28. Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
Frankie
“ W here’d you learn to do that?” Frankie purred as the warm, yeasty scent bloomed throughout the cabin.
“Didn’t everyone learn how to make bread from scratch a few years ago when we were all stuck at home with nothing to do?” Benjamin tapped on the crusty shell of the loaf. Nodding with satisfaction at the hollow tone, he removed it from the Dutch oven and set it on the table to cool.
“Some of us tried and failed miserably.” She stood beside him, sniffing up all the fresh carb smell her nose could hold.
“Perhaps I’m gifted.”
“Resorting to stroking your own ego these days, are we, professor?” She pinched his side and gulped at the feel of solid muscle beneath his shirt. He swatted at her with the flour-dusted towel, and she yelped when it cracked just below her rump. “Ouch, watch it!”
“I have exceptional aim too.” He waggled his eyebrows as a gleaming white smile split wide across his handsome features. The stubble he’d grown over the last few days, paired with his rumpled hair, softened him in a way that made him more approachable. It had Frankie thinking that if she'd come across him at The Rooftop Tavern in Leavenworth, she might’ve considered chatting him up. He gave off a softer vibe, in a ruggedly handsome way of course. Not that he wasn’t sexy as hell in a suit with his hair immaculately styled and a fresh shave, but she liked him better this way.
She’d spent the better part of the day creeping on her cabin mate as they did whatever random things they could think of to pass the time.
Especially when he did his little workout routine.
Benjamin had mentioned running every day and complained that he felt antsy because he hadn’t been able to in a while or something like that. Honestly, Frankie wasn’t really listening because she was too busy drooling. Hiding behind an ancient issue of National Geographic , she kept sneaking peeks. The magazine fell from her hands completely when he started doing lunges.
Following breakfast, they’d clawed their way through the storm to the little woodshed out back and gathered a few more logs. Frankie collected and boiled snow to replenish their drinking water then switched to a desperate insistence on filling the solar shower to bathe later. Benjamin had laughed at the “unnecessary” task. But no amount of scoffing from him would deter her from her mission.
Midday, as Benjamin lumbered around the main room, practically swaying on his feet, Frankie insisted he take a nap on the bed. It took some convincing and a little shoving, but he finally agreed, waking up two hours later in a seriously improved mood. They played a couple dozen rounds of cribbage—in which each win earned the victor a point that could be added up and cashed out from a list of “prizes” they’d agreed upon in advance. Frankie had eventually hit that stride she’d been blabbering on about and led the final point tally sixteen to eight.
All the while, the snow dumped around them, the wind practically vibrating the little cabin off its weathered foundation. One thing was clear as ice: They were staying another night.
In the cabin.
Still alone .
Together.
And for whatever sadomasochistic reason, Frankie wasn’t really bothered by it.
She rubbed her ass cheek that still stung from where Benjamin had snapped her with the towel and glared as he set about finishing dinner. Sitting in one of the chairs with a cup of warm tea in her hands, a beautifully sculpted man at the stove, and the lingering scent of fresh bread swirling around her, Frankie secretly hoped this fantasy could last a little longer.
Is this what Stockholm syndrome feels like?
She shook herself, appalled at her misguided musings. They weren’t playing house. And while Benjamin was beautiful, and an incredible kisser, he had treated her horribly with zero remorse while she was his student. Why did she continually have to remind herself of that? Getting along with him enough to make it through this ordeal was all that was required of her.
So why did she want more than to merely survive with him?
“ Bon appétit ,” he sang, setting a bowl in front of her and retrieving the still-warm loaf of bread. He ripped off a chunk and handed the rest to Frankie, who followed suit. She sank her teeth into the soft, chewy center and used a piece of the flaky crust to scoop up a bite of rice and beans similar to the dinner she’d prepared the night before.
“Ohhh yeahhh.” The meal was perfection, and she frowned at that fact. “How did . . . what? I made the exact same thing last night. Why is yours so much tastier?”
“It’s called salt.” He smirked through ravenous bites.
Frankie considered flicking a spoonful in his direction but decided it’d be a crime to waste any of the delicious dish. Instead, she rolled her eyes and ripped off another hunk of bread.
“Did you camp much as a kid?” she asked, chewing thoughtfully .
“No,” Benjamin clipped, shaking his head. “We weren’t the camping type of family.”
“What type of family were you?”
“The broken type.” He hadn’t meant to let that sentiment pop out; his expression made that little fact obvious. But he relaxed his shocked eyes and shrugged.
“Divorce?”
“Just like half of the U.S.” His sigh was resigned.
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
“That must have been hard.”
“Divorce is never easy, Francesca.” His hard stare froze her in place. Sweeps of sadness and shame rippled over his stern features, and Frankie found herself desperate to know the layers beneath his comment. Then she remembered what he had done for work before teaching at Northwest Washington University.
“At the welcome banquet, Jon mentioned you were a divorce attorney?”
“Are you asking or stating fact?”
“Don’t ‘professor’ me with your Socratic bullshit, Benji . We’re equals now that the quarter’s done.” She smiled sweetly, happily making him squirm for once.
“But you haven’t received your final grade yet.” He leaned back, arms crossed.
“And when were you going to get around to handling that?” She shoveled in another bite, brows raised.
“I don’t,” he conceded. “I already gave my TAs the rubric that they use to score the finals.”
“Like I said,” she chirped, scooping stray flakes of bread and crumbs into her palms and dusting them off into her empty bowl. “Equals.”
“There are some things I’d like to move on from. Rehashing the past leads to nothing good.”
“You mean besides closure?”
He said nothing, only bored his eyes deeper into hers.
But she was immovable.
“Five cribbage wins.”
“You can’t be serious—”
“As a heart attack. I’m cashing in. We agreed that five wins could get an answer to one question. My question is: What was it like being a divorce attorney?”
Benjamin released his crossed arms and raked his fingers down his face.
“Soul-sucking, guilt-inducing, made me feel like the scum of the earth.” He appeared suddenly tired, almost older in his exhaustion—all the cheery effects of his earlier nap gone.
“Why?”
“I answered your question.”
“Five more points, then,” she responded to the emphatic shake of his head and downward gaze. “Why?”
“Because it made me feel like my father.” His ocean eyes darkened into tumultuous swells, hinting at the squall that never quite quieted inside of him.
“Five more points.” His shoulders tensed, jaw flexed. She saw it and still pressed further. “What did your father do that makes you so disgusted to be like him?”
She thought she saw a glistening of moisture in his tormented eyes. The rise and fall of his chest morphed from slow and steady to labored and jagged, like he’d just finished another set of lunges in the middle of the small cabin. The urge to retract her question was strong, but she had to know. Curiosity won over in her quest to understand the depths of the man who had once been her terrifying professor.
“Benjamin.”
“He’s the reason my mother is dead.”