The Street Where She Lives

“L-leave the cap.”

“I want to see the real you, what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking I wish you could leave.”

He couldn’t help it; he laughed. It was that, or lose it entirely. Go away, Benny. Go away, Ben. Go away… “I just remembered one of the things I used to admire most about you,” he muttered. “Stubborn as a bull.” He rose, moved behind her and grabbed her chair. “Nothing’s changed. Let’s go.”

When he would have shifted her chair forward, she set her good hand on the wheel. “No.”

Afraid to hurt her fingers, Ben stilled. “I’m taking you to your room where you’ll lie down and rest, damn it. You’re so tired you’re shaking. You have black circles under your eyes, you haven’t been eating near enough and—”

“You’re my nurse, not my mother.”

He looked down at the top of her head. “Well, since we both know what a peachy job your mother did, let’s leave her out of this.”

“How dare you throw my past in my face! You, of all people.”

Oh, he dared, and she’d riled him good now. Their past was exactly what had brought them here together. Their past often kept him up at night with flashes of remembered heat and passion.

Their past was one of the emotional highlights in his life, pathetic as that was to admit.

Torn between being infuriated and turned on at the same time, he let loose. “And as your nurse, I say take off the stupid hat.” Before she could react, he whisked it off her head.

And froze.

Her soft, flowing hair was…gone, leaving a short, choppy cut of maybe an inch or so. Then there was the three-inch long jagged surgery scar behind her left ear that made him want to throw up. “Rachel. My God,” he whispered, horrified at the extent of what she’d been through. Clasping the ridiculous hat to his chest, he turned the chair so he could look into her face, prepared to hate himself for reducing her to tears.

But he’d forgotten, Rachel would never allow him to do such thing to her. Crying in public would be unacceptable. Crying in front of him would be tantamount to a disaster.

Instead, regal as ever, she remained utterly calm, her head high. Eyes bright, she sent him a fiery look. “I h-hate you.”

Oh, yeah, he believed it. He even deserved it, more than she knew. Gently, he put the cap back on her head, his fingers brushing over the warm, smooth skin of her neck. “I’m sorry.”

“Go away.”

“Rachel—”

“No! Don’t even look at me.”

Her fair skin had reddened furiously, and he realized they absolutely were not on the same plane, that she apparently thought the sight of her had sickened him. “No, wait. God. Rachel—” He dragged in a deep, ragged breath. “Look, my horror is for what you’ve been through, not for what you look like. You look…”

Stunning was all he could think, staring into her wide, lovely eyes. Brave and lovely and desirable. But she’d never believe that. “Alive. Rachel, you look alive. Isn’t that all that matters?”

She didn’t say a word, but her chest rose and fell with her agitated breathing, and being nothing less than a very weak man, his eyes caught there, mesmerized by the surprisingly lush twin mounds of her breasts.

“You mean ugly,” she whispered.

A sound escaped his throat before he could control it. “No. That’s most definitely not what I mean.” He drew another deep breath and shook his head to clear it. “You’re wrong, very wrong.”

“Just go away.”

As those were hauntingly familiar words, he swore softly beneath his breath, fought with the demons that urged him to do just that, then placed his hands on her chair. “We’re out of here.”

“To where?” she asked, panic laced in her voice.

“To where I should have taken you when I first got here. Bed.”

FROM EMILY’S PERCH on the open loft, lying flat on her belly next to the top of the spiral staircase, with only her eyes peering over the side, she watched her parents and bit her lip. This was not quite the joyful reunion she’d imagined. But she was no longer a child. She knew life sometimes sucked. And yet…she could fix this. She could. If her mom and dad weren’t happy to see each other, she’d just make them happy. How hard could it be?

All her life she’d been told how brilliant she was, how extraordinary. She loved that word, extraordinary. Mostly because when she looked in the mirror she saw nothing but frizzy hair that gel didn’t fix, too many freckles and a geeky smile. Where was her extraordinariness? Maybe it would come when she got boobs, but what if she never got any and, just like her Aunt Mel, had to buy them?

Her mom had said her extraordinariness came from her brain, which worked like a well-honed machine. Well, she’d made good use of it then, regardless of the tangled web she’d woven by gathering them both here. She wouldn’t waste the effort.

All she had to do was get them to fall in love. Unfortunately, she knew little about that particular emotion. Desperate, she’d just gotten off the phone with Mel, figuring since her aunt had a new boyfriend every other day, she’d have lots of ideas. Emily had explained she was asking for a friend, but Mel had laughed and said she and her friends were too young for love.

Thanks, Aunt Mel.

Far below her in the living room, her father pushed her mother’s wheelchair. His face, now that he thought no one was looking at him, had lost some of that easygoing, laid-back attitude that was so innately him, replaced by a tenseness that shook her.

What was the matter? Well, besides everything?

Her mother’s expression, tight and angry, didn’t surprise her in the least. Emily had some serious kissing up to do. Probably dishes for a month, maybe more. She’d probably lost TV privileges too. Losing her beloved reality shows and MTV seemed like a small price to pay if they fell in love again.

When they were gone from view, she slid down the fireman’s pole and dropped to the middle of the living room, trying to ignore that tingling of guilt in the pit of her belly. Because, darn it, if she was as special as everyone said, then she knew what was best for her parents. And what was best for them was to be together, on the same continent for a change. That’s why she’d done it, blabbed about her mother’s situation to her father. Told Aunt Mel that they’d hired a nurse. Let her mother think Mel had gotten them that nurse.

Because now that everyone had done what she’d wanted, things could fall into place. All she had to do was make it happen.

MANUEL ASADA crawled through the Brazilian jungle for days upon days, and finally came out at his compound. Exhaustion and unaccustomed lack of even the most basic luxury had him weaving with weakness. He’d been on the move for too long, and could barely think, but the sight of his old fortress gave him a surge of energy.

It’d been searched and pillaged, of course, because thanks to Ben Asher, the authorities were hunting him down like an animal. Damn them all, his home was now barely a shell of what it had once been. Windows gone, inside gutted, dirtied…trashed. Disgusting. They’d pay for that, too.

That he’d gotten here at all was a miracle. He’d made it by the skin of his teeth, bribing when he’d had to, pulling from his dwindling stash of cash as it had been necessary. And it had been, several times. The entire experience—jail, the escape, being on the run—had sent him reeling with memories of his penniless, loveless, thankless childhood.

He could kill for that alone, that he’d relived being a professional beggar by the time he was four…but first things first.

His compound, once hopping with activity, mocked him with silence in the growing night, making him shudder. God, he really hated silent and dark.

Most of his minions had fled or been taken to jail, which left slim pickings. Two were still in the States, quaking in their boots, awaiting his further instructions after screwing up the murder of Rachel Wellers. He’d had some time to think about that now. By all accounts via his laptop, which he’d plugged in at various villages when he could, the woman had suffered greatly and continued to do so. Asada liked that; he liked that a lot. He intended for them all to suffer even more. Soon as he got himself reorganized. “Carlos, the place is filthy.”

“Yes, but you’ve been gone a long time.” The man’s voice wobbled with fear.

As it should. Everyone knew how Asada felt about dirt, how crazy it made him. Being treated like a parasite in a filthy jail cell hadn’t helped. Nor had being on the run ever since.

They couldn’t go inside; there’d be men around, looking for him to do that very thing. But beneath the compound lay a secret underground bunker. They’d once used it as a supply container but now it would become his home.

Carlos raced ahead of him as they made their way toward the hidden door that would lead to a set of stairs. Manuel waited while the trembling Carlos used his own shirt on the dusty door handle. They stepped inside but didn’t turn on the light—they couldn’t, not while he was still being hunted like a dog, and besides, there was no electricity. It was unthinkable that after all these years of building his empire, amassing fortune upon fortune, that this could happen. But it had.

He had been brought back to zero. Back to the old days, when he’d begged for money, sold himself, whatever it took. With a deep breath, he strode inside the dark, damp cellar and lit a single small oil lantern. Then he very carefully pulled out his small laptop from his pack, blew a speck of dust off the top. He didn’t turn it on, not yet. He wanted to conserve the gas in the generator. But he’d go online later, to check on the progress of what was happening in the States.

Once upon a time, just above him had been the center of his universe. Now, on top of this Brazilian mountain, hunkered beneath his multimillion dollar compound that gave him his multimillion dollar view, and he didn’t even dare go up there to survey his domain.

The fact that he couldn’t so much as show his face anywhere without possible retribution filled him with an unholy fury for which he had no outlet. He stalked over to a box of office supplies and pulled out a sheet of stationery. “You’re going to hike back into the city—preferably without getting yourself killed—and get this mailed,” he told Carlos.

“Sir, the others and I, we were wondering when we were going to get paid—”

The others were a handful of equally pathetic, worthless minions who deserved to be hung for letting this happen to him, their savior. “Go away until I’m ready for you.”

“Yes, but—”

“Go away and don’t come back until the entire cellar is spotless, not one speck of dust left.”

“Sí.”

Alone again, Manuel begun to write. “Dear Ben…”

CHAPTER FIVE

BEN PUSHED Rachel’s chair forward, then hesitated at the base of the spiral staircase in her living room. “Where’s your bedroom?”

Rachel hesitated, too. It just seemed too surreal, having him right here, behind her, his hands so close to touching her where they rested on the wheelchair grips by her shoulders. Plus, he’d leaned down to hear her answer, which meant she could smell him, feel his heat, his strength…

“Rachel? Your bedroom?”

How had this happened? How was he standing here, in control, in her house?

Because she’d been outsmarted by her own child, that’s how! All those years of successfully avoiding him, and here he was. Unbelievable. “This is so not necessary.”

“Your bedroom, Rach. Or, if you’d rather, I can take you to mine.” He shifted her chair around to look at her, so that she couldn’t avoid his dark eyes that had already managed to see past her carefully erected defenses.

She stared at the silver stud in his ear and did her best to ignore the blatant sexuality that rolled off him in waves. “Mine will do,” she said primly.

His sigh brushed over the cap she’d shoved back on her head. Then he straightened, his hands on his hips. His shirt pulled taut over his chest that she remembered being lean, almost too lean.

But he’d filled out. He was still rangy, still tough, but his young body had grown into a man’s.

Not that she was noticing.

“Someone else could help me,” she said desperately. “Anyone else. It doesn’t have to be you.”

“Where is your bedroom?”

She sighed. “Upstairs.”

He eyed the firefighter’s pole, then the spiral staircase. “I don’t think the stairs are going to work.”

“The elevator.”

“You have an elevator.” He let out a low whistle. “Why am I not surprised?”

Since he’d walked in her front door, she’d been holding herself tense, and it hurt. She wanted to be alone, to let go. The only way to do that was to appease him for now. “The place is a renovated firehouse. It came with the elevator. I didn’t add it.”

“You sound a little defensive.”

She ground her back teeth into powder. Hell, yes, she was defensive. She was always defensive. She’d learned young to shut herself down, happily existing in an emotional vacuum. Until Ben had come along, that is. Without a dime to his name, he’d done what no one else ever had—showed her all the things so missing from her own world…passion, emotion. Life. He’d wanted her, not just physically, and had never failed to show her so.

The force of what he’d felt back then, crashing into her cold, impersonal world, had terrified her. With good reason. Their fundamental differences had turned out to be a bridge impossible to cross.

Yet, you’d crossed it, came the unwelcome thought. For six months you crossed it and thrived on it.

Ben pushed her into the elevator. They waited in agitated silence for the doors to slide shut, and once they did, Rachel wished they hadn’t.

The space was small and lined with mirrors, which meant she could see herself, reduced and weak and defenseless in the damn chair. Worse, she could see him standing tall and strong behind her. “This is ridiculous.”

“My being here?” Ben locked his eyes on hers in the reflection of the mirrors. “Get used to it.”

That got a rough laugh from her, and a sharp pain shot through her ribs for the effort. It robbed her of breath, of all thought, and she squeezed her eyes shut, tensing up with a small cry.

Big hands settled on her thighs, surprisingly gentle for their size, as was his low, urgent voice. “Relax. Let it go. Breathe, Rachel.”

No, she wasn’t going to breathe, that would hurt worse. She was never going to breathe or move again. “Go…away.”

“Breathe,” he repeated, running his fingers lightly over her thighs. “Come on, slow and easy. In and out.”

She did and, shockingly enough, it helped. So did his voice, talking to her softly, over and over, reminding her to relax, breathe. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see him kneeling in front of her. “That…was your fault.”

“Undoubtedly. Everything is my fault. Keep breathing now. Slow and easy.”

“I know how to breathe.”

He surged to his feet as the elevator door opened and turned away from her. “What I’m surprised at,” he noted casually, pushing her off the elevator, “is that you still know how to laugh.”

She sucked in a gulp of air and tried to pretend that comment didn’t hurt worse than her ribs. Oh, yes, she knew how to laugh—he’d taught her. Had he forgotten? Forgotten everything they’d once meant to each other?

She was silent as he wheeled her down the hallway lined with collages of photos from the years past, starting with Emily’s birth. One shot of Emmie—small and red, wrinkled and furious, howling as she told the world how she felt about being born. Another of Rachel holding her bundle of joy, smiling with wet eyes at the now quiet baby, who stared right back at her. The two of them. Even then, it had been just the two of them against the world.

Later photos of Emily learning to walk, sitting on Rachel’s lap while Rachel drew a Gracie comic strip on her easel, another of Emily putting candles in a homemade cake for her mother’s birthday.

There was a shot of Melanie on one of her visits from Santa Barbara, puckering up for Emily’s four-foot teddy bear. A picture of the firehouse when they’d first purchased it, before renovations. And then subsequent pictures of Rachel and Emily and Melanie, covered in paint as they worked on the place. There was a picture of her neighbor Garrett with Emily riding on his shoulders. A picture of Gwen, Rachel’s agent, her arms around both Rachel and Emily, who held Rachel’s first impressive royalty check.

Behind her, Ben said nothing, and she wondered if he was even looking at the pictures, looking and feeling odd for not being in a single one. Did he feel left out?

Strange, but she didn’t want him to. Despite everything, she didn’t want that. She had Emily, her greatest gift, her greatest joy, because of him. She owed him for that, which was why, whenever he’d asked, she’d sent Emily to him via Melanie.

Bottom line was, she had this house and Emily. This was her world—stable, safe and secure. It meant everything.

In comparison, Ben had a duffel bag and a few cameras to his name. That was it as far as she knew. He liked it that way, or he had.

That they’d made it together for even six months so long ago seemed amazing now.

“Rach?” As if she were the finest, most fragile piece of china, Ben set a light, careful hand on her shoulder. “You okay? You’ve gone quiet and pale on me.”

His fingers brushed her collarbone like a feather, and a shiver raced down her spine. Not signifying cold, but something far more devastating. “I’m…fine.”

Another brush of those fingers, a testing one this time, while his eyes held hers. “Rachel,” he murmured. “It’s still there. Can you feel it?”

“I—” No, she wanted to say, but lying was ridiculous when surely he could feel the blood pounding through her body at just a single touch. Again, he squatted in front of her.

“You still have those eyes,” he murmured. “The ones that make me melt.”

She let out a nervous smile.

He smiled back.

“I have no idea why I’m smiling at you.”

His fingers traveled up, up, cupped her face. “I don’t care. Just keep doing it.”

She stopped breathing. His gaze was locked on hers as he slowly let his thumbs stroke her jaw. Her body responded, giving her a jolt of pleasure instead of pain for once, as if it recognized that this man, and only this man, had given her such incredible pleasure.

Ben let out a rough, disbelieving sound, then cupped the back of her head, gently holding her still as he shifted his mouth toward hers.

Move, Rachel told herself, and she did—closer, matching up their lips. It was unfathomable, unthinkable. He had no business touching her, and she had no business wanting him to, but she did. Oh, how she did.

The first light touch of lip to lip dissolved her bones, and all the pain with it. Needing the balance, she put out her right hand, gripping his chest. Beneath his shirt, his heart thumped steadily. A bit dazed now, she simply stared up at him.

With a soft murmur of her name, he changed the angle of her head and connected again. His mouth was warm, firm, giving, so beautifully giving that her eyes drifted shut and she lost her ability to put words together, to do anything but feel.

His tongue lightly stroked her lips. Struck by a familiarity and strangeness all at once, she moaned, then again when a slow, deep thrust of his tongue liquefied her. She fisted her fingers in his shirt, holding him close, making him groan deep in his throat.

The sound was raw, staggeringly sensual, but then he was pulling back, letting out a slow breath.

She did the same, but it didn’t change the fact she could still taste him and wanted, needed, more.

But that had never been their problem, the wanting.

“Your bedroom,” he said a little roughly.

“The next room down.”

He moved behind her, gripped her chair. Once inside, he stopped. There was a picture hanging on the wall, an eight-by-ten from two years before, of Emily wearing a sundress, beaming from ear to ear, holding up her elementary school diploma. Her eyes sparkled with such joy, such life, it hurt to even look at her, but Rachel looked anyway, just as she sensed Ben looking.

Did he see it? The resemblance, not so much physical, though that was there, too, but the very essence? The soul? It must have been like looking in a mirror.

God knows their daughter hadn’t gotten her sense of adventure and spirit from Rachel. Before Ben, she’d had nothing like that until he’d come along and had shared his. He’d done more than share: he’d somehow gotten so close, he’d breathed his very being into her, bringing her to life during the time they’d had together.

But Emily…she’d been full of life from day one.

“She’s beautiful,” Ben said quietly. “Like you.”

“Ben—”

“Let’s get you into bed.”

For a moment she thought he’d said “let’s get into bed,” and her heart jerked. Yes.

No.

But when he came to stand in front of her, his face was grim, so obviously her brain was messing with her again. “Don’t try to move,” he said. “I’ll lift you.”

She stopped breathing, realizing just that very second what his being here really meant. He was going to have to help her, look at her.

Touch her.

Before the panic fully gripped her, he moved, not toward her, but to her dresser, where he randomly opened one of her drawers. Shaking his head at the rows of socks, he closed it and opened another.

“What are you looking for?”

He lifted a loose, flowing silky camisole and matching bottoms, and his eyebrows at the same time. “Wow.”

The two pieces were the palest of blue, softer than baby’s breath, and her favorite thing to sleep in. And yet dangling from his long fingers, the innocent pj’s suddenly seemed like the sexiest things she’d ever seen.

She was not putting them on.

“You used to wear buttoned-up-to-the-chin flannel to bed, remember?”

“I was a kid.”

Something flickered in his eyes. “Not so much.”

Before she could come up with something to say to that, he’d tossed the pj’s on his shoulder and started toward her.

In spite of the exhaustion, the pain, she managed to shake her head. “I am not putting that on for you.”

He turned down her bed and laughed, a low, husky sound that grated at every hormone in her entire body. “You’re right about that. You’re putting it on for you.”

“Ben.”

“Rachel,” he mimicked, then in opposition to his easygoing toughness, he slid his arms around her, making her breath back up in her throat, making every single thought dance right out of her head.

“Easy now,” he murmured. “It’s loose and stretchy, so it should go on easily.” And gently, so gently she felt like she was being lifted by air, he rose with her in his arms. “Okay?” His eyes roamed her features, his mouth tight in concern.

A concern she didn’t want. “Put me down.”

He did, on the bed, and a myriad of things hit her at once. Pain from the jarring, no matter how careful he’d been. Comfort from the feel of her own bed after so many weeks. And sheer overwhelming devastation from the feel of his hands on her.

Then he reached for the buttons on her short-sleeved blouse. She let out a sound that make his gaze jerk up to hers.

“You can’t undress yourself,” he said reasonably.

“I’ll— I’ll sleep in my clothes.”

“Oh, that’ll be comfortable.” He looked into her stubborn face and sighed, stroking a light finger over her cheekbone. “You’re wearing your exhaustion like a coat. Just let me help you.”

She opened her mouth and he put his finger to it. “There was a time you let me help you with anything. Remember?”

She didn’t want to remember, but somehow his touch, like his kiss, insinuated itself past her bone deep weariness and pain, and struck her like a bolt of awareness lightning. “Get Emily. She’ll help me.”

Slowly Ben shook his head and removed the bunny slippers Emily had put on her feet at the hospital. “She’s making you dinner. Mac and cheese. She’s under the impression you’re going to bounce right back now that you’re home. Bringing her up here now, when you look half a breath away from death, would only scare her.”