Jill Shalvis - The Street Where She Lives

Rachel pulled the covers up to her chin and tried to concentrate on the good. There was her body for one, still humming with sexual pleasure. And the warmth of his body, which still lingered in her bed.

Damn it, she’d known going in this was temporary, and she refused to agonize or anticipate.

It was done.

But a moment later he came out, walking toward her in all his nude glory. Not cocky, not strutting, just utterly comfortable with himself. At the side of the bed, he stopped. “You want me to go?”

Yes, her mind demanded. Go.

But it was her body in control at the moment, not her brain, and because of that, she scooted over and lifted the edge of the covers.

He climbed in, turned on his side and held out his arms.

With a sigh, she scooted right into them, entwining their legs. Pressing her face into his neck, which smelled so inherently Ben, she let out another little sigh.

“Okay?” He stroked a hand down her back.

“For now.”

“For now is all that matters,” he breathed, and hugged her close.

And if that statement wasn’t a sum of all their differences, she didn’t know what was, but she didn’t care.

She would live in the moment, and enjoy it.

And worry about future moments in…well, a future moment.

BEN AWOKE to the sun in his eyes and his arms empty. No big surprise, he’d always awoken alone. Different bed, of course, different continent and time zone, but always with the same vague feeling that he was missing something.

Now he knew exactly what that something was. Or who.

Rachel.

Last night had been nothing short of earth-shattering. The way she’d given herself, the way he’d responded. He hoped to hell she didn’t hate him for it, because he was afraid he’d just fallen in love with her all over again.

He might as well have jumped off a three-hundred-foot cliff because it wouldn’t change anything. He still wasn’t meant for this kind of life. He still didn’t want the same address and same view from the same porch every morning. In light of that, it was past time to get the hell out of this bed with the fluffy white pillows and thick comforter. He rolled from his belly to his back, then nearly had heart failure. His daughter was sitting at his hip, grinning at him.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, he sat up and had enough wits about him to be grateful for the sheet at his waist since he was still quite naked. “Uh…hi.”

She just kept grinning.

He checked the sheet to make sure it was still covering the essentials, not wanting to be the one to educate this girl in the ways of male morning anatomy. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re in Mom’s bed.”

True. And he had no idea how to explain this. He wasn’t in the habit of sleeping with a woman all night long, not when by morning he’d always been overcome by claustrophobia. Actually, that claustrophobia was overcoming him now. “About that-”

“She’s downstairs drinking her coffee and pretending you’re not in here. In case you were wondering.”

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“Well, I came up to borrow a sweatshirt. And found you instead.” She hopped off the bed and twirled. “Think I’ll go mention to Mom I found you here. And that you’re awake.”

“No!” He forced a smile to soften his tone. “Um…maybe you’d just let her keep on pretending? You know, that I’m not here?”

She cocked her head thoughtfully. “If that would help your cause.”

Oh, now he was a cause. “Em-”

Bouncing closer, she tossed her arms around him and gave him a bear hug. The feel of her, thin and sweet, so goddamned sweet his throat tightened, had him wanting to hold her forever.

“I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to work,” she whispered against his throat. “Getting you to come here.”

Ah, hell. He put his hands on her arms and pulled back enough to look into her face. “Emily, I know you think you planned this little reunion, but I’ve got to tell you-”

“It was wrong,” she admitted. “And manipulative. I know. But I did the right thing, Dad. I can see that I did. Mom is down there glowing. She never glows, even when I make her put on makeup!”

Ben let out a slow breath. “Maybe she’s glowing because it’s sort of chilly.”

“Dad.”

“Or she’s catching a cold. You know, that’s probably it, all that physical therapy she does. And those meds she’s on lowered her resistance, and-”

“It’s you, Dad. She’s glowing ’cause of you and you know it.”

He stared at his beautiful, precious daughter and had no idea what to say or do. For most of her life she’d been out of his reach, and the rest of it would probably be more of the same. But for right now, for this little slice of time, he had her. He could be more than a casual dad, and suddenly he wanted to strengthen their relationship, make it worth something that they could both hold on to in the years to come.

Only he had no idea how to do that.

Then Rachel walked into the bedroom, indeed looking quite rosy. At the sight of Emily sitting on her bed, the bed with Ben still in it, she stumbled.

“Look who I found, Mom.” Emily tucked her tongue into her cheek and baited her mother with shocking ease for her age. “Right here in your bed. Can you believe it?”

Ben closed his eyes and wondered what she’d be like when she was eighteen. Hell on wheels, he thought weakly. And also, unfortunately, a chip off the old block. Either old block.

“Uh…” Rachel sounded a little breathless, so Ben opened his eyes again and found her looking a little panicked.

And majorly adorable. “Would you believe I sleepwalk?” Ben asked Emily.

She giggled. “Nope.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Emily, we…I…” She broke off with a disparaging sound, obviously at a complete loss. “It’s true. He sleepwalks.”

Enjoying herself, Emily leaned back in the bed next to Ben. She crossed her bunny-slippered feet and slipped an arm around his shoulders, surveying her squirming mother. “Okay. So he sleepwalks. And even though you sleep with one eye open, he somehow managed to get in under the covers without your knowledge, is that it?”

“Well…” Rachel glared at Ben. Help me, her eyes demanded.

When Ben left this time he wanted it to be on good terms, and he didn’t plan on thirteen years going by before he made his way back into this very bed. In light of that, he smiled. “How ’bout this, Em…it’s none of your business why I’m in here. We’re the adults, you’re the kid, and from now on, you’ll knock before you barge in.”

Em’s mouth opened, then shut.

“Starting five minutes ago,” he added.

“You mean…”

“Exactly. Start this episode over.”

“You want me to, like, actually go back out?”

“Like, actually, yes.”

Emily stared at her mom, who was looking as though she liked that idea very much. “You heard your father,” Rachel said primly.

Emily let out a rude noise, but got up. Halfway to the door she turned back. “You know, this having two parents in the same house is bogus.”

“Knock,” was all he said.

She slammed the door behind her, and Rachel lifted a brow at him. She looked good first thing in the morning, he noted, with her short, short, out-of-control hair and her cheeks quite pink…wearing that robe he’d so eagerly peeled off her last night.

Emily’s knock came, and he regretted he hadn’t sent her farther away…like into town.

“Aren’t you going to tell her to come in?” Rachel asked.

“I still haven’t worked out a good reason for being in your bed.”

“Maybe you should have left it by now,” she pointed out.

“Yeah.” As if he didn’t know that. With regret, he tossed the covers off and stood. Where had he left his clothes…? Ah, he saw them now, littered across the floor.

Another knock. “Dad? Mom?”

Rachel was staring at his very naked body, her mouth open a little as if she couldn’t quite get enough air. “Hold on, Em!”

Picking up his jeans from the floor, Ben slid into them. His shirt was across the room, draped over the top of her dresser where it had landed in his hasty strip.

Another knock, more loudly now. “Dad?”

“Em, we need another minute here.” He didn’t take his eyes off what he’d found beneath the shirt. An opened artist’s pad displaying a beautiful colored pencil rendering of nighttime South Village. The lights, the people, the shops and theater…it was all there, and in such vivid clarity and detail it could have been a photograph. Mesmerized, he turned the page, and the next picture caught him by the heart and squeezed.

It was of Emily, Patches and himself, all sitting on the small patch of grass in front of the house, laughing, touching…so absolutely, stunningly real he could almost see Emily breathing, could almost hear the puppy barking. “My God, Rachel.”

“Those are personal.”

“They’re incredible.”

She shut the pad on his fingers.

“I thought you weren’t able to work. That you were struggling.”

“Do those look like Gracie columns to you?”

“So it’s not Gracie, they’re still amazing.”

“You can’t make a living off renderings, Ben.”

“You can do whatever you want to do, you damn well know that.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Of course it is.”

“Look, ever since the accident, I need my job to be…important. And it’s not,” she finished lamely.

“Yes, it is. People wait all week for your witty take on whatever is going on in the country.”

Rachel laughed. “Right.”

“They do.”

“Ben…I look at you and your work, and then turn back to my easel and…” Her face fell. “It just feels insignificant. Silly.”

What was she saying? That she wanted to do what he did? That she suddenly wanted to travel with him? No, that was his fantasy and his alone. “Listen to me.” He took her shoulders, made her look at him. “My work…it’s not for normal people, okay? You know that. I travel all the time, I have no home, nothing to call my own except my equipment. I go to countries people have never heard of and see stuff no one could put together in their worst nightmares, and-”

“Exactly!” She shoved free. “You want to fix the world, Ben, and you’re not afraid to do it.”

“You do, too, just in a different way, that’s all.” He softened his voice, stroked a hand over her hair. “Don’t doubt yourself because of me, babe. I don’t think I could stand that. You are who you are, a damn strong, beautiful, intelligent woman, with the sense to keep her feet firmly planted. Me…I’m missing that gene entirely. What I do…that’s all I know.”

She lifted her gaze to his, and must have seen some of his thoughts, because resignation came into her eyes. “Last night…was that goodbye?”

Emily knocked again. “Hey! Can I come in or what?”

Ben couldn’t take his eyes off Rachel, the woman he’d seen in the face of every woman he’d been with in all these years. The woman who’d given him Emily. The one woman who, if he were crazy enough to consider settling down, would be the one to make him want to do it.

Too bad he was missing that gene, too. “Yeah. That was goodbye.”

She stared at him, still a little dewy-eyed, and he felt his heart crack. “It has to be,” he whispered back.

She nodded, and went into the bathroom.

A FEW HOURS LATER, Agent Brewer called Ben. “We’ve got news.”

Ben sat down, gripped the phone. “Tell me you have Asada in your hot little custody.”

“Not our custody. The South American authorities claim to have him.”

“Claim?”

“They say he was found dead in his hometown village.”

“Are they sure?”

“They think so.”

“And what do you think?”

“I’d like it better if we’d been able to ID the body before they cremated him.”

Shit. Ben rubbed his eyes. “No one from the States IDed him first?”

“No, but he was reportedly identified by a handful of people who have known and hated him for years.”

“So…it’s over.”

“It’s over.”

Ben hung up the phone, then waited for the relief to overwhelm him.

But oddly enough, the relief never came.

From: Emily Wellers

To: Alicia Jones

Subject: Sucky days…

Alicia, my dad is leaving on Tuesday for Africa. I know I told you he was going to stay, that’s what I had hoped for, but it’s okay. I think he and my mom got close on this trip, and I’m going to make sure there’s more trips in the near future.

Emily stopped typing and sat back. What else could she say? She felt bad because Alicia had gotten lonely in the past few weeks when she’d been so busy. But the truth was, suddenly Emily didn’t feel like doing e-mail every single day.