading, but the scar over her left eye was not. She wore a handkerchief on her head but he knew that her hair, while still a beautiful light gold, had barely begun to grow back. For that alone, he hated himself. She’d suffered so much because of him, and suddenly he couldn’t even stand to be in the same room with her. He didn’t deserve to be in the same room with her, and pushing through the doors, he left the kitchen.

Once in the living room, he scooped up the errant puppy, who was cheerfully chewing on a black sparkly sandal he figured to be Emily’s. He brought both the ruined sandal and Patches to Emily’s room. “This afternoon, your secret is out,” he warned. “Until then, you’ll go outside when I take you, and sleep when I tell you. No trouble, no messes, no accidents, you hear?”

Patches panted her agreement.

Emily had made a dog bed out of a box and an old blanket, but he knew Patches preferred Emily’s bed. Only problem, she wasn’t big enough to climb up by herself. She stood on the floor at the side of the mattress doing flips to try to get up, to no avail. When she saw Ben looking at her, she started in on the aren’t-I-adorable wriggle, her entire hind-end moving back and forth so fast she could hardly walk.

“Let’s hope Rachel finds you half as cute as you think you are.” Ben squatted down to stroke her head.

She fell to her back, exposing her belly, madly licking Ben’s hand and wrist, tail waggling back and forth at the speed of light. When he stood and moved to the door, she followed.

“Oh, no,” Ben said with a laugh. “I’m not getting between mom and daughter, I’d be crazy to. You’re Emily’s news, dog.”

Big puppy eyes blinked sadly.

“Hey, you’re just lucky Rachel isn’t on top of her game, because believe me, if she was, you’d be Dead Puppy Walking.”

Yeah, when Rachel was sharp, nothing got past her. Not a single thing. And if she’d made her mind up about something, forget it.

Abruptly he remembered his last day in South Village all those years ago. He’d been sent a plane ticket, had his assignment and his bag packed. More than anything, he wanted to leave South Village far behind, but still he’d hesitated.

He couldn’t leave without seeing Rachel one more time.

With pride weighing him down, he’d marched up to the Wellers’ house. It’d been so big he’d figured fifty people could live in there and never cross paths.

He could still turn around and walk away, and no one would ever know he’d come to beg her to want him, the way no one had ever wanted him.

Pathetic. He was pathetic, but before he could take off, Mrs. Wellers answered the door, a glass in one hand, her other gripping the doorway as if she needed a life-line. Far younger than his foster parents, it was odd to see how alcohol and careless living had aged her. She’d looked right through him, not recognizing him, even though by then Ben had been in Rachel’s life for six months.

“It’s Ben, Mrs. Wellers. I need to talk to Rachel.”

She’d hiccuped, then with a wide wave that sent her vodka or gin or whatever she was drinking sloshing over the edge of the glass, she shook her head. Tossing back her well-tended hair and downing the rest of her drink, she’d swallowed hard and said, “Rachel doesn’t want to talk to the likes of you.”

The likes of you. Par for the course for Ben Asher, aka no good son of a bitch. In school, out of school, every-damn-where he’d been a no one from nobody and no place.

He didn’t remember running out of there, but the bus ride to the airport had been interminably long. He hadn’t