No matter how many times he reminded her his name was Ben, she still said “mister,” and now she’d taken to calling him Mr. Teacher, making him feel about a thousand years old.

“Real good,” Pink added, clearly impressed. She cocked her head, leveling him with those heartbreaker-in-the-making blue eyes. “Are all dads good with this stuff?” she wanted to know.

Another hard squeeze to his heart. He wasn’t sure if he’d survive her. “I don’t know.” And that was God’s truth. He really didn’t know jack about dads.

Pink nodded, accepting this with a wisdom that she shouldn’t yet have. “I wonder if our dad is,” she said softly.

“He is.” He could say that much with absolute certainty, happy to be able give her at least something to go on. And then, trying to avoid another barrage of questions, he shifted his attention to her twin. “How’s it going, Kendra?”

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**king 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.

“Fuck,” 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 asshole,” 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.”

“Thanks, Dr. Phil.”

Uninsulted, Jack smiled.

Ben didn’t. “I’m not getting involved with Aubrey.”

Now Jack laughed.

“Shut up. I’m not.”

“Okay. But you’re involved. Everyone knows it but you. Have you seen Facebook lately? Lucky Harbor’s favorite son—you—has a poll up on whether or not you should settle down with Aubrey. Odds aren’t in her favor at the moment.”

“Jesus.” Ben wasn’t amused by this. By any of it. “People need to mind their own business. Aubrey could do way better than me. And we have sex,” he said bluntly. “That’s not the same thing as being involved. Not everyone has the future on their minds, like you and Luke suddenly do.”

“I like her,” Jack said, no longer amused, either. “A lot. But I’m not saying marry her. I’m saying just relax a little bit and enjoy being back here in Lucky Harbor. Enjoy having a woman who looks at you the way she does. And you look at her, too, you know. I’ve seen you with those moon eyes.”

“Yeah?” Ben asked. “Well, shoot me next time.”

Jack ignored this. “I think it’s fair to say I know you like no one else does. This thing with Aubrey is different, and you know it.”

Ben thought of how she’d been trying to make a difference, giving the seniors a place to go, giving anyone who needed it a place to go. Hell, she was even excited about working with troubled teens. He thought about how she felt in his arms, how she made him feel in hers—like he was the best man she knew and the only one she wanted. She moved him at every turn, without even trying.

And he knew Jack was right. This thing, this…whatever it was that they were doing, it was different.

And different was terrifying. And he wasn’t ready to fall in love. He’d been there, done that, and it had flattened him. “I’ve told her, and now I’ll tell you,” he said. “I’m not looking for a committed relationship. I don’t have it in me right now.”

“Whatever you say, man.” Jack rose and snapped his fingers at Kevin.

Kevin squeezed his eyes tight and pretended to be asleep.

Ben found a laugh after all. “Leave him.”

“He ate chili tonight at the firehouse.”

“Take him,” Ben said.

Kevin sighed and jumped off Ben’s lap, farting as he did so.

“Thanks,” Ben said, waving the air in front of his face as he rose too.

“Yeah, should’ve warned you,” Jack said. “He’s got some serious hang time with those.” Jack gave Ben a look that said they weren’t closing the file on this subject.

Ben opened the door. “I’m okay, you know. I’m fine on my own.”

Jack met his gaze. “Yeah. But you’ve been on your own a long time. Maybe it’s time to try something new.”

Chapter 22

Once again Aubrey woke up to a text message that was making her phone vibrate on her nightstand. But this one was from Ben and read:

In the shop.

Odd, she thought. He’d never felt the need to announce his presence to her before. In fact, he seemed to get a kick out of surprising her.

A glance at her clock told her that she had half an hour to get up and get out to water Mr. Wilford’s pumpkin patch—which still wasn’t growing yet, damn it—and be back here to open on time.

But the text was making her curious. Rolling out of bed, she tiptoed down the stairs to see what he might be doing that he’d found it necessary to warn her about.

He was sitting on the counter in front of the coffee and tea station, sipping from a to-go cup from Leah’s bakery. She could tell by his clothes—slacks and a button-down shirt topped by a jacket—that he was going to his job. His real job. She’d seen him in jeans and a tool belt covered in sawdust, and she liked that look a lot. She’d also seen him in nothing. That particular memory gave her a flash of heat, because Ben in nothing was the hottest thing she’d ever seen. That was definitely her favorite look, but seeing him like this, a little dressed up, his broad shoulders stretching his dress shirt to its limits, the top button undone, his tie still loose, as though he weren’t quite ready to settle into work for the day, did something serious to her insides.

Get a grip. She tiptoed closer, wanting to catch him unawares, the way he always caught her. Two feet from him, she was grinning widely, like an idiot, her hands outstretched to scare him, when he suddenly twisted and locked eyes on her.

“Damn it,” she said.

“The top step creaks.”

“I should hire someone to fix that,” she said drily.

He didn’t answer. He was busy taking in the very skimpy tank top and tiny boy shorts she’d slept in. From the heat in his gaze, she could tell he liked the view. But when he reached for her, she took a step back, out of his range.

“Come here.”

Shaking her head, she covered her mouth with her hands. “Morning breath.”