Shoreline Drive (31 page)

“No need to delay the fun on my account,” Ben said blandly, already backing away. His foot nudged Alex’s baby carrier, causing an indignant squawk.

“Hey, don’t kick my baby!” Ivan shook his head. “Not cool, man.”

Merry tensed all over, but Ben crouched down to touch Alex’s waving toes again. “Sorry, Alex,” he said seriously. “But I’ve got to go. Things to do, horses to check, travel papers to sign off on.”

“Uh, I don’t think he understands you.” Ivan laughed, the slightly mean chortle he used when he felt threatened.

Ben stood in a burst of controlled power that reminded Merry, all at once, that he had at least four inches and several years on Ivan, who, for all his gym-toned muscles, wasn’t all that tough.

“Ivan,” she said sharply. “Please wait for me in the office. I’ll be along in a minute.”

“Fine.” Digging his hands into the minuscule front pockets of his too-tight jeans, Ivan sauntered across the corridor to the office, pointedly not taking Alex with him.

Familiar with Ivan’s little acts of defiance in the face of being told what to do, Merry pressed a hand to the headache brewing behind her eyes. “Now. Ben, seriously, this isn’t what you think…”

But when she looked back at him, he was already walking away.

“Hey,” she called, feeling as if he’d tethered himself to her heart somehow, and every step pulled the link between them tighter and thinner. “I’m not finished with you yet.”

“Yeah, well. I’m finished,” Ben said without turning around. “There’s only so long a man is willing to wait for a woman to make up her mind if she wants him or someone else. Take your time, Merry. But don’t expect me to always be there for you, waiting until you figure out what you want.”

He disappeared into Java’s stall, leaving Merry lost and alone in the middle of the hallway, unable to come up with a single argument to make Ben stay.

His final words sliced through Merry’s brain while she moved on autopilot to pick up Alex’s carrier and walk into the office where Ivan was waiting.

Don’t expect me to always be there for you.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The condition of Java’s hooves had improved, and he’d gained enough mass to take him out of the seriously malnourished zone and into being merely underweight. The stallion still had a tendency to startle badly at sudden noises, but he was at his most secure in his stall, which had clearly come to represent a safe space for him.

According to Ben’s notes, it was when Java left the stall that they ran into trouble with him, but since most of the travel time would involve the stallion being enclosed in a small trailer, he should be fine. Ben made a note that he advised extreme caution when loading and unloading Java from the trailer, and that he recommended gelding Java as soon as the horse was stable enough after transportation. In Ben’s experience, leaving a stallion with Java’s issues uncut was only going to add to the horse’s problems with a lot of hormones and urges he’d have trouble controlling.

Ben flipped Java’s folder closed and hooked it to the back of his stall with a sigh. The horse himself was down in the paddock going through one last round of exercises with Jo Ellen before Sam picked him up the next day.

Wandering out of the barn and down the slight slope to the outdoor ring, Ben told himself he was only doing the responsible thing, performing a visual check of the animal’s movement in the ring before he signed off on all the paperwork. But at the back of his mind, Ben knew there was one reason and one reason only that he was still hanging around the barn. Okay, two reasons.

Merry and Alex.

He’d caught glimpses of them as she walked Ivan through the barn, introducing him to the horses and explaining the changes they were making to the structure as they prepared to shift their focus from regular horse boarding and training to a facility that supported equine-assisted therapy.

Ben liked the way her voice lilted with enthusiasm when she told Ivan about the ways people could work with horses to assist their recovery from all sorts of trauma, including post-traumatic stress disorder. She’d swapped the handheld baby carrier for the little front-wearing backpack that allowed Alex to gaze out at the world around him with big, blue, interested eyes. His chubby arms and legs poked through the pack’s openings like a starfish, and even Ben couldn’t help but smile at the fact that the kid was wearing two mismatched socks.

As if he’d developed some sort of radar system to keep track of his wife, Ben was aware of Merry and Alex’s location at all times. No matter how fiercely he pushed himself to concentrate on writing his notes for Java’s next medical caregiver, he knew Merry had led Ivan down to the paddock to watch her mother put Java through his paces.

And Ben was drawn to follow her as if he’d been magnetized to her.

But at the bottom of the hill, Ben ran into Ivan.

“Oh hey, what’s up?” Ivan didn’t sound any happier to see Ben than Ben was to see him. “I’m looking for the bathroom.”

“The door at the back of the office,” Ben grunted, prepared to push past the punk with no other conversation.

But Ivan held his ground, the picture of pointless defiance in his ripped jeans and leather jacket with safety pins hanging from the zipper. He probably paid extra for the holes in those jeans.

“Look, man.” Ivan stared at the ground, then flipped his hair out of his eyes in a practiced, boyish gesture that made Ben feel like yelling something extra old and cranky, like “Get off my lawn!”

“I know you’re freaked that I keep coming around,” Ivan said awkwardly. “I get that. But you gotta understand it from my side. Like, I messed up when Merry told me about the baby. Right? I know that. I shoulda been more supportive and stuff. But like, I’m between gigs right now, and even when I’ve got a job, let’s just say it’s not the kind of thing that pays, like, benefits and all that. All I could think when she came at me with the news was that I’m too young to be a dad. There’s all kinds of stuff I want to do.”

“You’re the same age as Merry,” Ben pointed out. He didn’t want to listen to any of this, but there was a part of him that was curious about Ivan’s reasons for being here.

Ivan waved that away. “I know, but she’s a chick. She’s, like, hardwired to want kids. But you remember what it was like to be a young guy, right? It’s different for us.”

“I have a vague memory of being young,” Ben said, with a dry twist that flew right over Ivan’s spiked blond hair. “But it’s not fair to pretend this has all been easy for Merry. She’s worked hard to take care of Alex, to learn how to be a mother. Natural instincts only go so far.”

Ivan flushed as if Ben had accused him of something. “Everyone acts like she’s so perfect, the perfect mom. I could tell you stuff that would make you think twice about treating Merry Preston like some kind of saint.”

The frustration of a narcissist who felt he was being denied the admiration he’d come to expect from life. Pure contempt curdled Ben’s voice. “Nothing you could tell me would make me see Merry differently.”

“Oh yeah?” Ivan put his hands on his lean hips over the precariously low waistband of his jeans. “How about this: when I told her I wanted her to get an abortion, and I even promised to pay for it—she said she’d do it. So who’s the perfect mom now? No perfect mom would ever consider giving up her kid, right? I don’t think so.”

The past rearranged itself in Ben’s head. Things Merry had said, the way she acted like she didn’t have a right to happiness, her insecurities as a parent—all of it made more sense now. “She didn’t go through with it, though,” Ben said slowly. “She couldn’t. And that’s when you walked out.”

When Ben didn’t gasp in shock and horror, fury sparked in Ivan’s eyes. It was the thwarted anger of a child who hadn’t gotten his way. Flags of red burned high over his sharp cheekbones, blotching all down his neck. Overdeveloped pecs heaving, he shouted, “Yeah, well, I’m walking back in now. And nothing’s going to get me to leave again, even if you offered me double!”

Ben had a bare instant to wonder
Double what?
before a terrifying equine scream sounded from the paddock.

The entire world slowed down, time melting into a collection of seconds that ticked horribly, relentlessly by. Ben looked over Ivan’s shoulder, his vision sharpening as if he were peering through a telescoping lens, and saw Java rear up on his hind legs.

Face white, jaw clenched, Jo kept a firm grip on the longe line—but when Java lashed out with his front legs, he tangled one hoof in the line on the way down, yanking the leather from Jo’s hands. Jo cried out and fell to the paddock floor, cradling her arm to her midsection—it probably felt like it had been pulled out of the socket.

In the blink of an eye, Java pivoted and thundered away from the center of the ring, eyes rolling white with fear, long ears flattened nearly to his skull, hooves pounding hard enough to kick up clouds of sawdust as he raced for the gate into the paddock … exactly where Merry was heading, with Alex cradled in the backpack snugged to her chest.

“What’s happening?” Ivan said, panicky and loud, but Ben was already pushing past him, hurtling down the path to the paddock.

Time sped up again as he ran, legs pumping, lungs bursting. His entire focus narrowed to the infinitesimal window of time he had to reach Merry and Alex before the stallion did.

Merry, eyes only on Jo as she fumbled with the gate to get to her fallen mother, called out, “Mom? Are you okay?”

Even from this distance, Ben could see the exact moment when Jo looked up and realized Merry’s danger. She put out her good hand as if she could stop what was about to happen, terror spasming over her face. “Look out!”

Slow to react, Merry only had time to stumble back and turn her body, curling around Alex and shielding him with her torso and enfolding arms, before Java was upon them.

The big stallion cleared the gate, knocking his right hind leg hard against the top rail. His front hooves came down three feet from where Merry huddled around Alex. One more step would have the fear-maddened horse plowing directly into them.

Mind blank of everything except the words “get to her, get to her, get to her,” Ben threw himself between his family and the runaway stallion, arms spread wide in an effort to block Java.

Ridiculous, Ben noted absently. As if one human male with his arms out could stop a thousand pounds of raw muscle and aggression. But he had to try.

*   *   *

Braced for the pain of slashing hooves, Merry held her breath against a moment of impact that never came.

Disoriented, she kept to her crouch with her arms locked around her baby, but turned her head enough to see Ben appear about of nowhere.

“Ho,” he said, loudly enough for Java to hear him over the labored bellows of his own breathing, but in that firm, no-nonsense tone that animals of all shapes and sizes found so soothing. His arms were out to the sides, not waving or flailing, and Merry’s heart clenched at the knowledge that he was empty-handed.

Unarmed, facing down a traumatized stallion with nothing more than the force of his will.

She took all that in with a single glance, in the space of a heartbeat. In the next breath, Java screamed again, that same chillingly human shriek, and reared up.

The horse’s front hooves flew out, sharp and deadly and inches from Ben’s face, but Ben didn’t back down. “Ho, boy. Easy,” he said again, pitching his voice so deep, Merry felt it in the pit of her churning stomach.

Snorting, Java dropped all four hooves to the ground and hung his head, sides heaving with every breath.

Slowly, with infinite care, Ben lowered his arms and picked up the trailing leather lead still attached to Java’s halter. The horse followed every movement, his prey response going full tilt. His ears flicked forward to pick up any sound that might give him a clue as to which direction the danger would approach from.

But for the moment, the danger seemed to have passed.

Limp and shaky as the adrenaline washed out of her system on a tide of relief, Merry stayed down on her knees. Perfect opportunity to say a little prayer of gratitude, she thought, sending up an incoherent babble of thanksgiving that her outraged son was alive and whole to sob in her arms. The sound of his indignation at being jerked around and crushed against her chest had never been so sweet and welcome.

“Merry, my God, are you okay?” Mom, at least, knew enough to keep her voice low as she approached. It wouldn’t take much to startle Java again.

“I’m fine. We both are,” Merry said, the words thick and clumsy on her tongue. “Because of Ben.”

“Here, let me take the horse,” Jo said, reaching out for the lead line with her left hand.

“How’s your arm?” Ben wanted to know, keeping hold of Java’s halter.

“Just strained,” Jo assured them with a grimace. “He’s got a hell of a pull when he’s spooked. Hasn’t happened in a while. I wonder what got him riled up this time. Come on, big boy, let’s get you settled back in your stall.”

As her mother led Java up to the barn, Merry got her knees under her and tried to stand up. It was always a little tricky to get up from a sitting position with eighteen pounds of wriggling baby strapped to her chest. Right now, with her knees still wobbly and her balance shot, Merry didn’t stand a chance.

She plopped down onto her rear end right in the grass to wait for the moment when her legs would decide to hold her again.

“Need a lift?” Ben asked, putting his hands down for her to grasp.

Merry shook her head but grabbed on to his big hands anyway. “Come down here with us. Help me get Alex to quit freaking out.”

In fact, Alex’s infuriated cries were already tapering off into sniffles, but Merry couldn’t let go of Ben. He didn’t seem to mind, if the way he sank into the grass beside her was any indication.

“You’re really all right?” His voice was tense again, now that Java was out of earshot. “Maybe we should catch the ferry to Harbor General, have you and Alex checked out.”

“Ben.” Merry jiggled the baby carrier with one hand under Alex’s little butt, and leaned into Ben’s side to feel him warm and breathing and alive. “There’s not a scratch on us. Because you jumped in front of a runaway horse to save us, you complete whack job. Oh my gosh, you could have been killed! That horse has already given you one concussion, this time it could’ve been so much worse. What were you thinking?”