Uncommon Passion (38 page)

She knew he meant more than her work on the farm. “Me, too,” she said sincerely.

“Friends?” he asked.

She stepped into his embrace and gave him a long hug. “Always.”

After Rob left she went to the Goodwill and bought scrubs decorated with puppies and kittens. Her first

letter to her father from her new address and plans came back returned like all the rest. Alone in her bed,

she dreamed about Ben, about his body, his hands, his scythe of a smile.

Small pleasures almost made up for the longing. The open-mike nights took a hiatus until later in the

fall, so she took to studying at Artistary after the clinic closed. One late afternoon in mid-September, a

group of men wearing dark blue cargo pants, bulletproof vests, handcuff cases, and assorted weapons

strapped to hip and thigh came into the shop. SWAT was printed above the badge symbols embroidered

into the polos. Armed to the teeth, they stood by the counter, laughing and bantering with Ally, the barista

who closed most nights.

Ben was with them.

First through the line, he placed his order, paid, and shifted to the end of the counter to accept two

coffees, a big to-go cup of water, and two dog treats, which he carried back outside, all without noticing her

at the table. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows Rachel could see an alert pair of dark brown ears

swiveling like radar dishes. He stooped to set the cup on the ground in front of the dog, then remained

outside, talking idly with another officer before he caught her watching him.

He blinked, and something seemed to ease inside him.

His eyes asked a question she answered with a nod. After a couple of quiet words to the dog’s handler

he straightened his shoulders, then walked back into the shop.

“Hi,” she said. He remained standing, his eyes wary, as he returned the greeting.

“Is that Hera out there?”

He looked over his shoulder. “Yeah. She’s still mad at me for stealing her takedown earlier in the

spring. The water and biscuits are peace offerings.”

Rachel smiled. “Can you sit down?” When he eased down on the empty chair opposite her, she asked,

“How are you?”

“Good,” he said. “I’m good. You?”

“Good,” she said, then rushed on. “I’m so glad I saw you here. I can thank you in person for

recommending me for the job. I love it. I don’t know what you said to Dr. Weisen to get her to call me,

but . . . thank you.”

“I told her the truth. You’re smart, work hard, are committed, with lots of experience and she wouldn’t

find a better employee.”

“She said you charmed her.”

He flashed her The Grin along with a slightly lifted eyebrow. “Maybe a little. It was for a good cause.”

That grin, that flashing, slashing grin curving his full mouth, cut her to the bone as she considered the

possibility Ben had charmed Dr. Weisen right into bed. “How’s Sam?” she asked, remembering her

manners.

“Fully recovered. Still has Jonathan. DPFS is dragging their feet on the adoption proceedings, but he’s

hopeful.”

“So you’re spending time with them?”

“Most Sundays,” he said.

He looked different. The set of his jaw was softer, and he lacked the charming edge he’d held when

they met. “That’s good,” she replied. “That’s really good.”

He studied her face. “I’ve been making these guys come in here for coffee for weeks, hoping to run into

you. You study here a lot?”

“Most nights,” she said. “I moved into town a few weeks ago. I’ve got a roommate and an apartment a

few blocks from here.”

He looked around, his voice studiously casual. “How are you spending your Sundays?”

She shrugged. “Doing this and that. Alone, usually.”

“Let’s go, Harris,” one of the other guys called.

Ben didn’t get up. He smiled, shades of the shark in the movement, his intense blue eyes studied

Rachel’s. “Not with Rob?”

Her breath caught, and for a moment she couldn’t speak because as she watched, the smile shifted, the

muscles in his face easing ever so slightly, transforming the shark’s smile into something achingly

vulnerable. He was afraid, afraid to ask the question, afraid of the answer. With a start, she realized why

Ben looked different. He looked like a man who would care.

“It’s none of my business,” he said, backpedaling.

She overrode him hurriedly. “No. Not with Rob. Or anyone else.”

His summer sky eyes cleared. “Okay. Good. I have to go. Maybe I’ll see you around?”

“I’m here most afternoons,” she said. “Including Sundays.”

She watched him blend into the group as they left. The walls were gone. He was still big and strong and

tough, but the attitude he used to wear like a suit of armor had changed somehow. Pieces were missing. He

was still utterly confident in himself, his body, what it could do, the pleasure it could bring, but the shield

of world-weary jadedness was gone.

After that, he stopped by Artistary two or three times a week. Rachel didn’t doubt he could buy sweet

tea anywhere else, nor did she doubt he chose Artistary because she might be there. Sometimes he wore a

uniform, sometimes he wore regular clothes. He was seeking her out. Engaging in casual conversation.

Getting to know her. Letting her get to know him. He paid attention, not staying long if she left her

textbook open and kept her pen in her hand, but staying for a couple of hours another time when she was

reading a fantasy novel borrowed from the library at her roommate’s suggestion for the few spare minutes

she had in a week. The conversations weren’t anything earth shattering. Family. Work. The weather.

“I miss sunsets,” she said one day, watching the sky darken in hues of red and orange. “I’m in class,

studying, or working late most days.”

“That’s a shame. We’re having some pretty ones this fall.”

“A year or two of missed sunsets is worth it.”

That night during the break in class the next night she got an email from Ben.

To: Rachel Hil

From: Ben Harris

Date: September 23

Subject: so you don’t miss it

She sent one in return:

To: Ben Harris

From: Rachel Hil

Date: September 23

Subject: so you don’t miss it

Thank you . . .

Another photo arrived the next night, and the next, and the next. When she saw him at the coffee shop,

she said, “You don’t have to send one every night.”

“Do you like getting them?”

“I love them,” she said.

“Then I’ll keep sending them. It reminds me to stop and look, too.”

“Where are you when you take them?”

“Out at the Bar H sometimes. Sam’s house. Wherever I’m working.”

“I can see the emergency vehicle lights in some of them. What do the other cops think of you taking a

picture of the sunset?”

That new smile spread across his face, as slow and hot as a Texas sunset. “I don’t ask.”

“Sometimes you’re at your dad’s?”

“If there’s pasture and cattle in the shot, yes.”

“That’s good.”

“I missed one with you that night,” he said. “I’m trying not to miss more.”

The next week Ben seemed restless the whole time they talked. She thought it was because she

mentioned the open-mike nights starting up again, and kicked herself for bringing up something that

probably still troubled him. When he stood to leave he reached into his back pocket. “I brought you

something.”

She accepted the paperback book with automatic thanks, then added, “Oh!” with genuine delight when

she saw the title.

“It’s the next book in the series you’re reading.”

“I know. I just finished rereading the first,” she said, smoothing the cover. “Ben, thank you.”

The tips of his ears reddened as he made a
no big deal
gesture with one hand. Awareness bloomed in

Rachel’s brain. The open-mike nights didn’t make him uncomfortable. Ben “Because I Can” Harris was

nervous because he was courting her in the most old-fashioned sense of the word. Bringing her offerings of

the friendliest kind. Nothing expensive, nothing that would alter the balance of this burgeoning friendship,

nor make her uncomfortable, but were sweetly meaningful. Using her responses to gauge whether or not

she welcomed his attention. She got the sense the snail-slow pace stemmed not from his uncertainty about

how he felt, but because he’d never done this before. He’d done everything else, but he’d never fallen in

love.

She let him court her, not because she loved him any less, or had ever stopped loving him, but because

Ben needed the same space he’d given her all those months ago, the space to explore who he was, and who

he could be. She neither muted nor exaggerated her reactions to him, but gave him the gift of her honest,

unclouded response.

Most nights she left the coffee shop feeling the adrenaline high of a woman taming a wild animal,

convincing a panther to pace closer, then eat from her hand.

They kept the slow pace well into the fall, until one night when the temperature dropped rapidly after

the sun went down. The shop’s owner opened the windows to the ocean breeze. Without a jacket or a

sweater, Rachel shivered in her thin scrubs.

“You want some hot tea?” Ben asked.

They’d been talking for two hours, and Rachel’s fingernails were blue. Her choices were clear: drink

hot tea or go home. “Yes, please,” she said. “Chai.”

Ally knew what Rachel liked for milk and sweetener, so she sent Ben back with a wide-rimmed white

mug with a spiced-tea bag steeping in water and a splash of soy milk, and two packets of honey on the

saucer with the spoon. “Smells good,” he commented.

“You can try some if you want to,” Rachel said in the act of squeezing the honey packets into the mug.

Ben said nothing. She looked up to find him watching the sweet liquid flow into the tea, swirling in a

thick stream to the bottom of the mug. His face changed yet again, the muscles in his cheeks going slack, his

soft, full mouth bringing a memory of sweetness without so much as a sip.

Honey.

A moment stretched between them, then he flicked her a look full of hot intent. Her heart jumped

against her breastbone, sending electric sparks along her nerves to pool in her breasts, between her thighs.

She cleared her throat and used the spoon to dissolve the honey in the liquid. Each gentle clink of

spoon against ceramic sounded loud in the silence.

His voice, when he spoke, was low and rough and desperate. “Why are you letting me do this, Rachel?”

Chapter Twenty-three

This question, Ben thought, from a man who habitual y ducked any question starting with
why
. Turns

out people could change. He could change.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked gently.

“Courting you,” he said. Watching honey flow into the tea sent pent-up heat from months of celibacy

flowing through his veins and down his spine. “Trying to be good. Do the right thing.”

Heat turned her cheeks red but she stirred her tea like the fate of the world depended on it. “That’s what

I thought, too. As for why I’m letting you do it, I’m trying to let you be good.”

“I need practice,” he admitted. “I was an asshole.”

“I know,” she said simply. “On the plus side, you didn’t see me as weak or fragile.”

He barked out a short laugh. “People do?”

“Oh yes,” she said wryly. “It’s usually the first thing people think. Poor Rachel Hill, locked up all her

life by horrible, crazy religious fanatics, forced to wear ugly clothes, never allowed to have sex.”

“They don’t see you.”

“You did.”

“I took advantage of you, again and again, and you turned out to be the most dangerous woman I’d

ever met.”

“I liked that you saw me that way. Strong. Sexual. Alive.”

“Dangerous,” he repeated.

She lifted the mug to her lips and sipped, watching him the whole time. She didn’t bat her eyelashes or

lick her lips. She just looked at him with those honey-colored eyes, knowing the taste bloomed on his

tongue as surely as it did on hers.

He watched her drink her tea as the barista closed down the shop, as desire unfulfilled danced through

his body.

“Walk me home?” she asked.

That was new. He’d offered her rides or an escort home, but she’d gently declined each time. It didn’t

stop him from being a gentleman. This was the first time she’d asked.

“Sure,” he said.

Ally locked the door behind them. Ben tugged his fleece pullover off and handed it to her, then picked

up her book bag while she pulled the jacket on. They set off down the sidewalk at a slow pace.

“Tell me about Sam,” she said.

Trust Rachel to go right to the heart of things. “Sam was me,” he said simply, “and I was Sam. Mom

couldn’t tell us apart, and she worried about us because we didn’t talk until we were almost two. I don’t

remember that, but I can imagine why. We didn’t need to talk, and on the ranch we were isolated from

other kids. When we figured out it mattered to people, we started talking, or Sam did. Sam said what we