Tender Absolution

  “Next time it’s on me,” she said as the door opened.

  “Carlie?”

  “Hmm?”

  He couldn’t stop himself. His arms surrounded her and he drew her close. His lips found hers and though he told himself to go slow, to kiss her gently, the passion that still burned through his blood exploded and his mouth moved urgently against her lips.

  She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him with the fever that seemed to have infected them both. As the windows began to steam, her tongue mated and danced with his and the swelling in his jeans ached so badly, he thought he’d go crazy.

  Shifting to get closer to her, he pressed against the small of her back, urgently dragging her atop him.

  Carlie lifted her head and breathing raggedly, whispered, “Slow down, soldier.”

  “You’re going to drive me crazy,” he said in frustration. With a groan he released her.

  “That works two ways.”

  “Does it?” His hands tangled in her hair and his breath whispered across her face.

  “We’ve got time, Ben. We’re not kids anymore.” Again the pained shadow appeared in her eyes. She seemed about to tell him something vital, then forced a smile and kissed him quickly and chastely on the cheek.

  “How much time do we have?”

  “As long as you want.” She slid out of the truck and left Ben with an ache in his groin that refused to wither.

  Half lying across the seat, he watched as she let herself into the building and closed the door tightly in her wake. Within a few minutes the lights of her apartment were switched on and she appeared in one of the windows of the turret.

  She threw the sash open and stuck out her head. Ben rolled down his window and watched in fascination as the wind blew her hair, a black and gleaming banner, away from her face. “Go home, Ben,” she said, her laughter light as a summer breeze. She’d tucked her sadness away again.

  “What if I refuse?”

  “You’ll freeze.”

  It was his turn to laugh. “Not likely, lady. Not if I’m anywhere near you!”

  He rolled his window back up and put the old truck into gear. All the way home he reminded himself that she wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted, but by the time he opened his back door and his dog, barking and growling, raced out to the yard, he still hadn’t convinced himself.

  Like it or not, he wanted Carlie Surrett.

  CHAPTER NINE

  TRACY STARED AT her reflection in the mirror over her sink in the bathroom. She frowned at the pinch of little lines near her eyes. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she wasn’t getting any younger.

  “Hey, Mom, I’m outta here!” Randy called from his bedroom.

  “Got your lunch money?”

  “Yeah, and my book report.”

  “You have a good day,” she yelled at him.

  “I’m gonna have a spectacular day,” he teased, using one of the vocabulary words he’d studied the night before.

  “Good.” She smiled as she thought of Randy—the one joy in her miserable life. She turned that thought away; Tracy didn’t like feeling sorry for herself. Both she and Randy were healthy, she made enough money that life wasn’t the struggle it once was and now…Ben Powell was back in town. And still single.

  Randy appeared in the doorway, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then took off with his backpack swinging from one arm. Her heart squeezed as she followed him to the front hall and watched as he hurried to the bus stop where twenty kids from the apartment complex had gathered.

  Maybe she’d made a mistake in not marrying. Randy had never known his father and the men that Tracy had dated, usually men who had picked her up at the Buckeye Restaurant and Lounge, had never shown the least bit of interest in her boy. Well, there had been a couple of guys who had acted as if Randy were something special, but those men, Red Langford and Terry Knapp, weren’t the marrying kind. Red was nearly fifteen years older than she was and worked as a driver for Fitzpatrick Logging. He had a steady job, but also kids from a first marriage who were nearly grown. Terry was closer to her age but spent his Friday and Saturday nights on the third stool of the Buckeye Restaurant and Lounge, sitting, watching the big screen, smoking and closing down the place. He’d been picked up by the police for driving under the influence of alcohol on more than one occasion.

  Nope, not marriage material.

  But things were looking up. Ever since Ben showed up again in Gold Creek. Tracy smiled to herself and closed the door. She finished with her makeup, adding extra lip gloss and heading downstairs to her job at the bank. She worked weekdays as a teller at the Bank of The Greater Bay in Coleville and a couple of nights a week in the lounge at the Buckeye. Sometimes, on Saturdays, she put in an extra shift for the lunch crowd. During her usual schedule, she was home for Randy in the morning and late afternoon and had a sitter come and watch him on the nights when she worked the late shift at the Buckeye.

  She hadn’t had much time for men, but she planned on making time for Ben. The only problem was that about the same time he’d landed back in Gold Creek, so had Carlie Surrett. Gossip had been spreading around town—gossip that the old romance between Carlie and Ben was heating up.

  Tracy frowned as she tilted her head and slid a teardrop-shaped earring through the tiny hole in her earlobe. She didn’t like thinking about Carlie, the woman who had everything that was lacking in Tracy’s life. Carlie was drop-dead gorgeous, while Tracy was merely pretty. Carlie had experienced a fleeting brush with fame while Tracy, bearing her illegitimate son in a small town had been infamous for a while—the target of any jerk who had the mistaken impression that she was easy. Also, Carlie had her independence, Tracy thought with a mild twang of envy. Carlie could do what she wanted, go where she wanted and when she wanted without worrying about a child.

  Tracy grabbed her purse and jacket and locked the door behind her. Years ago, Carlie had found a way to sink her claws into the Powell boys with a tenacity that was awesome. But Tracy was older and smarter than she had been then. Also, she had an ace up her sleeve: her son. Ben, with all his lofty morals, wouldn’t stay clear of his brother’s boy. He couldn’t. His conscience would kill him if he did.

  Also, Tracy had always made time for Ben’s father. George adored Randy and often teased Tracy about settling down with the right man. What George didn’t know was that Ben just happened to be that very man. With just a little pressure, George would be in her corner. Besides, he’d never liked Carlie and still blamed her for Kevin’s death.

  There was also the little secret Tracy knew about Carlie, a secret no one else in Gold Creek knew. She smiled to herself as she remembered the day she’d seen Carlie at the Coleville Women’s Clinic. She’d been reading a magazine in the waiting room and had been screened from the hall by a potted palm. Carlie had rushed out of the doors leading to the examining rooms and she’d been white as a sheet. Her eyes were red and she looked scared out of her mind. A nurse had run after her. “Miss Surrett, please. The doctor thinks you should make another appointment. Next week—”

  Carlie had disappeared and Tracy, acting unconcerned, had been led into an examining room. She had a few minutes before her appointment with Dr. Dodd and so she’d casually walked to the restroom and noticed Carlie’s chart obviously left on a desk near the scales when the nurse had taken off after the distressed girl.

  Tracy hadn’t felt a single moment’s guilt as she read the report and figured out that Carlie had been pregnant but lost the baby. So far, she’d kept that information to herself. At the time she’d been worried that Carlie’s baby, like her own, had been fathered by Kevin, but she’d quickly changed her mind. According to Carlie’s chart, the timing wasn’t right. And Kevin was dead.

  So the baby had to have been Ben’s.

  He probably never knew how close he’d
come to being a father. Tracy wondered how he would feel if, and when, he ever found out. She smiled a little wickedly and was grateful that Carlie hadn’t been able to carry the kid to term.

  So, now, Tracy wasn’t really too worried about Carlie Surrett. Concerned, but not worried. She climbed into her little Pontiac. Humming to herself, she started the ignition. If Ben didn’t call tonight, well, she’d just have to drum up a reason to contact him. It was as simple as that.

  * * *

  CARLIE BRACED HERSELF. Her father had been moved home and, according to her mother, was cranky and irritable, tired of being cooped up. Opening the door, she heard the argument drifting from the dining room.

  “I’ll talk to him myself!” her father bellowed. “Fitzpatrick can’t pull the rug out from under me. Not after all the years I’ve put in with the company! Damn it all, where are my cigarettes?”

  Carlie started through the living room.

  “The doctor told you—”

  “I know what he told me and I said I’d cut down. But I’m not about to stop cold turkey.”

  “Weldon, it’s been nearly two weeks and you haven’t had one. Why start now and—”

  “Hi!” Carlie interrupted brightly as she breezed into the room. The dining room table had been shoved against the wall and a hospital bed had been set under the window.

  Her father, half reclining, was glowering at his wife.

  “You don’t really want to smoke, do you?” Carlie’s mom asked anxiously.

  “Damn straight I want a smoke.”

  “Dad—”

  “Don’t you get on me, too. You women!” Muttering under his breath Weldon reached into the drawer of the night table that had been placed near his bed, but came up empty. As he scowled angrily, he slammed the drawer shut and muttered under his breath. “And where the hell’s my chew?”

  “Weldon—” Thelma said.

  “Hell!”

  Carlie sat on the foot of the bed. “Hey, Dad, give it a rest, will ya?”

  “Take it easy. Give it a rest. A lot you know,” he grumbled. His color was back to normal and he was talking much more clearly. His face, too, had improved, though there was a little droop at one corner of his mouth.

  “Let me handle Fitzpatrick,” Carlie said, smoothing the folds of the old quilt.

  “This is my fight, kid.”

  “I know, but I’m out there anyway, taking pictures.”

  “You stay out of it.” His tone brooked no argument and his eyes, sunken farther into his head than they should have been, sent her a glare that could have cut through steel. “I mean it.”

  “Don’t worry about Thomas Fitzpatrick.”

  “I’m not concerned about that old buzzard, but I sure as hell want my job back!” He let out an angry puff of indignation. “And now the bastard has the gall to invite us to an engagement party for his daughter!” Weldon glared at his wife. “We’re not going. Not unless I get my job back!”

  Thelma’s lips pursed. “Don’t be rash.”

  “I’ll be anything I damned well please, and I sure would like a smoke!” He started coughing then settled back on the pillows. “It’s hell to get old, Carlie-girl.”

  “You’re not that old, Dad.”

  He smiled. “What’s that they say—it’s not the years, it’s the miles? Damn it all anyway.”

  Carlie sat down and held her father’s work-roughened hand. She wanted to set him straight about his job and his health, to beg him to take care of himself, to ease his mind about his finances, but the arguments forming on her tongue went silent when she saw the nearly imperceptible wag of her mother’s head, cautioning her that it would be best to let the subject drop.

  “What’ve you been doing?” Thelma asked, turning the conversation in a new direction.

  Carlie spent the next hour talking about her job, avoiding mention of the logging company and keeping Ben’s name from the discussion. The less her family knew about her tenuous relationship with Ben, the better. She stayed another forty-five minutes with her folks, but felt more than a little depressed when she was leaving. Her father had refused to be jollied into a good humor and her mother was obviously worried about him.

  “He’ll be better in a few days,” Thelma said, hope in her voice as she held open the screen door for her daughter. “The physical therapist says he’s improving much faster than they’d expected.”

  “It’s his will of iron,” Carlie replied.

  “We’ll just have to give him time to get used to all this. It’s new to him, you know. And he’s worried that we might have to move into something a little cheaper, something with only one level.” Thelma sighed and leaned on the door. “It’s not as bad as he makes out. We’ve saved all our lives, and we have a little nest egg. Unfortunately, your father thinks it’s the size of a hummingbird egg and he thinks we need an ostrich egg.” Thelma managed a thin smile. “Things’ll get better.”

  “I’ll stop by tomorrow,” Carlie promised as she dashed through the rain, sidestepping puddles on the way to her Jeep. She rammed the rig into reverse, turned around and tried not to let her father’s depression settle on her shoulders. It was times like these when she wished she had a sister or a brother to share the load. She envied Rachelle and Heather. Even though they’d fought like cats and dogs while growing up, the bond between them was deep and when the family had split up, the two sisters had rallied together.

  Carlie stared through the raindrops gathering on the windshield and flipped on the wipers. Even Ben had Nadine, a sister who was as stubborn as he was bullheaded. Though Kevin was dead and their family had been ripped to shreds, brother and sister were still friends, still staunch allies.

  Nadine’s marriage to Hayden Monroe had been a strain on the relationship, but it seemed as if Ben was now grudgingly accepting his new brother-in-law.

  Carlie blew her bangs out of her eyes as she thought of Ben. Despite everything she’d told herself about protecting her heart, about avoiding him because he was trouble with a capital T, about staying away from a man who was as dangerous as a loaded gun, she still found excuses to be with him.

  He’d called and invited her to a movie. She’d accepted and though the picture had been dull, they’d laughed about it together. They’d met for lunch in Coleville twice in the past week and they’d even bumped into each other at Fitzpatrick Logging where Ben had been contracted to restore some of the company buildings that needed work. Thomas had told her not to take any photographs of the buildings until Ben’s crew had given the offices a “face-lift.”

  They hadn’t so much as kissed since the night she’d found him in her apartment, hadn’t even touched. Nor had he surprised her again in her own home. She’d met a couple members of his crew, subcontractors hired to update the plumbing and wiring, others who were scheduled to paint and refinish the floors, but Ben himself hadn’t been around and she was surprised at the disappointment she’d felt that he hadn’t bothered to stop by.

  “That’s the way you wanted it,” she told herself as she got home and unlocked the door of her apartment. Shrugging out of her coat, she dropped her purse on the floor before sifting through her mail. Bills. Receipts. Advertisements. Investment opportunities. And one handwritten envelope with the return address of Fitzpatrick.

  Her own personal invitation to Toni Fitzpatrick’s engagement party, which was slated for the weekend of February fourteenth, near Valentine’s Day.

  Wonderful. Another way to remember romance and the celebration of love. She tossed the invitation onto the counter and watched the raindrops sheet down the window over the sink. Would Ben be invited? If so, would he bother to attend a formal party? Even though he worked for Fitzpatrick, there was no love lost between Ben Powell and Thomas Fitzpatrick, the man who had a stranglehold on the town of Gold Creek.

  Time would t
ell.

  * * *

  BEN SLID THE finished blueprints across the kitchen table. “Voilà.”

  While his crews were out hauling debris and preparing the site for Nadine’s cabin, or scraping the peeling paint off the old Hunter house or checking the wiring, insulation and roofing at Fitzpatrick Logging, he’d put in hour after hour at the computer. Finally, after his rough draft was complete, he’d met with an architect-friend again, made sure that the building was as sound as it was eye appealing, then made the final revisions to his plans.

  Nadine, her green eyes twinkling, slowly unrolled the plans. As she looked at the front elevation of her new cabin, she shook her head. “This is a little more elaborate than I had in mind.”

  “Hayden insisted on his input, as well.”

  She sighed, but smiled at the drawings as she flipped through the oversize pages. “Three bedrooms, and a loft, plus a den with sewing alcove. And what’s this—four—no, three bathrooms.”

  “A concession to you.”

  “The original cabin only had one.”

  “Resale value.”

  Her lips compressed. “I’m not reselling. Not ever.”

  Ben laughed. “Why do you want it, Nadine? You’re married now. You live in a damned mansion—” He swung his arm around the kitchen of the Monroe Manor, trying to impress upon her the width and breadth of the house. “And you’re rebuilding right across the lake? I hate to be the one to tell you this, sister, but it doesn’t make a whole lotta sense.”

  She bristled slightly, her pencil wiggling in agitation between her fingers. “That cabin was the only security my boys had, and now, with Sam still out of work…” She frowned at the thought of her ex-husband who was still recovering from the burns that covered his hands and upper arms, burns that were the result of the fire he’d inadvertently started, the fire that had destroyed Nadine’s house. “I want to make sure John and Bobby and whoever—” she said, patting her still-flat tummy, as if she were caressing the baby growing therein “—aren’t robbed of their education.”