Once in a Lifetime(5)

Ben didn’t say anything to this, and Jack blew out a breath. “Sorry.”

Ben shook his head. “Been a long time.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “But some things never stop hurting.”

Maybe not. But it really had been forever ago that Ben had been engaged and then married. He and Hannah had had a solid marriage.

Until she’d died five years ago.

Ben went after his second bear claw while Jack looked down at his vibrating phone. “Shit. I’ve gotta go. Tell Luke he’s an *.”

“Will do.” When he was alone again, Ben washed down his breakfast with icy cold chocolate milk. You drink too much caffeine, Leah had told him, all bossy and sweet at the same time, handing him the milk instead of a mug of coffee.

He planned to stop at the convenience store next for that coffee, and she’d never know. It was early, not close to seven yet, but Ben liked early. Fewer people. Quiet air. Or maybe that was just Lucky Harbor. Either way, he found he was nearly content—coffee would probably tip the scales all the way to content. The feeling felt…odd, like he was wearing an ill-fitting coat, so, as he did with all uncomfortable emotions, he shoved it aside.



A few snowflakes floated lazily out of the low, dense clouds. One block over, the Pacific Ocean carved into the harbor, which was surrounded by rugged, three-story-high bluffs teeming with the untouched forestland that was the Olympic Mountains. Around him, the oak-lined streets were strung with white lights, shining brightly through the morning gloom. Peaceful. Still.

A month ago, he’d been in the Middle East, elbows deep in a project to rebuild a water system for a war-torn land. Before that, he’d been in Haiti. And before that, Africa. And before that…Indonesia? Hell, it might have been another planet for all he remembered. It was all rolling together.

He went to places after disaster hit, whether man-made or natural, and he saw people at their very worst moments. Sometimes he changed lives, sometimes he improved them, but at some point over the past five years he’d become numb to it. So much so that when he’d gone to check out a new job site at the wrong place, only to have the right place blown to bits by a suicide bomber just before he got there, he’d finally realized something.

He didn’t always have to be the guy on the front line. He could design and plan water systems for devastated countries from anywhere. Hell, he could become a consultant instead. Five years of wading knee deep in crap, both figuratively and literally, was enough for anyone. He didn’t want to be in the right hellhole next time.

So he’d come home, with no idea what was next.

Polishing off his second bear claw, Ben sucked the sugar off his thumb. Turning to head toward his truck, he stopped short at the realization that someone stood watching him.

Aubrey. When he caught her eye, she said, “It is you,” and dropped the things in her hands.

Her tone of voice had suggested she’d just stepped in dog shit with her fancy high-heeled boots. This didn’t surprise Ben. She’d been two years behind him in school. In those years, he’d either been on the basketball court, trouble-seeking with Jack, or spending time with Hannah.

Aubrey had been the Hot Girl. He didn’t know why, but there’d always been an instinctive mistrust between them, as if they both recognized that they were two kindred souls—troubled souls. He remembered that when she’d first entered high school she’d had more than a few run-ins with the mean girls. Then she became a mean girl. Crouching down, he reached to help her with the stuff she’d dropped.

“I’ve got it,” she snapped, squatting next to him, pushing his hands away. “I’m fine.”

She certainly looked the part of fine. Her long blonde hair was loose and shiny, held back from her face by a pale blue knit cap. A matching scarf was wrapped around her neck and tucked into a white wool coat that covered her from her chin to a few inches above her knees. Leather boots met those knees, leaving some bare skin below the hem of her coat. She looked sophisticated and hot as hell. Certainly perfectly put together. In fact, she was always purposefully put together.

It made him want to ruffle her up. A crazy thought.

Even crazier, she smelled so good he wanted to just sniff her for about five days. Also, he wanted to know what she was wearing beneath that coat. “Where did you come from?” he asked, as no car had pulled up.

“The building.”

There were three storefronts in the building, one of the oldest in town—the flower shop, the bakery, and the bookstore. She hadn’t come out of the flower shop or the bakery, he knew that much. He glanced at the bookstore. “It’s not open yet.”

The windows were no longer boarded up, he realized, and through the glass panes, he could see that the old bookstore was now a new bookstore, as shiny and clean and pretty as the woman before him.

She scooped up a pen and a lipstick, and he grabbed a fallen notebook.

“That’s mine,” she said.

“I wasn’t going to take it, Aubrey,” he said, and then, with no idea of what came over him—maybe her flashing eyes—he held the notebook just out of her reach as he looked at it. It was small and, like Aubrey herself, neat and tidy. Just a regular pad of paper, spiral bound, opened to a page she’d written on.

“Give it to me, Ben.”

The notebook was nothing special, but clearly his holding on to it was making her uncomfortable. If it had been any other woman on the planet, he’d have handed it right over. But he didn’t.