Ready-Made Family (8 page)

A
melia had never been so glad to enter a checkout lane. For once, she didn’t experience dread that she’d get to the register and not have enough money with people looking on.

She faced Ben. “Had I known Glorietta planted two one-hundred dollar bills under the Provision page, I’d have tried to give it back.”

He rolled the cart to the back of the long line. “That’s why she had to be sneaky.”

But thanks to Glorietta’s stealth and kindness, Amelia not only had enough to pay for nonperishable groceries for her and Reece, she could cover today’s picnic lunch.

“It feels good to be able to do for another person.”

“Hey, Ben.”

Amelia turned. A statuesque blonde and three other very beautiful girls eyed her and Ben with curious interest.

“Hey, Brenna.” He nodded to the other girls. “Ladies.”

To Amelia’s surprise, his gaze didn’t linger lewdly on them or wander in a wanton manner like Reece’s dad’s had when they’d been out somewhere and women walked by. In fact, warmth infused Amelia’s back as Ben’s hand settled
there, nudging her forward. She hadn’t realized she’d slipped behind him.

Ben smiled tenderly at her, and never moved his arm away. “This is my special friend, Amelia North, and her daughter, Reece.”

Special friend.

She was actually somebody’s special friend. Someone as wonderful as Ben.

What was a special friend? The concept sounded so foreign. Thankfulness consumed her. Even though Ben was probably just saying that to be nice so she didn’t feel awkward, the thoughtful gesture meant more than he could ever know. And how he’d deemed her unforgettable at the hospital. Wow. A guy who actually considered a girl’s feelings. They hadn’t gone extinct.

Brenna and her friends looked from Ben to Amelia. Though they smiled, Amelia sensed an underlying emotion. One she’d interpret as envy did she not know better. After all, she possessed nothing capable of causing another girl to be jealous. Then why did Brenna’s friends’ smiles seem forced?

A guy, wearing a Southern Illinois University sweatshirt and who appeared college age like the girls, sauntered up.

Brenna’s hand lifted in a gesture of introduction. “Cole, this is Ben Dillinger.”

Surprise flooded the student’s face. His mouth dropped open and stayed there. Cole’s eyes oozed more respect toward Ben than Amelia had ever seen in one man’s face for another.

Interesting.

Cole’s hand snaked out, grabbing Ben’s. “Airman Dillinger. I’ve heard
so
much about you and your team. You’re practically famous. It
rocks
to finally meet one of you. It’s so stinking cool that you got stationed at Refuge Air Base.” He kept shaking Ben’s hand until Ben slipped it from the overzealous grasp.

Cole patted himself frantically as though bugs skittered
over him. Then he swiped off his hat and extended it. “Dude, I mean, sir, can you please, please autograph this for me?”

Autograph? Practically famous?

Amelia tilted her head to study Ben. Who was he, really?

Cole looked starstruck as Ben took the black Sharpie and scribbled his name and something encouraging across the bill, then
Jeremiah 29:11.
A Bible verse? Now she
really
studied Ben.

“Awesome! You—your team, you’re American heroes, man, ah, sir.” His feet did a nifty little shuffle as he clutched the hat in his hands. “Wait until I tell my friends! They are sooo gonna hate me.” He looked close to combusting with excitement.

Ben shook his head and laughed. “If you say so.”

“Thanks, man. Thanks a lot for this! My buddies aren’t gonna believe it. I wish I had a camera to prove it. Dude, you have no idea how much me and my friends look up to you Ops guys, man—er—sir. Especially those of us looking to go in. We watch the PJ pipeline recruiting disc every time we’re at the DZ. I’d give anything to be a cone.”

Ben perked up at that. “No need for a camera. Show up at Refuge Drop Zone the second Saturday next month. Ask for me. Unless we get tasked somewhere, we’ll all be there. Bring the guys. Let’s hang for a few hours. Deal, dude?” He grinned.

Cole’s response was to squeal like a prepubescent kid.

“Pick your chin off the floor,” Brenna told Cole, whose knees had nearly hit the tiles at Ben’s invitation.

She dragged Cole away, eyeing them as she went. “Thanks, Ben. See you at the DZ. Nice to meet you, Reece. Hope to get to know you better, Amelia. I’ve never seen Ben smile so much. You must be a
very
special friend.” She winked.

Similar parting words rippled through Brenna’s friends as they departed, waving. Her heart pinched because they seemed the sort of popular girls who’d always overlooked or made fun of her. Or wouldn’t associate with Amelia because
they obviously didn’t run in the same circles. But Brenna’s words had seemed sincere.

Heat flushed Amelia’s face as the group exited the store. She knew they talked about her because they kept looking back over their shoulders and murmuring. Yet their faces smiled.

Ben bumped her shoulder. “They’re not maliciously whispering.”

“I’ve been the victim of enough high school pranks to know you’re right.” But those were the kind of whispers suggesting they were desperate to figure out what was going on between her and Ben and dying to know who she was. Of course, they wouldn’t have batted an eye at her had she not been in Ben’s company.

Regardless, for once, Amelia felt like she could hold her head higher. Someone like Ben wasn’t ashamed to be seen with someone like her. The longing to live in a small place like Refuge, where everyone seemed intent to help someone in need and show kindness to strangers, snuck up on her from nowhere.

Standing in the long checkout line, Amelia studied Ben. He avoided her direct gaze.

Amelia nudged his elbow with hers. “American hero?”

He shrugged, and unless the fluorescent lights played tricks on her eyes, his ears turned pink. “They’re just kids. They don’t know any better.”

“Ri-ight. Just who and what are you, Ben Dillinger? What are you not telling me?”

The sound of his velvet chuckle filled her ears with contentment. She loved the sound of his voice.

A little too much for her own comfort.

Mounting intrigue won out over her discomfort. An Ops guy? And what on earth was a cone? Wasn’t an airman someone in the Air Force? That would make sense. Ben certainly possessed a military bearing, now that she thought about it. And the guy had mentioned Refuge Air Base, though
she hadn’t seen it on the map. It could be one of those more secretive, unmapped military bases. She grew more intrigued with Ben by the second.

Amelia moved up in the line, now two away from being checked out. “Are you a fighter pilot?”

“Not hardly. With all due respect, I like to jump out of planes. Not fly them. Air combat takes a special breed. I love the sky, don’t get me wrong. But I’d rather be attached to a parachute any day than strapped behind F-18 or F-22 controls.”

That made it sound as though he’d tried it before.

Next up to check out, Amelia pulled out her wallet and thumbed through bills. Ben unloaded the cart’s contents onto the rolling counter.

So he was some sort of military parachutist with medical training. “I’ve heard of F-15s and F-18s. What’s an F-22?”

“Raptor. Most incredible stealth fighter on earth, in my opinion.”

The clerk rang up the items and announced the total. For once, anxiety didn’t clinch her stomach. Amelia handed over two large bills. “May I have change for the second one?”

“Five twenties be okay?”

“Great.” Amelia handed Reece a few dollars and change. “Here’s some spending money for you.”

Reece pushed bills through the slot of a collection box for a children’s cancer hospital, keeping only a quarter for herself.

Amelia’s heart melted. “That was nice, sweetie.”

“I watched about St. Jude’s on the TV with Grandma once. They help kids with cancer and I just want to make sure Bradley has everything he needs.”

Amelia hugged Reece.

Gathering sacks containing her purchases, Ben smiled down at them with a tender expression that made her mind go slow and her heart go fast. “You’ve done good with her, Amelia.”

Again his soothing voice rubbed against her like a soft sweater.

“Reece, one of these days we’ll introduce you to Bradley,” he said.

Her eyes lit up. “Really? Is cancer catching, though?”

He dug out his car keys. “Nope. It’s not contagious.”

Amelia sneaked a peek at Ben. Him suggesting Reece could meet Bradley hinted at seeing them in the future. She’d hoped he’d want to keep in touch but no way was she gonna make the first move. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t trust nice guys. She majorly didn’t trust her instincts.

Her error in judgment once had nearly cost Reece her life and Amelia the chance of raising her. Hopefully that had sharpened her senses about people.

Sure she struggled now. But things wouldn’t always be so. To trust a man again might prove too risky to her and especially Reece, who could grow attached. Better to keep safe boundaries.

Besides that, she never wanted to be in the position again of having to depend on other people for survival. She needed to continue to be independent. She vowed never to depend on a guy or anyone else, ever again. She could only count on herself.

Picket-fence families were fruitless fairy tales, and she couldn’t afford to entertain the vanity. Maybe Reece would be more fortunate in the glass-slipper department.

In the parking lot, Ben deposited their bags near his car then scooped tiara-topped Reece up on his shoulders and galloped all over the pavement, making outlandish horse noises with his mouth. Amelia ran to keep up, laughing so much that her stomach ached, her legs grew weak with the sprint and her face hurt from all the laughing.

“You play just like a kid, Ben.”
You’ll make a great dad
someday.
Tears from nowhere stung her eyes. For Reece not having a dad that cared about her. And for herself and the loss of a relationship with her own dad. She busied herself with buckling Reece in while Ben opened the trunk to stick the grocery bags in there. His groan pulled her up short, and she hit her head on the car door molding backing out of the car.

Ben stood at the trunk, eyeing a box in his hand as though it held the remains of a late, beloved pet.

She approached. “You okay?”

Somewhat dazed, he looked up. “Yeah. I am. This isn’t.” He lifted the object to show her.

“Eeww. What was it?” Amelia eyed the glob of chocolate at the bottom of a melted plastic mold.

“It was a chocolate Garfield. Musta melted in the heat.”

“It’s still chocolate. I bet it’d still be okay to eat.”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t for me.” He carried it with him to the driver’s side. “I can grab another one. It’s just, I’m bummed I forgot about this one.”

She entered the car through the passenger’s side. Ben really was being hard on himself. Since he didn’t strike her as the type to get easily bent, she had to wonder why. What was the significance about the Garfield?

He stayed silent until they reached Haven Street Park. He unloaded their lunch on a picnic table beneath a covered pavilion. Amelia broke Reece’s sandwich into small pieces then opened her kid-sized plastic milk jug. She sat down, stuffing a carrot stick in her mouth. Heat rushed her face.

Ben’s head was bowed and his lips moving.

Reece eyed Ben. “Mommy, why don’t we ever pray for our food?” she asked, after Ben lifted his head.

Now it was Amelia’s turn to avoid Ben’s curious gaze. “We just…got out of the habit. You can pray anytime you want.”

She fought the fear Reece would discover too soon Amelia had crossed a line she wasn’t sure she could ever come back
from. But if Reece wanted a relationship with God, Amelia applauded it.

“But I want you to pray, too,” Reece said between bites.

How could she tell Reece that God probably wouldn’t hear her? She couldn’t fake a prayer. What if Reece asked her to pray for something important and her faith shattered when it didn’t happen? No way could Amelia do that to her daughter.

Unexplained tension mounted. Amelia circled the picnic table in an attempt to evade heat from Ben’s precision stare. But it tracked her wherever she walked.

Amelia looked Reece in the eye, knowing she meant every word of what she was about to say. “Believe me, Reece. If
you
pray, God will hear. He wants you to talk to Him, okay?”

“’Kay. But I wish we could pray together sometimes. May I be excused?”

Amelia surveyed Reece’s near-empty plate. “Yes.”

Reece slid off the bench and scampered to the jungle gym.

Still corralling Amelia with his gaze, Ben patted the seat beside him. “I’ll make you a deal. You tell me what your rift with God is, and I’ll tell you why that kid wanted my autograph,” he said in matter-of-fact tones.