Chapter 3
“Ben? What are you doing here?” I whisper-shout right back at him.
The motion-sensitive floodlight shuts off, leaving him illuminated in silvery moonlight.
With the familiar way he sways back and forth on his feet and how the night camouflages any sign of age in his features, I swear I could have fallen years back in time, and that could be seventeen-year-old Ben standing in my backyard with a hand full of pebbles.
“Can we talk?” he asks. “Please?”
“Uh…” Completely thrown, I glance down at my ratty tee and pajama pants. “Give me a minute.”
I pull my upper body back inside the window and fasten the latch, then collapse against the nearest wall and study my room as if painted on my walls somewhere I’ll find the answer to why Ben Carter is standing in my yard.
But I don’t have time for that because Ben Carter is standing in my yard! Shit! Shit! Shit!
I pull in a deep breath and summon practical, controlled Mona’s return. Ben’s waiting, and he just wants to talk. It’s fine. Completely fine. One hundred percent fine.
Looking around my room again, I see the only shoes available to me are the heels I wore to work, and as much as I love the idea of Ben seeing me in these pajamas, I refuse to further embarrass myself by adding stilettos to this ensemble.
A fleeting moment passes where I hastily debate changing back into my entire work outfit, but then that seems like I care a little too much.
Doesn’t it?
Do I?
Screw it. Pajamas and bare feet it is.
I do take a moment to put my bra back on because I’m not a free spirit like that. Then I slowly slide my bedroom door open and tiptoe downstairs, holding my breath as if getting caught sneaking out is still a punishable offense at age thirty-one. Knowing my father, it just might be.
The latch on the front door clicks softly into place behind me, ensuring my stealthy escape has gone unnoticed, and I blow out a relieved exhale.
But then I have a new, much more pressing problem. As of today, I’m thirty-one years old and still afraid of the dark. Well, to be frank, afraid doesn’t cut it. I’m fucking petrified.
I have my reasons. Reasons involving a neighborhood game of hide-and-seek gone horribly wrong the summer before I turned ten.
Reasons involving the antique chest in my parents’ bedroom and an ill-conceived idea of the best hiding spot ever!
Reasons involving getting trapped in that chest for nearly an hour when the outer latch snapped closed after I’d lowered the lid, confining me in the tiny space in a darkness so consuming I’d screamed until my voice went hoarse and pounded my fist against the cedar until I lost all feeling in my hand.
I still have nightmares about it—my petite body stuck with my legs drawn into my chest and my chin pressed against my knees with barely any room to breathe.
The heat of the stale air and the musty smell of the only other occupant—a pile of quilts knitted by my grandmother’s grandmother or someone else of familial significance—that I’d simply shoved to the side in my hurry to hide.
(Marcus never counted the full twenty-five Mississippis and everyone knew it!)
No one came for me for the longest time, and I knew—even at nine—I was going to suffocate in that chest. But then, as my screams turned to muffled cries with the loss of my voice, the lid miraculously flipped open, and there was the most beautiful set of apple green eyes staring down at me, my new favorite color.
Ten-year-old Ben held out his hand and helped me climb from the trunk, and as soon as I was safe, I wiped my tears away and made him pinky-promise not to tell anyone ever about what happened.
I felt so dumb to have made such a dangerous error, and I didn’t want to hand my brothers any ammunition to use to make fun of me.
Ben twisted his pinky with mine, and he never told anyone my secret.
At least that’s my assumption, though I learned years later that Ben doesn’t always honor his promises.
Because he’s the only person who knows why I’m afraid of the dark, I assumed he’d be waiting for me here at the front door, but he must have forgotten about my phobia. Not entirely surprising since we don’t really know each other anymore.
Cold sweat dampens the back of my neck.
Where is he?
I have limited time before the motion-activated floodlight above shuts off, and my brain screams to go back inside where it’s safe. Maybe if I run to the back of the house, I’ll set off the other floodlights and stay submerged in light.
It’s a risk but…
Sprinting toward the back of the house, I bounce on the balls of my bare feet and keep my eyes glued to the ground to avoid any rocks or sharp objects.
My plan proves spot-on as I round the side corner and another light clicks on above me, illuminating the damp grass passing beneath my feet.
And it’s precisely because my fear forces me to make such careless haste that I round the back corner of the house without looking up and collide, hard, with Ben’s chest.
Ben’s lean, muscular chest.
Which I know because my fingers now spread across his sternum.
“Shit, Mona, I’m sorry.” His breathless voice is somewhere near my ear, his hands wrapping around my elbows to steady us both. “Are you okay? I thought you’d come out the back door. You always come out the back door.”
Always is a peculiar word choice when we haven’t actually done this in over a decade.
I lift my head to meet his gaze, but I don’t remove my hand from the soft cotton of his shirt, a small comfort in this stress-fueled situation. I barely refrain from twisting the material between my fingers. “I’m fine.”
I’m not fine.
I’m not fine because already the background blurs as my immediate senses heighten; the same reaction I had to Ben all those years ago.
His fresh cottony scent surrounds me like I fell into a basket of newly laundered clothes.
The familiar timbre of his voice echoes in my ears, a soothing comfort unlike any other.
His warm, calloused fingers make my skin burn beneath his touch.
Despite my earlier musings that Ben and I don’t know each other anymore, no one sent that memo to the rest of my body, which reacts to his as if there hasn’t been a single day since we were last together.
The urge to rise onto my tiptoes and press my body against his is—
Ben’s hands drop away from me, breaking the spell.
Snapped from my trance, I jerk my hand away from his chest, dropping it to my side and discreetly shaking it out.
“I, uh…I just came to talk.” Ben shoves his hands deep in the pockets of a dark gray utility jacket he wears over the same white henley from earlier today. “You looked rattled when you saw me today. I hope I didn’t upset you.”
“Rattled? No,” I lie. At the dubious furrow of his brow, I amend by adding, “I mean, I was surprised, that’s all. It’s been fourteen years.”
Is that too precise? Does it seem like I’ve been counting the days? I should’ve rounded up and gone with fifteen.
“Yeah. Wild coincidence, huh?” He casts a glance over his shoulder to where the manicured grass of the backyard gives way to the lush woods lining the property. “You up for a walk down to the lake?”
At the mere mention of the spot where we spent endless summer days—and nights—together, I’m assaulted with a forceful blow, as if I stepped off a curb and didn’t see the Mack truck headed my way.
“I’m barefoot,” I manage, regaining my bearings. “I can’t walk through the woods like this.”
Ben dips his head, eyes falling at my feet. “Right. Sorry. Stupid idea anyway.”
Somewhere off in the distance an owl hoots an urgent warning. I wonder if it’s intended for me. “Ben, why are you here?”
“I told you. I wanted to talk.”
“No, I mean, why are you in Hudson Springs? At my parents’ house? How’d you know I’d be here?”
He keeps his head downcast, blocking any view of his expression. “I came back to town a couple months ago to finally clean out Mom’s place. I’m staying there while I get it ready to sell.”
“Oh.” I’d heard that his mother, Charlotte, passed away a couple years ago.
I didn’t know her well, at least not outside the parameters of “Ben’s mom.
” While Ben was a staple at the Miller house, I don’t think my brothers were ever at his.
I’d thought about reaching out when I’d heard the news from my mom, but I didn’t know how to go about it.
I no longer had Ben’s number or knew where he lived.
DMing my condolences via social media certainly hadn’t felt right, and from what I understood, there was no public funeral, only a private graveyard service for family.
Ultimately, I’d decided he had long moved on, and my sympathies would be another added to the list he felt obligated to respond to.
“Ben, I’m really, really sorry about your mom. ”
He lifts his chin, and I don’t miss the quick clench of his jaw, the brief grimace of unease. “Thank you.” Immediately, he clears his throat and changes the subject. “Anyway, I figured you might be around since it’s your birthday. Miller family traditions and all.”
The responsive quiver in my stomach is both unwelcome and illogical. Who cares if he remembers my birthday? “And what if you were wrong? What if the light in my bedroom was my father on his nightly walk-through to ensure the windows and doors are properly locked?”
“Then I would’ve run like hell.” Ben’s short, raspy laugh alleviates a bit of the tension between us. “Dr. Miller terrifies me, you know.”
“You and me both.” Unable to stop myself, I smile. And now we’re smiling together. Just like old—
Nope. Not going there.
My smile abruptly fades, and Ben’s follows close behind. Above us, the floodlight times out and plunges us into the dark of night. I suck in a deep breath as I startle.
“Shit. Hang on.” Ben quickly jogs down the side of the house and back, setting off the motion sensors once more and triggering the lights on both corners of the house. Returning to me, he asks, “You okay?”
I guess he does remember.
“I’m fine,” I manage.
In the triangle of artificial light, his green eyes shine as they search my face.
“Look, to be honest, I just want to make sure you’re okay with this,” he says earnestly.
“This is your job, your company. I’m the outsider here.
If you’re not comfortable with us covering this assignment together, I’ll drop out. ”
I fold my arms over my chest. “What makes you think I wouldn’t be comfortable?”
“Your face when I walked into Cal’s office today.”
“Cal?” I sputter. “He told you to call him Cal?”
Ben’s expression shifts to one of confusion at the unexpected switch in topic. “Is that not what everyone calls him?”
I’m so screwed.
If Calvin’s chummy enough with Ben to let him call him Cal, he must be downright desperate to have Ben join the company.
Which means my comfort level that Ben is concerned about matters exactly nil.
If Ben drops out at my request, I won’t be going anywhere other than the Newark Pumpkin Pie Fest for the rest of the year.
I can’t do it anymore. Food festival competitions are ruthless, the competitors deceivingly good-natured until you bite into an apple fritter where the sugar has been surreptitiously replaced with salt.
I’ve suffered the acid reflux of BBQ spiked with seven too many shakes of the hot-sauce bottle.
The main takeaway: I need Iceland. And in order to get there, I need Ben.
“Uh, no, that’s not what everyone calls him,” I reply, shuddering at the thought of a future filled with fried Oreos and all-you-can-eat funnel cakes. “Like I said, I was surprised to see you, that’s all. I’m perfectly comfortable traveling together. No worries there.”
“Mona, come on.” Ben tilts his head, surveying me. “I know you.”
The statement doesn’t sit right. Not after the way he left things. Not after years upon years of silence.
“Actually, you don’t know me anymore,” I bite out, harsher than intended but not undeserved.
His face falls, and the urge to apologize crashes over me like a tidal wave.
If it were anyone else, I would. I don’t chastise others or make them uncomfortable, even to my own detriment.
It’s not who I am. But with Ben, I was never able to wear that mask, or maybe he just always saw through it.
Either way, he’s the kryptonite to my No Worries!
persona. At least he used to be. For the sake of this perilous journey to Iceland together, I can only hope that’s no longer the case.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Ben turns his head and stares off in the direction of his childhood home down the street. “I guess I’ve said what I came here to say, so I should get going.”
I don’t respond, choosing instead to study his profile as a warm breeze ruffles the ends of his hair.
Different from before, his face is weathered with maturity, yet strikingly similar in a way that still calls to me.
There’s the slim, faded scar on the upper-left side of his forehead, from middle school when he and my brothers were roughhousing in the lake too close to the dock.
I remember my father stitching him up at the kitchen counter while I watched from the entranceway.
Then there’s the ever-so-slight bend to the bridge of his nose, earned sophomore year when he took an elbow to the face during a particularly heated soccer game against our cross-county rivals.
Eyes drifting farther down, I study the Cupid’s bow arch of the pouty lips I can almost still feel pressed against mine…
At my silence, Ben returns his attention to me and says, “At least let me walk you to the door.”
I nod, aware that we both know why he’s doing it and grateful he’s polite enough not to bring up my nyctophobia. Making our way around the side of the house, Ben stays close enough behind me that I feel the heat of his body at my back—a blessing and a curse.
Once I’m safely deposited on the porch with the front door cracked open and light spilling out from the foyer, I turn to Ben as he says, “I guess I’ll see you at the airport Monday.”
It sounds more like a question than a statement, so I nod my confirmation. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”
“Okay. Good.” One corner of his mouth quirks into an uncertain grin. “I guess good night then.”
He turns to leave, and I watch the familiar gait of his long strides as he jostles down the porch steps and driveway, pausing at the end to turn back to me once more. “Oh, and Mona,” he calls out, “happy birthday.”