In Hope's Shadow. Janice Kay Johnson
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the end of his message, bewildered was a really good description of her state of mind. He felt bad? He was going to call her tomorrow?
She listened a second time, paying attention to his intonation, to that hesitation near the end.
Oh, God—what if he did call? Her stern inner voice told her: Be a grown-up, even if you haven’t been acting like one lately, that’s what. Smooth things over so it won’t be awkward if you run into him at Bailey’s in the future.
Eve made a face. Okay, it was good advice. And yes, that’s what she’d do. If nothing else, it was entirely possible she’d end up encountering him through work, the way she had met Seth in the first place.
What she’d say if Ben asked her out again remained undecided when she went to bed with a book.
Her morning was devoted to figuring out where to put the two kids she’d decided urgently had to be moved, then making the calls so it could happen. She drove nearly half an hour out to the tiny town of Lowell so that she could talk to the foster mom who’d been angry enough at a five-year-old and an eight-year-old to feed them nothing but bread and water for several days even as the rest of the family sat down to their usual meals. Eve packed the poor kids’ minimal possessions and called the school to let them know she would be picking the children up at the end of the day. She let the social worker who’d assessed the foster home know what had happened, making sure she didn’t sound critical. They all made mistakes. The home had looked decent, the kids had been well dressed, and if Eve hadn’t discovered what happened, she wouldn’t have seen any red flags, either. She was still bemused at how the idea her version of discipline might be inappropriate had shocked the foster mom, although she’d flushed when Eve asked if she had ever put her own children on a diet of bread and water. Clearly, the answer was no.
Whether the kids would be able to stay more than temporarily in the new foster home was an open question. Constant changes were really damaging to children’s sense of security, but there was no way Eve would have been able to leave them where they were.
She was briefly back at her desk in a cubicle at the DSHS offices when her mobile phone rang and she saw Ben’s name. Oh, boy.
I’m going to demonstrate my maturity, remember?
“Ben,” she said pleasantly. “Thank you for calling.”
The little silence told her she’d taken him aback.
“Did you get my message?”
“Yes, it was nice of you to call. I really am sorry I behaved so poorly. I don’t know what got into me, lecturing you as if I know anything at all about your marriage. You just...touched a hot button of mine, I’m afraid, and I was tired enough to let loose. And then what did I do but flee the scene of my crime.” She tried to inject a note of humor into her voice. “So you’re definitely not the one who should be apologizing. I am.”
“No,” he said, a little extra gravel in his voice. “I meant that apology. I guess I’m a typical man, blanking out emotions. What you said made sense. It left me feeling a lot of contradictory things I had trouble working through.”
Eve bowed her head and massaged her forehead. “I am sorry,” she said softly. “I swear I’ll keep my mouth shut the next time we run into each other at Seth and Bailey’s, if we do. Okay?”
Another silence had her going still.
“I was kind of hoping we could put this behind us and try again,” Ben said, just enough uncertainty in his voice to bring her head up.
“You must have women circling all the time,” she said. “I’m beginning to think I’m pretty messed up. I guess I don’t understand why you’d want to bother.”
“I’m not who you think I am,” Ben said. “Most women react to who I am on the outside. I kind of had the sense you saw a little deeper.”
Once again, he’d made her feel ashamed of herself. He was right. The truth was, she wouldn’t have been interested in him at all if his head-turning looks said all that much about his character. Gorgeous men tended to be full of themselves. For whatever reason, Ben wasn’t.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m...making assumptions.”
“Damn it, you’re a beautiful woman! You must know that.”
People had told her so, but when she looked in the mirror, filters kept her from seeing herself the way other people claimed to.
“Is that why you asked me out?” she had to ask.
Each pause left her wishing she could see his face.
“Partly. Sure. I reacted to your looks. But I reacted to your looks when I saw you on TV last summer, too, and I didn’t do anything about it because I didn’t know you. It was meeting you, seeing—” He stopped.
“Seeing what?” Eve whispered.
“Self-doubt. Kindness. The way you move, your smile, your laugh.”
Self-doubt was first on his list? she thought incredulously. How ironic that she’d been drawn to the same quality in him. Or maybe that wasn’t quite right to describe what she’d seen in him. She’d thought of it as the shadows in his eyes. Buried pain, hurt, a constraint that didn’t match his outward perfection. And...the gentle way he touched his daughter, the love in his eyes when he looked at her.
“That...might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she told him, in a voice that didn’t sound quite like hers.
“Does that mean you’re willing to give it another shot?”
Her sinuses burned and a smile trembled on her lips. “Yes. I’d love to give it another shot. If...if you mean it.”
He cleared his throat, and his voice still came out husky. “I do.”
The brief discussion about when and where they’d see each other again felt mundane compared to what had come before.
Friday night, they agreed finally. Dinner again. Possibly a movie, depending on what was playing at the four-screen theater in town.
Of course, all she did in the intervening day was get more and more nervous about seeing him again. She wished they could have had lunch that day. Or at least dinner. She hadn’t suggested it, though, and neither had he.
They ended up driving to Mount Vernon, a county over, and eating at an Italian restaurant on the main street that paralleled the Skagit River, then walking the block to the restored Lincoln Theatre with its single screen to see a foreign film that had been recommended to Eve.
Dinner was pleasant, but she thought they were both being so careful with each other, neither said anything important. At the theater, they chose seats on the aisle. He helped with her coat before shrugging out of his own parka.
At least, sitting side by side, their shoulders touched. Making yet more careful conversation, Eve focused on his big hands resting on his thighs. With his long fingers, they could have been a pianist’s hands, or an artist’s. Her heart gave a bump as she wondered what they’d feel like on her. As if reacting to her thought, his right hand flexed, curling into a fist before straightening. She looked up to see he was watching her. Reading her mind?
They stared at each other, Eve caught feeling unguarded. She couldn’t remember ever having such an intense physical reaction to a man.
“Excuse me,” a voice said, and she jerked to see a couple laden with popcorn and drinks waiting to get by to empty seats.
The moment broken, Ben murmured an apology and he and Eve both stood to let them by. Eve straightened her coat on the back of the seat and sat down again, then sneaked a glance at Ben. This time, his expression was wry.
“Guess this isn’t the place to say I like the way you look at me.”
Oh, boy. “Um, probably not,” she managed.