Shoreline Drive (3 page)

Rubbing her hands over her flushed cheeks, she pulled an embarrassed face. “Too much love—is that really possible? If so, well … too bad, because there’s not much I can do about it.” She lifted her eyes to his, glittering fiercely. “Alex is my whole life.”

Ben tried to swallow, startled at the tightness of his own throat. She was so passionate, intense in her devotion and open about showing it. Before he could think better of it, he said the words beating in his brain, barely managing to hold back the deeper truth of his heart.

“Alex is lucky to have you.”

He clenched his teeth around the rest.
Anyone would be lucky to have you in his life.

The line of her shoulders loosened even as her eyes widened a bit. He’d surprised her. “Thanks. I really needed to hear that today. And I’m sorry I jumped all over you. I know you’re not exactly Mr. Warm and Fuzzy—it’s dumb for me to expect that from you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me—I would’ve thought the pregnancy hormones would be out of my system by now!”

Ben, who’d recently hauled out his old medical school textbooks and done some brushing up on human pregnancy, childbirth, and the aftermath, shook his head. “The pregnancy hormones are long gone, along with any potential postpartum shifts in mood. Whatever you’re feeling now is all you, and the effects of your current life choices.”

Merry tossed her hair over her shoulder and gave him another of those gleaming smiles that somehow didn’t reach her eyes. “My life choices. Is this your version of the you-made-your-bed-now-suck-it-the-hell-up speech? Because not everyone in the world has unlimited options, Doc.”

Dismay clutched at Ben’s gut. This interaction wasn’t going well at all. Why this should be so hard for a person of his intelligence and education, he could never figure out. Frustration tightened his chest, and for one scorching moment, he hated himself.

Retreat was the only option he could see. Turning abruptly, he muttered, “No. Sorry. I should get to work.”

The sad part was, he acknowledged silently as he slipped into the dappled mare’s stall, he knew he’d be back again next week. Hope was an irritatingly resilient emotion, especially considering that the definition of insanity was running the same experiment over and over, and expecting a new result.

Insane. Because unless Ben somehow achieved a personality transplant, every conversation he ever had with the woman of his dreams was going to turn out exactly this way—crossed wires, misunderstandings, and distance.

*   *   *

Merry watched him go with a funny sinking sensation around her heart. It almost felt like disappointment—an emotion she ought to recognize instantly, after the trail of loser boyfriends stretching behind her, all the way back to Shawn, who’d written her a heartfelt love letter in second grade, then torn it to shreds when his friends laughed at him—but it made no sense.

She barely knew Ben Fairfax, except as the taciturn, abrasive large-animal vet who took care of her mother’s horses, as well as most of the animals of all sizes on Sanctuary Island. And she had no intention of getting to know him better. Considering the sizzle of attraction she felt every time she saw his perfectly sculpted jaw, his tousled dark hair, his broad, muscled back hunched over as he inspected a horse’s hoof … that way lay danger.

If Merry’s heart beat faster at every glimpse into Ben Fairfax’s intense gray eyes, it was a sure bet he was no good. Her track record with men didn’t lie.

And, oh yeah—Dr. Ben Fairfax also happened to be the man who had gotten more than an eyeful of Merry’s goodies when he braved a storm to deliver her baby.

And wasn’t that just about the most awkward thing ever? This man who clearly hated every moment of making conversation with her, impatience and annoyance all over his stern, sculpted countenance, had seen her red-faced and screaming, heaving and crying and sweating and
gross
.

Meanwhile, he’d had his hands up her skirt and all over her ladybits, and not in the fun way.

Even for a seasoned expert in repression like Merry, that was pretty hard to sweep under the rug and roll past. She had to give him credit, though—he didn’t look at her any differently now than he had before she spent two hours grunting in his ear.

Of course, that was partly because, since the moment Jo introduced them five months ago, he’d watched her with the same intent glare. A dark, searching glare that seemed to imply Dr. Ben Fairfax could see right through her veneer to what was underneath … and boy, was he unimpressed.

Clearly she was a glutton for punishment, because she couldn’t quite make herself leave the handsome, taciturn vet alone, the way he so obviously wanted.

Wandering over to prop her arms on the stall’s crossbeam, Merry watched attentively as Ben stooped and ran his strong, square hands down Oddity’s back leg. He was checking for any swelling or hot spots, she knew from pestering him with questions on previous visits. Apparently he didn’t find any because he got to the bottom of her leg and leaned his shoulder into Oddity’s side. With a gentle cluck, he said, “Come on, sugar. I know you’re tired, but I need to check your feet.”

Merry shivered again, but this time, she couldn’t fool herself that it was the evening breeze.

Ben turned into another person when he was around animals. All his rough edges sanded down to a smooth, comforting voice that tickled over her nerves like a feather. Merry knew she should go back to the office—nothing good could come from feeding her unwanted attraction with images of Ben’s big, careful hands sweeping gently up the mare’s sensitive legs—but she didn’t move.

With a sigh, Oddity picked up her back left hoof and allowed Ben to scrape away the accumulated dirt of the day with the pick he tugged from the back pocket of his jeans. Merry had to fight not to echo the horse with an appreciative sigh of her own at the way Ben’s jeans molded to his lean hips and cupped his rear.

The silence in the barn was oddly intimate, like a warm blanket cocooning the two of them away from the rest of the world. With a rising sense of the trouble she was courting, Merry broke the silence. “You’re later than usual today. Did you have a lot of calls?”

Ben didn’t jump—as usual when he was around the horses, all his moves were slow and deliberate, with the easy grace of a man accustomed to spending time around animals much larger and stronger than himself. But from the way he glanced over his shoulder at her, a wave of black hair tumbling over his forehead, she could tell she’d startled him.

The moment spun out, strangely charged and fragile as a Tiffany glass lamp.

Ben dropped their locked stare first, going back to his exam of Oddity’s hooves. “A few. Semi-interesting case of bloat out at Miss Ruth’s farm. But then Mr. Leeds called with a Pippin emergency.”

He straightened up and sent her a wry look over Oddity’s back, and Merry bit her lips over a smile. Percy was a fifty-two-pound bulldog who was the light of elderly Mr. Dabney Leeds’s existence—especially since his scheme to get his hands on her family’s ancestral home was foiled last spring.

Percy the bulldog was arguably the most spoiled, cossetted animal in the history of the world, living a pampered life of luxurious cashmere doggie beds, gourmet canned food, and designer outfits. Crotchety old Mr. Leeds adored him unreservedly—but his love was mostly unrequited.

The poor dog was frequently sick—at least, according to his worried owner, who had a subscription to WebMD and wasn’t afraid to use it. Ben had been called out for varying complaints ranging from canine restless leg syndrome to hiccups.

To top it off, Percy appeared to find the dainty costumes he was forced into to be the worst sort of torture imaginable. He was often seen around town wearing his tweed coat and miniature lace-up booties, straining at the end of his custom-tooled leather leash, a wild look in his bulging eyes.

“Oh no. What did Mr. Leeds think Percy had this time?”

“According to Mr. Leeds, he was concerned that after my last visit when I told him Percy needed to lose weight, the dog had become bulimic. Evidently, he’d been exhibiting binge-and-purge behavior.”

Merry grimaced in sympathy. “Lots of puppy puke, huh?”

“Oceans of it,” Ben agreed. “Of course, what Mr. Leeds failed to take into account was the fact that Percy’s so-called binging occurred when Mr. Leeds fed him foie gras as a special treat.”

Suppressing laughter, Merry cocked her head. “Well. I guess … it looks like dog food?”

“That was exactly his justification when I yelled at him for giving brandy-laced, fattened goose liver paste to a dog. This is why I hate the small-animal calls! Only in a backwater town like this would a large-animal vet get called in to tell a moron to stop giving his dog a fifty-dollar-a-pound purgative stuffed with black truffles.”

The aggrieved, long-suffering tone of Ben’s voice made Merry grin. “You know you love it here, Dr. Crankypants.”

He shot her an unconvincing scowl and she couldn’t help but smile.

He shook his head, loose wavy curls slipping into his eyes as he bent back to his task.

“Merry! Sweetie! Can you come here a sec?”

Jo’s voice echoed authoritatively through the quiet barn, and Merry couldn’t help it. She winced.

She’d wanted a closer relationship with the mother she’d been estranged from for most of her life—but maybe living together and raising baby Alex with Jo Ellen Hollister constantly looking over her shoulder and offering advice on everything from how long between feedings to when he should start crawling wasn’t the best way to go about learning to love her mother.

Checking on Ben, who appeared very absorbed in his examination of the sores she’d noticed earlier behind Oddity’s front legs, Merry blew out a steadying breath.

“Sure,” she called back, once she had her voice under control. There was no reason for Jo, or anyone else, to know that Merry was having a tough time figuring out how to be a good daughter.

I’m lucky,
she reminded herself.
I should be thanking my lucky, lucky stars with every breath. I have a home, and a family, and the most beautiful baby ever born.

“See you next week,” Ben called.

Merry glanced over her shoulder at the man in the shadows and felt another quiet shiver of warmth tingle down her spine, chasing the chill away. Nodding a hurried good-bye, she made her escape before he commented on whatever he’d seen with those laser-sharp eyes of his.

She had enough worries without falling prey to her old habit of obsessing over a guy. Especially one as harsh, sarcastic, and infuriatingly hard to figure out as Dr. Ben Fairfax.

Chapter Two

Ben laid a soothing hand on the mare’s warm, strong neck and watched Merry go. The way her round little behind twitched from side to side in those jeans ought to be outlawed.

He frowned. If he were in charge of the world—and he often lamented the fact that he wasn’t—he’d also make it illegal for Merry to ever exhibit that look he’d glimpsed when her mother called for her. It must be hard, trying to navigate being a new mother and having a new mother at the same time. And Jo, with years of regrets to make up for, was overloading Merry with attention and well-meaning advice. It was all there on her face.

She was so open, so expressive. Everything she felt was out there for the whole world to see, and it was a revelation for Ben. Sometimes even looking at her made him feel uncomfortably exposed. Had to be a sympathetic, mirroring emotion, because he knew for a fact that his own expression never gave anything away.

When he was a kid, he’d figured out how to turn to stone on command. It was a skill that had come in handy many times during his life. When he became Supreme Emperor of the Known Universe, he’d make sure it was taught in every elementary school.

But Merry, clearly, had learned a variation on it. She’d figured out that if she smiled big, she could fool most people into believing that everything was fine.

Ben wasn’t most people. Especially not when it came to Merry.

When he’d made that conversational misstep about her life choices, he’d read the shame and disillusionment in the lines of her body as clearly as if she’d burst into tears.

His best friend, Grady Wilkes, liked to say that with the way Ben watched Merry and with Grady dating her older sister, Ella, between the two of them they were the world’s foremost authorities on the Hollister women.

But as Ben let himself out of the mare’s stall and peered down the hallway toward the office, he knew there were limits to his understanding of what made the Hollister women tick.

That knowledge, plus the insatiable curiosity that had driven him into medicine in the first place, propelled Ben’s feet down the hallway.

Scuffing his boots in the fine red clay dust that filmed the poured concrete hall, Ben drifted close enough to the office doorway to hear the murmur of female voices inside.

Only for a second,
he promised himself as his heart kicked into high gear.

He closed his eyes, listening, pretty sure he could pick Merry’s happy, bubbly tones out of a crowd of gabbling, chattering voices.

Although … he frowned. She didn’t sound all that bubbly right at the moment. She sounded uncertain and frustrated.

“I think … the books said this was the right way to start holding him now. We’re past the four month mark, and his head isn’t all wobbly anymore.”

“Well, sure, that’s fine.” Even Ben, not the most attuned to social cues, could plainly hear the soft doubt in Jo’s voice.

She tried to shake it off by being overly hearty about saying, “However you want to do it is fine! Kids are resilient—they’re basically made out of rubber bands at this age. Of course, Aunt Dottie always used to … but that’s not important.”

In the short pause that followed, Ben realized that he wasn’t going to be able to get his quick fix of Merry’s voice to carry him through the rest of his Merry-less week, and leave. There was something going on here.

Something he might be able to turn into an opportunity.

Merry sighed almost inaudibly. But her voice was calm and reasonable when she asked, “What would Aunt Dottie say?”