Only by Your Touch

  Well, Chloe thought, so far, poor marks. She’d worn the wrong clothes. She put her purse on a shelf in the check stand area, draped her jacket over a stool, and grabbed the apron, slipping it on as she went to join her new boss.

  Hattie held up a paintbrush tipped with cotton-candy pink. “Isn’t it going to be cute?”

  Chloe stood back to appraise the dollhouse in progress. It was Victorian, her favorite style. Hattie had done the siding in pale mocha, and now she was doing the gingerbread in a rainbow of sherbet shades.

  “It’s darling.” Chloe looked in a window. “How will you do the inside?”

  “Quaint and old-fashioned. I got a new miniature catalog with some of the cutest furniture kits. I spent all last evening working up an order.” She put the brush in a cup of murky water and wiped her hands. “Playtime is over. I’d better start training you.”

  An hour later, Chloe was struggling to master the electronic cash register and credit-card processing. “I’m sorry,” she told Hattie when the customers departed. “I’ve never done any of this. After I left my husband, I was a cocktail waitress. I took orders and the bartender handled the register.”

  “No worries. You’ll learn.” Hattie laid a price sheet beside the register. “During the lulls, do your best to memorize this. It makes a transaction go more smoothly. If you make a mistake, holler. I’ll come bail you out.”

  The elderly proprietress was true to her word. She bailed Chloe out several times over the next seven hours. By the time the shift was over, Chloe’s head was swimming with department numbers, merchandise codes, price sheets, and procedures. She despaired of ever learning it all. The only thing she could honestly say she’d done well was the dusting. She did know how to clean.

  After doffing her apron and collecting her purse and jacket, Chloe turned to Hattie. “Do you want me back tomorrow?”

  The older woman laughed and handed her a price sheet. “It’s just a copy. If you lose it, don’t panic. Perhaps you can look it over tonight.”

  As she drove home, Chloe divided her attention between the price sheet and the road.

  Jeremy met Chloe at the door. “Ben came while you was gone!” he cried.

  “He did?” Chloe bent to grab a hug, no easy task since her target was making like a jumping bean. “Wow. You liked that, did you?”

  “He fixed the window,” Tracy explained. Eager to be gone, the teenager was already slipping on her jacket. “He is, like, too cute,” she said, wiggling her penciled eyebrows. “Way to go, Chloe.”

  “No, no.” Chloe laughed. The sound was whistle thin and rang false. “It’s not like that.”

  “Bummer.” Tracy grabbed one of Jeremy’s curls and tugged. “Bye, brat.” To Chloe, she said, “Trent’s picking me up. We’re going bowling.”

  Chloe waved from the doorway as Tracy skipped across the yard. Then Jeremy distracted her by tugging on her hand.

  “You gotta come see our window!”

  Chloe allowed herself to be herded to the kitchen. Sure enough, the glass had been replaced. She leaned close to look at the caulking. Ben had been so precise that the line might have been done by machine. She wondered if he was as meticulous when he made love. The question no sooner slipped into her mind than she chased it right back out.

  While Chloe fixed dinner, Jeremy entertained her with a blow-by-blow account of Ben’s visit. It was Ben this, and Ben that.

  “He did a good job of putting in the window, huh, Mom?”

  “He sure did.”

  “Ben’s good at everything.”

  He was especially talented at kissing, Chloe thought. She just wished—oh, she didn’t know what she wished. For a different mind-set, maybe? Why couldn’t she be one of those women who could take their pleasure where they found it? Life would be a lot more fun that way. But, oh, no, she had to take everything so seriously. As a consequence, Ben had her feelings in such a tangle, she could barely think.

  By the time the dishes were done, Chloe was numb with exhaustion. She was throwing on jeans to go to Ben’s when the phone rang. Jeremy answered in the kitchen.

  “Mommy, it’s Ben!”

  Chloe grabbed up the phone, which she’d returned to her bedroom that morning. “Hello?” Jeremy had the television blaring. “Just a sec.” She clamped a hand over the mouthpiece. “Hang up, Jeremy! I can’t hear!” When she heard the other phone click, she said, “Hi, again.”

  “Now I can’t hear. You should have been a drill sergeant.”

  She laughed. “I am a drill sergeant. Sorry if I hurt your eardrum.”

  He chuckled. “You didn’t. I’m impressed, though. Give you a megaphone, and I bet they’d hear you clear in Pineville.”

  “Have you had your fun?” Chloe tucked the phone under her chin to snap her jeans. “Don’t mess with me tonight, buster. I’ve had a hard day.”

  “I figured. That’s why I called. I took care of the critters tonight. You can crash and relax.”

  Chloe sank onto the bed. “You angel. If you were here, I’d kiss you.”

  “I can be there in three minutes. Hold tight to that thought.”

  She snorted. “On second thought.” Silence. She straightened her legs and stared at her bare feet. Ugly toes, skinny with knobby knuckles and big balls on the ends. Definitely the feet of a woman who plodded through life. No flitting for her. “I think maybe we need to talk about that.”

  “About what?”

  Chloe took a deep breath, slowly exhaled. “Sex.”

  “Make it two minutes.”

  Silence descended while Chloe sorted her thoughts. “Ben?”

  “I’m still here. What about sex?”

  She laughed again. She didn’t know why. The way she felt wasn’t funny. “I don’t do one-night stands.”

  “That’s good. After last night, I don’t think one night will be enough.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Another silence. “Do we have to discuss this right now?”

  “Yes. I, um—hmm, how shall I put this?” Chloe squeezed her eyes closed. Flexed her shoulders. “I’m not very modern-minded about relationships. I wish I were. But that isn’t how I’m made.”

  “Chloe, has anyone ever mentioned that you complicate everything?”

  “Maybe so. But I am who I am. I don’t do uncomplicated. I’m also—”

  “Also what?”

  The words were aching at the back of her throat, but somehow, she just couldn’t dredge up old ghosts and tell him about the last few months of her marriage. Some things were better left unsaid.

  “What do you want from me?” he asked softly. “Just tell me how complicated you want it, and I’ll let you know if I can step up to the plate.”

  “That’s the problem, don’t you see? I need you to figure that out for yourself.”

  His expelled breath wafted loudly across the wire. “Can you at least give me a hint?”

  “This and that,” she said softly.

  He swore under his breath. “Chloe.”

  Her body tensed. “I need something more than an introductory handshake, something more than stories about your grandfather. You have secrets, Ben. If you can’t trust me enough to reveal at least one of those, how can we deepen our friendship or even think of having a relationship?”

  “My profession isn’t who I am.”

  “At least it’s a starting point. It bothers me that you won’t reveal the simplest things about yourself. It’s like refusing to tell me your name. How can we move forward? You accuse me of complicating things. Maybe it’s the other way around.”

  Silence. He was still there. She could hear him breathing. But he said nothing. It was, Chloe realized, all the answer he was willing to give her. After a long moment, she let the receiver drop back into its cradle.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Over the next few days, Chloe was so busy that she fell exhausted into bed each night. She loved her new job, but there was so much to learn, all sandwiched in between her visi
ts to Cinnamon Ridge, her responsibilities as a mother, her household chores, and her mounting alarm about Bobby Lee. Her schedule was so packed that she was forced to cancel baby-sitting for the Baxters.

  Several times when she arrived at work, Chloe saw the deputy’s Bronco next door in the Dairy Queen parking lot. Bobby Lee sat inside, and despite the fact that he wore sunglasses, she knew he was watching her. It gave Chloe the creeps. Even worse, he ventured into the shop a few times. He always bought some little trinket, using that as an excuse for his visit.

  After his third appearance, Chloe telephoned Sheriff Lang to complain. The lawman made light of her concerns, saying Bobby Lee had as much right to buy Christmas decorations as the next person. Besides, it was his job to check on the local businesses and see how things were going. By the end of the conversation, Chloe was furious.

  While Chloe wrestled with her demons, Ben was dealing with a few of his own. Whenever Chloe came to the ridge, the tension between them was almost palpable, and no matter how he circled it, he knew it was his own damned fault. It wasn’t unreasonable of her to want to know what he did for a living, and the truth was, his original reason for withholding the information no longer held water. Chloe wouldn’t go rushing back to Jack Pine to tell everyone she saw that he was a famous writer. Her silence about Methuselah and the other animals was proof of that.

  So why didn’t he just tell her?

  Each time Ben asked himself that question, he circled back to the same answer. He was afraid that once he got started talking, he wouldn’t be able to stop, and he might tell her everything—about his father, about his gift, and even about Sherry. He wanted to believe it wouldn’t matter to her. But what if it did? He was in love with her. Hopelessly. Completely. If she couldn’t accept the truth and walked away, he didn’t know what he’d do.

  All of Ben’s life, keeping secrets had been a matter of survival. He hadn’t even been completely open with his mother for fear she might unintentionally betray him to his father with an unguarded expression or gesture. He’d spent his childhood keeping his own counsel, and the habit had followed him into adulthood. The only time he had shared the private parts of himself with anyone, it had ended in disaster.

  He felt as if he were standing at the edge of an abyss and Chloe was urging him to jump. Whenever he tried to tell her about his job, the words got trapped at the back of his throat.

  “You can’t keep it from her forever,” his mother chided him on Saturday night. “You love her, Ben. I see it in your eyes every time you look at her. You can’t move forward without complete honesty between you. That’s no way to begin a relationship.”

  “I know that, Mom. I’ll tell her. The right moment just hasn’t presented itself.”

  “And when do you think it will? Have you even told her about your writing yet?”

  “No.”

  “Why, for heaven’s sake? It’s nothing like the other. A lot of people are writers.”

  “But a lot of people aren’t freaks. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Nan paled. “You are not a freak.”

  “What am I then? Just an oddity?”

  “You’re a wonderful man with a beautiful gift.”

  Ben struggled to draw a full breath. He always felt as if he were suffocating when he thought about talking to Chloe. “This gift ruined my father’s life, and now it’s ruining mine. I love her, Mom. I lost Sherry over it. From the moment I told her, she looked at me differently, and it was never the same between us again.”

  “Sherry had no heart. You didn’t fit tidily into her intellectual understanding of the universe.”

  “We had a lot in common, both of us being vets. Until I ruined it, she loved me.”

  “No.” Nan touched her feet to the floor to put her rocker in motion. “That wasn’t love, Ben, or even a pale imitation. You were young and you perceived it to be love.”

  “If I had kept my mouth shut, we might still be together.”

  “Then she didn’t love the real you, did she?” Nan picked up her crocheting and started to hum.

  Frustrated because she’d chosen this precise moment to drift away from him, Ben stomped from the family room. As he circled the kitchen desk, his mother called after him.

  “Do you miss her?”

  Ben stopped. “Who, Chloe?”

  Nan smiled benignly. “Just as I thought. Sherry is no longer first in your thoughts. Real love isn’t extinguished quite that easily.”

  Ben turned down the hall, heading for his office. What did his mother know about real love? he wondered angrily. She’d been Hap Longtree’s punching bag for over thirty years. That didn’t exactly recommend her as an expert on healthy relationships.

  Fuming, Ben sat at his desk, only to have Rowdy rear up to plant oversize paws on his knee. Glancing down, Ben came face-to-face with another problem. It wouldn’t be long before the puppy could safely go home. When that day arrived, Ben would lose his only link to Chloe and her son.

  The following Sunday evening when Chloe came to clean cages and feed the animals, Ben noticed that Diablo had joined Methuselah in following her around the house. Damn. Maybe it was the perfume she wore.

  Only he knew it wasn’t. The essence that had beguiled him and his critters couldn’t be bottled. It was Chloe’s complete and absolute sweetness that drew all of them to her. Even the animals in their cages gazed after her as she moved around the kitchen, each of them hoping for another little scratch or a soothing pat. Ben could have used a pat himself, and he definitely needed his itch scratched. Instead he got that stubborn lift of her chin and an arctic blast from her eyes.

  “Is my mom mad at you?” Jeremy asked just before it was time for them to leave.

  Busy in the kitchen, Ben shut off the water and glanced down. Jeremy peered up at him with a troubled frown. “I don’t know,” Ben replied. “Do you think she is?”

  Jeremy pursed his lips. “Yup, I think so.”

  Ben grabbed a towel to dry his hands. “What makes you say that?”

  The child shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s just gets that mad look when I talk about you.” He pleated his brows in a frown. “Have you said you’re sorry?”

  “For what?”

  Jeremy scrunched his shoulders. “I dunno. Don’t you?”

  Now he was getting relationship counseling from a six-year-old. Ben stepped into the family room to give his mom her pills. Nan smiled up at him. “That girl is so sweet. Have you noticed how Methuselah and Diablo have taken to her?”

  Ben was starting to feel like a lone soldier in enemy territory. He thrust the glass of water under his mother’s nose. “Take your pills, Mom.”

  She popped them in her mouth, took two sips of water, and passed the glass back to him. “Along with you now. I have to get this row done before supper.” She resumed crocheting. And humming. He really, really wished something besides “Hang down your head, Tom Dooley” would stick in her brain.

  Once back in the kitchen, Ben decided he was cranky. Okay, bitchy. He should be glad all his critters liked Chloe. What bothered him was his knowledge that wild animals had good instincts when it came to people. They seldom trusted someone who might do them harm. Methuselah and Diablo were giving Chloe the highest of recommendations.

  What if? he wondered. Chloe was nothing like Sherry. Wasn’t there a chance, if only a slim one, that Chloe might be able to accept him, not only for who he was, but also for what he was?

  Fat chance. Ben had never even understood himself. How could he expect Chloe to? He couldn’t give her what she needed. That was the bottom line. Being honest with Sherry had damned near destroyed him. When he considered taking that gamble again, he broke out in a cold sweat.

  In a few more weeks, Rowdy could go home. No more Jeremy, no more Chloe. Life on the ridge would return to normal.

  The thought made Ben feel desolate. When Chloe and Jeremy left, the rooms would be silent again. He didn’t know how he would bear it.

  The follow
ing afternoon, right after Hattie left for the bank, Bobby Lee came to the shop again. The instant the bell above the door rang, Chloe felt him—much as a person might feel a blast of cold air. She straightened from a box of merchandise she’d been unloading onto a shelf, saw him standing by a display table near the door, and contemplated ducking down to hide.

  Her pride wouldn’t allow it. If he wanted a confrontation, she would oblige him. Knotting her hands into hard fists, she wove her way toward him. When she reached the check stand, she said, “Good evening, Deputy Schuck. How can I help you?”

  “You can listen,” he said with the same phony sincerity that had fooled her once, but never would again. “I know I screwed up. I was drunk, Chloe. Please give me another chance.”

  The sound of his voice made her skin crawl. “I understand that alcohol can have an adverse effect on human behavior, but using that as an excuse is a cop-out.”

  He spread his booted feet, planted his hands on his hips, and hung his head. He was the picture of dejection, but she wasn’t buying it. “Come on. Have a heart. I messed up. I admit it. I’m sorrier than you can know.”

  Chloe set herself to the task of emptying the trash. As she twisted a tie around the top of the plastic bag, she said, “I have no heart, Bobby Lee, not for you. If you aren’t here to buy something, please leave.”

  He plucked up a sale item without even looking at it. After setting it on the counter, he drew his wallet from his hip pocket. “How much?” he asked.

  “It’s two ninety-nine.”

  He laid three ones on the counter. Chloe quickly rang up the item, bagged his purchase, shoved it toward him, and said, “Have a nice evening,” just as she would to any stranger.

  “I’ll be back.”

  He turned and left. She stared after him, feeling hot and cold both at once. She had a very bad feeling that he’d make good on that promise, and she wasn’t sure what to do. He’d clearly developed some sort of fixation about her. She didn’t know if it was because of her supposed relationship with Ben, or if he’d just chosen her at random, but the man definitely had a problem. He was watching the shop. He made an appearance only when Hattie was absent.