The Street Where She Lives

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dear Ben,

Do you think you’ve paid enough?

Don’t stop watching, waiting…

I surely won’t.

FOR TWO WEEKS, Ben worked overtime-writing articles, picking small freelance pieces he’d never had time to do before-trying not to go out of his living mind. Every day that passed watching Rachel struggle to get on with her life, to get back to work, to be a good mom, to deal with his presence, killed him. During that time the various agencies involved worked overtime as well, trying to get a lead on Asada.

They traced the hit-and-run car to the previous owner. The guy’s story was that he’d deserted it two months ago when the engine blew, but the truth was he’d sold it for cash to a couple of immigrants from South America who had no papers. He identified the men as the same ones on the videotape from LAX. It was now believed that Asada had never even stepped foot inside the States, but had his hired men do the deed.

Ben held his latest letter from Asada. Through the paper, he could feel the hatred, and knew he would be staying in South Village for some time to come, stifling or not.

He wrote his articles. He played basketball with Steve and Tony, attempting to lose himself in the organized chaos of a good, hard, vicious game. It worked.

Until one day during a particularly cathartic game when he happened to glance across the street and once again caught Rachel watching him from her studio window.

With sweat running down his chest and his heart pumping, time stopped for one long beat. Then Rachel turned away, breaking the spell, and Ben went back to some serious ass-kicking. But nearly a month into this caretaking thing, he almost wished Asada would make his move so he could be caught, so Ben could be released from this hell, so he could get on a plane and put ten thousand miles between him and South Village.

But Asada didn’t make his move. No one did. Which left Ben good and stuck until further notice.

MELANIE HAD IT ALL. She was quite certain of it. She had a fab job buying clothes for five linked upscale boutiques in Santa Barbara. She had a brand-new red Miata that had put a serious dent in her retirement fund but drove like a sweetie. If she chose, she could have a date every night of the week and her mirror assured her she had the best shape of any thirty-three-year-old around.

Too bad her boss was a jerk, the guys out there were all cheap pricks and, in the past few years, she’d had to pay big bucks for a local surgeon to keep her beauty in check.

Ignoring the speed limit, she headed out of Santa Barbara, making the two-hour trek to South Village for the first time in a month, since right before Rachel had gotten out of the hospital.

Cranking the music, she puffed from the one cigarette a day she allowed herself-not because it was bad for her, hell everything good was bad for her-but because she was getting lines around her mouth from holding the cigarette between her lips. Couldn’t have that, not when surgery cost so much.

Slowly the music started to grate on her and her smile faded, because really, what did she have to smile about? Justin had turned out to be married. After an attack of conscience, he’d broken it off with her, which really bit the big one. No one broke up with her. She did all the breaking up, thank you very much.

Ah, well…he’d been too quick with the trigger in bed anyway.

The truth was, she’d be out on the town tonight, on the prowl, if it hadn’t been that late-night message from Rachel a couple of weeks back. She didn’t know why, but in a far too rare moment, her baby sister needed her. God, she loved to be needed. So much. And that it was Rachel doing the needing filled a void deep inside her.

She’d have come sooner, but last weekend had been the boat races, and the weekend before that a fashion show she couldn’t miss, and besides every time she called, Emily kept saying everything was good. But it was time to get down there now and see her sister, the only person in Mel’s entire universe who always accepted her, no matter what stupid stunts she pulled.

And there had been some pretty stupid ones.

Parking in South Village was always a challenge and today, a Friday, was no exception. She cruised the block three times before finding a spot within walking distance-which couldn’t be that far given her high-heeled sandals. Why in the world Rachel chose to live on one of the busiest pedestrian blocks in the entire state was beyond her.

Mel wanted wide-open spaces and the beach. And unlimited parking so she could wear pretty shoes that were invariably uncomfortable.

Once out of the car, she paused to toss back her hair and glanced into the side-view mirror to touch up her lipstick. She also practiced a smile to lay on Rachel, a smile that wouldn’t reveal her shock at her sister’s appearance.

That had been the hardest part at the hospital. She hadn’t been prepared to see her baby sister lying so still in the hospital bed, a woman who’d never been still in her life. But worse than that had been the casts, the bandages, the horrible bruising and scarring.

And my God, the loss of her glorious, golden hair. Mel hadn’t been able to get past that, not until Rachel had noticed her discomfort and joked that she could always grow her hair again, but if she’d been six feet under…that would have been hard to fix.

Horrifying them both, Mel had burst into tears.

Mel lifted her chin now, determined to be as brave as her sister, who was the bravest woman she’d ever known. Then her gaze connected with the man sitting on the front steps of the refurbished firehouse. Of all the people in the world, he was the last she’d ever expected to be sitting there so quietly. Ben Asher wore basketball shorts and nothing else, looking lean, rugged and deliciously sweaty.

God, she loved lean and rugged and sweaty men, and before she could curtail it, need gushed through her. Ben Asher was everything she enjoyed in a man-tall, dark and gorgeous. Not model gorgeous, but a rough-and-tumble magnificent, a man who didn’t mind getting down and dirty. He was a rebel at heart, a man who knew what he wanted and knew how to get it.

He sure looked mighty fine. Young enough to still be a hard body, old enough to know what to do with it. He was propped back on his elbows, biceps and forearms nicely delineated. His damp chest was dusted lightly with dark hair from pec to pec. A line of it ran down, swirled around his belly button, vanishing tantalizingly into his shorts, as if in invitation for her hand to follow, to discover the treasures beyond.

And she had no doubt there were treasures. On a man like that? Oh, yeah, there’d be treasures. My, my, he was something. He hadn’t shaved today, maybe not yesterday either, and her thighs tightened thinking about that rough stubble running over her body.

She’d seen him at least once a year since he and Rachel had split. She’d brought Emily to him whenever and wherever he’d asked, mostly just to get a good look at him. Nothing wrong with a look.

But deep, deep down, she knew Ben had hurt Rachel more than he’d ever realized and in spite of her active hormones, her loyalties-misguided as they sometimes were-were always to her sister. So yes, she enjoyed looking at the man. Who wouldn’t? And maybe to make herself feel better about that, she’d lied a few times about him to Rachel-saying that he was a slut, that he sneered when Rachel’s name came up…whatever popped into her head to make her look better for lusting after the one man her sister had ever cracked her cool facade for.

And besides, Rachel never talked about him, never asked, so what harm could it all be? The very slight little crush she’d once had on him would hurt no one.

She supposed she should feel guilty, especially since Ben had always, always, asked about Rachel without a sneer. Maybe a better woman would have been truthful, but she’d never claimed to be good.

As she strutted her stuff across the street, walking the walk and smiling the smile, making sure he caught both, her gaze caught on the man in the yard next to Rachel’s house.

It was Garrett-dentist, Good Samaritan, and all-around Goody Two-shoes. He was raking the lawn, wearing simple jeans and a T-shirt, nothing special, certainly no Greek God. And yet when he glanced over and saw her, for a brief second, he went still.

She did, too, right in the middle of the street, instantly forgetting about Ben, frozen with the memory from last New Year’s Eve. She’d come to visit Rachel, who’d fallen asleep before ten o’clock. Bored and lonely, dangerously so, Mel had taken herself out to a bar not far from the house. She’d gone looking for trouble, and had found Garrett instead.

In a moment of insanity, she’d danced with him.

In a second moment of even more insanity, she’d gone home with him, for one long, glorious night. They hadn’t spoken since.

Because you’ve snubbed him each time he’d tried, she reminded herself.

“Mel,” Ben said in that low, gruff voice of his as she came into the yard.

She sought one last glance at Garrett, which made her stomach leap. “Ben.” She forced herself to relax as he slowly uncurled his long body and stood with the grace of a lean tiger. Forced her mind off Garrett, the man who didn’t matter. “What are you doing here, sexy? Taking Emily off on some exotic trip? I would have brought her to you.”

“I’m here for Rachel.”

Huh? “She…called you?”

He laughed at that, a low, sensual sound that she imagined could make a nun want to purr. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Garrett watering his flowers. He did it with the same concentration he gave everything and knowing she’d been the focus of that concentration once, her stomach leaped again. What the hell had gotten into her? She had no idea. She’d had sex recently and had only last night pulled out her handy-dandy vibrator.

“No, she didn’t call.” Ben’s slight smile still played around his firm mouth. “Have you ever known your sister to call for help?”

“Uh…no,” she admitted with a smile of her own, a real one this time. “So then…?”

“I’m here to take care of her, which again, is a bit tricky, since according to her, she needs no one and nothing.” His mouth twisted ironically. “Things haven’t changed much in that direction.”

“You’re here to take care of her,” Mel repeated slowly. “But Emily said she’d hired a nurse.”

“Was that the story you got?”

She stared into his laughing eyes and shook her head. “Oh, no. She didn’t.”

“Oh, yeah, she did.”

“And you came running.” To save the day. To save Rachel. “How very…sweet of you.” She tried to think if she’d ever been with a man who’d drop everything, his career, his life, to come running for her. From another part of the world, no less.

No. No, she hadn’t.

She purposely kept her gaze off the man on the next yard, the man who’d never even told a soul he’d wanted her at least once.

“She’s doing better,” Ben said, and if Mel was the blushing kind, she might have blushed for getting caught not asking about Rachel’s health, for being more worried about herself and her inexplicable need for a man she wasn’t even acknowledging.

“I’ll just see for myself, I suppose,” she said, and by habit sent him a come-hither smile, the one that usually rendered men stupid, just to see what would happen.

Immune, Ben opened the door for her, and utterly without permission, her heart tugged. Why didn’t the men she slept with open doors for her?

Well, actually, Garrett had, that long-ago night. But she wasn’t going to think of him again.

“Rach?” Ben, moving to the pole in the living room, called up. He turned to Melanie. “I left her in her studio an hour ago, she was going to try to work.”

“She’s up to that?” The last time she’d seen her sister, she’d looked like death warmed over.

“Nope, but we’ve already established she’s stubborn as hell. Maybe you can talk her into lunch. She’s been eating like a damn bird.”

Mel followed him and shook her head. He hadn’t even glanced at her carefully painted mouth, or run his gaze down her body, even though her little white sundress-accent on the little-was spraypainted to her body.

Was she losing it? She looked down at herself and had to say…she looked pretty damn hot.

Had Garrett checked her out thoroughly? She hoped he’d swallowed his tongue.

Not that she was thinking of him.

They took the stairs. At the closed door to the studio, Ben turned back to face her and smiled. “Ready to get your head bitten off?”

She jerked her thoughts off Garrett. “Why?”

“Well, she probably doesn’t snap at you every time you look at her, but-” with a low, soft laugh, he scratched his chest and looked a little sheepish “-Rachel and I…we seem to bring out the extremes in each other.”

That he hadn’t said “the worst,” but the “extremes,” stopped her cold. What, exactly, had been going on here? She put a hand on her hip. “You two doing something stupid, like knocking it out again? I sure as hell hope you know how to use condoms correctly these days.”

The door whipped open. Rachel stood there, propped up by a cane, glaring at the two of them.

“Hi, honey,” Ben said sweetly. “I’m home.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes at him, and then turned on Melanie. “You want to ask me something to my face?”

Oh, boy. She made the mistake of glancing at Ben.

“Don’t look at him,” Rachel demanded. “Look at me. I’m standing right here. Standing, thank you for asking, and yes, it hurts like hell.”

“Hey, sis. You’re looking…great.” Melanie decided to smile. It usually worked, though it appeared she was batting below average today.

Rachel let out a rude noise and turned away. She stared at her easel, which was conspicuously blank.

“Rach…” Ben moved into the room and shocked Melanie by putting his hands on Rachel’s shoulders, one of which was in a sling supporting her casted left arm. “Come on, babe. Let’s go downstairs and grab some grub. Em made those disgusting healthy cookies, remember? You’ve got to eat them before she gets home in an hour or she’ll worry.”

“You eat them.”

“Well, darlin’, I would, except they taste like dirt. And I have to say, I’m not overly fond of dirt.”

Rachel laughed. Laughed. Ben laughed, too, that same soft, sexy sound that tickled over Mel’s good spots.

Ben smiled down at Rachel, then reached out and stroked her cheek.

She blushed.

And while Mel stared at them, Ben ran his hands lightly down her sister’s arms, up and down, meeting Rachel’s gaze with such warmth, such affection, such…heat and intensity, it completely stole Mel’s breath.

“My God,” she said with a laugh that sounded shrill to her own ears. “Times have changed. Last time I checked, the two of you couldn’t be in the same time zone, much less in the same room. Now look at you, so cozy.”

Rachel turned her face away and stepped clear of Ben so that his hands fell to his sides. “We’re merely cohabitating to appease Emily, Mel, so don’t go making any big deal out of it.”

“Cohabitating…or commingling?”

“Knock it off, Mel,” Ben said with more heat than she was used to from the king of laid-back city.

Well, didn’t he have some nerve! For years she’d been doing his bidding, taking Emily to the ends of the earth to meet him. Granted she always jumped when he called because she didn’t object to looking at him for a few days a couple of times a year, but where was the gratitude? “Okay, then,” she said lightly, when oddly enough, her throat burned. “But I can’t imagine why I risked my job to race down here. Oh, wait…yes, I remember…because Rachel called me in tears.”

Ben whipped his face toward Rachel, his eyes dark and intent. “You were crying?”

An irrational jealousy choked Melanie at the way he looked at Rachel. His silver earring gleamed, his hair fell over his forehead and nearly to his shoulders. His hard body hadn’t come from any gym, but from years of using his muscles the old-fashioned way. Everything about him screamed rebel, trouble seeker, black heart.

Didn’t Rachel get it? A man like that was tailor-made for a woman like…well, like Mel.

Not Rachel. She needed quiet, calm, sweet and kind. She needed stability and security.

Ben didn’t know the meaning of those words. Damn it, seeing the two of them standing there staring at each other was like a fingernail scraping down a chalkboard. Because whether they admitted it or not, there was such a shimmering connection between them, she could practically reach out and touch it.

She wanted to reach out and touch it, all right, but she wanted it for herself.

“I was not crying.” Rachel tipped her head back, stared at the ceiling. “I was just…I don’t know. Feeling sorry for myself. End of story. And anyway, it was weeks ago. You know what? I’m ready for those dirt-flavored cookies.”

Ben shook his head. “You should have come to me.”

“You playing the hero now?” Melanie laughed into the silence. “That’s my job this weekend, bud. So…” She clapped her hands together and tried to look hungry. “Let’s go get the cookies and see if we can’t doctor them up. Say with chocolate syrup. Something fattening.”

She’d need something fattening to get over the hot, intensive looks Ben kept shooting Rachel. She’d need an entire bakery.

EMILY PLOPPED DOWN on the crowded school bus. As other kids walked by, she clutched her backpack in her lap and stared straight ahead, deciding she didn’t care if anyone sat down next to her. She didn’t care one little bit.

She hated school. She hated her teachers, though they’d be shocked to hear it. They loved her because she knew the material, because she was quiet and never gave them any trouble.

But they didn’t see her. No one at school did. She’d thought it wouldn’t matter, that this year she was old enough, mature enough, not to care that she was different. Turns out she could be wrong.

“Can I sit here?”

She looked up. And up. It was the tall, skinny kid from her history class. He kept to himself and was a brainiac, too. She’d wanted to ask him about that, ask him if he felt as out of place in this school that seemed to favor athletes over scholars, but she’d never had the nerve.

“Emily? Can I sit here?”

He knew her name. “Uh…” Tongue-tied? She was tongue-tied? How new and awful was that? She settled for lifting a negligent shoulder, biting her lip when he sat.

“I’m Van,” he said, tossing his backpack to the floor at his feet. “We have history together.”

“Yeah.” Yeah? Was that all she could come up with? She clunked her head back on the seat and wondered if a thunderbolt could just strike her dead and get it over with.

Van had a disk in his hand, which meant he could operate a computer, and her heart started to pound. She started to sweat, too, which really grossed her out. Please, don’t notice. Trying to swipe at her upper lip without catching his eye, she managed to knock his disk out of his hand and onto the floor.

“Oh!” She dived for it. “I’m so sorry!”

He bent, too, and they clunked heads hard.

“Ouch,” he said, rubbing his forehead, but he was smiling.

She wasn’t; she wanted to die. She brushed the disk off on her jeans, going beet red as the two girls behind them started to snicker.

It was official. She was a loser with a capital L.

“It’s no biggie.” In spite of the red spot over his eye, he kept smiling. “It’s just a copy.”

Just then the bus made a sharp turn, and she plowed into him. Her shoulder to his chest this time. Ohmigod, could it get worse? Mortified, she looked up into his face, but his smile turned into a grin.

She found herself grinning, too. Helplessly. Talk to him. Ask him about the disk. Mention your computer. Say something, say anything!

It took her five minutes to figure out what to say. She’d decided to ask him if he ever went to the computer lab after school, but the bus stopped and he got off.

Loser.

Double loser.

She had three more stops before she could drown her sorrows in chocolate milk with Patches. Unzipping her backpack, she reached in and cracked her laptop open enough so that she could just barely read the screen. She couldn’t get e-mail yet, but she could reread what she’d downloaded this morning.

Alicia had written her, lamenting that her parents sucked, school sucked, life sucked.

Amen to that. She hit reply, and glancing around to make sure no one was looking at her-as if!-she began to type: “Alicia, Yeah, everything sucks here, too.”

She didn’t want Alicia to feel left out. Besides, school did still suck, but at home, things were…interesting. She’d been working on her parents, who still hadn’t figured out they were supposed to be together. Jeez, talk about two stubborn people! They were circling each other like caged bears, but there did seem to be a lot less snarling.

And her dad did get really grumpy whenever Adam-the-accountant showed up, which always made Emily want to laugh and hug him at the same time. Her mom, though…she wasn’t trying as hard as her dad to get along. Emily was really mad at her for that.

But it just didn’t feel cool to admit such things. Emily didn’t want to get ditched for being such a wimp as to want her parents married.

But God, she wanted that, so much. She’d done everything she could, including not going to her mom in the mornings when she’d called out for help, biting her fingernails to the stubs in guilt, but relaxing when she’d hear her dad go running instead. Twice she’d “accidentally” hung up on Adam when he’d called rather than bring the phone to her mom. Best yet, she’d managed to convince her aunt Mel, who was coming down today for the weekend, to take her out to the latest DiCaprio movie tonight, which would leave her parents alone.

What she’d planned would add to her crimes, but she didn’t care. If it worked, it’d be perfect.

She hoped.

The bus pulled up on her street. Excited, she shut the computer, zipped up her backpack and got off the bus, and didn’t even stop to glower at a single kid.

RACHEL LEANED AWAY from the easel and drew out a careful breath. The paper was still blank, pathetically blank. Ironic, given that today she actually felt good enough to skip all her pain meds.

Which meant she was on the road to recovery.

Good.

But she’d apparently lost her ability to come up with a Gracie cartoon to save her sorry life.

Bad.

It wasn’t just work, she had to admit. It’d been a rough day all around, starting with this morning when Emily hadn’t wanted to get out of bed. Rachel knew she’d stayed up too late on her damn computer, but pointing that out had only started a feud.

Ben had stepped in, sweetly coaxing his daughter out of bed with the promise of McDonald’s on the way to school. When Rachel had suggested that maybe he could try something other than bribery, as in her opinion, Emily needed to learn responsibility, the feud had turned to all-out war.

Ben’s eyes had gone a little hard as he’d backed off, and she could mentally smack herself now, because she understood she’d inadvertently undermined his authority in front of Emily, but damn it, she wasn’t used to sharing the day-to-day responsibility of raising their daughter.

Wasn’t used to anything when it came to Ben, including the way he always seemed to touch her, look at her.

Kiss her.

Naturally, Emily had leaped to her father’s defense and, between the dog yelping for attention and Emily yelling and Ben’s extremely loud silence, Rachel had ended up with a headache.

She was getting tired of wondering when Ben’s wanderlust would get the best of him. She’d seen him writing, muttering, playing with his camera. She’d seen him reading the world events in the newspaper, seen the wheels turning in his head. She’d heard him on the phone just yesterday, talking about some future job in Siberia or somewhere. And he’d been pacing in his bedroom at night like a caged mountain cat.

Always when she woke up, she figured this would be the day he’d be gone.

But he hadn’t left.

Soon, though, she had no doubt. Soon he’d leave and she’d take her first deep breath since he’d shown up on their doorstep. Yep, he’d be gone, and she’d be glad. Just a matter of time now.

She’d go on with her life, maybe take it in a new direction…

The phone rang, drawing her out of the reverie and firmly into the present.

“Doll!” Gwen Ariani, her agent, spoke in her rough voice that was the result of smoking for thirty years. “How’s it going?”

Her blank easel mocked her. “It’s not.”

“No? Well, it’s soon yet. You still have an entire month before you have to start cranking out again. Thank God you’d worked so far ahead of yourself, huh?”

“Gwen…” Rachel closed her eyes and admitted what she’d been wanting to admit for a good long time now. “I don’t know if I want to ‘crank’ out the strip again. I’m thinking about ending Gracie.”

“Hold on, doll. Clearly, I’m losing my hearing.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Then I’m having a heart attack.”

“I just wanted to start something new.”

“Another strip?”

“No.” Rachel ran a finger over the new laptop she’d had delivered. “I’m thinking of starting over. Completely over. And writing instead of drawing.”

Dead silence for a long beat. “You mean, walk away from the biggest cash cow of your life? Can’t you just write a little on the side now and then?”

Rachel had expected resistance. Gracie made them all a lot of money. “I’m not talking a little hobby, Gwen. I’m thinking of writing a book.”

“You’re still on meds, right?”

“No.”

“Come on, Rachel, people don’t walk away from a gig like this. You only draw one strip a week, for God’s sake. Hello! Cakewalk!”

From under the closed studio door came a slip of paper. Eyes narrowed, Rachel moved slowly, using her cane. “I’m sorry you don’t understand, Gwen, but-” She unfolded the typed sheet of paper and silently read the note. “It’s time for a truce, past time. Meet me in the gardens at eight. Dinner on me.”

Rachel frowned. Ben wanted a truce? What did that mean, exactly? That he’d go away? She hadn’t known the man to give in on anything in his life.

But a truce…

“Rachel?”

She fingered the note. “Gwen, I’ve got to go.”

“Wait-”

“I’m sorry, I’ll call you next week.” She hung up and stared at the words on the paper again, wondering what on earth that man was up to.

BEN WAS ALSO looking at a note, one that had been slipped under his door. “It’s time for a truce, past time. Meet me in the gardens at eight. Dinner on me.”

Rachel wanted a truce? That was new to him. She certainly hadn’t shown a weakening in those ten-foot walls she wore around her like a cloak. Nope, whenever he wanted in, he was forced to bash them down one brick at a time. A touch seemed to work, as did kissing her.

But those things were far more dangerous to him than to her, and besides, he wearied of the constant battle.

Now this, a truce. Did he want one? Hell, no.

Would he go to the garden and stare at her beautiful face? Hell, yes.