Once in a Lifetime (4 page)

Aubrey had recovered quickly because…well, she knew men were jerks.

Ali had been thrown for an emotional loop, and, clearly remembering just that, she smiled grimly. “I hope you ordered a second drink and corrected your error.”

Aubrey shook her head. “I got…discombobulated.”

“You?” Ali asked. “Pissed off, yes. But discombobulated? That’s not like you.”

Yeah, Aubrey was
real
good at the tough-girl facade. But then again, she’d had a lifetime of practice. “Hard to keep it together when you toss a drink in the wrong guy’s face.”

“And not just any wrong guy,” Leah said with a laugh. “Ben McDaniel. Lucky Harbor’s favorite son. How’d he take it?”

Aubrey shook her head at the memory. “He didn’t even flinch.”

“He wouldn’t,” Leah said. “He’s pretty badass.”

He hadn’t always been like that. In school, he’d been the first to land himself in trouble, but he’d been fun-seeking, not tough as nails and impenetrable. Even through college. Afterward, he’d been an engineer for the city and had led a nice normal life.

Then his wife had died, and he’d taken off like a bat out of hell, living a life of adrenaline and danger as if survivor’s guilt had driven his every move.

“It was his job,” Leah said. “He saw and did things that changed him.”

Ali was watching Aubrey carefully. “Maybe you should try to make it up to him.”

Aubrey could see a certain light—a matchmaking light—in her eyes, so she headed to the door.

“Where you going?” Leah asked.

“Things to do.”

“Or you’re chicken,” Ali called after her with a laugh.

Or that…But the truth was, Aubrey wasn’t chicken. She was realistic. Nothing would, or could, ever happen between her and Ben.

No matter how much she might secretly wish otherwise.

Two minutes later, she was in her car. It was time to face the names on her list. Up first was her sister, Carla.

They weren’t close. Growing up in two separate households had done that. Living with parents who didn’t speak to each other had done that. Carla being told that she had gotten all the brains had done that.

But eight years ago, Carla had needed a favor. She’d found herself needing to be at her job at the same time as she’d needed to sign some documents to accept a very important internship, so she’d asked her look-alike sister to go sign for her.

Aubrey had been working her butt off full-time and trying to keep full-time school hours as well. Busy, exhausted, hungry, and admittedly bitchy, Aubrey had agreed to the favor, even though she’d known it would be a real crunch to get there in time. She’d left a little later than she should have, gotten stuck in traffic, showed up late, and lost Carla the internship.

Carla had been forced to ask their dad to step in, and she still hadn’t forgiven Aubrey.

Sighing at the memory, Aubrey parked at the hospital where Carla worked and asked for her sister at the front desk. Aubrey was kept cooling her heels for twenty-five minutes, though when Carla finally showed up in the reception area in scrubs and a doctor’s coat with a stethoscope around her neck, she seemed genuinely exhausted and surprised. “Hey,” she said. “What’s wrong? Mom?”

“Everything’s fine,” Aubrey said. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

Carla nodded but gave her watch a quick, not-so-discreet glance. “About?”

Aubrey drew a deep breath and then let it go. “Remember the time you asked me for a favor and I screwed it up?”

Carla’s gaze was moving around the room, taking in the people waiting to be called by the hospital’s various departments. “Uh-huh.”

“Well, I want to apologize,” Aubrey said, “and find a way to make it up to you.”

Carla looked at her watch again. “Wait—which time was this again?”

“The one and only time I screwed up,” Aubrey said a little tightly.

Carla’s gaze landed on Aubrey then, looking a little amused now. She pulled a protein bar from her pocket and offered half to Aubrey, but since it looked like cardboard, Aubrey shook her head. “It was when I was supposed to sign those documents for your internship,” Aubrey said. “And I got there late.”

Carla chewed her cardboard bar. “Oh, that’s right. You were probably busy with Mom, having your hair or nails done. That was your life, right? Dressing up and being a beauty queen, while I had to go to the toughest school and study all the time.”

Aubrey had been operating under the assumption that
she
was the jealous sister. And she
was
jealous as hell and always had been, because Carla had had it all: brains, the big fancy medical degree, not to mention their father’s pride and adoration. But in feeding her green monster over the years, it’d somehow escaped her attention that Carla might have been jealous as well.

She didn’t know what to make of that.

“I lost the internship,” Carla said, “and had to wait an entire year to get another shot at it. Dad was fit to be tied. He’d set the interview up in the first place. He said—” She broke off, clearly tempering herself.

“What?” Aubrey asked. “He said what?”

“That I’d acted like you.”

Aubrey absorbed the unexpected hit and nodded. “Well, then, I imagine he was quite pleased to know it was me who screwed up and not you.”

Carla’s smile was brittle, and Aubrey wondered if she smiled like that, too. “I never told him,” Carla said. “How could I? I’d gone on and on about how you were changing, how you were maturing. How I could
count on you
.”

Aubrey winced. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I’d like to make it up to you.”

Carla gave a small laugh. “How? How could you possibly do that?”

“I don’t know,” Aubrey said. “We still look like twins. Maybe you have another conflict of interest, and I could—”

“What? Operate for me? Meet a patient and discuss treatment?”

Aubrey met her sister’s eyes. They were hazel, like her own, magnified slightly from the glasses Carla had worn since grade school. They only added to the smart image.

She wasn’t going to get forgiveness—she could see that now. And she probably didn’t deserve it anyway. “No,” she said quietly. “I can’t do any of those things. We both know that.”

And there was the problem. The big flaw in her grand scheme—and there was always a flaw. She didn’t know
how
to make things right. And anyway, who would forgive her? She certain didn’t deserve forgiveness. Holding in the despair that this thought brought, she turned to go.

Carla didn’t stop her.

It was dark outside when she got back to the Book & Bean, and she stopped short just outside the door. She’d locked up when she left and turned off the lights.

But the door was unlocked now, and the lights were on. She went still, then pulled out her phone and dialed 911. She didn’t hit
SEND
, but kept her thumb hovered over
CALL
. Taking a step inside, she paused. “Hello?”

“Hey.”

The low, slightly rough voice wasn’t what had her heart pumping. That honor went to the fact that there was a man on a ladder in the back of her store.

Ben
.

He was in jeans, wearing a tool belt slung low on his hips, his T-shirt clinging to him. He seemed a little irritated, a little sweaty, and just looking at him Aubrey got a whole lot hot and bothered in places that had no business being hot and bothered by this man at all. “What are you doing in here?” she asked.

“I work here.”

“What are you talking about? Get out.”

“Sorry, Sunshine.” He wasn’t even looking at her, but using some sort of long, clawlike tool to pull down a ceiling tile above the wall she’d been working on. And his tool worked way better than hers.

His movements were agile and surprisingly graceful for a guy his size. Not that he was bulky in any way. Nope: That tall, built body was all lean, tough muscle, and it screamed power. And with each subtle movement, his body made it clear that it knew exactly what to do with all that power. “The owner of this building hired me,” he said. “Said you were making a mess of things because your pride was bigger than your wallet.”

This caught her completely off guard, both the insult and the information. “My uncle owns this building,” she said.

He smiled thinly. “Yep. Happy birthday.”

“It’s not my birthday.”

“Then happy you’ve-got-a-great-uncle day.”

She pulled out her phone and punched in her uncle’s number.

“He left on a month-long cruise with Elsie,” Ben said.

Damn it. That was true. He’d just recently started dating again and was seeing Leah’s grandma Elsie. Aubrey tossed her phone and purse aside and went hands on hips, giving off the intimidation vibe that worked with just about everyone. Except, apparently, Ben, who didn’t even take a bit of notice. Instead, he reached down with that claw tool in his hand. “Hold this a minute,” he said.

Was he kidding? “I don’t take orders from you.”

“I imagine not, since you don’t know the meaning of taking orders.”

She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, he gave the tool a very slight jiggle in her direction.

The motion was filled with such authority and innate demand that she walked toward him to take the thing before she even realized her feet were moving. It was heavy, and she let it fall to her side as he pulled himself up with nothing more than his biceps and vanished.

She stared up into the space. “Hey.”

He didn’t answer, and she got worried. “Ben?”

There was a slight rainfall of debris, and then he was back, lowering himself out of the hole like an Avenger, shoulder and arm and back muscles bulging and defined as he dropped lithely to his feet.

She let out a breath.

He brushed off his hands and turned, and then nearly tripped over Gus.

Meow
.

“Watch out,” Aubrey said. “He doesn’t like—”

Ben squatted low and stroked the cat. Gus plopped onto his back with a grunt, exposing his belly for a rub.

“—to be touched much,” Aubrey finished, and then rolled her eyes as Gus soaked up Ben’s affection, even sending Aubrey a “be jealous, bee-yotch” look from slitty eyes.

Her cat was a man ho.

When Ben stood again, he looked at Aubrey for the first time. The briefest of frowns flashed on his face. Still dirty, still a little damp, and still complete sex on a stick, he took a step toward her.

Thinking he wanted the tool, she thrust it out at him. But he didn’t take it. Instead, he stepped into her personal space and crowded her both physically and mentally.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I
f Ben knew anything about Aubrey Wellington, it was that she was one cool, tough, hard customer. He’d once seen her stare down an entire pack of mean girls at school with no fear—at least none showing. She didn’t back down from much.

But she backed away from him and turned so he couldn’t see her face. She definitely wasn’t on her game at the moment. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken, she’d been…crying? Unable to imagine what could have rattled her so badly, much less bring her to tears, he moved closer to take the tool from her, tossing it aside as he turned her to face him. “You’ve been crying.”

She looked away. He put a finger under her chin and brought her face back to his. “You’ve been crying,” he said again.

She blew out a sigh and slapped his hand away. “You’re a man. You’re not supposed to notice,” she said.

He took another step toward her, and he had no idea why. Maybe because those usually razor-sharp hazel eyes were soft now. Soft and maybe even warm. She was vulnerable, and it was bringing out some crazy instinct in him to try to soothe or comfort her. And then there was the fact that he’d clearly affected her. When he’d come close, her breathing had hitched audibly.

Awareness?

Frustration?

Irritation?

A combination of all of them, no doubt, but he’d take it over her usual indifference. “Talk to me, Aubrey.”

She let out a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob, and her eyes went suspiciously shiny. “I just have something in my eye, that’s all.”

He’d spent his formative teenage years under the authority of his aunt Dee, who’d cried at the drop of a hat. He wasn’t fond of a woman’s tears, but they didn’t scare him. He waited her out with a pointed look.

She sucked in a breath and put her hands on his chest. The touch gave him a pure electrical jolt that stunned him stupid. He had no idea where this sexual tension was coming from, but he liked it. He didn’t get a chance to figure it out before she gave him a little nudge that was actually more like a shove.

He didn’t budge, and this time there was no mistaking the sound she made. Pure temper. “You’re breathing on me,” she snapped, and walked by him, shoulder-checking him hard enough to make him smile.

Whatever her problem, she no longer felt like crying—which worked for him.

“I can’t afford you,” she said.

“Your uncle’s paying. Whatever you need.”

That had her step faltering for the briefest second, but she caught herself. Looking touched, she said, “I’m going to pay him back.”

“Not my deal.”

She strode to the makeshift worktable he’d set up. Two sawhorses with a four-by-eight piece of plywood across them. He’d unrolled the set of plans he’d drawn up based on what Mr. Lyons had told him needed to be done. It was a fairly big job, actually, one that would take his mind off his own life for a while. Just what he needed.

Aubrey stared at the plans for a long moment. “This is wrong,” she said, pointing to the shelving. “I want open shelves, four feet tall max, in wide rows. And this.” She dragged her fingers across the half wall that her uncle had suggested to break up the room. “I want it open. And here…” She tapped a long finger on the tiny kitchen area in the back, which she’d started to demolish herself and made a mess of. “I want the half wall here.”

“Half-walled shelves severely limit your product space,” he said. “And without a wall there”—he nudged her finger with his, bringing it to the spot he was indicating—“your store will be noisy. And why do you want the serving area exposed to your customers?”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” she said, “but this is going to be more than a bookstore. It’s going to be a gathering spot, where the lonely can come and make friends, where book clubs and knitting clubs alike can use the space for their meetings, where drinks and goodies can be easily served in comfy chairs and sofas while my customers read.”

“How do you intend to make any money if you let them read here instead of buying?”

She shot him a grim smile that was sheer determination and grit. “Don’t tell me I won’t make it work,” she said. “Because I will.”

He looked down into her face for a long moment, then nodded. “I wouldn’t bet against you.”

She went still, and that’s when he realized how close they were standing to each other. So close that he could see her eyes weren’t just a mix of brown and green; gold swirled in their depths as well. If she’d been wearing any lip color, she’d long ago chewed it off, leaving her full mouth naked and bare—and tantalizing.

She was staring at his mouth, too, with an expression that gave nothing away, but he’d have sworn he’d seen the briefest flash of yearning. “Aubrey.”

She blinked, as if coming out of some sort of dream, and cleared her throat as she tapped the plans again. “You’ll have to redo these.”

Shocked at how badly he suddenly wanted to taste her, he shook it off. “Anything else I should know?”

“Yeah.” She crossed her arms. “I need the work done yesterday, but I don’t want the work to be too intrusive on business. And also, it’s probably best if our paths steer clear of each other as much as possible.”

“You trying to piss me off so I’ll keep my distance?” he asked.

“Would it work?”

It sure as hell should. Keeping his distance from Aubrey Wellington was of utmost importance. Wasn’t it? Suddenly he couldn’t remember why that was, exactly.

A tall figure appeared in the open doorway. Jack. He knocked on the doorjamb twice and then propped it up with a broad shoulder. “Ready?” he asked Ben with all his perfection of timing.

The two of them were meeting Luke for dinner. Ben shook off whatever was going on between him and Aubrey, although it took a surprising amount of effort to do so. “Ready,” he said, and without another word grabbed the sweatshirt he’d left draped over the back of a couch.

“Hey,” Aubrey called after him. “You never answered me.”

“Because I don’t answer to you, Sunshine.” But yeah, he knew he’d work early and late to avoid as much interaction with her as possible.

Jack watched Ben shut the bookstore front door and then check to make sure it was locked. “Huh,” he said.

“Huh what?”

“Nothing,” Jack said.

“It’s something.”

“Okay. You’ve been back a month and you’re already bored?”

Ben shrugged.

“’Cause if you are,” Jack said, “I need help.”

“With what?”

“As fire marshal, I inherited all these pet projects for town council and the like. And in all the monthly meetings, everyone always says they’ll help, but then they don’t answer my calls.”

“What do you need?”

“Everything. There’s the senior center—”

“Pass,” Ben said quickly. “Those old ladies are sexually depraved miscreants.”

“Afraid of Lucille?”

Lucille was a gazillion years old, and there were rumors that she’d been the first person to inhabit Lucky Harbor, around the time of the dinosaur age. She was still in town, running an art gallery and the gossip mill with equal fervor. “Hell, yeah, I’m afraid of her,” Ben said.

“Me, too,” Jack admitted. “Okay, no to the senior center. How about a project at the rec center? It’s called Craft Corner.” He smiled. “Should be right up your alley. You supervise after-school crafts twice a week.”

“Crafts?” Ben asked in disbelief. “Do I look like a crafts kind of guy to you?”

Jack grinned. “You’re a builder at heart, man. Figure it out. The kids really need someone, and you’ve got a lot of knowledge to impart.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And the principal of the school is a really hot, single brunette. How long has it been since you had a hot woman look at you?”

About three minutes… “Maybe,” Ben said noncommittally.

Commercial Row was lined with shops, including the requisite grocery store, post office, and gas station. A few patches of snow and more than a few patches of ice lingered here and there from the last storm. With the dark had come an icy chill that had Ben shoving his hands in his pockets. The temperature tended to drop the moment the sun did.

When Jack spoke next, his voice was void of his usual good humor. “So. Aubrey Wellington? Really? You sure about that?”

“What about her?”

“You know what. She’s trouble with a capital
T
.”

Yeah, Jack was right. Ben already knew.

“Tell me you got that,” Jack said.

“I got that.”

There was a full minute of silence between them as they continued to walk toward the Love Shack. But then Jack, who’d never been real good at leaving anything alone, said, “There was something in the air between you two.”

“Animosity?” Ben asked.

Jack laughed. “Not exactly.”

“What, then?”

Jack shrugged, but Ben knew this wasn’t necessarily an I-don’t-know shrug. Because Jack knew.

Ben knew, too. But he held his tongue. It was natural for him to do so, and plus, as an added bonus, it drove Jack wild. Jack couldn’t handle silences any more than he could handle leaving things alone.

And sure enough, after another minute, Jack started whistling. He couldn’t whistle worth shit, and he was completely tone-deaf—which meant that hearing him whistle was far better than hearing him sing. But still, Ben wasn’t in the mood for either. Especially since Jack only sang when he was being obnoxious. It was his own special brand of torture.

“Spit it out,” Ben said.

Jack shook his head. “Nothing to spit out.”

Ben looked at him, but Jack went silent. It was a first.

“I’m just working on the bookstore,” Ben finally said.

Jack blew on his hands and shoved them into his front pockets as they continued to walk.

“You know damn well her uncle hired me,” Ben said.

Jack nodded and squared his shoulders against the evening’s wind.

“And we’re not even going to be in the shop at the same time,” Ben said.

Jack snorted.

“Damn it.” Impressed that his own techniques had been used against him—and that it’d worked—Ben caved like a cheap suitcase. “Okay, so there
was
a weird vibe between us. But it’s nothing.”

“It was way more than nothing,” Jack said. “The two of you practically melted the place down.” He paused. “Do I need to give you the birds-and-the-bees talk?”

At that, Ben had to laugh. “Shut up. I lost my cherry two years before you did.”

“Yeah, well, you were a real ho back then.”

This was true. Ben had discovered women early. And then in high school, he’d tangled with the pretty, smart, and funny Hannah, and he’d fallen hard. He’d drawn her over to the dark side, and she’d loved it. Right up until she’d dumped him just before college.

Two years later, they’d run into each other at a party. She’d grown up a lot, and so had he. They’d gotten back together, and he’d put a ring on her finger so as not to lose her again. Then he’d lost her anyway when a drunk driver had crossed the center line and hit her car head-on.

He’d not gone back to his bad boy ways. Instead, he’d quit his nine-to-five engineering desk job and gone off the grid with the Army Corps and then the DOD.

As if reading his mind, Jack’s smile faded. “It’s been a while for you. With a woman.”

Yeah, it’d been a while. But not as long as Jack thought. “I’ve been with women since Hannah.”

If this was news to Jack, he didn’t show it. “Just hookups.”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “So?”

“So what I saw back there in the bookstore didn’t feel like it’d be a quick hookup.”

“You’re wrong,” Ben said.

Jack was quiet a moment. “No one would blame you if you went for it again. For love. No one. It’s just…Aubrey Wellington?”

The doubt in his voice pissed Ben off. Which was asinine. No one knew Ben better than Jack—no one alive, anyway. He knew what Ben had gone through after Hannah’s death.

He knew Ben had loved her. The real kind of love. The once-in-a-lifetime, forever kind. For a guy who’d been pretty much dumped by his own parents and dropped at his aunt Dee’s house at the age of twelve, it shouldn’t have been possible for him to feel it at all. But his aunt Dee had mothered him relentlessly. And Jack’s father—before his untimely, heroic death fighting a fire—had been a real dad to Ben. Jack had been a brother. Between the three of them, they’d taught Ben love.

And he’d had it with Hannah—a solid, soul-deep, comfortable love.

But it was long gone now, and while he missed it, he didn’t want to risk it again.

Jack was looking at him, waiting for a response or reaction, and Ben shook his head. “You’re reading too much into things,” he said. “I’m just working at her bookstore.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” And he one hundred percent meant it.

Okay, maybe ninety percent…