The Street Where She Lives

spoken since.

Because you’ve snubbed him each time he’d tried, she reminded herself.

“Mel,” Ben said in that low, gruff voice of his as she came into the yard.

She sought one last glance at Garrett, which made her stomach leap. “Ben.” She forced herself to relax as he slowly uncurled his long body and stood with the grace of a lean tiger. Forced her mind off Garrett, the man who didn’t matter. “What are you doing here, sexy? Taking Emily off on some exotic trip? I would have brought her to you.”

“I’m here for Rachel.”

Huh? “She…called you?”

He laughed at that, a low, sensual sound that she imagined could make a nun want to purr. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Garrett watering his flowers. He did it with the same concentration he gave everything and knowing she’d been the focus of that concentration once, her stomach leaped again. What the hell had gotten into her? She had no idea. She’d had sex recently and had only last night pulled out her handy-dandy vibrator.

“No, she didn’t call.” Ben’s slight smile still played around his firm mouth. “Have you ever known your sister to call for help?”

“Uh…no,” she admitted with a smile of her own, a real one this time. “So then…?”

“I’m here to take care of her, which again, is a bit tricky, since according to her, she needs no one and nothing.” His mouth twisted ironically. “Things haven’t changed much in that direction.”

“You’re here to take care of her,” Mel repeated slowly. “But Emily said she’d hired a nurse.”

“Was that the story you got?”

She stared into his laughing eyes and shook her head. “Oh, no. She didn’t.”

“Oh, yeah, she did.”

“And you came running.” To save the day. To save Rachel. “How very…sweet of you.” She tried to think if she’d ever been with a man who’d drop everything, his career, his life, to come running for her. From another part of the world, no less.

No. No, she hadn’t.

She purposely kept her gaze off the man on the next yard, the man who’d never even told a soul he’d wanted her at least once.

“She’s doing better,” Ben said, and if Mel was the blushing kind, she might have blushed for getting caught not asking about Rachel’s health, for being more worried about herself and her inexplicable need for a man she wasn’t even acknowledging.

“I’ll just see for myself, I suppose,” she said, and by habit sent him a come-hither smile, the one that usually rendered men stupid, just to see what would happen.

Immune, Ben opened the door for her, and utterly without permission, her heart tugged. Why didn’t the men she slept with open doors for her?

Well, actually, Garrett had, that long-ago night. But she wasn’t going to think of him again.

“Rach?” Ben, moving to the pole in the living room, called up. He turned to Melanie. “I left her in her studio an hour ago, she was going to try to work.”

“She’s up to that?” The last time she’d seen her sister, she’d looked like death warmed over.

“Nope, but we’ve already established she’s stubborn as hell. Maybe you can talk her into lunch. She’s been eating like a damn bird.”

Mel followed him and shook her head. He hadn’t even glanced at her carefully painted mouth, or run his gaze down her body, even though her little white sundress-accent on the little-was spraypainted to her body.

Was she losing it? She looked down at herself and had to say…she looked pretty damn hot.

Had Garrett checked her out thoroughly? She hoped he’d swallowed his tongue.

Not that she was thinking of him.

They took the stairs. At the closed door to the studio, Ben turned back to face her and smiled. “Ready to get your head bitten off?”

She jerked her thoughts off Garrett. “Why?”

“Well, she probably doesn’t snap at you every time you look at her, but-” with a low, soft laugh, he scratched his chest and looked a little sheepish “-Rachel and I…we seem to bring out the extremes in each other.”

That he hadn’t said “the worst,” but the “extremes,” stopped her cold. What, exactly, had been going on here? She put a hand on her hip. “You two doing something stupid, like knocking it out again? I sure as hell hope you know how to use condoms correctly these days.”

The door whipped open. Rachel stood there, propped up by a cane, glaring at the two of them.

“Hi, honey,” Ben said sweetly. “I’m home.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes at him, and then turned on Melanie. “You want to ask me something to my face?”

Oh, boy. She made the mistake of glancing at Ben.

“Don’t look at him,” Rachel demanded. “Look at me. I’m standing right here. Standing, thank you for asking, and yes, it hurts like hell.”

“Hey, sis. You’re looking…great.” Melanie decided to smile. It usually worked, though it appeared she was batting below average today.

Rachel let out a rude noise and turned away. She stared at her easel, which was conspicuously blank.

“Rach…” Ben moved into the room and shocked Melanie by putting his hands on Rachel’s shoulders, one of which was in a sling supporting her casted left arm. “Come on, babe. Let’s go downstairs and grab some grub. Em made those disgusting healthy cookies, remember? You’ve got to eat them before she gets home in an hour or she’ll worry.”

“You eat them.”

“Well, darlin’, I would, except they taste like dirt. And I have to say, I’m not overly fond of dirt.”

Rachel laughed. Laughed. Ben laughed, too, that same soft, sexy sound that tickled over Mel’s good spots.

Ben smiled down at Rachel, then reached out and stroked her cheek.

She blushed.

And while Mel stared at them, Ben ran his hands lightly down her sister’s arms, up and down, meeting Rachel’s gaze with such warmth, such affection, such…heat and intensity, it completely stole Mel’s breath.

“My God,” she said with a laugh that sounded shrill to her own ears. “Times have changed. Last time I checked, the two of you couldn’t be in the same time zone, much less in the same room. Now look at you, so cozy.”

Rachel turned her face away and stepped clear of Ben so that his hands fell to his sides. “We’re merely cohabitating to appease Emily, Mel, so don’t go making any big deal out of it.”

“Cohabitating…or commingling?”

“Knock it off, Mel,” Ben said with more heat than she was used to from the king of laid-back city.

Well, didn’t he have some nerve! For years she’d been doing his bidding, taking Emily to the ends of the earth to meet him. Granted she always jumped when he called because she didn’t object to looking at him for a few days a couple of times a year, but where was the gratitude? “Okay, then,” she said lightly, when oddly enough, her throat burned. “But I can’t imagine why I risked my job to race down here. Oh, wait…yes, I remember…because Rachel called me in tears.”

Ben whipped his face toward Rachel, his eyes dark and intent. “You were crying?”

An irrational jealousy choked Melanie at the way he looked at Rachel. His silver earring gleamed, his hair fell over his forehead and nearly to his shoulders. His hard body hadn’t come from any gym, but from years of using his muscles the old-fashioned way. Everything about him screamed rebel, trouble seeker, black heart.

Didn’t Rachel get it? A man like that was tailor-made for a woman like…well, like Mel.

Not Rachel. She needed quiet, calm, sweet and kind. She needed stability and security.

Ben didn’t know the meaning of those words. Damn it, seeing the two of them standing there staring at each other was like a fingernail scraping down a chalkboard. Because whether they admitted it or not, there was such a shimmering connection between them, she could practically reach out and touch it.