Adversaries and Lovers (15 page)

“Yeah, well, she’s company.” Ben spooned a portion of omelet into Chloe’s bowl and placed Chloe in front of it. Kate refrained from telling him that eggs with onions and green peppers and mushrooms might not be the best diet for a kitten. The fact that he was fussing over Chloe like a mother hen over a chick was good for Ben’s soul. Ben filled their glasses with wine and set the plates with omelets and potatoes on the table, and sat opposite Kate. “What did you think of Ernie and Linda?” he asked.

Kate shrugged. “I liked them. They seemed very nice.”

“It appears you’ve picked up an ally in Linda.”

Kate took a bite of eggs, chewed thoughtfully, and said, “Is she always that affectionate with your women friends?” As soon as she’d said the words she realized they’d come out as a challenge, not a question.

The underlying meaning had not been lost to Ben. He took a slow sip of wine and said, “I haven’t been celibate over the past six years, but I haven’t had any women friends either. Women? Yes. But, women friends, not until you.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like a jealous wife," Kate said. "I only wondered if Linda was that affectionate with other women you’ve been involved with.”

“I haven’t been involved with any women before now either. Short, uninvolved affairs with willing women took care of the problem.” He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “And no, Linda didn’t give her approval or blessing to any of them, and justifiably so.”

Kate looked at his big hand on hers and wondered what constituted a short affair. One week? One month? Was her six week involvement with him longer than most because she was not a willing woman? There was no question as to his motives in bringing her to his place that first time; the futon was definitely ready and waiting. But if she continued to hold out for the man she intended to marry, would Ben wait? Or would he give up and move on?

Ben looked at her so intently, she suspected she’d hid nothing from him, which he affirmed by saying, “I don’t want a short affair with you, Katie. I wouldn’t mind if you were willing though. But I can be patient when I want something bad enough.” He gave her hand a squeeze and removed it to continue eating.

Kate took a sip of wine, looked at Ben over the rim of her glass, and said, “Well, you know what my position is, so I guess the question is, how long are you willing to wait?” She wished she hadn’t asked the question, because she had the terrible feeling she didn’t want to know the answer. There was a bond between them, undeniably, but was it strong enough to keep Ben at bay and wanting her while she deliberated whether to hold out until marriage? Was that what she was asking of him?

Ben gave her a half smile, and replied, “Honey, this isn’t about a quick roll in the hay. I'll wait as long as it takes.”

"A year?" she said, impulsively.

He leaned over the table, took her hand again, lifted it to his lips and gave her palm a kiss, then looked directly at her and said, "As long as it takes."

Kate felt her face flush. The fact was, she wanted more from him. She wasn’t certain how much more, but it was definitely more than a quick kiss on the palm. Images of being with Ben in the hot tub kept haunting her. He tipped his wine glass toward her, smiled knowingly, and said, "I'll toast to that."

She pursed her lips. “Am I that easy to read?”

“No, honey, you’re not that easy to read. But sometimes you send signals so strong I’d have to be comatose not to catch them.”

Kate expected him to use that as an opening to try to lure her into his bed, and there was no question he'd be catching her at a weak moment. But instead, his gaze moved beyond her, and he seemed to fall into the moody silence she was beginning to know. She glanced around to find the focus of his attention, and saw, through the opened doorway to his bedroom, that the photograph was no longer on his bed stand. Its absence somehow seemed a more powerful reminder of Gayle’s presence in his life than when the photograph stood in plain view. She wondered. Had he moved the photograph in anticipation of having her in his bed that evening? Or was he at last breaking free of Gayle’s hold on him?

For whatever his reason, clearly, the absence of the photograph disturbed him. She saw it in the lines of tension around his eyes, and the troubled frown on his brow. He said nothing, just continued to eat in silence, and she knew it would be a mistake to force his thoughts. In time, perhaps he’d open up to her. Then, maybe he never would.

CHAPTER NINE

After they’d finished eating, Kate offered to help with the dishes, but Ben insisted on doing them himself. He seemed preoccupied, so Kate let him be, amusing herself by enticing Chloe to jump this way and that after a fuzzy tail on a stick. But after Ben finished in the kitchen, he walked over to sit beside Kate on the futon. Drawing in a long breath, he rested his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers together, and for a while he sat with shoulders slumped, eyes fixed on space, and said nothing. Kate saw his jaw clench and his lips tighten, and she put the stick with the fuzzy tail aside and started rubbing his back and massaging the muscles of his neck. “Does that help?” she asked.

He nodded, but still, his thoughts seemed far away.

Kate regarded him silently for a few moments then said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Again, a silence stretched between them, and Kate was certain he’d retreated into his comfortable old armor. Then, to her surprise, he started talking. “We met when I was a senior in high school and she was a sophomore,” he said, brows gathered in memory. “We were both on the swim team. That year we each made the cut for the Junior Olympics, and we both brought home golds in our divisions. I went on to college and waited for her to graduate so we could marry, but she wanted to go to college too. So while I was waiting for her to complete college, I started Stassen Sports, and she went for a business degree and planned to help run the business.” He was silent for an extended period of time, and Kate wondered if that was all he intended to say. But after a deep intake of breath, followed by a long sigh, he continued. "It happened two months after she graduated from college. A gold medal swimmer and I couldn’t save her.” He cupped his forehead in his hands and sat, immobile.

Kate moved around to kneel in front of him and covered his hands with hers. “Terrible things happen in life that can’t be avoided, things that are no one’s fault. You can’t keep blaming yourself for what happened. And always trying to be in control of everything won’t change it either. But if you don’t let it go, Ben, it will destroy you.”

His head still in his hands, he said, “Don’t you think I’d let it go if I could? Do you have any idea how many nights I’ve lain awake in bed, trying to put it behind me?”

“Maybe you can’t put it behind because you’re trying to do it alone,” Kate said. “Short affairs with willing women can’t mend a broken heart.” After a while, when he still said nothing, she allowed the words beating in her head to escape. “I think you need a warm body to curl up with tonight, Ben, someone who truly cares about you.”

Ben lifted his head from his hands and when he spoke, it was almost in a whisper. “You have no idea how much I want that, honey, but what you’re offering right now I can’t accept.”

Kate looked at him long and searchingly. “Why?”

Ben brushed his thumb across her parted lips. “Because some weary devil in me won’t let me use the woman I care the most about as a crutch.”

“Is that what you think I’m offering, a crutch?”

“Ah Katie... You’ve saved yourself for your perfect mate.”

“That doesn’t matter right now.”

“It does to me because after it’s over I’d be living with guilt, and you’d be living with remorse. I won’t let that happen, not tonight, and not when you’re caught up in feeling sorry for me.” He sighed deeply, and said with a blend of weariness and self-assurance. “Honey, I didn’t intend to dump this on you. I can deal with it.”

“Maybe you can,” Kate said more firmly, “but sometimes it’s nice to have a shoulder to lean on too. Let me be that shoulder.”

Ben gave a slight shake of his head and said, “If I started leaning on your shoulder, sweetheart, it would start sagging, and I’d only be half a man.”

“That’s macho male blather,” Kate snapped. She moved to sit beside him again and curved her fingers around his hand and rested her head on his shoulder. Without looking at him, she said, “You don’t have to be a pillar of strength every minute of your life, Ben. No one will think less of you if they discover there’s a tiny chink in your armor.”

Ben pulled his arm free, curved it around her shoulders, kissed her on the forehead, and said, “If you stay around me long enough, you’ll discover more than one chink.”

Kate looked up at him and replied, “I look forward to that.”

Ben smiled, bemused. “What? Staying around me, or finding chinks in my armor?”

Kate returned his smile. “Both. And I’m glad you’ve finally started talking about Gayle.” She didn’t want Ben to retreat into his snug armor, so she pressed on. Gazing around the room, she asked, “Did Gayle like it way out here?”

Ben lifted his shoulders. “I didn’t own the place then.”

“Do you think she would have liked it?”

When he didn’t reply, Kate looked at him. He seemed to be having trouble answering. Finally, he said, “I don’t know. Maybe not. Gayle liked the city. We’d planned to buy a condo.”

“Is that what you wanted?”

Ben shrugged. “I never gave it any thought. I only bought this place after she... I bought it to get away from everything. Call it busy work.”

 “No, it’s not busy work,” Kate said. “Your metal gull coming in for a landing is not a hodgepodge of relics from a junk yard, and your cook stove is not a welded marvel consisting of a boiler, an old iron grate and a water reservoir, and your gargoyles aren’t just old friends. They’re works of art. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are an artist, and this place is your masterpiece. You, Ben Stassen, are an exceptional man.”

Ben's eyes softened and he smiled. “A guy could get used to this.”

Kate looked at him steadily. “That was my intention.”

***

The following week, Linda Barnes called Kate, and they made arrangements to meet for lunch. On the phone, Linda addressed her as Katie, a clear sign that Ben had been talking about her to Linda. The odd thing was, Kate felt at ease with the prospect of spending time with the mother of he woman Ben had loved nearly half his life.

At noon, when Kate arrived at the restaurant, Linda was waiting in the foyer. She gave Kate a hug and they found a table. Following Linda’s suggestion, they ordered cream of broccoli soup, peppered crab soufflé with button mushrooms, honeyed carrots, and rice pilaf. While they ate their soup, the conversation centered on the budding romance between Grandma and Henry Stassen. But gradually it shifted to Stassen men in general, and by the time the crab soufflés arrived, Ben was the sole topic.

Linda speared a carrot, and said, “Ben can be very overbearing at times. I was about to wring his neck the other night. I saw how irritated you were, and with good reason.”

Kate touched her lips with her napkin. “I’d hoped it didn’t show,” she said. “And yes, I was irritated with him. He seems to always need to be in control.”

Linda smiled and said, offhandedly, “I’m familiar with Ben’s take control behavior. It’s part of his protective mechanism with those he loves.”

Kate looked at her with a start. “But, Ben and I are just friends. Neither of us has said anything about love.”

Linda took a sip of tea. “No one has to, Katie. It’s obvious. I’ve seen Ben with women over the years and he’s never used endearments or acted like an overbearing and overprotective parent with any of them. Only with Gayle, and now you.”

“That may be,” Kate said, “but the fact remains, Ben is still in love with your daughter." She stabbed a button mushroom and popped it into her mouth

Linda leaned toward her and said, “He may always be in love with Gayle, but that doesn’t mean he won’t love again.”

Kate chewed the mushroom while considering Linda’s words, then said, with uncertainly, “I can’t imagine Ben in love with me. We disagree too much. Besides, if he loved me he wouldn’t build his corporate offices in Sellwood. It would destroy the lives of so many old people, including my grandmother, and he knows by now that I could never come to terms with that.”

“Ben’s a sharp businessman,” Linda said. “I’m sure he’s considered everything when making this decision, even the fate of the old people. He’s not an insensitive man.”

“He is in this case. He just refuses to see it,” Kate said, trying to keep her voice steady, realizing it was becoming agitated again. “If our relationship were to develop into anything more serious, I’d always feel like I came second to his business. That’s the sort of  A-type personality that destroys marriages and families. But I don’t know why I’m even talking like this. Like I said, Ben and I are just friends.”

A smile crept across Linda’s face. “Sweetie, you just keep believing that. Meanwhile, if you want to keep him around while you make up your mind whether to pursue something more serious, just allow him to feel he’s your knight in shining armor and he’ll be just that. Ben’s absolutely faithful to his lady love. But you have to understand, the fact that he failed to save Gayle almost destroyed him. Allowing himself to care again puts him in a vulnerable position.”

“I know how vulnerable Ben is right now," Kate said. "and how hard that is for a man as proud and private as he is.”

“He’s a fine man, Katie. Don’t discard him too quickly over this zoning issue.”

Kate looked across the table at Linda and envied Gayle having had her as her mother, and for the first time in years, she felt the raw-edged loss of her own mother. Although Grandma raised her from the age of thirteen, Kate missed having her mother to share moments of the heart. Grandma never filled that role. She gave Linda a reassuring smile. “I know Ben’s a fine man and I’ll keep an open mind until the zoning meeting. After that—” she shrugged. “We’ll just take things easy until then.” But Kate wasn’t at all sure things could remain on their
being friends
basis until then. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to maintain that pretense.