The Lawman's Surprise Family

“In the bathroom.”

Sofia marched out of the kitchen without a backward glance, and Ben met Steve’s gaze with a wan smile.

“So...” Steve said. “How’re things with you?”

“Not bad.” Ben shrugged. “Hanging in there.”

Steve regarded Ben in a tense silence, then gestured to the box on the table. “Cannoli?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Each man took a cannoli and bit into the sweet, creamy centers. They chewed silently, the sound of Sofia’s voice filtering through the walls while she talked with her son. She sounded gentle and sympathetic, although her words were too muffled to make out. A moment later, she came back into the room.

“He’s done vomiting now,” she said. “For the next couple of days he’ll be still feeling pretty sick, though.”

“Where is he?” Steve asked.

“Changing his shirt.” She sighed, then glared at them in exasperation. “Are you two eating cannolis?”

Ben licked his fingers and shot Steve a guilty look. He had a feeling the two of them were going to step wrong no matter what.

“Just getting them out of the way so Jack doesn’t need to even see them,” Steve replied, and Sofia looked as if it was taking effort to bite her tongue. Coming with her into the house had been an obvious mistake.

“So are you taking the day off, then?” Ben asked her, edging toward the door. “This looks like family business...”

Sofia regarded Ben for a moment, then turned to her father.

“Dad, are you okay to look after him while I’m at work?” she asked. “He won’t be much trouble feeling as badly as he does.”

“Sure. We’ll hang out,” Steve replied. “I’m sorry about that. If I’d known what would happen—”

“I told you about his allergies!” she retorted, then sucked in a breath. “Okay, apology accepted. Just follow my instructions for his food from now on.”

“Scout’s honor.” Steve shot her a grin, and before Sofia could react, a boy came padding into the kitchen.

“Mom?” He had a mop of dark hair and big brown eyes that looked an awful lot like his mother’s. He looked pretty tall for eight, but what did Ben know about these things? The boy paused when he saw Ben. “Hi,” he said shyly.

“Hi,” Ben said.

“Jack, this is one of my old friends, Ben,” she said. “I’ll be working with him for a little while.”

“Oh.” Jack’s lips were on the pale side. He obviously wasn’t feeling great. “Do I have to go to school today?”

“No, you can stay home,” she said. “I’ll call the school and tell them you’re sick.”

“Okay.” Jack paused again. “I’ve got a new joke.”

Sofia smiled and glanced toward Ben. “I told you he loves jokes, right? Okay, Jack. Let’s hear it.”

“What do you call cheese that isn’t yours?” Jack asked, his gaze flickering toward Ben momentarily.

“Pretty much all of it, with your allergies,” Sofia shot back.

“Nope. It’s nacho cheese.”

Ben laughed in spite of himself and shook his head. The kid was funny.

“So, can I watch TV?” Jack asked, turning his attention to his mother.

A smile twitched Sofia’s lips, and he caught the humor that passed between mother and son. Jack was obviously pushing for something here.

“Only because you’re sick and I feel sorry for Grandpa a little bit. As soon as you’re better, the regular TV deal stands.”

“Okay.” Jack smiled. He still looked rather pale.

“Come here.” She wrapped her arms around him and kissed the top of his head. “I love you, sweetie. I’m going back to work now. Call me if you need me, okay?”

Jack hugged her back. “Okay. Bye.” When she released him, he headed into the living room, and the TV turned on.

“Feeling a little tired, myself,” Steve said, glancing between Sofia and Ben. “I’ll see you later.”

Steve headed in the direction his grandson had gone, and on his way out, Ben noted that the older man looked thinner than he remembered. It was a small relief to be left alone with Sofia in the kitchen.

“You’re all strict about TV watching, huh?” Ben said with a small smile.

“Afraid so.” She caught his eye and shrugged. “I’m a far cry from the girl on the back of your motorbike, you know.”

“I know.” He pushed himself to his feet. “I’m a far cry from being the guy on the bike, too.”

“Let me call the school, then we can get going.” She sighed and shook her head. “Might as well get to work.”

A couple of minutes later, they were both in the car, and Ben’s mind was whirling. There was something about Jack...something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He looked like a good kid, and he looked an awful lot like his mother, but the timing was still nagging at him. Was it rude to ask if there was a chance that he was Jack’s father? She would have told him if he’d gotten her pregnant, wouldn’t she?

“Should I even ask this?” he asked, glancing at her uncertainly.

“Probably not,” she joked.

“I’m being serious.” He put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb. “He’s eight. You left nine years ago. The timing is...” He trailed off, not finishing.

This was her cue to tell him that no, he was not Jack’s father. This was the place where she was supposed to tell him the story of the guy who came after him. This was the place where he would laugh it off and say something like, “Just making sure!” The silence stretched out, and he glanced toward her uncertainly.

“Sofia?”

She sighed. “I meant to tell you in a better way.”

Ben blinked, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. This wasn’t the reply he actually expected.

“You want to make that a little clearer?” he asked.

“I—” Sofia sucked in a breath. “I wanted to tell you in a different way, but, yes, you’re Jack’s dad.”

Silence fell between them, and the rumble of the motor seemed to grow louder by the second. Ben glanced at her a couple of times, then finally broke the silence.

“So—” His grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Wait, so he is mine?”

He pulled a hand through his hair, trying to sort out exactly what he felt, but there was nothing there right now but shock.

“Yes, Benji,” she said after a moment. “Jack is most certainly yours.”

Chapter Two

Ben rubbed a hand over his forehead, Sofia’s words sinking in. Jack...was his? He was a dad again? Not really again, exactly. More like he’d been one all along and never been let in on that little detail. This felt more like a bad dream—things coming at him faster than he could entirely make sense of them.

When she used his old nickname—Benji—it reminded him of all those feelings they used to share, and something inside of him suddenly rebelled, and he felt a flood of anger.

It was a feeling, at least. Something besides shock, but the uppermost thought in his mind was, This isn’t fair to Lisa and Mandy. It felt like betraying them after the fact, and it stabbed hard.

“Ben,” he said gruffly.

“Pardon me?” Her voice sounded weak, and when he glanced in her direction, he found her wan and pale, big dark eyes fixed on him uncertainly.

“I don’t go by Benji anymore. I’m Ben.”

It was a small complaint in the grand scheme of things, but hearing his old nickname grated at him something fierce. She’d always called him Benji, and he used to love it, but when he’d met his wife and she’d also tried to call him Benji, he’d put a stop to it. Lisa had deserved something unique—something that hadn’t been done before. Lisa had deserved to be the first for something. He’d always felt slightly guilty for not being able to completely forget about Sofia, and now that Lisa had passed away, the guilt was compounded. He hadn’t given his wife the wholehearted devotion that she deserved.

That wasn’t the point here, though, and he brought his mind back to the petite brunette beside him. Sofia sat in silence, seemingly willing to let him digest what she’d just told him.

“So how?” he asked, turning into a parking lot and choosing a spot as far from the other cars as possible. He slammed the car into Park. There was no way he could have this conversation while driving. “I don’t get it. You were pregnant when you left? Did you know?”

“I knew.” She nodded, and two pink circles materialized on her cheeks. “I was only a few weeks along, and we’d just broken up.”

“It isn’t like we hadn’t broken up and gotten back together before,” he said.

“I didn’t want to get back together. The baby made everything different.”

“Different.” He heard the bitterness in his own voice. He wasn’t sure why he was spoiling for a fight right now, but he was angry—deeply angry. This was a big load to dump on a guy, and why on earth had she waited so long to tell him?

“I should have told you sooner, I know,” she said, as if reading his mind. “At first, I admit that I wasn’t going to tell you anything, but deep down I knew that was wrong. And the older Jack got, the more curious he got. Other kids had dads, and I knew I had to tell you that he existed, but when I got as far as picking up the phone, I didn’t have the words.”

“How about, ‘You’ve got a son’?” he suggested, his tone sarcastic. “That might have been a good start.”

“I didn’t even know if you’d care!”

“If I’d care?” he shot back, the insult slipping deep beneath his defenses. “Of course, I’d care!”

She actually wondered if he’d care that he’d fathered a child? Was that how low her opinion was of him? Did she think that he wouldn’t have cared about her in all of this, either? He’d never have left her to have a baby on her own... He’d have found some way to take care of her.

“You care now!” Her eyes snapped in anger. “You weren’t like this before! You were...” She shook her head irritably. “You were the guy with the leather jacket and the motorcycle. You hated authority. You were seventeen, you just about got expelled from school, and you were—”

“The father,” he interrupted. “I was the father. I deserved to know.”

He had changed. He had to admit that, if only to himself. He’d changed when he found God, and then he’d changed even further when he found Lisa. Lisa had tamed him in a whole different way, introducing him to matching linens and Sunday brunches.

“What would you have done?” she asked. “You weren’t old enough to be a dad.”

“You weren’t old enough to be a mom.” He turned his attention out the window for a moment, trying to wrap his mind around all of this. The facts seemed to float on the surface of his mind without actually penetrating deeply enough to feel real.

“I’ll give you that.” Her tone softened. “It wasn’t easy.”

“So why?” he pressed. “Why not tell me later? Why not call me after he was born?”

“I was trying to protect him.” She said it so matter-of-factly, as if it were the most natural answer in the world.

“From me?” he asked, incredulously. Her silence seemed to confirm it, and he shook his head. “What did you think I was going to do? Did you really think I was that much of a jerk?”

“I didn’t think you’d want to be in his life,” she said.

“So you didn’t bother giving me the chance?”

“You weren’t exactly father material!”

There it was. The truth stung. He’d been a messed-up kid, looking for trouble. He’d flouted authority, put all of his money into his motorbike and taken great pride in doing things his own way. But he’d been a teenager, so it wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t been acting like an adult yet.

“I’ve grown up,” he said quietly. “Was I really so bad?”

“There was a lot going on at the time,” she admitted, and she pulled her dark hair away from her face. “My mom used to warn me about rebel boyfriends. My dad had been hers—did you know that? You were just like him—making your own rules, the rebel without a cause. But that doesn’t translate well into parenthood. It’s hard having a father like mine.”

Ben remembered Sofia’s strained relationship with her father. He’d often wondered if she’d jumped onto the back of his bike so readily just to see if her dad would try to stop her. Her father never had—not in the obvious ways, at least. Ben had never had a father in his life, either, so he’d never been one to judge someone else’s daddy issues—something his own son would probably have plenty of, too.

“I know this is a lot to dump on you at once.” Sofia broke the silence. “I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry. I was afraid. You have to understand it from my perspective. I was having a baby, and I loved that baby more than anything else in the world, even when he was too tiny for me to even show—”

Did she think she had the monopoly on love? It wasn’t all that different for fathers.

“I know exactly what that’s like,” he said.

“You do?” Sofia stopped, swallowed. “You have children?”

He hadn’t meant to bring Lisa and Mandy up, and he heaved a sigh. Here Sofia was in the flesh, a reminder of how he’d failed his wife, bringing the news that they’d made a baby together back before he’d become a Christian—long before he’d met Lisa. And to make matters even worse, when he looked at Sofia McCray, he still saw that gorgeous girl who used to make his heart skip a beat. He wasn’t about to tell her about the family he lost—not yet.

“Never mind. We have work to do,” he replied gruffly. He restarted the car.

She was silent, and he was relieved when he saw a pickup truck whipping through a four-way stop and weaving from one lane to the other. He sent up a silent, and ironic, prayer of thanks for the distraction. He knew who this was—it was Mike Layton, a local journalist he’d already arrested three times for domestic violence.

“Hold on,” he said, slapping on the siren and stepping on the gas. The cruiser roared forward, and Sofia was pushed back into her seat, her eyes widening in surprise.

Making sense of past pain was hard. Pulling over an intoxicated driver—that was his comfort zone. He’d enjoy this one a little bit, and if Mike had been drinking, there was no way he was letting him get home before a nice, lengthy detox. Mavis Layton’s safety relied upon that.

* * *

The car lurched, and Sofia sucked in a breath of surprise, her stomach hovering in her middle as the car catapulted them forward. Ben’s expression was steely, and he moved with precision, his hands sliding over the steering wheel with the fluidity of practice. This was a side to him she’d never seen before—the cop at work—and she found that she wasn’t afraid with him behind the wheel. Nauseated from being whipped around, perhaps, but not afraid.

That had always been the allure of Benji Blake—his complete confidence in his own abilities. She remembered how her mother used to lecture her about riding on the back of his bike, but she’d never felt at risk while he was driving. There was something about the feel of his leather jacket in her grip, her helmet resting against his back as they sped along the familiar old roads. He’d gone too fast, and he’d kept her out too late, but he’d never made her feel unsafe. Not once. Except it was no motorcycle now, it was a police cruiser, but the feeling was uncomfortably similar.

The blue pickup truck ahead of them wove to the other side of the road, then slowed to a stop at the curb. She strained to get a better look.

“Is he drunk?” Sofia asked.

“That’s my guess,” Ben said, punching the plate number into the computer on his dash. “You can come out with me, but stand back.”

He put a hand on the butt of his gun and reached for the door handle.

“Don’t you need to wait to figure out who he is?” she asked, jutting her chin in the direction of the computer on the dash. A smile flickered at his lips.

“I know who he is. That’s Mike Layton—one of the writers at your paper.”

“That’s Mike?” She shaded her eyes against the morning sunlight. Mike didn’t seem like the type to have a drinking problem, not that she knew him very well, only having been at the job for a week. Landing this assignment was due to her experience in this kind of research with the last paper she’d worked for in California. She should be grateful for this assignment, but right now she found herself wishing that she’d been a little less ambitious when she arrived.

Ben got out of the car and headed toward the driver’s side of the truck. Sofia unbuckled her seat belt and got out, edging closer so that she could hear their words, but still attempting to stay out of Mike’s immediate line of sight. It would be awkward if her coworker knew that she saw him at his worst.

Ben pulled open the truck’s door and stepped back.

“Step outside, Mike,” Ben said, gesturing toward the side of the road. “Drinking this morning?”

“No,” Mike retorted. “This is ridiculous. Don’t you have better things to do than to harass me?”

“Step outside the vehicle.” Ben’s tone turned stony, and Mike reluctantly got out and muttered something under his breath.

“Hey, get your hands off me!” Mike snapped as Ben easily flipped Mike around so that his stomach was against the truck, and pulled out some cuffs from his belt. Ben was muscular and solid, the smaller man giving no contest.

“Hey, seriously!” Mike said loudly. “I didn’t do anything!”

“Speeding, failure to stop at a stop sign, erratic control of the motor vehicle...” Ben seemed to be enjoying this, and he slapped the cuffs down on Mike’s wrists a little harder than necessary. Mike winced as the metal tightened down with a series of clicks. “And some general disrespect to an officer of the law. Sit tight.” Ben led Mike around the side of the truck. “We’ll do a Breathalyzer.”

“Are handcuffs really necessary?” the smaller man asked huffily, then his gaze fell on Sofia. Color suffused his face, and he looked away. Sofia pitied Mike in that moment, and anger rose up inside of her. Was Ben trying to prove something, or was he just taking out his anger about the revelations that morning? And how exactly was this kind of heavy-handed policing supposed to create the kind of environment where a community watch program was even effective?

Ben ambled past Mike and headed for the cruiser once more. He paused at Sofia’s side, putting a gentle hand on her arm as he nudged her over so he could reach into the car.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, his voice low enough for her ears only. He grabbed the Breathalyzer packet and eased back out of the car again. “So, for your article, I should tell you that I’ve apprehended a suspected drunk driver. He was acting belligerently toward an officer and was subdued at the side of the road. I’m about to administer a Breathalyzer test to ascertain the extent of his sobriety.”

His police jargon was over the top, and she glanced back at Mike, who wriggled uncomfortably in the cuffs.

“Is this about you and me?” she asked pointedly.

“Nope.”

“So this is you being professional?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

“Sure is.” He gave her a slow smile. “What’s the problem?”

“Aren’t you being a little rough with him?” she asked.

Obviously Ben didn’t like Mike, but that was no excuse to abuse his position of authority—and that was exactly what this looked like. He also seemed a little too eager with those cuffs. Was this what happened when rebels chose the law as their cause—common bullying?

“Too rough? No, I don’t think so,” Ben replied, and ambled in Mike’s direction without looking back.

“I’m not drunk,” she heard Mike say. “I’m in a hurry. For crying out loud, Ben.”

Ben didn’t hurry his movements, and after a moment of fiddling, held the plastic straw from the Breathalyzer machine in front of Mike.

“Blow here.”

Mike complied, and there was a moment while Ben looked down at the results. He glanced back at Sofia, disappointment in his expression.

“Not drunk, after all,” Ben said with a sigh.

“Get me out of these cuffs!” Mike snapped. “I’m on the way to the hospital. My wife broke her wrist, and they asked me to meet her there.”

Ben hooked a thumb over his belt and eyed Mike thoughtfully for a moment, then he glanced back in Sofia’s direction.

“Uncuff him,” she said, shaking her head. She knew she didn’t really have a say in this, but she was angry nonetheless. Nothing infuriated her more than men with power who abused their positions—regardless of their reason.

Ben shrugged and pulled out the key to unlock the cuffs. Mike rubbed his wrists and glared in Ben’s direction.

“You’re an idiot, Ben!” Mike said.

“That’s Officer Blake, to you,” Ben said icily. “And I sincerely hope you were miles away when your wife got hurt.”

Ben took a step forward, and Mike’s attitude evaporated. He held up his hands.

“I was,” Mike said. “Just let me go see if she’s okay.”

Obviously there was a history between these two, evident by their mutual dislike, but Ben had the upper hand here. He was in the position of authority, and he was leaning on it. He didn’t seem any different from the Benji Blake she’d fallen in love with all those years ago—ever the rebel.

“Drive to the hospital slowly,” Ben said, his voice low. “I’m watching you.”

After they’d both gotten back into the car, Ben looked over at Sofia, then frowned when he noticed her expression.

“What?” he said.

“What was that?” she demanded. “I get that Mike is a bit of a jerk, but that doesn’t mean you can push him around like that. There are laws against that sort of thing!”

“I have my reasons,” Ben replied, starting the car again. He pulled out behind Mike’s truck, following him down the road in the direction of the hospital.

“Care to share them?” she retorted. “Because that looked like a flagrant abuse of power. I’m frankly rather surprised that you’d do that to a journalist, especially with another journalist present to corroborate the story.”

“Can’t say too much legally,” he replied. “And I can’t take the chance of it going into one of your articles.” He gestured in the direction of her tablet.

She sighed and turned the tablet upside down. If he had a reason, she’d like to hear it. “All right, you have my word that it’s off the record.”

Ben shrugged. “Let’s just say Mike had it coming.”

“So a personal vendetta?” she clarified.

He eyed her for a moment, then put his attention back on to the road. “You don’t think too much of me, do you? No. I’ve personally arrested Mike Layton three times for beating up his wife.”

Sofia froze. She hadn’t seen that coming. Mike didn’t seem like the type—loud, obnoxious and opinionated, yes, but violent? There was a picture of Mike’s wife on his desk at the office, a slender woman with gentle eyes...

“And you thought—” she started.

“I thought that he was drunk,” he replied with a shrug. “If I can stick him in the drunk tank instead of sending him home to Mavis, then I think that’s a job well done. I really hope he was as far away from Mavis as possible when she broke her wrist, but I have to say, I have my doubts about that. Why she stays with him, I’ll never know.”

Sofia sighed and nodded. “I didn’t know that about Mike.”

She understood Ben’s anger and his desire to make Mike uncomfortable, even for a little while, but that didn’t cover everything for her.

“You’re still playing by your own rules,” she said. “You were like this when we were together—always doing everything your own way. Even if it would only hurt you in the end, you had to have it your way.”

Ben glanced at her, then signaled a turn, still following Mike, as promised. “My way is effective.” A twinkle of humor came into his eyes, and she shook her head.

“You cuffed a man without cause. That isn’t even legal.”

“I had cause,” he retorted. “Just not...immediate. You’re thinking of poor, mistreated Mike. What about Mavis? Mavis knows that all she has to do is mention my name, and her husband backs off. That’s something positive, I’d say. And giving women a safe place to go and a number to call when their husbands get abusive is part of what we’re trying to do with this community watch project. It’s about the community looking out for each other and cops being called right away, not when it’s too late. If the women don’t trust us, all the programs in the world aren’t going to make any difference.”