She shrugged, but her project was pitch-perfect.
“Hey, great job.” He crouched down to her eye level, and she smiled the spitting image of Pink’s smile—without the missing front teeth, of course. Unlike her sister, however, she didn’t say a word, which had his heart rolling over in his chest and exposing its tender underbelly. He ruffled her hair, as he had Pink’s. “Maybe you should come to my work and be my assistant,” he said.
She nodded vehemently.
“Problem is,” he said, unable to believe he was going to say this, “my assistant would have to talk.”
Pink leaned in and whispered something in her twin’s ear. Kendra listened avidly and then turned her head and said something in Pink’s ear.
Pink nodded and looked up at Ben. “She says she wants to be your assistant, but I’d have to come along so I can tell you whatever she needs to say.”
Knowing he’d been outsmarted, Ben tossed back his head and laughed. Then he met Kendra’s gaze. “Smart girl.”
Kendra gave him a thumbs-up.
That night after he dropped them off at their foster home—taking yet a third hard squeeze to his heart as they vanished inside the house—he drove straight to Seattle.
To Bob’s Auto Shop.
He walked right past a scowling Bob and Ed. If they wanted another fight, he was perfectly willing to give them one, but neither man stopped him.
He found Dan on his back beneath a Jeep and kicked the cart to get his attention.
Dan rolled himself out and stared up at Ben. “What do you want?”
“You being a dad to your daughters, for starters.”
Dan’s mouth tightened. “We going to do this again?”
“You’re a f*cking idiot,” Ben said. “You know that, right? You have these two perfect little girls, and you don’t even see them. Explain that to me.”
“Already did.”
“Do it again.”
Dan flung the wrench in his hand against the wall with shocking violence.
Ben didn’t move a single inch, just arched a brow.
“F*ck,” Dan said beneath his breath. He stood up, and though he still barely came to Ben’s shoulders, he stepped toe-to-toe with him. “I come from shit.”
“So?”
“I went to prison.”
“Yeah, I looked that up,” Ben said. “You told me it was a bogus charge, but I had to check for myself. The police were feeling pressure from the DA to make an arrest, and you had a juvie record that matched, so the charges stuck. But the rumor is that you really didn’t do it.”
Dan looked away. “Rumors don’t mean dick in a court of law.”
“You have a house.”
“It’s small and needs work,” Dan said.
“It’s in a good school district,” Ben said, and at Dan’s look of surprise, he nodded. “Yeah, I checked that, too. You’ve got a decent job.”
“I work for ex-cons.”
“Who did their time and turned things around.” Ben shrugged at Dan’s stare. “I’m good at research. These guys are family men, with kids. They’re running this business clean and in the black, and they care about you.” He paused, and then dropped the ace in the hole. “And then there’s your sister.”
Dan’s eyes hardened. “Leave her out of this.”
Ben liked the protective reaction, but he wasn’t going to leave anything out. “You share your house with your twenty-five-year-old sister, who’s just graduated college—thanks to you, by the way,” Ben added. “She’s working as a second-grade teacher. You’ve got a built-in support system.”
Dan looked baffled. “Why do you even give a shit about me?”
“Oh, I don’t give a shit about you,” Ben said. “I give a shit about your daughters—two sweet, adorable five-year-old girls who deserve a whole hell of a lot better than being deserted in a foster home.”
Dan stared at him. “I don’t even know where to start, man. They must hate me.”
“You start by exercising your rights to visitation. You get to know them. You’ll see. Neither of them has the capacity to hate.”
Ten minutes later, Ben was heading back to Lucky Harbor. Exhausted, he strode through his place, intending to go straight to bed, but there was Jack on his couch, feet up on the coffee table next to an empty bag of chips—Ben’s—and two empty beer bottles, also Ben’s. Jack’s head was back, his mouth open. He was fast asleep. Next to him, equally sprawled out, equally dead to the world, was a snoring Kevin.
Nothing snored louder than a Great Dane.
Except maybe Jack. Ben gave his cousin’s leg a nudge. Actually, it was more of a kick.
Jack sat straight up, instantly alert. “Wha—Did I miss the alarm?”
“You’re off duty. And you don’t fight fires anymore, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” Jack scrubbed his hands over his face. “What the hell time is it?”
“I don’t know. Why are you here? Where’s Leah?”
“Leah’s at book club night. At your girlfriend’s bookstore, as a matter of fact.”
“Aubrey’s not my girlfriend. You ate all my chips and drank my beer?”
“Yeah. You’d gone to the grocery store and I hadn’t.”
Made perfect sense. Ben had certainly done the same to Jack enough times. Living next door to each other made it especially easy.
“I saw the dollhouse in the garage,” Jack said.
Well, hell. “So?”
“So you haven’t built anything like that since Hannah.”
“Don’t read anything into it,” Ben said. He sure as hell didn’t want to. He also didn’t want to think about how he’d stalked the bluffs until he’d found the sole house with a dollhouse on the porch. Or how he’d then gone to the hardware store and spent a small fortune buying the materials for the replacement dollhouse he was making Aubrey.
Or why he was making it in the first place.
He plopped down in between Jack and Kevin. Kevin immediately crawled onto Ben’s lap for a hug. Obliging, Ben wrapped his arms around the huge dog, giving him a full-body rub that had Kevin groaning in ecstasy. Then he burped in Ben’s face.
“Your dog smells like my chips,” Ben said.
“He might’ve had a few.”
Ben leaned back and closed his eyes.
“You’re not going to talk about what you’re building in the garage?” Jack asked.
“No.”
“Okay, then I’ll talk. At first, I didn’t approve of Aubrey for you.”
At this, Ben slit open his eyes and looked at Jack. “Didn’t approve? What the hell are we, eighteenth-century virgins?”
“I didn’t approve,” Jack said again, “because I thought she wasn’t your type. You’re quiet. You’re introspective. You don’t like flash. You’ve had a lot of shit in your life, and you came out on top. You’re one of the strongest people I know, and whenever I need anything, you’re at my back, no questions asked.”
“Yeah? Maybe you could learn something from the no-questions-asked thing.”
“Don’t be an a*shole,” Jack said. “Hannah was such a great match because she was like you, very much so. I always thought when the day came that you landed yourself in another relationship, you’d need that same quiet strength she possessed, just like yours. But I was wrong. Aubrey is a force. She’s not quiet. She’s not easy. But in her own way, she’s really good for you. She brings you out of your shell. She challenges you. She keeps you on your toes.”