‘For me?’ He swung to her. ‘Hell, Meg, you were magnificent! I just...’
She swallowed. ‘What?’
He released her to rest his elbows on his knees again and drag both hands back through his hair. She wanted his arm resting back across her shoulders. She wanted not to have hurt him.
‘Is it my coming home and turning your nicely ordered plans on their head? Did that have a bearing on your outburst tonight? I don’t mean to be causing you stress.’
‘No! That had nothing to do with it. That—’ she waved back behind her ‘—was about me and them. Not about me and you.’ She moistened her lips. ‘It was about me and my father.’ And about her anger at Elsie for not having shown Ben any love or affection. ‘You had nothing to do with that except in...’
‘What?’
‘When I was busy doing what you were mostly doing tonight,’ she started slowly, ‘making sure the conversation flowed and that there weren’t any awkward moments, I didn’t have the time to feel those old hurts and resentments.’
‘While I, at least whenever I’ve been home,’ he said with a delicious twist of his lips, ‘have been far too busy stewing on them.’
‘But when you took on my role tonight I started to wonder why I was always so careful around them, and I realised what a lie it all seemed.’
‘So you exploded.’
She slouched back against the bench. ‘Why can’t I just make it all go away and not matter any more? It all seems so pointless and self-defeating.’ She couldn’t change the past any more than she could change her father or Elsie. Her hands clenched. ‘I should be able to just get over it.’ She wasn’t ten years old any more.
‘It doesn’t work like that.’
She knew he was right. She lifted her chin. ‘It doesn’t mean I have to let it blight the future, though. I don’t have to continue mollycoddling my father or Elsie. At least not at the expense of myself.’
‘No, you don’t.’
He’d been telling her that for years. She’d never really seen what he meant till now.
‘And I have a baby on the way.’ She hugged herself. ‘And that’s incredibly exciting and it makes me happier than I have words for.’
He stared at her. He didn’t smile.
They
had a baby on the way.
They
. She could read that in his face, but he didn’t correct her.
She stared back out at the bay. The last scrap of light in the sky had faded and house lights and boat lights and street lights danced on the undulating water, turning it into a kind of fairyland.
Only this wasn’t a fairytale. Ben said he wanted to be involved in their baby’s life, but so far he hadn’t shown any joy or excitement—only agitation and unease.
‘So...?’
His word hung in the air. She didn’t know what it referred to. She hauled in a breath and raised one shoulder. ‘I don’t much feel like going back to the club and dealing with my father and Elsie.’
‘You don’t have to. I asked your father if he’d see Elsie home.’
She swung back to him. ‘I could kiss you!’
He grinned. A grin full of a slow burn that melted her insides and sent need hurtling through her. She started to reach for him, realised what she was doing, and turned the questing touch into a slap to his thigh before leaping to her feet.
‘Feel like going for a walk?’ She couldn’t keep sitting here next to him and not give in to temptation.
Which was crazy.
Truly crazy.
Nonetheless, walking was a much safer option.
With a shrug he rose and they set off along the boardwalk in the direction of the Nelson Bay marina, where there was a lot of distraction—lights and people and noise. Meg swallowed. Down at this end of the beach it was dark and almost deserted. It would take ten minutes to reach the marina. And then they’d have to walk back this way. In the dark and the quiet.
Her feet slowed.
But by then—after all that distraction and the exercise of walking—she’d have found a way to get her stupid hormones back under control, right?
She went to speed up again, but Ben took her arm and led her across a strip of grass and down to the sand. He kicked off his shoes, and after a moment’s hesitation she eased her feet out of her wedges.
They paddled without talking very much. The water was warm. She needed icy cold rather than this beguiling warmth that brought all her senses dancing to life. Paddling with Ben in all the warmth of a late summer evening, with the scent of a nearby frangipani drenching the air, was far too intimate. Even though they’d done this a thousand times and it had never felt intimate before.
Except that one time after her high school graduation, when he’d been her white knight and taken her to the prom.
Don’t think about that!
She cleared her throat. ‘Tell me again how magnificent I was.’ Maybe teasing and banter would help her find her way back to a more comfortable place.
Ben turned and moved back towards her. He inadvertently flicked up a few drops of water that hit her mid-calf...and higher. They beaded and rolled down her legs with delicious promise.
He halted in front of her, reaching out and cupping her cheek. ‘Meg, nobody has ever stood up for me the way you did tonight. Not ever.’
In the moonlight his eyes shimmered. ‘Oh, Ben,’ she whispered, reaching up to cover his hand with hers. He deserved to have so many more people in his life willing to go out on a limb for him.
‘You made me feel as if I could fly.’
She smiled. ‘You mean you can’t?’
He laughed softly and pulled her in close for a hug. She clenched her eyes shut and gritted her teeth as she forced her arms around him to squeeze him back for a moment. She started to release him, but he didn’t release her. She rested her cheek on his shoulder and bit her lip until she tasted blood. It took all her concentration to keep her hands where they ought to be.
And then his hand slid down her back and it wasn’t a between-friends gesture. It was...
She drew back to glance into his face. The hunger and the need reflected in his eyes made her sway towards him. She planted her hands against his chest to keep her balance, to keep from falling against him. As soon as she regained her footing she meant to push him away.
Only, her hands, it seemed, had a different idea altogether. They slid across his shirt, completely ignoring the pleasant sensation of soft cotton to revel in the honed male flesh beneath it. Ben’s chest had so much
definition
. And he was hot! His heat branded her through his shirt and his heart beat against her palm like a dark throbbing promise. The pulse in her throat quivered.
She swallowed and tried to catch her breath. She should move away.
But the longer she remained in the circle of Ben’s arms, the more the strength and the will drained from her body and the harder it became to think clearly and logically.
And beneath her hands his body continued to beat at her like a wild thing—a tempting and tempestuous primal force, urging her to connect with something wild and elemental within herself.
She lifted her gaze to his. A light blazed from his eyes, revealing his need, an unchecked recklessness and his exaltation.
‘I’ve been fighting this all night,’ he rasped, ‘but I’m not going to fight it any more.’
He tangled his hand in her hair and pulled it back until her lips lifted, angled just so to give him maximum access, and then his mouth came down on hers—hot, hungry, unchecked.
His lips laid waste to all her preconceptions. She’d thought he’d taste wickedly illicit and forbidden, but he didn’t taste like whisky or leather or midnight. He tasted like summer and ripe strawberries and the tang of the ocean breeze. He tasted like freedom.
It was more intoxicating than anything she’d ever experienced.
Kissing Ben was like flying.
A swooping, swirling, tumbling-in-the-surf kind of flying.
He pulled her closer, positioned his body in such a way that it pressed against all the parts of her she most wanted touched—but it didn’t appease her, only inflamed. His name ripped from her throat and he took advantage of it to deepen the kiss further. She followed his lead, drinking him in greedily. Her head swam. She fisted her hands in his shirt and dragged him closer. His strength was the only thing keeping them both upright.
She needed him
now
. Her body screamed for him. She pressed herself against him in the most shameless way she could—pelvis to pelvis, making it clear what she wanted. Demanding fulfilment.
His mouth lifted from hers. He dragged in air and then his teeth grazed her throat. She arched against him. ‘Please, Ben. Please.’ she sobbed.
With a growl, he scrunched her skirt in his hand. He traced the line of her panty elastic with one finger and she thought she might explode then and there.
His finger shifted, slid beneath the elastic.
Oh, please. Please.
A car horn blared, renting the air with discord, and Ben leapt away from her so fast she’d have fallen if he hadn’t shot out an arm to steady her. When she regained her balance he released her with an oath that burned her ears.
‘What the
hell
were you thinking?’ His finger shook as he pointed it at her.
Same as you
. Only she couldn’t get her tongue to work properly and utter that remark out loud.
He wheeled away, dragging both hands back through his hair.
No, no, no,
she wanted to wail.
Don’t turn knight on me now—you’re a bad boy!
But when he swung back his face was tense and drawn, and she was grateful she hadn’t said it out loud.
Because it would have been stupid.
And wrong.
Her flesh chilled. Trembling set in. She walked away from him and up the beach a little way to sit. She needed to think. And she couldn’t think and walk at the same time because her limbs were boneless and it took all her concentration to remain upright. She pulled her skirt down as far as it would go and kept her legs flat out in front of her to reveal as little thigh as possible.
He strode up to her and punched a finger at her again. ‘This is not on, Meg. You and me. It’s never going to happen.’
‘Don’t use that tone with me.’ She glared at him. ‘You started it.’
‘You could’ve said no!’
‘You could’ve not kissed me in the first place!’
She expected him to stride away into the night, but he didn’t. He paced for a bit and then eventually came back and sat beside her. But not too close.
‘Are we still okay?’ he growled.
‘Sure we are.’ But her throat was tight.
‘I don’t know what came over me.’
‘It’s been an emotional evening.’ She swallowed. ‘And when emotions run high you always seek a physical outlet.’
He nodded. There was a pause. ‘It’s not usually your style, though.’
She shifted, rolled her shoulders. ‘Yeah, well, it seems that being pregnant has made me...itchy.’
He stared. And then he leaned slightly away from her. ‘You’re joking?’
‘I wish I were.’
She had to stop looking at him. She forced her gaze back to the front—to the gently lapping water of the bay. Which wasn’t precisely the mood she was after. She forced her gaze upwards. Stars. She heaved out a sigh and gave up.
‘So you’re feeling...? Umm...? All of the time?’
She pressed her hands to her cheeks and stared doggedly out at the water, desperately wishing for some of its calm to enter her soul. ‘I expected to feel all maternal and Mother Earthy. Not sexy.’
‘You know, it kind of makes sense,’ he said after a bit. ‘All those pregnancy hormones are making you look great.’
At the moment she’d take the haggard morning sickness look if it would get things between her and Ben on an even keel again.
‘You sure we’re okay?’ he said again.
She bit back a sigh. ‘I’m not going to fall for you, Ben, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘No, I—’
‘For a start, I don’t like the way you treat women, and I’m sure as hell not going to let any man treat me like that.’
‘I do not treat women badly,’ he growled.
‘Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. That’s your style.’
And as far as she was concerned it was appalling. She grimaced. Even if a short time ago she’d been begging for exactly that. She massaged her temples. She found her own behaviour this evening appalling too. She’d never acted like that before—so heedless and mindless. Not with any man.
‘I haven’t had any complaints.’
She snorted. ‘Because you don’t stick around long enough to hear them.’
‘Hell, Meg.’ He scowled. ‘I show a woman a good time. I don’t make promises.’
But he didn’t care if a woman did read more into their encounter. He’d used that to his advantage on more than one occasion.
‘Yeah, well, I want more than that from a relationship, and that’s something I know you’re not in the market for.’ He grabbed her arm when she went to rise. She fell back to the sand, her shoulder jostling his. ‘What?’
He let her go again. ‘I’m glad we’re on the same page, because...’
An ache started up behind her eyes. ‘Because?’
‘I’ve made a decision and we need to talk about it.’
She smoothed her skirt down towards her knees again. Ben was going to leave right after the wedding. That was what he wanted to tell her, wasn’t it?
She pulled in a breath and readied herself for his news. It was good news, she told herself, straightening her spine and setting her shoulders. Things could get back to normal again.
‘I’ve made the decision to stay in Port Stephens. I’ll find work here and I’ll find a place to live. I want to be a father to our baby, Meg. A
proper
father.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
T
HE
WORLD
TILTED
to one side. Meg planted a hand against shifting sand. ‘Staying?’ Her voice wobbled.
Living here in Port Stephens, so close to Elsie and his childhood, would make Ben miserable. She closed her eyes. In less than six months he’d go stir crazy and flee in a trail of dust.
And where would that leave her baby and their friendship?
Depending on how much under the six-month mark Ben managed to hold on for, her baby might not even have been born. She opened her eyes. In which case it wouldn’t have come to rely on Ben or to love him.
It wouldn’t be hurt by his desertion.
But Ben would be. His failure to do this would destroy something essential in him.
And she didn’t want to bear witness to that.
She turned to find him studying her. His shoulders were hitched in a way that told her he was waiting for her to say something hard and cruel.
And the memory of their kiss—that bone-crushing kiss—throbbed in all the spaces between them.
She moistened her lips. ‘You haven’t been back here a full week yet. This is a big decision—huge. It’s life-changing. You don’t have to rush it, or make a hasty choice, or—’
‘When it comes down to brass tacks, Meg, the decision itself is remarkably simple.’
It was?
‘Being a parent—a father—is the most important job in the world.’
Her heart pounded. He would hate himself—
hate
—when he found out he wasn’t up to the task. Her heart burned, her eyes ached and her temples throbbed.
And at the back of her mind all she could think about was kissing him again. Kissing him had been a mistake. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to repeat it.
And repeat it.
Over and over again.
But if they did it would destroy their friendship. She clenched her hands in her lap and battled the need to reach out and touch him again, kiss him again, as she hungered to do.
‘Coming back home this time...’ He glanced down at his hands. ‘I’ve started to realise how shallow my life really is.’
Her jaw dropped.
‘I know it looks exciting, and I guess it is. But it’s shallow too. I’ve spent my whole life running away from responsibility. I’m starting to see I haven’t achieved anything of real value at all.’
She straightened. ‘That’s not true. You help people achieve their dreams. You give them once-in-a-lifetime experiences—stories they can tell their children.’
‘And who am I going to tell
my
stories to?’
Her heart started to thud.
‘I’ve steered clear of any thoughts of children in my future, afraid I’d turn out like my parents.’ His face grew grim but his chin lifted. ‘That will only happen if I let it.’
He turned to her.
Stop thinking about kissing him!
‘What I really want to know is what you’re scared of, Meg. Why does the thought of my coming home for good and being a father to our child freak you out?’
Because what if I never do manage to get my hormones back under control?
She snapped away at that thought. It was ludicrous. And unworthy. This should have nothing to do with her feelings and everything to do with her baby’s. She couldn’t let how she felt colour that reality.
‘Meg?’
The notion of Ben coming home for good
did
freak her out. It scared her to the soles of her feet. He knew her too well for her to deny it. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ she whispered.
He set his shoulders in a rigid line. ‘Give it to me straight.’
She glanced at her hands. She hauled in a breath. ‘I’m afraid you’ll hang around just long enough for the baby to love you. I’m afraid the baby will come to love and rely on you but you won’t be able to hack the monotony of domesticity. I’m afraid your restlessness will get the better of you and you’ll leave. And if you do that, Ben, you will break my baby’s heart.’
He flinched. The throbbing behind her eyes intensified.
‘And if you do that, Ben...’ she forced herself to continue ‘...I don’t know if I could ever forgive you.’
And they would both lose the most important friendship of their lives.
He shot to his feet and strode down to the water’s edge.
‘And what’s more,’ she called after him, doing what she could to keep her voice strong, ‘if that’s the way this all plays out, I think you will hate yourself.’
There was so much to lose if he stayed.
He strode back to where she sat, planted his feet in front of her. ‘I can’t do anything about your fears, Meg. I’m sorry you feel the way you do. I know I have no one to blame but myself, and that only time will put your fears to rest.’ He dragged a hand back through his hair. ‘But when
our
baby is born I’m going to be there for it every step of the way. I want it to love me. I want it to rely on me. I’ll be doing everything to make that happen.’
She shrank from him. ‘But—’
‘I mean to be the best father I can be. I mean to be the kind of father to my son or daughter that my father wasn’t to me. I want our baby to have everything good in life, and I mean to stick around to make sure that happens.’
Meg covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh, Ben, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’
* * *
Ben stared at Meg, with her head bowed and her shoulders slumped, and knelt down on the sand beside her, his heart burning. He pulled her hands from her face. ‘What on earth are you sorry for?’ She didn’t have anything to be sorry about.
‘I’m sorry I asked you to donate sperm. I’m sorry I’ve created such an upheaval in your life. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I didn’t mean to turn your life upside down.’
The darkness in her eyes, the guilt and sorrow swirling in their depths, speared into him. ‘I know that.’ He sat beside her again. ‘When I agreed to be your sperm donor I had no idea I’d feel this way, and I’m sorry that’s turned all your plans on their head.’
She pulled in a breath that made her whole body shudder. He wanted to wrap her in his arms. She moved away as if she’d read that thought in his face. It was only an inch, but it was enough.
All because of that stupid kiss
.
Why the hell had he kissed her? He clenched a hand. Ten years ago he’d promised he would never do that again. Ten years ago, when that jerk she’d been dating had dumped her. She’d been vulnerable then. She’d been vulnerable tonight too. And he’d taken advantage of that fact.
Meg wasn’t the kind of girl a guy kissed and then walked away from. He might be staying in Port Stephens for good, but he wasn’t changing his life
that
much. He had to stop sending her such mixed signals. They were friends.
Just
friends.
Best friends
.
He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Control—he needed to find control.
And he needed to forget how divine she’d felt in his arms and how that kiss had made him feel like a superhero, shooting off into the sky.
She cleared her throat, snagging his attention again. ‘Obviously neither one of us foresaw what would happen.’
Her sigh cut him to the quick. ‘I know this is hard for you, Meg, but I do mean to be a true father to our child.’
She still didn’t believe him. It was in her face. In the way she opened her hands and let the sand trickle out of them. In the way she turned to stare out at the water.
‘And because I do want to be a better father than my own, I need to clear the air about that kiss.’
His body heated up in an instant as the impact of their kiss surged through him again. That kiss had been—
He fisted his hands and tried to cut the memory from his mind. He was not going to dwell on that kiss again.
Ever
. He couldn’t. Not if he wanted to maintain his sanity. Not if he wanted to save their friendship.
Meg slapped her hands to the sides of her knees. ‘You are nothing like your father.’
How could she be so sure of that?
‘You would never,
ever
put a gun to anyone’s head—let alone your own child’s.’
Bile rose in his throat. That had happened nearly twenty years ago, but the day and all its horror was etched on his memory as if with indelible ink. His mother and father had undergone one of the most acrimonious divorces in the history of man. In the custody battle that had ensued they had used their only son to score as many points off one another as they could. At every available opportunity.
Their bitterness and their hate had turned them into people Ben hadn’t been able to recognise. They’d pushed and pushed and pushed each other, until one day his father had shown up on the front doorstep with a shotgun.
Ben’s heart pounded. He could still taste the fear in his mouth when he’d first caught sight of the gun—could still feel the grip of a hard hand on the back of his neck when he’d turned to run. He’d been convinced his father would kill them.
Ben pressed a hand to his forehead and drew oxygen into his lungs. Meg wrapped her arm through his. It helped anchor him back in the present moment, drawing him out of that awful one twenty years ago.
‘My parents must’ve cared for each other once—maybe even loved each other—but marriage for them resulted in my father being in prison and my mother dumping me with Elsie and never being heard from again.’
‘Not all marriages end like that, Ben.’
‘True.’
But he had the same raging passions inside him that his parents had. He had no intention of setting them free. That was why he kept his interludes with women light and brief. It was safer all round.
Gently, he detached his arm from Meg’s. ‘Whatever else I do, though, marriage is something I’m never going to risk.’
She shook her head and went back to lifting sand and letting it trickle through her hand. ‘This is one of those circular arguments that just go round and round without ending. We agreed to disagree about this years ago.’
He heard her unspoken question.
So why bring it up now?
‘Regardless of what you think, Meg, I do mean to be a good father. But that doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about marriage.’
She stopped playing with the sand. ‘And you think because I’m feeling a little sexy that I’m going to weave you into my fantasies and cast you in the role of handsome prince?’ She snorted. ‘Court jester, more like. It’d take more than a kiss for me to fall in love with you, Ben Sullivan. I may have baby brain, but that doesn’t mean I’ve turned into a moron. Especially—’ she shot to her feet ‘—when I don’t believe you’ll hang around long enough for anyone to fall in love with you anyway.’
He didn’t argue the point any further. Only time would prove to her that he really did mean to stick around.
He scrambled to his feet. He just had to make sure he didn’t kiss her again. Meg didn’t do one-night stands—it wasn’t how she was built inside. She got emotionally involved. He knew that. He’d always known that. He pushed his shoulders back and shoved his hands into the pockets of his shorts. He’d made a lot of mistakes in his sorry life, but he wasn’t making that one.
He set off after Meg. ‘What would you like me to do in relation to the wedding this week?’
She’d walked back to where they’d kicked off their shoes. He held her arm as she slid hers back on. He gritted his teeth in an effort to counter the warm temptation of her skin.
She blinked up at him as she slid a finger around the back of one of her sandals. She righted herself and moved out of his grasp. ‘There’s still a lot to do.’ She glanced at him again. ‘How busy are you this coming week?’
He’d be hard at work, casting around for employment opportunities, putting out feelers and sifting through a few preliminary ideas he’d had, but he’d find time to help her out with this blasted wedding. The days of leaving everything up to her were through. ‘I have loads of time.’
‘Well, for a start, I need those names from Elsie.’
‘Right.’
They set off back towards the club and Meg’s car. ‘I don’t suppose you’d organise the invitations, would you? I wasn’t going to worry with anything too fancy. I was just going to grab a few packets of nice invitations from the newsagents and write them out myself. Calligraphy is unnecessary—they just need to be legible.’
‘Leave it to me.’
‘Thank you. That’ll be a big help.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I would be very, very grateful if you could find me a gardener. I just don’t have the spare time to keep on top of it at the moment. This wedding will be that garden’s last hurrah, because I’m having all those high-maintenance annuals ripped out and replaced with easy-care natives.’
He nodded. ‘Not a problem.’
They drove home in silence. When Meg turned in at her driveway and turned off the ignition she didn’t invite him in for a drink and he didn’t suggest it either. Instead, with a quick goodnight, he headed next door.
The first thing he saw when he entered the kitchen was Elsie, sitting at the table shuffling a deck of cards. Without a word, she dealt out a hand for rummy. Ben hesitated and then sat.
‘How’s Meg?’
‘She’s fine.’
‘Good.’
He shifted. ‘She’d feel a whole lot happier, though, if you’d give her a list of ten people she can invite to the wedding.’
Elsie snorted. He blinked again. Had that been a
laugh
?
‘She said that although her father won’t admit it, he’d like more than a registry office wedding.’
Elsie snorted again, and this time there was no mistaking it—it was definitely a laugh. ‘I’ll make a deal with you, Ben.’
Good Lord. The woman was practically garrulous. ‘A deal?’
‘For every hand you win, I’ll give you a name.’
He straightened on his chair. ‘You’re on.’
* * *
Meg glanced around at a tap on the back door. And then froze. Ben stood there, looking devastatingly delicious, and a traitorous tremor weakened her knees.
With a gulp, she waved him in. Other than a couple of rushed conversations about the wedding, she hadn’t seen much of him during the last two weeks. Work had been crazy, with two of her staff down with the flu, and whenever she had seen Ben and asked what he’d been up to he’d simply answered with a cryptic, ‘I’ve been busy.’ Long, leisurely conversations obviously hadn’t been on either of their agendas.