The Prodigal Valentine
Karen Templeton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Acknowledgments

With many thanks to Mary Jaramillo,

whose contributions to this book

have hopefully kept this gringa

from sounding like a complete pendeja (dumbass)

As always, to Jack, my Valentine

for twenty-eight years and counting

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

“How hard can it be,” Mercedes Zamora muttered through chattering teeth as she elbowed her way into the mammoth juniper bush bordering her sidewalk to retrieve her Sunday paper, “to hit the frickin’ driveway? Crap!” A flattened branch slapped her in the face; on a growl, she dove back in, thinking she had maybe three seconds before her bare feet fused to the frosty driveway, only to let out a shriek when something furry streaked past her calves and up to the house.

The cat plastered himself to her front door, meowing piteously.

“Hey. Nobody told you to stay out last night,” she said as she yanked the paper out of the greenery, swearing again when she discovered her long, morning-ravaged curls and the bush had bonded. She grabbed her hair and tugged. “I feel for you but I can’t…quite…reach you!”

The bush let go, sending her stumbling backwards onto the cement, at which point a low, male, far-too-full-of-himself chuckle from across the street brought the blood chugging through her veins to a grinding halt. Frozen tootsies forgotten, Mercy spun around, wincing from the retina-searing glare of thousands of icicle lights sparkling in the legendary New Mexican sunshine.

Oh, no. No, no, no…this was not happening.

Ten years it had been since she’d laid eyes on Benicio Vargas. And seared retinas notwithstanding, it was way too easy to see that those ten years had taken the shoulders, the grin, the cockiness that had been the twenty-five-year-old Ben to a whole ’nother level.

Well, hell.

What effect those years might have had Mercy, however—stunning, she was sure, in her rattiest robe, her hair all juniper-mangled—she wasn’t sure she wanted to contemplate too hard. Not that she was ready to be put down just yet—her skin was still wrinkle-free, her hair the same dark, gleaming brown it had always been, and she could still get into her size five jeans, thanks for asking. But the last time Ben had seen these breasts, they hadn’t had their thirtieth birthday yet. Quite.

Not that he’d be seeing them now. She was just sayin’.

Ben flashed a smile at her, immediately putting her father’s glittering Christmas display to shame. Not to mention his own parents’, right next door.

Mercy wasn’t sure which was worse—that once upon a time she’d had a brief, ill-advised, but otherwise highly satisfactory fling with the boy next door, or that here she was, rapidly closing in on forty and still living across the street from the lot of them in one of her folks’ rental houses. But hey—as long as she was leading her own life, on her own terms, what was the harm in keeping the old nest firmly in her sights?

As opposed to Mr. Hunky across the street, who’d booked it out of the nest and never looked back. Until, apparently, now.

“Lookin’ good over there, Mercy,” Ben called out, hauling a duffle out of his truck bed, making all sorts of muscles ripple and such. Aiyiyi, could the man fill out a pair of blue jeans or what?

“Thanks,” she said, hugging the plastic-wrapped paper to the afore-mentioned breasts. “So. Where the hell have you been all this time?”

Okay, so nuance wasn’t her strong suit.

“Yeah, about that,” Ben said, doing more of the smile-flashing thing. If she’d rattled him, he wasn’t letting on. Behind her, the cat launched into an aria about how he was starving to death. “I don’t suppose this is a good time to apologize for just up and leaving the way I did, huh?”

Huh. Somebody had been spending time in cowboy country. Texas, maybe. Or Oklahoma. “Actually,” she called back, “considering you’ve just confirmed what half the neighborhood probably suspected anyway…” She shrugged. “Go ahead, knock yourself out.”

His expression suddenly turned serious. Not what she’d expected. Especially since the seriousness completely vanquished the happy-go-lucky Ben she remembered, leaving in its place this…this I-can-take-anything-you-dish-out specimen of masculinity that made her think, Yeah, I need this like I need Lyme disease.

“Then I’m sorry, Mercy,” he said, the words rumbling over to her on the winter breeze. “I truly am.”

She shivered, and he waved, and he turned and went inside his parents’ house, and she drifted back up to her own front door, her head ringing as though she’d been clobbered with a cast-iron skillet. And, she realized, in her zeal to get her digs in first, she had no idea why he was back.

Not that she cared.

The cat, who couldn’t have cared less, shoved his way inside before she got the door all the way open. Her phone was ringing. Of course. She squinted outside to see her mother standing at the two-story house’s kitchen window, her own phone clamped to her ear, gesticulating for Mercy to pick up. There was something seriously wrong with this picture, but she’d have to amass a few more brain cells before she could figure it out.

“Yes, Ma,” she said as soon as she picked up her phone. “I know. He’s back. Opening a can of cat food right now, in fact. Sliced grill, yum, yum.”

After an appropriate pause, Mary Zamora sighed loudly into the phone. “Not your stupid cat, Mercy. Ben.”

“Oh, Ben. Yeah, I saw him just now, in fact. Talk about a shock. Got any idea why he’s here?”

“To help his father, why else? Because his brother broke his foot the day after Christmas on that skiing trip?” she added, rather than waiting for Mercy to connect the dots. “Yes, I know Tony’s not exactly your favorite person—”

“Did I say anything?”

“—but since the man is married to your sister, I really wish you’d try a little harder to like him. For ’Nita’s sake, at least. Did she tell you, they’re adding to the back of the house? And that new wide-screen TV they bought themselves for Christmas…not bad, huh?”

Mercy rolled her eyes. Tony did okay, she supposed, but her mother knew damn well that if it weren’t for Anita’s second income as a labor and delivery nurse, most of that extra “stuff” wouldn’t happen.

“But anyway,” Mary Zamora said, “now that Tony can’t drive for at least a month, and God knows Luis couldn’t possibly handle all those contracts on his own, Ben’s come home to fill in.”

Something about this wasn’t adding up. Three or four years back, Tony had been down with mono for nearly six weeks, and Ben hadn’t come home then. So why now? However, having developed a highly tuned survival skill where her mother was concerned, Mercy knew better than to mention her suspicions.

Just as she knew better than to mention her hunch that all was not well in Tony-and-Anita land. Seriously not well. But her parents would be crushed if Anita’s marriage went pffft, especially since they hadn’t completely recovered from Mercy’s oldest sister Carmen’s divorce two years ago. The two families had been tighter’n’ticks for more than thirty-five years, from practically the moment the Zamoras had moved next door. Two of their children marrying had only further cemented an already insoluble bond.

Since Anita hadn’t confided in Mercy, all she had was that hunch. Still, the Zamora women, of which there were many, all shared a finely-honed instinct for zeroing in on problems of the heart. And right now, Mercy’s instinct was saying yet another fairy-tale ending bites the dust.

“He looks pretty good, don’t you think?”

Mercy jerked. Okay, so one check mark in the why-living-across-from-the-parentals-is-a-bad-idea box. Clearly, four weddings (and one messy, nasty divorce) hadn’t been enough to put her mother off the scent. Until Mercy was married as well, the world—and all the unattached, straight males who roamed its surface in blissful ignorance that they were marked men—was not a safe place.

“Don’t suppose there’s much point in denying it.”

“No, there isn’t. And you’re not seeing anyone at the moment, are you?”

“Ma, I’ve been working nearly nonstop at the store, you know that. I’ve barely seen myself in the past two years. But to head you off at the pass—fuggedaboutit. Me and Ben…not gonna happen.”

No need to mention that she and Ben had already happened. Not that she had any complaints on that score. In fact, if she remembered correctly…

And she would open the rusty gate to that path, why?

“Mercedes,” her mother said. “You may have been able to stave off the ravages of time up until now—”

“Gee, thanks.”

“—but it’s all going to catch up with you, believe me. A woman your age…how can I put this? You can’t afford to be too particular.”

Because obviously a woman of Mercy’s advanced years should be rapidly approaching desperate. Brother.

“Actually,” Mercy said, “I can’t afford not to be. And believe me, some thirty-five-year-old guy who’s still blowing where the breeze takes him, who hasn’t even been home since the last millennium, doesn’t even make the running.” The odd stirring of the old blood notwithstanding.

“So what are you saying? You’re just going to give up, be an old maid?”

Mercy laughed. “Honestly, Ma—that term went out with poodle skirts. Besides, you know I’m happy with things the way they are. Business is great, a dozen nieces and nephews more than feed my kid fix, and I actually like living alone. Well, as alone as I can be with you guys across the street and Anita and them two blocks away. There’s no big empty hole in my life I need to fill up.”

“But think how much more financially stable you’d be, married.”

Mercy pinched the bridge of her nose. “Which I suppose is your way of saying you could be getting twice as much for this house as I’m paying you.”

“Now you know your father and I are only too happy to help out where we can. But, honey, it has been six years….”

Yeah, Mercy’s teeter on the edge of poverty while she and her two partners got their business up and running hadn’t exactly left her parents feeling too secure about her ability to take care of herself.

“I know it’s been a struggle,” she said quietly. “But we’re doing okay now. In fact, I can start paying you more for the house, if you want. So I’m over the worst. And it was my struggle. You should be proud, you know?”

“I am, mija. I am. ’Nita with her nursing degree, and Carmen getting that good job with the state. And now you, with your own business…No mother could be prouder of her girls, believe me. It’s just that it kills me seeing you alone. And I worry that…well, you know. That if you wait too long, you’ll lose out.”

“Geez, Ma…did Papito sneak something into your coffee this morning? Look, for the last time—” Although she seriously doubted it would be “—I like being alone. And I’m not lonely. Okay?” At her mother’s obviously uncomprehending silence, she added, more gently, “So, yes, maybe back in the day, when everybody else was falling in love and getting married and having babies, I felt a little left out that it wasn’t happening for me. But I’m not that person anymore. And at this point, if I were to consider marriage, it would have to be to somebody who’s going to bring something pretty major to the table, you know? Somebody…well, perfect.”

“Nobody’s perfect, Mercy,” her mother said shortly. “God knows your father’s not. But I love him anyway. And I thank God every day for sending him to me.”

“But don’t you see, Ma? Pa is perfect. For you. Okay, so maybe you had to whip him into shape a bit,” she said with a laugh, and her mother snorted, “but the basics were already all in place. And besides, you were both so young, you had the time and energy and patience on your side. I don’t. I’d rather stay single than expend all that energy on either ignoring a man’s faults or trying to fix them. So the older I get, the less I’m willing to settle for anything less than the best. And I can tell you right now, Ben Vargas doesn’t even make the short list.”

And at that moment, the man himself came back outside to get something out of his truck, and Mercy let out a heartfelt sigh at the unfairness of it all.

“Well,” her mother said, clearly watching Ben as well, “when you put it that way…no, I don’t suppose he does.”

“Thank you. So does that mean you’re off my case?”

“For now. But damn, the man’s got a great backside.”

Mercy hooted with laughter. “No arguments there,” she said as the clear winter sun highlighted a jawline much more defined than she remembered. And since when did she have a thing for wind-scrambled hair? And—she leaned over to get a better look—beard haze? “But butt or no butt,” she said, still staring, “as soon as Tony’s back in the saddle, so’s Ben. Riding off into the sunset.”

Her mother chuckled.

“What?”

“You’re watching him, too, aren’t you?”

Mercy jerked back upright. “Of course not, don’t be silly.”

“Uh-huh. So maybe you’re the one who needs to remember he’s not going to be around long.”

With her luck, Mercy thought after she hung up, her mother would live to a hundred. Which meant she had another forty years of this to go.

And wasn’t that a comforting thought?

Seated at the tiny table wedged into one corner of his parents’ kitchen, Ben tried to drum up the requisite enthusiasm for the heavy ceramic plate heaped with spicy chorizo, golden hash browns and steaming scrambled eggs laced with green chile his mother clunked in front of him.

“If you’ve been driving most of the night,” Juanita Vargas said over the whimpering of a trio of overfed, quivering Chihuahuas at her feet, “you should take a nap after you eat. I’ll make sure your father keeps the volume down on the TV when he gets back from his golf game.”

Still trying to wrap his head around the odd sensation of having never left—he could swear even the orange, red and yellow rooster-patterned potholders were the same ones he remembered—Ben smiled, picked up his fork. “That’s okay, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine. You look like somebody who hasn’t had a decent meal in far too long. Did I give you enough eggs? Because I’ve got plenty more in the pan…here,” his mother said, reaching for his plate, “I might as well give them to you now, save me the trouble later—”

“No, Mama, really, this is plenty,” he said, shoving a huge bite of eggs into his mouth. “Thanks.”

The phone mercifully rang. The minute the wisp of a woman and her canine entourage shuffled and clickety-clicked to the other side of the kitchen, Ben quickly wrapped half of his breakfast in his paper napkin to sneak into the garbage later. He’d die before he hurt her feelings, but he’d also die if he ate all this food.

Why, again, had he expected this trip home to provide him with the peace he so sorely needed? Not only was his mother fussing over him like he was a kindergartner, but the minute he got out of his truck he could feel all the old issues between him and his father rush out to greet him, as bug-eyed and overeager as the damn dogs. And then, to top it all off, there was Mercy.

Oh, boy, was there Mercy.

Ben took a swallow of his coffee, wondering how a ten-second interaction could instantly erase an entire decade. For one brief, shining moment, as he’d watched her battling that bush—he chuckled, remembering—he was twenty-whatever and about to combust with need for the hottest tamale of a woman he’d ever known. Who, physically at least, seemed to be in the same time warp as his mother’s house. Except he was glad, and surprised, to see she’d finally given up on trying to tame her insanely curly hair. Not much bigger than one of the Chihuahuas—although a helluva lot cuter, thank God, he thought as the biggest one of the lot returned to cautiously sniff his ankles—Mercedes packed a whole lot of punch in that thimble-sized body of hers.

Except, her appearance aside, he doubted she was the same woman she’d been then. God knows, he wasn’t the same man. Why he’d thought—

Stupid.

Yeah, his mother had wasted no time in telling him Mercy was still single, but Ben somehow doubted his abrupt departure all those years ago had anything to do with that. Mercy as a torch-carrier? No damn way. A grudge-nurser, however…now that, he could see.

Not that he’d broken any promises. After all, she’d been the one who’d made it clear right from the start that it had only been about itch-scratching. Because he knew she wanted what her sisters had—marriage, babies, stability. And she knew the very thought made him ill. So there’d never been any illusions about permanent. Still, that didn’t excuse Ben’s taking off without giving her at least a heads-up. She’d deserved better than that.

She’d also deserved better than a pointless affair with some pendejo who’d been convinced that running away was the only way to solve a problem he didn’t fully understand.

Too long it had taken him to realize what a dumb move that had been.

“You’re finished already?” his mother said at his side, going for his plate again. “You want some more—?”

“No! Really,” Ben said with a smile, carefully tucking the full napkin by his plate. “I’m fine. It was delicious, thank you.”

She beamed. “You want more coffee?”

“I can get it—”

“No, sit, I’m already up.”

After handing Ben his coffee, Juanita sat at a right angle to him, briefly touching his hand. Although her stiff, still-black hair did nothing to soften the hard angles of her face, her wide smile shaved years off her appearance. “It means a lot to your father,” she said softly in Spanish, “that you came back. He’s missed you so much.”

Ben lifted the mug to his lips, not daring to meet his mother’s gaze. He’d known how much his leaving would hurt Luis, but staying simply hadn’t been an option. Now, however…

“Just doing my duty,” he said, only to nearly choke when his mother spit out a Spanish curse word. Now he looked up, not sure what to make of the combined amusement and concern in her ripe-olive eyes.

“For ten years, you stay away,” she said, still in Spanish. “As if to return would contaminate you, suck you back into something bad—”

“That’s not true,” he said, except it was. In a way, at least.

“Then why didn’t you even come home for holidays, Benicio? To go off and live your life somewhere else is one thing, but to never come home…” Her face crumpled, she shook her head. “What did we do, mijo?” she said softly. “Your father adored you, would have done anything for you—”

“I know that, Mama,” Ben said, ignoring his now churning stomach. He reached across the table and took his mother’s tiny hand in his, taking care not to squeeze the delicate bones. “I was just…restless.”

Not the entire truth, but not a lie, either. In fact, at the time he might even have believed that was the reason he’d left. Because he’d never been able to figure out why, after he’d been discharged from the army, he couldn’t seem to settle back into his old life here. But time blurs memory, and motivations, and reasons, and now, sitting in his mother’s kitchen, he really couldn’t have said when he’d finally realized the real reason for his leaving.

But for damn sure he’d always known exactly what he’d left behind.

His mother smiled and said in English, “Considering how much you moved around inside me before you were born, this is not a surprise.” Then her smile dimmed. “But now I think that restlessness has taken a new form, yes? Something tells me you are not here because of Tony, or your father, but for you.”

A second or two of warring gazes followed, during which Ben braced himself for the inevitable, “So what have you really been doing all this time?”

Except the question didn’t come. Not then, at least. Instead, his mother stood once more, startling the dogs. She took his empty mug, looking down at it for a moment before saying, “Whatever your reason for coming back, it’s good to have you home—”

“Ben!”

At the sound of his father’s voice, Ben swiveled toward the door leading to the garage, where Luis Vargas, his thick, dark hair now heavily webbed with silver, was attempting to haul in a state-of-the-art set of golf clubs without taking out assorted wriggling, excited dogs. Ben quickly stood, tossing his “napkin” into the garbage can under the sink as his father dropped the clubs and extended his arms. A heartbeat later, the slightly shorter man had hauled Ben against his chest in an unabashedly emotional hug.

“I didn’t expect you for another couple of hours, otherwise I would’ve stayed home!” The strong, builder’s hands clamped around Ben’s arms, Luis held him back, moisture glistening in dark brown eyes. Slightly crooked teeth flashed underneath a bristly mustache. “You look good. Doesn’t he look good, Juanita? Dios,” he said, shaking Ben and grinning, “I’ve waited so long for this moment! Did you eat? Juanita, did you feed the kid?”

“Yes, Pop,” Ben said, chuckling. “She fed me.”

His father let go, tucking his hands into his pockets, shaking his head and grinning. A potbelly peeked through the opening of his down vest, stretching the plaid shirt farther than it probably should. “I see you, and now I’m thinking, finally, everything’s back the way it should be, eh?” He slapped Ben’s arm, then pulled him into another hug while his mother fussed a few feet away about how he shouldn’t do that, the boy had just eaten, for heaven’s sake.

Now the house shuddered slightly as the front door opened, followed by “For God’s sake, woman! I’m okay, I don’t need your help!”

Ben stiffened. Damn. Would another hour or two to prepare have been too much to ask?

Apparently not, he thought as, in a cloud of cold that briefly soothed Ben’s heated face, his brother and sister-in-law, along with their two kids, straggled into the kitchen.

“Look, Tony!” Luis swung one arm around Ben’s shoulders, crushing him to his side. “Your brother’s finally come home! Isn’t that great?”

His brother’s answering glare immediately confirmed that nothing had changed on that front, either.

Chapter Two

“So…” Tony banged his crutches up against one wall and collapsed into the nearest kitchen chair, stretching out his casted foot in front of him and glowering. Shorter and stockier than Ben, Tony resembled their father more than ever these days. A neat beard outlined his full jaw, obliterating the baby face Tony had detested all through high school. “You made it.”

His mother was too busy fussing over the kids to notice the vinegar in her oldest son’s voice, but Ben definitely caught his sister-in-law’s irritated frown.

“Don’t start, Tony,” she said softly, and his brother turned his glower on her.

“Yeah, I made it,” Ben said, taking the coward’s way out by turning his attention to his niece and nephew. A sliver of regret pierced his gut: Although his mother had e-mailed photos of the kids to him, he’d never seen them in person before this. His chest tightened at the energy pulsing from lanky, ten-year-old Jacob, at little Matilda’s shy, holey half-smile from behind her mother’s broad hips.

“Come here, you,” Anita said, shucking her Broncos jacket and holding out her arms, her fitted, scoop-necked sweater brazenly accentuating her curves. Ben couldn’t remember Mercy’s next youngest sister as ever having a hard angle anywhere on her body, even when they’d been kids. A biological hand Anita had not only accepted with grace, but played to full advantage. Her embrace was brief and hard and obviously sincere. “Welcome home,” she whispered before letting him go.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” Ben said, grinning. “Still as much of a knockout as ever.”

Her laugh did little to mask either her flush of pleasure or the slight narrowing of her thick-lashed, coffee brown eyes as she gave him the once-over. Masses of warm brown curls trembled on either side of her full cheeks. “And you’re still full of it! Anyway…little Miss Peek-a-Boo behind me is Matilda, we call her Mattie. And this is Jacob. Jake. Kids, meet your Uncle Ben.”

Since Mattie was still hanging back, Ben extended his hand to Jake, gratified to see the wariness begin to retreat in his nephew’s dark eyes. “I hear you play baseball.”

A look of surprise preceded a huge grin. “Since third grade, yeah. Short stop. Do you?”

“After a fashion. Enough to play catch, if you want.”

“Sweet! Dad’s like, always too tired and stuff.”

“That’s crap, Jake,” Tony said, and Anita shot him a look that would have felled a lesser man.

“And when’s the last time you played with him, huh?”

“For God’s sake, ’Nita, my leg’s broken!”

“I meant, before that—”

“Are you the same Uncle Ben that makes the rice?”

In response to his niece’s perfectly timed distraction, Ben turned to smile into a pair of wide, chocolate M&M eyes. Twin ponytails framed a heart-shaped face, the ends feathered over a fancy purple sweater with a big collar, as the little girl’s delicate arms squashed a much-loved, stuffed something to her chest. Ben was instantly smitten. “No, honey, I’m afraid not.”

“Oh.” Mattie hugged the whatever-it-was more tightly. The ponytails swished when she tilted her head, her soft little brows drawn together. Curiosity—and a deep, unquestioning trust that makes a man take stock of his soul—flared in her eyes. “Papi talks about you all the time,” she said with a quick grin for her grandfather. “He says you usta play with Aunt Rosie and Livvy a lot when you were little.”

“I sure did.” Ben nodded toward the thing in her arms. “Who’s your friend?”

“Sammy. He’s a cat. I want a real kitty, but Mama says I can’t have one until I’m six. Which is only a few weeks away, you know,” she said to Anita, who rolled her eyes.

“You must take after your mom,” he said, with a wink at Anita, “’cause you’re very pretty.”

“Yeah, that’s what everybody says,” Mattie said with a very serious nod as her mother snorted in the background. “I’m in kindergarten, but I can already read, so that’s how come I know about the rice.” She leaned sideways against the table, one sneakered foot resting atop its mate, then closed the space between them until their foreheads were only inches apart. “My daddy broke his leg,” she whispered, like Tony wasn’t sitting right there.

“I know,” Ben whispered back. “That’s why I’m here, to help your grandpa until your dad can go back to work.”

“Never mind that it’s totally unnecessary,” Tony said to his father, not even trying to mask his irritation. “For a few weeks, one of the guys could drive me around. Or you could,” he directed at Anita, who crossed her arms underneath her impressive bust, glaring.

“And I already told you, I don’t have any vacation time coming up—”

“And maybe,” Ben’s mother said, clearly trying to keep her kitchen from becoming a war zone, “you should be grateful your brother is back home, yes?”

“Yeah, about that,” Mattie said, startling Ben and eliciting a muttered, “God help us when she hits puberty,” from Anita. “If you’re my uncle, how come I’ve never seen you before? And are you gonna stay or what?”

Ignoring the first question—because how on earth was he supposed to explain something to a five-year-old he didn’t fully comprehend himself?—Ben gently tugged one of those irresistible ponytails and said, “I don’t know, bumblebee,” which was the best he could do, at the moment.

An answer which elicited a soft, hopeful “Oh!” from his mother, even as his brother grabbed his crutches, standing so quickly he knocked over his chair.

“We need to get goin’,” he said. “’Nita, kids, come on.”

“But you just got here!” Ben’s mother said as his father laid a hand on his arm.

“Antonio. Don’t be like this.”

“Like what, Pop?” Tony said, halting his awkward progress toward the door. “Like myself? But then, I guess it doesn’t matter anyway now. Because it’s all good, isn’t it, now that Ben’s back. Kids…now.”

Both Jake and Mattie gave Ben a quick, confused backwards glance—Mattie adding a small wave—before Anita, apology brimming in her eyes, ushered them all out. In the dulled silence that followed, Ben’s mother scooped up one of the whimpering little mutts, stroking it between its big batlike ears. “It’s Tony’s leg, he’s not himself, you know how he hates feeling helpless.”

Ben stood as well, swinging his leather jacket off the back of his chair. At the moment, it took everything he had not to walk out the door, get in his truck and head right back to Dallas. Why on earth had he thought that time in and of itself would have been sufficient to heal this mess, that everyone would have readjusted if he took himself out of the equation…?

“Where are you going?” his father demanded.

“Just out for a walk. Get reacquainted with the neighborhood.”

“Oh.” His father’s heavy brows pushed together. “I thought maybe we could watch a game or something together later.”

“I know. But…” Ben avoided his father’s troubled gaze, tamping down the familiar annoyance before his mouth got away from his brain. Knowing something needed to be fixed didn’t mean he had a clue how to fix it. Not then, and not, unfortunately, now. He smiled for his mother, dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m not going far. And I’ll be back for that game, I promise,” he said to his father.

“Benicio—”

“Let him go, Luis,” his mother said softly. “He has to do this his own way.”

Ben sent silent thanks across the kitchen, then left before his father’s confusion tore at him more than it already had.

For maybe an hour, he walked around the neighborhood, his hands stuffed in his pockets, until the crisp, dry air began to clear his head, until the sun—serene and sure in a vast blue sky broken only by the stark, bare branches of winter trees—burned off enough of the fumes from the morning’s disastrous reunion for him to remember why’d he come home. That he’d made the decision to do so long before he’d gotten the call from his father, asking for his help.

So even if everything he’d seen and faced and overcome during his absence paled next to the challenge of trying to piece together the real Ben out of the mess he’d left behind, he still felt marginally better by the time he turned back on to his parents’ block…just as Mercy’s garage door groaned open.

From across the street, he watched her drag a small step stool outside, wrench it open. Now dressed in jeans and a bright red sweater small enough to fit one of his mother’s dogs, she plunked the stool down in the grass in front of her house. She jiggled it for a few seconds to make sure it was steady, then climbed and started to take down the single strand of large colored Christmas lights at the edge of the roof. In a nearby bald spot in the lawn, that Hummer-sized cat of hers plopped down, writhing in the dirt until Mercy yelled at it to cut it out already, she’d just vacuumed. Chastened, the beast flipped to its stomach, its huge, fluffy tail twitching laconically as it glared at Ben.

Speaking of a mess he’d left behind. If he knew what was good for him, he’d keep walking.

Clearly, he didn’t.

“Need any help?”

Mercy grabbed the gutter to keep from toppling off the step stool, then twisted around, trying her best to keep the And who are you again? look in place. But one glance at that goofy grin and her irritation vaporized. Right along with her determination to pretend he didn’t exist. That he’d never existed. That there hadn’t been a time—

“No, I’m good,” she said, returning to her task, hoping he’d go away. As if. All too aware of his continued scrutiny, she got down, moved the step stool over, got back up, removed the next few feet of lights, got down, moved the step stool over, got back up—

“Here.”

Ben stood at her elbow, the rest of the lights loosely coiled in his hand. A breeze shivered through his thick hair, a shade darker than hers; the reflected beam of light from his own truck window delineated ridges and shadows in a face barely reminiscent of the outrageous flirt she remembered. Instead, his smile—not even that, really, barely a tilt of lips at once full and unapologetically masculine—barely masked an unfamiliar weightiness in those burnt wood eyes. An unsettling discovery, to say the least, stirring frighteningly familiar, and most definitely unwanted, feelings of tenderness inside her.

She climbed down from the stool. “You started at the other end.”

“Seemed like a good plan to me.”

“Creep.”

That damned smile still toying with his mouth, he handed the lights to her.

On a huffed sigh, she folded up the stool and tromped back to the garage. The cat, wearing a fine coating of dirt and dead grass, followed. As did Ben.

She turned. “If I told you to go away, would you?”

He shrugged, then said, “How come you’re taking down your lights already? It’s not even New Year’s yet.”

Mercy and the cat exchanged a glance, then she shrugged as well. “I have to help Ma take her stuff down on New Year’s day, I figured I’d get a jumpstart on my own, since the weather’s nice and all. And they’re saying we might have snow tomorrow. Although I’ll believe that when I see it. Not that there’s much. Which you can see. I still have my tree up, though—”

Shut up, she heard inside her head. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Her mouth stretched tight, she crossed her arms over her ribs.

“And why are you over here again?”

“I’m not really over here, I’m out for a walk. But you looked like you could use some help, so I took a little detour. Damn, that’s a big cat,” he said as she finally gave up—since Ben was obviously sticking to her like dryer lint—and dragged a plastic bin down off a shelf, dumping the lights into it.

“That’s no cat, that’s my bodyguard.”

“I can see that.”

Mercy glanced over to see the thing rubbing against Ben’s shins, getting dirt all over his jeans, doing that little quivering thing with his big, bushy tail. Ben squatted to scratch the top of his head; she could hear the purring from ten feet away. “What’s his name?”

“Depends on the day and my mood. On good days, it’s Homer. Sometimes Big Red. Today I’m leaning toward Dumbbutt.”

The cat shot her a death glare and gave her one of his broken meows. Chuckling, Ben stood and wiped his hands, sending enough peachy fur floating into the garage to cover another whole cat.

“Because?”

“Because he’s too stupid to know when he’s got it good. If he sticks around, he’s got heat, my bed to sleep in and all the food he can scarf down. But no, that would apparently cramp his style. Even though the vet swore once I had him fixed, he wouldn’t do that. She was wrong. Or didn’t take enough off, I haven’t decided. In any case, he periodically vanishes, sometimes overnight, sometimes for days at a time. Then he has the nerve to drag his carcass back here, all matted and hungry, and beg for my forgiveness.”

Silence.

“You wouldn’t be trying to make a point there, would you?”

Mercy smiled sweetly. “Not at all.”

“At least I’m not matted,” he said, his intense gaze making her oddly grateful the garage was unheated. “Or hungry. My mother made sure of that.”

“How about fixed?”

He winced.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” She turned to heft the lights bin back up onto the shelf. “But you’re not getting back in my bed, either.”

Funny, she would have expected to hear a lot more conviction behind those words. Especially the not part of that sentence.

“I lost out to the cat?”

There being nothing for it, Mercy faced him again, palms on butt, chest out, chin raised. As defiant as a Pomeranian facing a Rotty. “You lost out, period.”

They stared at each other for several seconds. Until Ben said, “You know, I could really use a cup of coffee.”

“I thought you were out for a walk?”

“Turned out to be a short walk.”

More gaze-tangling, while she weighed the plusses (none that she could see) with the minuses (legion) about letting him in, finally deciding, Oh, what the hell? He’d come in, she’d give him coffee, he’d go away (finally), and that would be that. She led man and cat into her kitchen, hitting the garage door opener switch on the way. Over the grinding of the door closing, she said, “I’m guessing you needed a break?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “You could say.”

“I don’t envy you. God knows I couldn’t live with my parents again. What are you doing?”

He’d picked up her remote, turned on the TV. “Just wanted to check the news, I haven’t seen any in days. You get CNN?”

“Yeah, I get it. And you’re gonna get it if you turn it on.”

On a sigh, he clicked off the TV, moseyed back over to the breakfast bar. “You still don’t watch the news?”

“Not if I can help it. Feeling overwhelmed and helpless ain’t my thang.” She pointed to one of the bar stools. “Sit. And don’t let the cat up—” Homer jumped onto the counter in front of Ben “—on the bar.”

Long, immensely capable fingers plunged into the cat’s ruff, as a pair of whatchagonna do about it? grins slid her way. On a sigh, Mercy said, “Regular or decaf?”

“What do you think?”

No, the question was, what was she thinking, letting the man into her house? Again. When no good would come of it, she was sure. And yet, despite those legion reasons why this was a seriously bad idea, the lack of gosh-it’s-been-a-long-time awkwardness between them was worth noting. Oh, sure, the atmosphere was charged enough to crackle—surprising in itself, considering her normal reaction (or lack thereof) to running into old lovers and such. That was fun…next? had been her motto for, gee, years. So who’d’athunk, that in spite of the unexpectedness of Ben’s reappearance, the sexual hum nearly making her deaf, in the end it would be a completely different bond holding sway over the moment, lending an Oh, yeah, okay feeling to the whole thing that made her feel almost…comfortable. If it hadn’t been for that sexual hum business.

Which led to a second question: If yesterday—shoot, this morning—she’d been totally over him, what had happened since then to change that?

Digging the coffee out of the fridge, she glanced over, noticed him looking around. Then those eyes swung back to hers, calling a whole bunch of memories out of retirement, and she thought, Oh. Right.

“Cool tree,” he said.

Grateful for the distraction, Mercy allowed a fond smile for the vintage silver aluminum number she’d found at a garage sale. Some of the “needles” had cracked off, but with all the hot pink marabou garland, it was barely noticeable. Well, that, and the several dozen bejeweled angels, miniature shoe ornaments and crosses vying for space amongst the feathers. This was one seriously tarted up Christmas tree, and Mercy adored it. “That’s Annabelle. You should see her at night when I’ve got the color wheel going. She’s something else.”

Ben shook his head, laughing softly, and yet more memories reported for duty. Including several that fearlessly headed straight for the hot zones.

“I just met Mattie and Jake,” he said.

Whew. “Yeah? Aren’t they great? That Mattie’s a pistol, isn’t she?”

“She is that.” He sounded a little awestruck. “Took to me right away.”

“Don’t take it personally, the child doesn’t know the meaning of ‘stranger.’ A second’s glance in her direction and you’re doomed. Drives my sister nuts.”

“She wouldn’t…Mattie knows better than to go off with someone she doesn’t know, I hope.”

“With Anita for her mother? What do you think?”

Ben’s shoulders seemed to relax a little after that, before he said, “I can’t believe you’re still here. In this house, I mean.”

A shrug preceded, “Why not? It’s home.” She spooned coffee into the basket; took her three tries to ram it home. “It’s just me, I don’t need a huge house. And the landlord gives me a good deal on the rent.”

“You’ve made some changes, though.”

“Not really,” she said, wondering why she was flushing. “Oh, yeah, those lamps by the sofa are new—Hobby Lobby specials, half off. And I did paint, about three years ago. During my faux-finishing phase. That lacquered finish was a bitch, let me tell you.”

“Huh.” He paused. “The walls are certainly…red.”

“Yeah, I almost went with orange, but thought it would be a bit much with the sofa.”

“Good point.” Another pause. “Never saw a sofa the color of antifreeze before.”

“Do I detect a hint of derision in that comment?”

Ben’s mouth twitched again. “Not at all. But the walls…your father must’ve nearly had a coronary.”

“To put it mildly. Until I pointed out that since I’ll have to be blasted out of here, painting over the walls is moot.”

He chuckled, then asked, “How are your folks?”

“Fine,” she said, even though what she really wanted to do was scream Stop looking at me like that! “Dad’s finally retired, driving Ma nuts. Her arthritis has been acting up more these past couple of years, which is why I have to help her take down her decorations.”

“She still turn the place into the North Pole?”

“You have no idea. And every year she buys more stuff. For the grandbabies, she says.”

“How many are there?”

“Twelve. Although Rosie’s pregnant with her fourth. A fact my mother never tires of shoving down my throat. That I’m the only one without kids. Oh, and a husband.”

His expression softened. “Guess there’s no accounting for some men’s stupidity.”

Uh…

Mercy spun back to the gurgling coffeemaker. “No matter. What can I say, that ship has sailed.”

After a silence thick enough to slice and serve with butter and jam, Ben said, “So what are you up to these days?”

The coffeemaker finally spit out its last drop; Mercy pulled a pair of mugs down from a cabinet, filled them both with the steaming brew. She handed him his coffee, then retreated to lean against the far counter, huddling her own mug to her chest. “Actually, I finally got my business degree, opened a children’s gently used clothing store with two of my classmates, about six or seven years ago. Except it grew, so now we carry some furniture and educational toys, too.”

He held aloft his mug in a silent toast. “And you’re doing well?”

“Fingers crossed, so far, so good. We were even able to hire an assistant last summer. A damn good thing since both of my partners have babies now. Had to find a larger place, too. One of those old Victorians near Old Town? Your father’s company did the remodel, actually.”

“No kidding? I’ll have to drop by, check it out.”

“You, in a kid’s store?”

“Why not? Hey, I’ve got a niece and nephew to spoil. Especially…” His eyes lowered, he thumbed the rim of his cup, then looked back up at her. “Especially since I’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“You know, you could at least pretend to be diplomatic.”

“I could. But why? And since we’re on the subject…so what exactly have you been doing for the past ten years?”

His eyes narrowed, a move that instantly provoked a tiny Hmm in the dimly lit recesses of her mind. “This and that,” he finally said. “Going where the work was.”

“Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

He looked at her steadily for a long moment, then said quietly, “I didn’t vanish without a trace, Merce. My family’s always known where I was, that I was okay. And I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“But why, is the question? And don’t give me some song-and-dance about your father needing you. Because I’m not buying it.”

Ben leaned back on the bar stool, gently drumming his fingers on the counter, as he seemed to be contemplating how much to tell her. “Let’s just say events provided a much needed kick in the butt and let it go at that.”

“A kick in the butt to do what?”

One side of his mouth kicked up. “Thought I said to let it go?”

“Not gonna happen. So?”

He slid off the stool, moseying out into the living room and picking up a family photo of her youngest sister Olivia and her family, including four little boys under the age of nine. “I needed some time to…reassess a few things, that’s all.” He set the photo back down and turned to her, his hand in his back pocket, and something in his eyes made her stomach drop.

“Ben…? What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“You always could see through me, Merce,” he said softly, a rueful grin tugging at that wonderful, wonderful mouth. “Even when we were kids. But this isn’t about something happening nearly as much as…well, I find myself wondering a lot these days how I got to be thirty-five with still no idea how I fit in the grand scheme of things.”

Yep, she knew that feeling. All too well. Only, up until a few minutes ago, she could have sworn she’d left that “Who the hell am I?” phase of her life far behind her. Apparently, she’d been wrong.

Not only because the grinning, cocky, nobody-can-tell-me-nuthin’ dude of yore had morphed into this man with the haunted eyes who’d clearly been knocked around a time or two and, she was guessing, had come out all the stronger, and perhaps wiser, for it. But because, in the time it took to drink a single cup of coffee, whoever this was had turned everything she’d thought she’d known about herself on its head.

On a soft but heartfelt, “Dammit,” Mercy sidestepped the breakfast bar and crossed the small room, where she grabbed Ben’s shoulders and yanked him into a liplock neither of them would ever forget.

Chapter Three

He’d been as powerless to stop their mouths’ colliding as he would have been a meteor falling on his head.

But nothing said he’d had to wrap his arms tight around her and kiss her back, with a good deal of enthusiasm and no small amount of tongue. Or lower her onto that hideous green sofa—except his back, which wouldn’t have taken kindly to bending over like that for longer than a second or so. Damn, she was short. Even so, he could still stop, no sweat, any time he wanted to, still pull away from that warm, wicked mouth and the warm, wicked woman that came with it.

Which eventually he did, if for no other reason than they both needed air, bracing his hands on either side of her shoulders and searching her eyes before once again lowering his mouth to hers, this time going slow, so slow, so mind-druggingly slow, pulling back whenever she tried to cozy up to his tongue, gently nipping her lower lip, her chin, her neck…remembering how it had been between them.

How good.

She made a sound that was both growl and whimper as her long, pale fingernails dug into his arms, as one leg snaked around his waist, trapping him, claiming him, even as his body completely ignored his brain’s strident protests, that this was stupid and wrong and what the hell was he thinking?

Breathing hard, she pushed him slightly away, even as she clutched his shirt. “So, how long are you here again?”

Right.

His heart pounding, Ben waited, silently swearing, for the testosterone haze to clear. Then he pushed himself up, and away, walking back into the kitchen to get his coat.

“Four weeks,” he said, flatly. Because damned if he was going to hold out the same bone to Mercy he never should have to his family. Because he had no idea what his plans were. What came next. “Maybe six.”

She sat up, her hair as knotted as her forehead, and need and regret and a whole mess of pointless, inappropriate feelings got all tangled up in his head. He’d missed that bizarre mixture of vulnerability and toughness that was Mercedes Zamora. Missed it way too much to risk screwing things up now.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I think it’s called coming to my senses.”

“Uh-huh.” Laughing, she shoved her hair out her face with both hands. Her swollen lips canted in a crooked smile, she slumped against the cushions, propping one foot on the brightly painted wooden trunk she used for a coffee table. The shiny red walls made the air seem molten, flooding his consciousness with possibilities he had no business considering. “And just what do you think,” she said, “the odds are of our keeping our hands off each other while you’re here?”

“That’s not the point.” His hands shot up by his shoulders. “I can’t do this, Mercy.”

“Yeah? Could’ve fooled me.”

“No. I mean, I can’t do this again. Mess around. With you.”

“Because…?”

“Because it wouldn’t be right.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t right the first time. Don’t recall that stopping us.”

He squeezed shut his eyes against the onslaught of memories. “God, Merce,” he said, opening them again, “what is it about you that makes me so hot my brain shorts out?”

She shrugged, then grabbed a bright blue throw pillow, hugging it to her, looking uncannily like a very grown-up version of their niece. “I’m easy?”

This time, he laughed out loud. “Oh, babe, one thing you’re not is easy.”

“Fun, then. And by the way, that thing where you said I made you hot?” She gave him a thumbs up.

“Like men don’t say that to you all the time.”

“Ooh, somebody’s just racking up the brownie points right and left today.” Two heartbeats later she stood in front of him again, her thumbs hooked in his belt loop, tugging him close. “No, really, that’s a very sweet thing to say, considering I’m not exactly the nubile young thing I used to be. But what other men might or might not say to me isn’t the point. The point is…” Her gaze never leaving his, she let go to skim a finger-nail down his chest, smiling when he involuntarily flinched. “The point is, it’s been a long, long time since anyone made me hot enough to short out my brain, too.”

“Oh, yeah? How long?”

The fingernail slid underneath the front of his shirt, gently scraping across his skin. “Guess.”

He pulled away.

“Would it put your mind at ease,” she said behind him, “to know I’m not looking for the same things I was ten years ago?” When he turned, she added, “Not with you, not with anybody else. I’m not looking for forever, Ben.” Her mouth stretched into an almost-smile. “Not anymore.”

He frowned. “You don’t want marriage? Kids?”

She walked over to the same photos he’d been looking at earlier, straightening out the one he’d apparently not put back correctly. “It’s like when you’re a teenager, and you just know if you don’t get that album, or dress, or pair of shoes, you’ll expire. Then one day you realize you never did get whatever it was you thought you couldn’t live without, and not only did you survive, you don’t miss it, either.”

And clearly she’d forgotten just how well he’d always been able to see through her, too. Her reluctance to make eye contact was a dead giveaway that she was skirting the truth. But this wasn’t the time to call her on it, especially since he was hardly in a place where he could be entirely truthful with her, either.

So all he said was, “You’re one weird chick, Mercy,” and she laughed.

“Not exactly breaking news,” she said, facing him again. “Look, whether we should have let things get out of hand or not back then, I can’t say. But I’ve never regretted it. Have you? No, wait,” she said, holding up one hand. “Maybe I don’t want to know the answer to that.”

Ben realized he was grinding his teeth to keep from going to her. “Not hardly,” he said, and she smiled.

“Well, then. Ben, I knew from the moment you came home after the army that you’d never stick around. Yeah, I was supremely annoyed that you took off without saying anything, but I always knew you’d leave.” She did that thing where she planted her palms on her butt, and Ben’s mouth went dry. “Just like I know you’ll leave this time. But while you’re here, we could either drive ourselves nuts pretending we’re not interested, or we could enjoy each other.” Her shoulders bumped. “Your call.” When he shook his head, she said, “Why not?”

“Porque nadie tropieza dos veces con la misma piedra,” he said softly, repeating an old Mexican proverb he’d heard a thousand times as a kid. Because nobody trips over the same stone twice.

They eyed each other for a long moment, then she returned to the kitchen, collecting their mugs.

“You’re angry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” The dishwasher shuddered when she banged it open. “It was just a thought.”

“Merce. A half hour ago you gave the very distinct impression you’d rather eat live snakes than start something up again with me. So why the sudden change of heart?”

She slammed the dishwasher shut, turned around. “That was my wounded pride talking. So good news—guess I’m a faster healer than I realized.”

“And I’m just getting started,” he said, and her brows plunged. “Honey, I’m not rejecting you. I’m rejecting the past. Because I don’t want to pick up where we left off. Because, yeah, I want you so much I can’t think straight, but it’s more than that with you.” His throat ached when he swallowed. “It was always more than that with you.”

In the space of a heartbeat, her expression changed from confusion to stunned comprehension to bemusement. The cat jumped up on the counter beside her, bumping her elbow to be petted. Being obviously well-trained, she obeyed, then said, “You remember the scene early in It’s a Wonderful Life where Jimmy Stewart finds himself in Donna Reed’s living room, and her mother hollers down the stairs, asking her what he wants, and Donna Reed says, ‘I don’t know,’ then turns to Jimmy Stewart and says, ‘What do you want?’ and he gets all mad because he doesn’t really know?” She cocked her head. “Well?”

“I don’t know,” Ben ground out, stuffing his arms into his jacket. “But I can tell you I’m not looking for the same things I was before, either.”

Then he strode to her door and let himself out, not even trying to keep from slamming the door.

The forecast had called for a slight chance of snow on New Year’s Eve—pretty much an empty threat in Albuquerque, which, Ben mused as he listened to his mother fuss at his father at their bedroom door, rarely had weather in the usual sense of the word. Muttering in Spanish, his mother trooped down the hall, all dressed up for her night on the town.

“You sure you’re going to be okay?” Juanita said, wrapping a soft, fuzzy shawl around her shoulders, half concealing the glittery long-sleeved dress underneath. Her eyes sparkled as brightly as the diamond studs in her ears—his parents and Mercy’s were spending the night at one of the fancy casino resorts on a nearby Indian reservation, and she’d spent most of the day primping in preparation. When he’d been a kid and money had been tight for both families, “doing something for New Year’s” meant getting together to play cards, or, later, watch videos. Apparently, though, their parents had been celebrating in grand style for some years now, and seeing how excited they were tickled Ben to death.

“I imagine I’ll muddle through somehow,” he said with a smile.

The doorbell rang; his mother opened it to let Mary and Manny Zamora inside. “Luis!” she tossed over her shoulder as Ben and the Zamoras shook hands, exchanged hugs and small talk. “They’re here!” She minced to the end of the hallway in high heels she wasn’t used to wearing. “What are you doing?”

Grumbling under his breath, his father appeared, still adjusting the ostentatious silver-and-turquoise bolo on his string tie. After a burst of chatter, the Zamoras and his father headed back out, but his mother lagged behind.

“Now there’s plenty of food in the refrigerator,” she said, “and you know how to use the microwave—”

“Juanita! Per Dios!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!”

Ben stood in the doorway, watching them drive off, the headlight beams from his father’s brand new Escalade glancing off a handful of tiny, valiantly swirling snowflakes. As he was about to close the door, he noticed Mercy’s Firebird in her driveway, its lightly frosted roof glistening in the light from the street lamp several houses over. Ben frowned—the quintessential party girl, alone on New Year’s? Now that was just wrong.

Close the door, Ben. None of your business, Ben. Stay out of it, Ben…

A minute’s raid on the family room bar produced a bottle of Baileys he hoped didn’t predate Nixon. If nothing else, they could spike their coffee.

Or, he considered as he stood on her doorstep, ringing her doorbell, she could—justifiably—tell him to take his Baileys and stick it someplace the sun don’t shine—

“No!” he heard Mercy say on the other side. “Never, ever answer the door without first making sure you know who’s on the other side!”

The door swung open (because clearly Mercy didn’t take her own advice, which provoked a flash of irritation behind Ben’s eyes). From inside floated the mouthwatering scents of baked chocolate and popcorn. “Ben! What are you doing here?”

Her hair sprouting from the top of her head in a fountain of ringlets, the party girl was dressed to kill in a three-sizestoo-big purple sweatshirt that hung to midthigh, a pair of clingy, sparkly pants, and blindingly bright, striped fuzzy socks. Not surprisingly, considering the way they’d left things the day before, her eyes bugged with total astonishment, which pleased Ben in some way he couldn’t begin to define.

“I, um, didn’t like the idea of you being by yourself on New Year’s?” he said as Mattie, swallowed up in a nearly identical outfit and crying, “Uncle Ben! Uncle Ben!” launched herself at his knees, adhering to him like plastic wrap. Then she leaned back, giving him her most adoring, gap-toothed smile.

“Aunt Mercy an’ me’re watching Finding Nemo but Jake doesn’t wanna, he says it’s a sissy movie.” The squirt latched onto his hand and dragged him across the threshold. “Wanna come watch with us?”

Ben’s gaze shifted to Mercy, who shrugged. The sweatshirt didn’t budge. “Welcome to Mercy’s Rockin’ NewYear’s Eve. I’m babysitting,” she said, standing aside to keep from getting trampled as Jacob yelled from the back of the house, “I’m not a baby!”

“Get a job and we’ll talk,” Mercy called back as they all returned to the living room.

No reply except for the muffled pings and zaps of some video game.

“Popcorn’s ready,” she yelled again, plopping a plastic bowl as large as a bathtub in the middle of that trunk with identity issues. Over in her corner, Annabelle shimmered red…blue…green…red as the color wheel did its thing, while a small fire crackled lazily in a kiva fireplace in the opposite corner, and Ben felt a chuckle of pure delight rumble up from his chest.

Mercy reached up to adjust her hair, her hands landing on her hips when she was done. Her nails were as red as her walls, with what looked like little rhinestones or something imbedded in each tip. Amazing. Ben’s gaze shifted to her face; she looked more befuddled than ticked, he decided. “We’ve already had the first course—brownies—but I think there’s still a few left in the kitchen.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. Um…” Ben slipped off his jacket, flinging it across the back of a chair. “Are you okay with this?”

One eyebrow hitched, just slightly. “That you crashed my party? Yeah, I should’ve had the dude at the door check the guest list more carefully. But hey, no problem, we’ve got chaperones and everything.”

“What’s a chaperone?” Mattie asked.

“Somebody who makes sure nobody does something they shouldn’t,” Mercy said, never taking her eyes off Ben’s, the eyebrow hiking another millimeter. Okay, definitely not ticked. Not that having the kids here meant a whole lot in the tempering-the-sexual-tension department. Apparently.

“What’s that?” the little girl said, latching on to the Baileys. “C’n I have some?”

“Not if you want your mother to ever, ever let you come here again,” Mercy said, taking the bottle from Ben and nodding in approval. “Later,” she said, holding it up, then setting it on top of the fashionably distressed armoire housing a regular old TV and DVD player. She walked the few steps to the hall, pushing up the sleeves of the sweatshirt. They fell right back down. “Jacob Manuel Vargas! If you don’t get out here right now and get yourself some popcorn, your uncle Ben’s gonna eat it all up!”

“Uncle Ben’s here? All right!” he heard from down the hall, followed by pounding footsteps and a grinning kid in a hoodie and jeans. He high-fived Ben; Mercy stuck another plastic bowl in his hands with the warning that if he got a single piece on her bed his butt was going to be in a major sling.

“Wanna play games with me later?” he asked Ben around a mouthful of popcorn, looking less than terrorized by his aunt’s threat. “I got this really cool racing game for Christmas, I’m already at the third level.”

“Sure thing,” Ben said, feeling a little like the new kid at school getting picked for the best team. “But in a sec, okay? So,” he said to Mercy, imbuing his words with as much meaning as he dared. “Tony and Anita went out?” He settled on the sofa, swiping the bowl of popcorn off the coffee table. Mattie wriggled into place beside him, grabbing a far-too-large handful that promptly exploded all over her, the sofa and the floor.

“Sorry, Aunt Mercy!”

“Don’t worry about it, cutie-pie, it happens.” Mercy bent over to pick up the scattered kernels, her hair and face glimmering red…blue…green…red. “Yeah,” she said. Deliberately avoiding his eyes? “They’d already made reservations at the Hilton, so it seemed a shame to give them up just because Tony broke his leg. But the real party’s here—right, munchkin?” she said to Mattie, lightly tapping her niece on the nose with a piece of popcorn. The child giggled, snuggling closer to Ben and swiping a piece of popcorn out of his hand.

“We get to stay up until midnight—” she yawned “—and watch the ball drop in Tom’s hair.”

“Times Square, stupid,” Jacob said, prompting an immediate “Don’t call your sister stupid,” from Mercy.

Apparently unfazed, the little girl twisted around to look up at Ben with big, solemn, slightly sleepy eyes. “It’s funner over here. Mama ’n’ Daddy’ve been fighting a lot. I don’t like it when they do that.”

Mercy’s eyes flashed to Ben’s as Jacob, instantly turning beet red, muttered, “Shut up, Mattie.”

“Well, they have. An’you’re not supposed to say ‘shut up,’ Mama says it’s rude.”

“Guys!” Mercy said. “Enough. But you know what? Your mama and I used to fight like crazy when we were kids, and it didn’t mean anything.”

“Really?” Mattie said.

Mercy laughed. “Oh, yeah. Yelling, screaming…ask your grandma, she used to swear it sounded like we were killing each other. And then it would blow over and we’d be best buddies again—”

“C’n I have a Coke?” the boy said, bouncing up out of the chair.

“Sure, sweetie,” Mercy said. “You know where they are. And by the way,” she said to his back as he walked away, “what happens here, stays here, got it?”

That got a fleeting grin and a nod. Only Ben wasn’t sure if Mercy was talking about the questionable menu or the even more questionable conversation. He stuffed another handful of popcorn into his mouth, staring at the slightly trembling image of a red-and-white fish on the screen in front of him. As Jake traipsed back to Mercy’s bedroom with his popcorn and soda, Mattie dug the remote out from under Ben’s hip, punched the Play button and the red fish started talking to a blue fish that sounded oddly like Ellen de Generes.

“So you really think that’s all this is?” he said softly over Mattie’s giggles as Mercy sank into the cushion on the other side of her niece, tucking her feet up under her.

Her silence spoke volumes as she reached across their niece to pluck several kernels from the bowl. “No,” she said, her eyes on the screen. “Unfortunately.”

“You think somebody should go talk to Jake?”

“I’ve tried, but…” She shrugged, her forehead puckered.

“Guys, shh,” Mattie said, poking Ben with her elbow. “This is the best part, when Dory pretends she’s a whale.”

Out of deference to Mattie, they stopped talking. But Ben wasn’t paying the slightest attention to the movie, and he somehow doubted Mercy—whose mouth was still pulled down at the corners—was, either. Under other circumstances, he would have been perfectly fine with staying right where he was, with this goofy little girl cuddled next to him and her goofy aunt not much farther away, munching popcorn and watching a kid flick.

But sometimes, life has other ideas.

So he gently extricated himself from the soft, trusting warmth curled into his side, shifting the child to lean against her aunt instead, then followed the sound of engines roaring and tires screeching until he reached Mercy’s bedroom. Sitting cross-legged on the end of Mercy’s double bed, Jake was intently focused on the game flashing across the smaller TV sitting on the dresser in front of him, his thumbs a blur on the controller as he leaned from side to side.

Ben leaned against the door frame, his thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets. “Hey,” he said softly, acutely aware that, as far as Jake was concerned, Ben was a stranger. Not to mention he was venturing into potentially explosive-ridden territory. No doubt Tony would see Ben’s attempt to help as blatant, and extremely unwelcome, interference.

Attention riveted to the car zooming and swerving wildly on the screen, Jake bumped one shoulder in acknowledgment. “Soon as I’m done—” he hunched forward, pounded one button a dozen times in rapid succession, then whispered “Yes! I can set it up…for two players…”

“No hurry.”

The room was dark except for a single bedside lamp, but he could see she’d gone with the orange in here, Ben noted with a wry smile. Sort of the same color as that clownfish, actually. But for a woman as unabashedly female as Mercedes Zamora, her bedroom was almost eerily frou-frou free. Even more than he remembered. No lace, no filmy stuff at the windows, no mounds of pillows or—God bless her—stuffed animals on the unadorned platform bed, covered with a plain white comforter. Nothing but clean lines as far as the eye could see.

And all that color, drenching the room in a perpetual sunset.

Ben turned his attention to his nephew, then eased over to sit next to him. The cat, who’d been God knew where up to that point, jumped up and butted his arm, then tramped across his lap to sniff Jake’s hand.

“Go away, Homer,” he said, giggling. “Your whiskers tickle.”

Yeah, that’s how kids are supposed to sound. “Wow,” Ben said, sincerely impressed. “You really rock at this.”

A quick grin bloomed across the kid’s face. “Thanks. Okay,” he said a minute later, his fingers again flying over the buttons as the image changed to a split screen. “The other controller’s in my backpack, if you want to get it?”

“Sure.” Ben dug through a wad of rumpled, detergent-scented clothes, pulled it out, plugged it into the console. “You have to promise to go easy on me, though,” he said. “I think the last video game I played was Mario on Nintendo.”

“You mean, like Game Cube?”

“No, I mean the original Nintendo. Way before your time.”

“Oh, yeah…my dad still drags that out every once in a while. But mostly he likes my PlayStation, ’cause it’s way cooler.”

Ben chose his car—a red Porsche, what else?—and they were off. Twenty seconds in, Ben realized his reaction time needed some serious retooling. The kid was beating the crap out of him. “Your dad play games with you?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Mom doesn’t like it much, though.”

“Oh?” Ben said carefully.

“She keeps saying…he needs to…grow up.” Apparently realizing his gaffe, the kid flicked a glance in Ben’s direction, only to then say, “Why’s Dad mad at you?”

Ben stiffened, tempted to pretend he had no idea what the kid was talking about. But what would be the point? “I’m not sure I can explain.” He glanced at the boy. “Why?” he asked, smiling. “Was he bad-mouthing me?”

Jake flushed. “Kind of. Papi though, he like couldn’t stop talkin’ about you when they were over at our house last night. He’s really, really happy you came home.”

“So am I,” Ben said. Then he bumped the boy’s shoulder with his own, earning him a quick, slightly embarrassed grin.

After another couple of seconds, though, Jake said quietly, “Mattie’s right, Mom an’ Dad really have been yelling a lot at each other lately.”

“That must suck,” Ben said after a short pause.

“Totally. Especially since it really scares Mattie, she’s just a little kid. And I know what Aunt Mercy said, about how she and my mom used to fight when they were kids, but this is different.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I dunno. It just is. Me ’n’ Mattie fight all the time, too, but…” Jake shook his head.

Ben’s game car crashed into a wall, bounced back onto the road, righted itself and kept going. Which is exactly what this conversation was going to do if he wasn’t careful. Except for the keep going part, maybe. “I don’t know, maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. After all, do you think they would have gone out tonight if they really weren’t getting along?”

Beside him, the kid shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe.”

After another few seconds—and another wipeout—Ben ventured, “Have you told your mom and dad how you feel?”

When several moments passed with no reply, Ben looked over to see the boy’s jaw set much too tightly for such a small person, and his heart cramped. “Jake?” he said gently.

His breathing suddenly labored, his nephew tossed down the controller. “This game is dumb, I don’t want to play anymore, okay?”

“Sure, no problem.” Ben tried to lay a hand on the kid’s shoulder, but he jerked away. So he lowered his head to look up into his face. “I know we only just met, but you can tell me how you feel, it’s okay—”

Huge, scared eyes met his. “You’re gonna tell, aren’t you?”

“Is anybody actually getting hurt?”

Jake looked away. Shook his head.

“Then I swear, dude, this is strictly between you and me. So are we cool?”

After a moment, the boy nodded.

Ben thought for a moment, then said, “When your mom and dad get mad, do they yell at you? Or Mattie?”

“Uh-uh.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, ’course. Well, Mom gets kinda crazy when I forget to clean my room an’ stuff, but that’s different.”

Ben smiled. “Yes, it is.” He sucked in a breath, then asked, “And you’re sure it’s only yelling? No hitting?”

Jake’s head popped up at that, his entire face contorting with his incredulous, “No! Geez, why would you think that? They just argue, is all.” He smacked at a tear that had trickled down his cheek. “Sometimes it’s not even loud or anything. It’s just like…I dunno. Like they forgot how to talk to each other an’ stuff.”

“Maybe this night out will be good for them, then,” Ben said. “Give them a chance to be alone, just with each other. So maybe they can figure out how to talk to each other again.”

“Yeah, maybe,” the kid said, but he didn’t exactly sound hopeful.

“Sometimes it’s tough, being a parent,” Ben said, and the kid frowned up at him.

“How would you know? You don’t have any kids, right?”

Right to the gut. “No, I don’t. But I’ve been around. And besides your Mami and Papi Vargas always swore your dad and I drove them crazy.”

A tremulous smile flickered across the child’s face. “For real?”

“Oh, yeah. And they used to argue, too, now and then. Nobody’s going to get along all the time, no matter how much they love each other. Sometimes, they’re going to disagree about stuff. Loudly. Like your aunt said, it usually blows over—”

From the doorway, Mercy softly cleared her throat. Both Ben and Jacob twisted around. “I thought I’d make root beer floats—how does that sound?”

“Cool,” Jacob said, grabbing his controller again. “Call me when they’re ready, ’kay?”

“Sure thing, your highness,” Mercy said on a soft laugh, her expression sobering when she shifted her gaze to Ben. “Come help me in the kitchen?”

Uh, boy.

“What happened to your sidekick?” Ben asked easily, warily, as he followed Mercy down the hall.

“She passed out long before they found Nemo,” Mercy said in a low voice. “No, leave her, I’ll put her to bed in a bit.”

“Brownies, popcorn, root beer floats…” Shaking his head, Ben leaned against the front of the sink, lowering his voice as well so as to not wake Mattie. “You trying to poison these kids or what?”

“It’s a party, I’m hardly going to serve them Brussels sprouts. And I overheard a lot of what you said to Jake.”

Yeah, he figured this was coming. “You’re not going to even apologize for eavesdropping, are you?”

The refrigerator’s compressor jerked awake when she opened the freezer to get out the ice cream, then the fridge itself for the bottle of root beer. “Nope.”

“And do I detect an edge to your words I should worry about?”

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate you trying to make the kid feel better, but…” She plunked both soda and ice cream onto the counter, frowning at him. “But giving him false hope when you don’t really know the situation seems a little, I don’t know. Presumptuous?”

“Because who the hell am I to come waltzing back into everyone’s life and try to fix things I know nothing about?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“I was only following your lead.”

“I know, I know,” she said on an exhaled breath. “Reach me those goblets over the sink, would you? Only three, Mattie’s down for the count, I’m sure.” As he retrieved a trio of heavy, short stemmed glasses, she said, “Somehow, hearing the BS coming out of your mouth made me realize how ridiculous it must have sounded coming out of mine.”

Ben frowned, only half watching Mercy pour the root beer into the glasses. “What little I was around Tony and Anita the other day…things definitely seemed tense. But do you think their marriage is in that much trouble?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. I’ve tried to bring up the subject with my sister, but she won’t bite.”

“Which isn’t a good sign.”

Obvious worry deepened the faint lines already bracketing her mouth. “No. It isn’t.”

Ben released a breath. “I guess I assumed the tension was due to Tony’s breaking his leg and they hadn’t quite adjusted to how they were going to get through the next few weeks.” Not to mention how Tony was going to deal with Ben’s taking over for him during that time. That, Ben understood. Whatever was going on between his brother and Mercy’s sister though…not a clue. “Tony’s being a jerk, isn’t he?”

“Oh, no,” Mercy said, vigorously shaking her head. “There’s no way I’m taking sides in this. For Jake’s and Mattie’s sakes, if nothing else.”

“It’s okay, I do remember what Tony can be like. Especially around women. To tell you the truth…well, I was kind of surprised that ’Nita and he even got together. I always thought she was smarter than that.”

“Tell me that didn’t come out the way you meant it.”

He laughed a little. “Apparently not. And anyway, I guess I hoped either Tony’d gotten his head screwed on straight, or that ’Nita would be able to screw it on for him. But he’s always had this weird attitude where women were concerned.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is throwback.”

“Not that you’re putting yourself in the middle or anything.” When she smirked, he added, “And our folks have no clue, do they?”

“Are you kidding? God knows, Anita wouldn’t say anything, she’d feel like a failure. Especially considering how thrilled they all were that the two of them got together. You’d have thought they’d made the perfect royal match. And in any case, I’m sure she really loves your brother.”

“And you have no idea why.”

“Please. I’m the last person to try explaining the workings of the human heart. Although, to give credit where it’s due, he’s definitely not a slacker—your father wouldn’t get half the jobs he does if it weren’t for Tony’s getting out there and beating the bushes. And he loves his kids. Even if he does seem to think it’s mainly ’Nita’s job to keep them alive. Still…” Her brow furrowed. “I’m not sure which is worse—having our parents watch the slow, painful death of their kids’ marriage, or getting blindsided by a possible divorce announcement.”

Mercy scooped out the ice cream, carefully dropping it into the first glass of root beer. “Can I ask you something?” she asked softly.

“Like my saying ‘no’ would stop you.”

“True,” she said, a smile making a brief appearance. Another scoop of ice cream tumbled into the second glass. “Given everything you said yesterday…” Her gaze veered to his. “Why’d you come over tonight? Assuming you didn’t know the kids were here, I mean.”

She had him there. “I’m not sure. It just seemed like the thing to do.”

Again, she dipped the scoop into the carton. A glob caught on her knuckle when she drew it out; she licked it off and said, “Should I leave it at that?”

“I’d be immensely grateful if you would.”

A low laugh rumbled from her throat. “Oh, admit it—” Her eyes sparkling with laughter, she leaned close and whispered, “I’m the flame and you’re nothin’ but a big old horny moth.”

He met her gaze steadily, fearlessly. “You’re dripping.”

She flinched. “What?”

“The ice cream. It’s dripping.”

Swearing under her breath, she finished off the last float, then asked him to call Jacob.

A few minutes later, they woke a very drowsy Mattie to welcome in the New Year, after which Ben scooped the boneless little girl off the sofa and carried her to the twin-bedded room next to Mercy’s. A dead weight against his chest, she smelled of popcorn, chocolate, girly shampoo and Mercy’s perfume.

Mercy peeled back the covers so Ben could lay her down; she grabbed that disreputable stuffed kitty and curled onto her side, mumbling, “Love you, Uncle Ben,” and almost instantly drifted back to sleep. With a squeaked meow, Homer hopped onto the bed, forming a tight, furry knot at the small of her back.

Ben straightened, his throat constricting as he watched Mercy draw the covers up over those defenseless little shoulders, reveling in a sense of belonging he’d deliberately ignored for far too long in the name of the “bigger” picture.

Jake begged to stay up a little longer to finish his game. “Fifteen minutes,” Mercy said at her bedroom door, then continued to the living room, where she collapsed on the sofa, her toes curled on the edge of the trunk, her eyes closed.

“I should go,” Ben said. “Let you get to sleep.”

“We never got to the Baileys,” she mumbled, her eyes still shut, then yawned.

“Maybe we should save it for another time.”

Slowly—reluctantly—her eyes opened. “Another time?”

“You know what I mean.”

She laughed. “Not only do I not know what you mean, I seriously doubt you do, either. No, it’s okay,” she said, vaguely waving one hand. “No explanation necessary.” Her forehead crimped. “Bet you hadn’t banked on walking into the middle of a domestic crisis.”

“Can’t say that I did. But—” he shrugged “—that’s just part of being a family, right?”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Her eyes lowered to her knee; she stretched forward to pick off a piece of popcorn stuck to the glittery fabric, then looked back up at him. “Actually, I’m glad you came over. I didn’t realize how much I needed to talk to somebody about all this stuff until there was somebody to talk to. Somebody not totally crazy, anyway. Okay, a different brand of crazy, maybe,” she said when he chuckled. Again, she leaned back, her expression speculative. “It’s good to have you home.”

“Even if we don’t…you know.”

“Yeah,” she said drowsily. “Because it was always more than that with you, too.”

Over the sudden buzzing inside his skull, Ben quickly leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. “It’s good to be here,” he whispered, then let himself out.

And it was good to be back, he thought later, as he lay in the far-too-small twin bed in his old room, scratching a snoring rat-dog’s upturned belly. Even though, if it had been sanctuary he’d sought, the joke was on him. Between leftover issues from the past and a heap of fresh ones from the present, he hadn’t exactly walked back into a fifties sitcom.

Nor would he have ever believed how quickly a couple of kisses, and a conversation or two could bring the past rear-ending into the present. But apparently he’d carried Mercy’s scent and feel and offbeat sense of humor with him, inside him, all these years like an old photograph. And worn and faded and cracked though it might be, all it took was a single glance to turn memories back into reality.

To turn “What if?” into “What now?”

Chapter Four

The week following New Year’s passed uneventfully enough, Mercy supposed. Decorations came down and got put away, and life returned to its usual post-holiday stuttering, sluggish semblance of normalcy. Mercy sometimes saw Ben coming out of his parents’ house, and they’d wave and say “How’s it going?” and the other one would say, “Fine, you?” but that was pretty much the extent of their interaction.

All things considered, probably a good thing, she mused as she leaned heavily against one of the shop’s glass counters, her head braced in one palm, morosely leafing through a display catalog. Since Ben—despite his showing up on her doorstep on New Year’s Eve in a cloud of super-saturated testosterone—still clearly wasn’t interested in starting something nobody had any intention of finishing. Nor, apparently, in a friends-with-benefits scenario.

She slapped to the next page. So why, exactly, was she morose again?

Other than the fact that it had been far too long since she’d gotten naked with anybody, that is. Or that, now that she’d done the kissy-face thing with Ben, Ben was the only “anybody” she cared to get naked with.

Sometimes, life was just plain cruel.

The bell over the door jingled. Mercy glanced up as a young mother with two very small boys in tow pushed her way inside. “Timmy, stay with me,” the mother said to the older boy, an adorable curly-headed blond, then smiled her thanks when their part-timer, Trish, helped the mother settle her youngest into a collapsible stroller before leading them back to the baby and toddler section.

“So what do you think?” said Cass, one of Mercy’s partners, leaning her tall, Eddie Bauer-ified frame against the case. Cotton sweater, cord skirt, shades of beige. Her feathery blond hair swept over her shoulders when she pointed to one of the photos. “Those heart-shaped balloons would look great tied in bunches in the centers of the displays, wouldn’t they? We could give them away to the kids when they came in.”

“Valentine’s Day sucks,” Mercy muttered, slapping down the next page.

“Hey. You’ve been grumpy all week. What gives?”

“PMS?” Mercy said without looking up.

“Nope, your chocolate binge was two weeks ago. Try again.”

“Yeesh, you keeping track of my cycles now or what? So I’m just in a weird, rotten mood, okay? And sure, the balloons are fine.” She flipped another page, keeping half an eye out for the little blond dude, who’d wandered back out to the front and was now holding a low, intense conversation with a panda bear in the stuffed animal display.

“And how about,” Cass said, “a bunch of large foil hearts on the wall behind the cash register—”

“Don’t press your luck. I’m having enough trouble with the balloons. What?” she said when the blonde poked her arm.

“What’s his name?”

“Who?”

“Whoever’s brought on this sudden, rabid hatred for Valentine’s Day.”

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