Shoreline Drive (28 page)

A pang burst through Merry’s soul at that—it struck at the core of one of her deepest fears about Ben, that she and Alex were no more than a replacement family, a place holder in a heart still consumed with love for his first wife and dead daughter. But she shook it off. Her insecurities could wait.

Merry hurried to Ben’s side and slipped a tentative hand around his strong, hair-roughened wrist. The sturdy bones flexed under her fingers as he tightened his fist, then abruptly relaxed. Ben glanced down at her, and for a heartbeat, she couldn’t read the look in his stormy eyes. Then he said, “Merry, you have a visitor.”

Unwillingly, she turned to stare into the face of a man she thought she’d never see again. “Ivan,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Ivan looked the same as he had when they dated. “Dated” wasn’t really the right word, though, was it? Unless going to punk clubs every night and moving in together a week after meeting counted as dating. It had been a whirlwind relationship based almost entirely on sex and a similar taste in music, but Merry had truly thought she was in love with Ivan, at first.

At least, she’d wanted to be in love with him.

It struck her that her relationship with Ben was almost the exact opposite—they’d known each other for months before moving in together, they’d gotten married before sleeping together. And she’d never wanted to be in love with him.

Maybe that was why everything with Ben felt so different.

Ivan blinked his big brown eyes at her and nervously flipped the soft fall of blond hair off his forehead. “That’s not real nice, Mare bear. I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

Against her will, part of Merry yearned toward those words. The belief that when she left town, Ivan hadn’t even noticed except to be relieved—that had stung deeply. And now here he was, all handsome boyband features and slim, muscled body, giving her his best appealing gaze.

She’d seen him turn that same expression on female bartenders to get a free drink, on bouncers to skip to the head of a line, on club managers to get backstage access. And now he was using it on her.

Merry narrowed her eyes. “Seriously, Ivan. What do you want?”

His gaze flickered, sliding sideways for a moment, as if this wasn’t going down the way he’d expected.

Oh, Merry could easily picture what Ivan had expected. He thought he’d find her the same sobbing mess she was when he left her in their dingy disaster of an apartment, never to return.

Straightening her shoulders, Merry tried to imagine what Ivan saw when he looked at her now.

She’d mostly shed the baby weight, although there was a lingering softness to her hips and a fullness to her breasts that she kind of liked. Her hair was bouncier than ever, as if it enjoyed being its natural dark sable color.

Instead of her D.C. uniform of tight pants and T-shirts, she was wearing dark jeans liberally streaked with red clay dust and brown saddle-leather stains, and a thick gray and white plaid flannel button-down over a black thermal.

And when Ivan’s glance dropped to her hand, Merry remembered the biggest change … her wedding rings.

To her surprise, a look of genuine sadness tightened Ivan’s mouth for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was quiet with real regret. “I’m here to see you—I hated how we left things. And…”

Merry heard the click of him swallowing.

“And he wants to see his son,” Tripp Fairfax finished firmly. “Which he has every right to do.”

“Stay out of this,” Ben growled. “You’ve done enough already, bringing him here.”

Ivan flushed, his mouth going sulky at the corners. “Screw off, man. The old guy’s right. I do want to see the kid. And I’m his dad, so, like, I do have rights.”

“Where have you been for the last year, then?” Ben demanded, his lanky frame rigid as steel. “When Merry needed you, when Alex was born…”

Flinching back from the lash of Ben’s scorn, Ivan burst out, “Hey, she left me! Skipped town without a word, left me holding the lease … I had to leave my apartment, sell some of my stuff.”

“How awful for you.” Ben’s flat voice contained no sympathy whatsoever, and Ivan bristled. He never could stand it when reality intruded on his version of events.

“Now just a minute,” Merry interrupted. Anger flooded her, replacing the shock and disbelief of the last surreal ten minutes with a cleansing tide of strength. “We weren’t together long, but it was long enough for me to know you have a habit of rewriting history. And as I recall, you were the one who slammed out of the apartment and didn’t come back. I waited for two days, Ivan. Crying my stupid eyes out and hoping you’d change your mind. But eventually I had to wake up and realize that you meant it when you said you never wanted to see me again.”

The memory still had the power to hurt her, even after more than a year and a lot of growing up. She paused to keep her voice from wobbling, and was grateful for Ben’s warm, supportive hand on her shoulder.

Into the brief silence, Ben’s mother, Pamela, cleared her throat delicately. “Ben, darling. I think we ought to let these two talk in private, don’t you?”

“I’m not leaving
my wife
alone with this loser.” Ben spat the words as if he hated the taste of them.

“Don’t be paranoid.” Tripp rolled his eyes. “This woman is the mother of his child, I’m sure she’s perfectly safe with him. And they have lots to discuss, none of which concerns us. It’s really a family matter, wouldn’t you say?”

Merry’s heart clenched at the expression on Ben’s drawn face. Tripp had scored a direct hit with that one. She grabbed for his hand as it slipped off her shoulder, but he stepped away from her.

“Enough.” Pamela’s demure, ladylike voice could be sharp as a whip when she wanted it to be. “Regardless of anyone’s feelings on the matter, the fact remains that Mr. Bushnell and Merry do have issues of a private, personal nature to discuss. Ben, I’m certain that Merry would prefer not to do so in front of your father and me. The only polite thing to do is to leave them to it—so please show us into your home and offer us a beverage. I raised you better than this.”

“The nanny raised me,” Ben muttered, but Pamela waved that away.

“Semantics,” she said. “You know I’m right.”

Much as Merry hated to admit it, she couldn’t help but agree that the conversation she needed to have with Ivan was definitely not one she wanted to undertake with Tripp and Pamela Fairfax listening in. But she couldn’t bear the slightly lost look at the back of Ben’s eyes.

“Stay,” Merry said, pasting on a smile. She reached for Ben’s hand and twined their fingers together determinedly. “I mean it, it’s fine. There’s nothing I could say to Ivan that you all can’t hear.”

Ben returned the smile, but it was like a copy of a copy—faded and unconvincing. “No, she’s right. My mother is always right about the polite thing to do.”

Tugging to draw him a little bit away from the group, Merry muttered, “I don’t care about politeness, I care about you. It
is
a family matter, and you’re my family.”

Heat flared between them, and Ben’s smile deepened enough to pop the dimple in his cheek. He lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss to the backs of Merry’s knuckles. “That means more to me than you know. But I’m fine. Let me get my parents out of the way so you can find out what Ivan is really after.”

“It’s a plan.” Merry felt better, knowing they were still in this together.

Ben nodded. “Call me if you need me. I’ll be right inside.”

Glancing over her shoulder to where Ivan stood, slightly apart from the Fairfaxes and shifting his weight from foot to foot like an anxious kindergartener, Merry said, “I’m pretty sure I’ll be okay. Who knows? Maybe this is a good thing. A chance to clear the air, so we can all move forward.”

“Yes, clearing the air.” Darkness slid over Ben’s shuttered face as he followed her gaze. “I’m sure that’s exactly what my father had in mind when he tracked down Alex’s birth father and brought him to Sanctuary Island.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

With the tips of two fingers, Ben twitched the living room curtains aside and peered through the glass.

“Come away from that window,” his mother said. “You look ridiculous, peeping at them like that.”

“I’m checking on my wife. They’ve been out there a long time.”

Ben clenched his jaw, hideously aware of how defensive he sounded, but for once neither of his parents called him on it. They were probably exchanging significant glances behind his back, communicating in the silent shorthand they’d developed over years of attending crowded benefits and society dinners together. He’d learned to ignore that a long time ago, and it was even easier now, with all of his attention lasered in on the other conversation he couldn’t hear or be a part of.

This was one of those times when Ben wished he’d made more of a study of body language. But that was the sort of soft, fuzzy science he tended to avoid, so he refused to make too much of the fact that Merry had led her ex up onto the porch and sat beside him in the swing. They were close enough that their shoulders brushed occasionally when Merry kicked out a heel and pushed the swing into gentle motion.

The glass was cold, soothing, against Ben’s forehead. He braced one arm above his head and watched as Ivan said something apparently funny. Merry laughed, tucking a wing of hair behind her ear, and even from a distance, Ben could tell her blue eyes were bright with tentative happiness.

“It sounds as if things are going well out there,” Tripp observed neutrally.

Ben curled his lip at his own reflection and put his back to the window. “Depends what you’re hoping for as an outcome.”

Tripp spread his arms along the back of the couch, like a king lounging on his throne. “I’m hoping to reunite a father with the child who was ripped away from him by his emotional, impulsive lover.”

Ben controlled his reaction to the word “lover.” It had been a while since he’d been forced to call on his early training in the art of hiding emotion, but it turned out to be more muscle memory than anything else.

The trick was distance. If you pushed the emotion away, outside yourself, then your reaction to it wouldn’t show on your face. “I don’t concede your premise that Merry was the one at fault. If Ivan Bushnell wanted to be a father, he had ample opportunity to take his place by Merry’s side. If you haven’t noticed, we live in the digital age and getting in touch with her would’ve been as simple as sending her a Facebook message.”

“No one is assigning blame,” Pamela insisted, with a quelling glance at her husband. “I’m sure it was a very difficult time for both of them. And Mr. Bushnell admits he made mistakes. But he is so very young, Benjamin. Well. They both are.”

“She’s twenty-three, Mother. Hardly a teenager.”

Pamela raised her ruthlessly plucked brows. “She’s closer to her teens than she is to her thirties.”

Ben swallowed. He’d never thought much about the age difference between himself and Merry. But seeing Merry and Ivan together, Ben was forced to concede that they sort of … matched. For lack of a better term.

He knew Merry had lived a life with its share of difficulties and problems—but somehow, there was still something pure and unsullied about her. Innocent. And as much as Ivan was no innocent, there was a youth and softness to him that Ben knew he himself had shed years ago. If he’d ever had it to begin with.

“Merry is old enough to know her own mind, and to take responsibility for her actions,” Ben said hoarsely. “She decided to raise that baby on her own, without any help from its father.”

“And that was very brave.” Pamela widened her eyes. “But now that her baby’s father wants to be a part of their lives, she won’t have to be on her own any longer.”

“Merry is not on her own. She hasn’t been for a long time.” But even as Ben said it, a shaft of doubt slid between his ribs. “She has her mother and sister, and all our friends on the island. She has me.”

“Oh, Ben.” Pamela sighed. But it was the pity lurking in the depths of his mother’s eyes that set Ben’s heart pounding as if he’d run a mile flat out.

His mother was an expert at reading people; she’d built a social empire out of that skill, crowned herself queen of the hospital benefit committee and the country club set. It was all too easy to believe she knew something he didn’t.

He was saved from the foolishness of showing his vulnerable underbelly by demanding to know what she meant when the front door opened.

Merry and Ivan blew in on a cool blast of air, cheeks reddened and mouths smiling. Ben felt slightly better when Merry’s gaze found him immediately.

She came straight to him and put one slim arm around his waist. Ben had to control himself carefully to keep from crushing her to him with a too-tight grip. No matter how tightly he held her, he was afraid he’d still feel her slipping away.

“Ivan’s going to stick around for a few days, to spend some time with Alex,” Merry announced. Her fingers flexed against Ben’s side, but when he studied her face, he saw only calm purpose. “I’ve asked him to come back tomorrow morning to meet him.”

One more night to pretend that nothing was changing. Ben closed his eyes briefly in thanks.

“Surely we can wait until the child is returned here,” Tripp said impatiently. “Ben says you expect your sister to bring him back after dinner.”

Ben stiffened against the urge to yell at his father to get the hell out and leave them in peace.

“I wanted to stay and see Alex tonight,” Ivan interrupted. He looked excited after his conversation with Merry, like a kid being presented with a gift wrapped in shiny paper. “But Merry says he’ll be tired, probably crying a lot and stuff. If we wait until tomorrow, he’ll be in a better mood.”

“Besides,” Ben said, fixing his father with an inflexible stare. “There’s only one evening ferry back to the mainland. You wouldn’t want to miss it and get stuck out here on the island.”

“They could stay with us, if they needed to.” Merry’s voice was uncertain, lilting up questioningly at the end as she looked to Ben for confirmation.

“We wouldn’t want to impose,” Pamela said smoothly, rising from the armchair where she’d been perched. “Tomorrow will be quite soon enough. Ben, walk us out to the car.”