Only By Your Touch (15 page)

It seemed to Chloe that the attack lasted forever. When Jeremy was able to breathe more easily again, she sat on the grass and put an arm around him. “Better now?”

He nodded, but Chloe could tell by his expression that he was upset about something. “What’s wrong, Jeremy? Can you tell me?”

He shrugged his skinny shoulders. Then he turned his face against her T-shirt and sobbed. Chloe’s heart caught. She gathered him close.

“He hit me,” the child whispered raggedly. “On the head with the Frisbee. Lots and lots of times. He got mad ’cause I didn’t catch it. He said I was stupid and clumsy.”

For an instant, Chloe could barely breathe herself. She realized she was hugging him too hard, and she made a conscious effort to loosen her arms. “Oh, honey.” She searched her memory, trying to recall the incident. “You never told me Daddy hit you with the Frisbee.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t wanna make you cry.”

Chloe pressed her cheek to the top of his head and started to rock him. “He can’t get mad at you ever again,” was all she could think to say. “I’m so sorry he did things like that, Jeremy. So sorry.”

She fell quiet for a time, trying to convey her love for him with every touch of her hands. Guilt made a fist in her chest. Though she’d remained in the marriage for only a few months after Roger came home from the hospital, she had stayed too long. Much too long.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered again.

The words remained in Chloe’s mind long after they went inside.
Sorry
couldn’t erase the horrible memories from her son’s mind.
Sorry
couldn’t undo the damage that Roger had done or heal the wounds he had inflicted. It was hard to deal with, even for Chloe, and she was a grown woman.

After putting Jeremy down for the night, she lay awake in her bed, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Sleep eluded her. As far as she knew, Jeremy had never blamed her for any of the things Roger had done. But, oh, God, she blamed herself. Every time he struggled to breathe—every time his lips turned blue—it was her fault.
Mine. All mine
. How would she ever be able to forgive herself for that?

T
he following morning, Chloe wondered what on earth she had been thinking when she’d agreed to show up on Ben’s doorstep every morning at eight. She worked until eleven, and it was always after one o’clock before she to got to sleep. Last night it had been two because she’d lain awake agonizing over her child. With only five hours of sleep, she would be exhausted by the end of her shift that night.

“Are you sick, Mom?” Jeremy asked as she parked in Ben’s driveway.

“Not sick, just tired.” She unfastened her seat belt and leaned across to kiss his forehead, which was bisected by the shoestring again. “I’ll perk up.”

Jeremy left the car and skipped ahead of her to the steps. “Don’t you wish we lived on a hill?” he asked.

Chloe paused on the walkway to take in the glorious view. “It’d be nice.”

Jeremy scampered up the steps. “Maybe we’ll marry Ben and move in with him!”

Chloe was so flabbergasted by the suggestion, she was speechless. Before she could manage so much as a sputter, Jeremy was racing across the porch. To her dismay, she saw Ben standing in the doorway. Judging
by the look on his dark face, he’d overheard what Jeremy said.

Chloe wanted to shrivel up and disappear. That not being an option, she considered trying to explain. Only what could she say? That she wasn’t angling for a marriage proposal?

Happily oblivious of the bomb he had just dropped, Jeremy said, “Hi, Ben!”

“Hi, tyke.” Ben patted the child’s head. “How are you this morning?”

“Real good.”

Ben glanced at Chloe. “Hi, there.”

He looked good enough to be illegal, wearing a simple white T-shirt that did marvelous things for his well-muscled chest and a pair of freshly laundered, faded blue jeans that skimmed his powerfully roped legs like a second skin. “Hi.” She watched Jeremy race into the house. “About the marrying business . . .”

His mouth twitched, and a twinkle warmed his eyes. “If you’re about to tell me you’re as surprised as I am, don’t bother. He’s six. At that age, children are pretty linear in their thinking.”

Chloe relaxed, but only slightly. There was something about the way he looked at her this morning—a determined gleam in his eyes—that was unsettling. He stepped back to allow her entry.

As she crossed the porch to him, she asked, “So—what happened after we left yesterday? Did you find out who was doing the shooting?”

“No, unfortunately, and I couldn’t find the wounded animal, either.” He pushed the door closed and walked with her. “We’re surrounded by woodlands up here. Trying to find anything is like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.”

He cupped her elbow in a big, hard hand as they
entered the kitchen. His touch on her bare skin sent a jolt of sensation up her arm.

“It’s going to take patience and determination,” he said, his mouth quirking at one corner as though he were laughing at a private joke. “But I’ll triumph in the end.”

“I hope so.”

His lips curved. The blue of his eyes caught the sunlight, shimmering and shifting like quicksilver. “Do you?” he asked softly.

It seemed a strange thing for him to say. Of course she wished him luck in stopping the shooting incidents. She studied his dark face, all her feminine instincts jangling. He seemed different this morning. The way he looked at her was more intent and somehow—calculating. His fingertips moved lightly over her skin in a tantalizing caress, reminding her that he was still holding her arm.

“Look, Mommy, he’s kissing me!” Jeremy cried, his face scrunched with blissful distaste as the puppy lapped his chin. “He feels lots better today. The needle’s even out of his leg!”

“Don’t let him lick your mouth, Jeremy. He’s got germs.” Relieved to have a reason to put distance between herself and Ben, Chloe set her purse on the counter and went down on one knee to pet the puppy. “Just look at you!” She laughed when the puppy hooked his paws over the edge of the box and tried to wriggle his way to freedom. “You are so darling.”

The puppy’s feathery tail whipped back and forth, drumming a tattoo on the cardboard. He bathed Chloe’s fingers with a raspy little tongue. She picked him up to look at his eyes. They were large, liquid pools of innocence and curiosity, the glazed, feverish blankness entirely gone. He twisted in her hands,
braced a hind foot on her arm, and took her completely by surprise with a sudden sweep of his tongue over her mouth.

Chloe sputtered. Jeremy giggled so hard he almost choked.

“He loves you, Mommy!”

She handed her son the puppy, wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist, and said, “Yes, well, I love him, too, but that’s a bit much.”

Rowdy slipped free of the child’s grasp and wobbled across the tile. He seemed amazingly energetic for a puppy that had so recently hovered at death’s door. Jeremy scrambled after him, but not in time. The puppy squatted and made a puddle.

Jeremy grabbed some paper towels to blot up the mess. “I’m gonna be real busy taking care of him this morning, Mom. I think you’re gonna have to clean cages by yourself.”

“I can see that.”

Chloe stood up. She’d decided on the way over that the only way to handle the situation was to be all business. She was entirely too attracted to Ben to play it any other way. If she worked out a routine, she could get the cages cleaned and the animals fed in no time and wouldn’t have to be here long.

Watching them from across the kitchen, Ben stood with his hips braced against the counter’s edge. He looked better than any man should so early in the morning, his black hair still damp from the shower, his burnished jaw sporting a shine from the recent pass of a razor blade. The short sleeves of his T-shirt were stretched taut over arms that rippled every time he moved.

“Well,” Chloe said, rubbing her hands together, “I’m ready to get this show on the road. Can you tell me where to start?”

“Coffee first,” he said. “You look like you need a cup.” Without waiting for her assent, he grabbed a mug from the cupboard. After filling it, he topped off another on the counter. “I fixed Mom a fruit plate this morning. When she gets up, all I’ll have to do is toss some bread in the toaster.”

When he turned, Chloe expected him to hand her one of the cups, but he walked right past her. “The deck is fabulous this time of day,” he said over his shoulder.

Chloe glanced at Jeremy, who was happily enthralled with his puppy. No help there. She trailed after Ben. The French doors were already open. Well ahead of her, he was already sprawled on a patio chair when she joined him outside. With a nod of his dark head, he indicated a chair beside him. After she sat down, he handed her a mug.

Warmed by the sunlight that bathed the east deck, Chloe took a careful sip of the coffee. The rich flavor flowed smoothly over her tongue, and the aroma was divine. “I thought you couldn’t make coffee.”

“Lucky hit. Sometimes I get it right.”

He gazed out at the view as he took a swallow from his cup. His big body was relaxed, his expression distant and dreamy.

“Have you read the
Thunder over the Ochoco
series?” he asked.

Chloe had heard of the Ochoco National Forest, but so far, she’d had no time to take Jeremy exploring. Nevertheless, she was glad for something impersonal to talk about. Some of the tension eased from her body, yet she was still aware of Ben in every pore of her skin. “No, I haven’t. Are they good books?”

“Informative. Entertaining as well, if you’re interested in local history. In large part, it’s about my
people.” He swept his hand in a wide arc and inclined his head at the mountains. “Shoshone hunting grounds, as far as you can see.”

Given the fact that his mother was white, Chloe found it strange that he identified so strongly with his Native American ancestors. “Your mother—she isn’t Shoshone. You’re what, a quarter?”

“It’s common knowledge in town that I’m a quarter-breed. When people say my name, they usually tack that on in the same breath. That being the case, I’m fairly sure you know the answer to that already.” He arched a black eyebrow at her. “So what’s your point?”

“Not a point so much as bewilderment. If you’re three quarters something else, why do you feel the Shoshone blood runs strongest?”

He turned the full impact of his gaze on her. “Look at me,” he said simply. “What do you see?”

Chloe saw a man who was beautiful, rugged, and masculine. She also had to concede that, except for his eyes, he looked to be pure Shoshone. Even his chiseled facial structure was classically Indian. “I see a—” She bent her head, flicked at a spot of lint on her jeans. “You look very Indian. Native American, I mean.”

“You don’t have to be politically correct with me. Indian works. I prefer it.”

“You do?”

“My grandfather put it much more eloquently. He rapped my chest so hard with his finger, he introduced my diaphragm to my backbone, and said, ‘Benjamin, you are Shoshone. Your forefathers fought and died for this land, and they were proud to be called Indians. If it was good enough for them, by God, it is good enough for you!” ’ He gave her a sidelong look that
twinkled with warmth. “I never argued with Grandfather—or disobeyed him.”

“I wish I could have met your grandfather. He sounds delightful.”

A distant expression came over his face. “He was a deep, soulful man. He saw the world in a way you and I can barely comprehend, and everything in it had spiritual significance to him. You think I look Indian—you should have seen him. His hair was streaked with silver and hung well past his waist. He wore a long braid at each temple, as Shoshone braves of old once did. When he moved, his beads made a soft clacking sound. He never heard the term ‘politically correct’ and would have called it poppycock if he had.”

He paused for an instant and closed his eyes. “I still hear the sound of his beads when I remember him. And I loved his smell.” His voice went gravelly and thick. “Leather, tobacco, wood smoke, and an underlying earthy scent because he spent so much time outdoors. He hated walls. I think being inside made him claustrophobic. Toward the end, I can remember Mama helping him out to sit under the woodshed lean-to after he grew too weak to make it by himself. It was the dead of winter and bitterly cold, but he preferred to be out there. Before I went to school, I’d build him a fire, and she’d put wood on it throughout the day. In the afternoon when I got home, I did my chores as fast as I could so I could sit at his knee and listen to him talk.” He fell silent again, staring at the horizon. “He told me fascinating stories of his boyhood—and of his father’s before him. Once, when I asked him why he sat out there, gazing off at nothing, he said that he was waiting. I didn’t understand then. I do now. He was very old and ill. His life had stopped, but his heart had not. I was just a little guy,
about a year older than Jeremy, when his wait was finally over.”

Chloe heard the intense sadness in his voice and knew he still grieved.

He shifted and resettled, then took a sip of coffee. “He would have liked you.” He gave her an assessing look. “You have true eyes.”

“Do I? True, huh? I’ve heard of honest ones.”

“Grandfather believed honest eyes could be faked. ‘Look to the heart,’ he used to say. ‘If you see no heart, run.” ’

Chloe laughed again. Ben did a beautiful job of mimicry, and she could almost see his Indian grandfather lecturing him. “You must miss him terribly.”

“He left a great hole,” he said huskily.

It was an odd way to put it, but Chloe understood exactly what he meant. When people you loved died, they did leave a great hole, and no one else could ever fill it up again. She wished it had happened that way with Roger—that he had simply died so they could mourn him and miss him. Modern medicine had managed to save his body, but it had failed to repair his mind, or recover the man he’d once been.

“Chloe.”

She jerked herself back to the moment. “Sorry.”

“You went to a sad place.”

She tried to school her expression, knew she failed. “Yes, a sad place.”

“I’m glad you’re back.” He inclined his head at the deck railing. “Listen.”

Chloe did and smiled. In the trees growing on the steep slope below, the birds raised their voices in song. “How lovely.”

“ ‘My worm’s bigger than your worm,” ’ he sang softly.

She burst out laughing again. “That isn’t what they’re saying.”

“What, then?”

She thought for a moment. “They’re saying it’s a beautiful day. An incredibly beautiful day.”

They enjoyed the remainder of their coffee in silence, listening to the sounds of nature around them. It seemed to Chloe that everything was clearer, sharper, and infinitely lovelier than it had been before.

After showing Chloe how to clean the cages and feed the animals, Ben fixed his mother’s toast, set her up to eat breakfast in the family room from an oak TV tray, and then applied himself to cleaning the kitchen. He tried to ignore Chloe as she skittered around him, taking care of critters, but he found that difficult when every time he looked her way, she had her sweetly rounded fanny poked in the air.

He’d just finished polishing the stovetop when Jeremy turned from the puppy’s box to say, “My mom’s sure been outside a long time.”