Shoreline Drive (4 page)

“Here, pass him over to me,” Jo said happily. “Oh, who’s a big boy? Who’s Grandma’s big boy?”

Ben shifted his weight carefully to line up his eye with the crack in the door just in time to see Merry do that quick, jerky wince he’d caught before.

And the expression on her face when her mother lifted the baby out of Merry’s arms and turned away slightly, cuddling him close … Ben narrowed his gaze in confusion as everything in his chest tightened in empathetic misery.

What did this all mean?

Fading back into the shadows of the barn, Ben felt his heart thundering in his chest the same way it had the day after the divorce, when he’d made the abrupt decision to leave his comfortable life and surgical ambitions in Richmond and move to Sanctuary Island.

A sense of possibility, exciting potential, raced over his skin and raised the fine hairs on the back of his neck.

It didn’t take a degree in psychology or a high score on the emotional IQ test to see that Merry Preston was in trouble. She needed help. She needed a hero.

Which was bad luck for her, because all she had was Ben. Who was no one’s idea of a hero—but for the chance to get the family he’d always wanted?

Ben could fake it.

*   *   *

Merry watched her mother holding her fussy baby boy the “right way,” and felt something inside her chest positively shrivel up into a dried-out knot.

Part of her wanted to grab Alex and stomp out of the barn. The other part of her was terrified that Jo was right.

Merry had no idea what she was doing.

A sharp rap on the wooden door frame behind them had Merry whirling to face Ben’s determinedly neutral expression.

He lifted one black brow. “Can I get a word?”

Jo gave him an easy smile, her face soft and handsome in the warm light of the barn office. “Sure, let me just—”

“Sorry,” Ben interrupted, lifting his chin. “I meant with the kid.”

Warmth spread through Merry’s insides, banishing the bad feelings. “I knew it!” she crowed, pointing at the vet. “You can’t resist snuggles with Alex.”

Pulling his mouth into a disgruntled line, Ben marched into the office and held out his arms in an imperious gesture. Looking mildly confused, Jo handed Alex over with a swift glance at Merry.

But Merry didn’t have time to reassure her or explain what was going on, even if she were able to puzzle it out herself, because in the next instant, Ben spun on his heel and walked out of the office.

“Well?” Ben stuck his head back through the door, impatience sharpening his already razor-edged voice. “Are you coming?”

Merry jumped and gave her mother an apologetic glance. “Sorry! This will be fast, I’m sure, and then we can go home.”

Amused, Jo waved a hand and sank down into the chair behind her ancient desk. “You kids go on. It’s not as if I’m running low on paperwork.”

Merry hustled out into the hallway and paused, glancing up and down the wide, dark corridor. Moths banged recklessly into the floodlights set high in the rafters, and the horses they’d brought in from the paddock for the night sighed and shifted in their stalls. Other than that, the evening air was quiet.

That was when she realized that Alex had stopped making those little complaining cries that meant he was tired but would rather work himself into a full-blown screaming fit than sleep.

He’d been fussing off and on for the last hour, ever since his dinner, and no amount of holding and walking by either Merry or Jo had helped. In fact, Merry had needed to give herself a stern talking-to about the glimmer of gladness she’d felt when being picked up by Jo hadn’t immediately fixed Alex’s bad mood.

Now, as she spotted Ben down at the end of the hallway just inside the open double doors to the outside, Merry smiled. Looked like where she and Jo had failed, Ben had effortlessly succeeded.

Alex was completely silent in Ben’s arms, staring up at the man’s face with wide, fascinated blue eyes. As Merry walked up to them, Alex lifted his dimpled hand and made an uncoordinated grab for Ben’s granite-hard jawline.

When Ben didn’t jerk his head away, Merry noticed that he was staring down at Alex as if he’d never seen anything so miraculous. Seeing Ben’s normally shuttered gaze broken open by such tenderness tugged hard at Merry’s bruised heart.

The intensity of the look on Ben’s face kept her from teasing him any further about his interest in Alex. This man, who professed to care for nothing and no one outside of his veterinary practice, definitely cared about her son.

“What are you showing him?” she murmured, glancing past Ben’s broad shoulders to the dark night outside the circle of light spilling from the open doors. A brisk wind rustled through the evergreens that surrounded the barn, the whisper of pine needles almost drowning out the chirruping song of the frog who lived in the stable yard.

Ben hitched Alex in his arms so that the baby faced the night sky, his butt supported on Ben’s muscled forearm. Merry turned to look up, too, and caught her breath at the stillness and quiet, the velvety softness of the autumn night. A harvest moon glowed golden and bright, outlining the tips of the tall pine trees against the star-studded expanse of midnight blue.

“Nothing important.” Ben shrugged. When she looked up at him, his dark gray eyes were shadowed and searching. “You wanted to get out of there. So I got us out.”

A lump thickened in Merry’s throat, something like fear squeezing tight. This man saw too much, made her feel too much …

She shook her head, but she couldn’t deny Ben was right. Breathing in a gasp of chill night air, Merry felt as if she were sucking in the right amount of oxygen for the first time all day. It was enough to make her light-headed.

Ben was still watching her, studying her as if she were a specimen on a slide under his microscope. It made her want to squirm … but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

She shook her head. “I don’t … what are we doing out here?”

“You’re unhappy.” The blunt force of his words hit her like a hammer. “Living with Jo Ellen. You need to move out.”

Winded, it took everything Merry had to force a laugh. “That’s ridiculous. What gives you the right—”

“I have no right,” Ben said, looking impatient. “I know that. But someone has to say it, since you won’t.”

“I want a relationship with my mother,” Merry protested. “That’s the whole reason I came to Sanctuary. It’s why I decided to move here permanently.”

“No,” Ben corrected her. “You stayed for Alex. Because you want to raise him here, and you’re smart enough to take help when it’s offered.”

Merry had the feeling that this entire conversation was happening on multiple levels—but she could only follow one. “I guess that’s partly true, but—”

“And you didn’t expect help from Alex’s father.” Ben pronounced it like it wasn’t a question, but the way his searching gaze bored into her soul told Merry her answer mattered, for some reason she couldn’t fathom.

Still completely at sea, and definitely not wanting to get into the whole Ivan mess, Merry looked up and connected the dots of Orion’s belt to give her time to steady her voice. “Alex’s father is out of the picture.”

The words sent the familiar sharp stab of regret lancing through her. She knew what it was like to grow up missing a parent, and she hated the idea of Alex wondering what he’d done to make his father abandon him.

Giving a short, satisfied nod, Ben muttered, “Thought so. Good.”

“Good?” A roil of emotion choked her for a blinding instant. “You don’t think my kid deserves to know his father?”

Ben’s jaw tensed above Alex’s downy head. “Not if that father is a worthless loser.”

Merry’s mouth dropped open at the sheer, galling presumption. But before she could hiss that Ben didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, he sighed hugely and lifted Alex in his arms. Staring up into the baby’s cooing face, Ben muttered, “I’m saying this all wrong, aren’t I?”

Crossing her arms across her chest, Merry demanded, “What
are
you saying, exactly?”

Visibly gathering himself, Ben folded Alex in close to his chest, where her baby pressed his little face and rubbed a wet spot on the shoulder of Ben’s hunter-green thermal knit shirt. Merry struggled to hold on to her indignation while her heart melted into a puddle of goo.

Ben took a deep breath and met her gaze directly. “I’m saying, Alex does deserve a father. And you deserve the chance to build a relationship with your mother that isn’t mired down in feeling smothered by her constant attempts to help you. That’s just going to give you a case of the belated adolescent angst you missed out on during your teenage years.”

Merry sucked in a breath—this conversation passed inappropriately intimate about ten exits back—but Ben wasn’t finished.

“I’m saying I can help, with both of those things,” he said clearly, his deep, resonant voice rumbling out of his chest. Ensnared by the intensity of his tone, by the magnetic pull of his steely eyes, Merry held her breath.

“I’m saying…” Ben paused for a heartbeat, long enough that Merry had to gasp in air that seemed too thin to fill her lungs.

“What?”

Ben squared his shoulders and firmed his mouth, his stare never wavering. “Marry me, Meredith Preston.”

Chapter Three

Merry swayed on her feet, her face as pale as the sand on Sunrise Beach. Cursing inwardly, Ben juggled baby Alex onto one shoulder to try and get a hand free to catch her, if she was planning to topple.

But he should have known better. After one sharp, wheezing breath, Merry got her balance back, along with her voice.

“Is that a command or a question?”

“It’s a solution to your problems. It would get you out of Jo’s house, give you some distance so you and she can interact in a healthier way. Plus you won’t have to feel dependent on her good will, which will free you up to be the parent you want to be—and maybe the daughter you want to be, too.”

Her gaze sharpened on his, glittering in the moonlight. “So I should be dependent on you, instead. A man I hardly know, who barely seems able to tolerate me for the length of a normal conversation, much less love me enough to marry me. What’s wrong with this picture?”

Maybe he’d made his move too quickly—it might have been smart to take the time to consider the best way to convince Merry. But Ben preferred not to wait for the iron to get hot when he could make it hot by striking. He saw his chance, and he was taking it.

So here they were, standing in the darkness of her mother’s empty barn. Hardly the romantic proposal women dreamed about.

Of course, he could fix that by telling her the truth—that she and Alex had unearthed something inside him that he’d buried years ago, that when she smiled it made Ben want to smile back, that all he wanted in the world was to keep Merry and Alex safe and try to make them happy.

The words clogged in his throat, choking off his air. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t open himself up that way, knowing Merry didn’t feel the same.

But this doesn’t have to be about romance,
he reminded himself firmly
. As far as Merry is concerned, it’s about practicality
. And there was his angle, right there.

“Look, don’t get bent out of shape and emotional about this. I’m proposing a simple transaction, one that has occurred over and over between men and women since the dawn of time.” Ben kept his voice even and calm, rational. “You want independence from your mother and sister; I can give you that.”

She narrowed her eyes. “And what do you get in return?”

You and Alex.

The words lodged in his chest, a truth so deep he couldn’t force it to the surface. Clearing his throat, he said, “I’m from Richmond, originally. Have you ever lived there?”

Confusion dragged out her response. “Nooo. What does that have to do with anything?”

Come on, Ben, you’ve got to give a little to get a little.

Every word like pulling splinters out of a snarling dog’s paw, Ben opened up. Just a crack, but enough to make him feel uncomfortably exposed.

“The Fairfaxes of Richmond have been leaders in the FFV for generations. First Families of Virginia,” he clarified when she still looked confused. “It’s an exclusive set of Virginia society made up of folks who can trace their ancestry back to the original settlers of the colony. There’s a lot of prestige, a lot of tradition. A lot of ridiculous, meaningless, shallow posturing and backbiting and maneuvering for status.”

“Sounds like a blast.” Merry shook her head, a frown creasing her pale brow. “I’m still not seeing the connection.”

“I’m an only child,” Ben told her, thinking quickly. “And my parents are getting on in years. They’ve been after me to settle down, and I know the one thing that would please them more than anything would be if I were to provide them with an heir. I don’t see why that heir can’t be Alex.”

“But,” Merry stammered, eyes wide and bewildered. “He’s not yours.”

The words seared through Ben in an unexpected rush of bitter pain, but other than firming his hold on the wriggling baby in his arms, he didn’t react. “I know that. But I could make him my legal heir, all the same.”

Not that adopting Alex and giving him the Fairfax name would actually please Ben’s parents.
Blood will tell,
he’d heard them say to each other with significant eyebrow arches over the morning paper, whenever some family outside their set did something of which they didn’t approve.

But a legal heir was better than nothing, Ben reasoned. It was the best they could hope for from Ben, so surely he’d be able to convince them to play along.

Merry shook her head, and when she reached out her arms for her son, Ben handed the kid over. Reluctantly, and with a pang for how empty his arms felt without Alex’s soft weight, but he said nothing.

“No. I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. No! I’m sorry, I’m not marrying you just to give your parents a grandkid.”

“To be clear,” Ben said, “there’s an inheritance involved.”

And that was a miscalculation. Ben realized it the instant the words left his lips and Merry stiffened as if he’d shoved a speculum somewhere uncomfortable.