“Let’s dance,” he said and held out his hand to her.

  “Is that a request or a command?” she asked, staring up at him.

  Mitch swallowed. This was going from bad to worse. “Do you want me to put on a little performance for you the way Keith did?”

  “No,” she answered simply.

  It was now or never. “Bethany,” he said, dragging air into his lungs, “I love you. I have for weeks. I should’ve told you before.”

  She stared at him, her eyes huge. Then, as though she doubted his words, she hastily looked away. “Why now, Mitch?”

  He could hardly hear her over the music. “Why now what?”

  “Why are you telling me now?” she asked, clarifying her question. “Is it because you’re overwhelmed by the depth of your feelings?” She sounded just a little sarcastic, he thought.

  “Or could the truth be that you can’t bear to see me with another man?”

  He frowned, not because he didn’t understand her question, but because he wasn’t sure how to answer. She had a point. He might well have been content to leave things as they were if he hadn’t found her dancing with Landgrin.

  “Your hesitation tells me everything I need to know,” she whispered brokenly. She stood then, in such a rush that she nearly toppled the chair. “Duke,” she called, hurrying toward the pilot. “Didn’t I promise you another dance?”

  Mitch ground his teeth in frustration.

  He’d started toward the door when Bill Landgrin stopped him. “Looks like you’re batting zero, my friend. Seems to me the lady knows what she wants, and it isn’t you.”

  “I blew it,” Bethany muttered miserably. She’d stayed behind and was helping Ben clear the remaining tables. Mariah had disappeared hours earlier after a confrontation with Christian, and she hadn’t seen her since.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mitch and me.”

  “What’s with you two, anyway?” Ben asked as he set a tray of dirty glasses on the counter.

  “I don’t know anymore. I thought…I’d hoped…” She felt tongue-tied, unable to explain. Slipping onto the stool opposite Ben, she let her shoulders sag in abject misery. She was still feeling a little drunk—and a lot discouraged—not to mention suffering from a near-fatal bout of cabin fever.

  “Here,” Ben said, reaching behind the counter and bringing out a bottle of brandy. “I save this for special occasions.”

  “What’s so special about this evening?” she asked.

  “A number of things,” he said, but didn’t elaborate. He brought out a couple of snifters and poured a liberal amount into each. “This will cure what ails you. Guaranteed.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” At this point she figured a glass of brandy couldn’t hurt.

  “Cheers,” Ben said and touched the rim of his glass to hers.

  “To a special…friend,” she said and took her first tentative sip. The liquid fire glided over her tongue and down her throat. When it came to drinking alcohol, Bethany generally stuck to wine and an occasional beer, rarely anything stronger.

  Her eyes watered, and this time it had nothing to do with her emotions.

  “You all right?” Ben asked, slapping her on the back.

  She pressed her hand over her heart and nodded breathlessly. Her second and third sips went down far more easily than the first. Gradually a warmth spread out from the pit of her stomach, and a lethargic feeling settled over her.

  “Have you ever been in love?” she asked, surprising herself by asking such a personal question. Perhaps the liquor had loosened her tongue; more likely it was the need to hear this man’s version of his affair with her mother. This man who’d fathered her…

  “In love? Me?”

  “What’s so strange about that?” she asked lightly, careful not to let on how serious the question really was. “Surely you’ve been in love at least once in your life. A woman in your deep, dark past maybe—one you’ve never been able to forget?”

  Ben chuckled. “I was in the navy, you know.”

  Bethany nodded. “Don’t tell me you were the kind of sailor who had a woman in every port?”

  He grinned almost boyishly and cocked his head to one side. “That was me, all right.”

  Although she’d solicited it, this information disturbed Bethany. It somehow cheapened her mother and the love Marilyn had once felt for Ben. “But there must’ve been one woman you remember more than any of the others,” she pressed.

  Ben scratched his head as though to give her question heavy-duty consideration. “Nope, can’t say there was. I liked to play the field.”

  Bethany took another sip of the brandy. “What about Marilyn?” she asked brazenly, throwing caution to the winds. “You do remember her, don’t you?”

  “Marilyn?” Ben repeated, a look of surprise on his face. “No…I don’t recall any Marilyn.” He sounded as though he’d never heard the name before.

  Ben might as well have reached across the counter and slapped her face. Hard. She hurt for her mother, and for herself. Before she met him, she’d let herself imagine that her mother’s affair with Ben had been a romantic relationship gone tragically awry.

  In the past few weeks, she’d begun to think she shared a genuine friendship with Ben. A real bond. Because of that, she’d lowered her guard and come close to revealing her secret.

  Bethany clamped her mouth shut. She wanted to blame the wine. The brandy. Both had loosened her tongue, she realized, but she’d been on the verge of telling him, anyway. She shook the hair out of her face and stared past him.

  “Three years ago,” she began resolutely, struggling to find the right words, knowing she couldn’t stop now, “the doctors found a lump in my mother’s breast.”

  “Cancer?”

  Bethany nodded.

  Ben glanced at his watch. “It’s getting kind of late, don’t you think?”

  “This story will only take a couple more minutes,” she promised, and to fortify her courage, she drank the rest of the brandy in a single gulp. It raged a fiery path down her throat.

  “You were talking about your mother,” Ben prodded, and it seemed he wanted her to hurry. Bethany didn’t know if she could. Those weeks when her mother had been so sick from the chemotherapy had been the most traumatic of her life.

  “It turned out that the cancer had spread,” Bethany continued. “For a while we didn’t know if my mother was going to survive. I was convinced that if the cancer didn’t kill her, the chemo would. I was still in college at the time. My classes usually let out around two, and I got into the habit of stopping at the hospital on my way home from school.”

  Ben nursed his drink, his eyes avoiding hers.

  “One day, after a particularly violent reaction to the treatment, Mom thought she was going to die. I tried to tell her she had to fight the cancer.”

  “Did she die?” Ben asked. For the first time since starting her story she had his full attention. Either she was a better storyteller than she realized, or Ben did remember her mother.

  “No. She’s a survivor. But that day Mom asked me to sit down because she had something important to tell me.” At this point, Bethany paused long enough to steady herself. After all this time, the unexpectedness of her mother’s announcement still shocked her.

  “And?”

  “My mother told me about a young sailor she’d loved many years ago. They’d met the summer before he shipped out to Vietnam. By the end of their time together, they’d become lovers. Their political differences separated them as much as the war had. He left because he felt it was his duty to fight, and she stayed behind and joined the peace movement, protesting the war every chance she had. She wrote him a letter and told him about it. He didn’t answer. She knew he didn’t approve of what she was doing.”

  “Whoever this person was, he probably didn’t want to read about how she was trying to undermine his efforts in Southeast Asia,” Ben said stiffly.

  “I’m sure that’s true.” Bethany’s voice quavered slightly. “The problem was that when he refused to open her next letter, he failed to learn something vitally important. My mother was pregnant with his child.”

  The snifter in Ben’s hand dropped to the floor and shattered. His eyes remained frozen on Bethany’s face.

  “I was that child.”

  The silence stretched to the breaking point. “Who took care of her?” he asked in a choked whisper.

  “Her family. When she was about four months pregnant, she met Peter Ross, another student, and confided in him. They fell in love and were married shortly before I was born. Peter raised me as his own and has loved and nurtured me ever since. I never would’ve guessed…. It was the biggest shock of my life to learn he wasn’t my biological father.”

  “Your mother’s name is Marilyn?”

  “Yes, and she named you as my birth father.”

  “Me,” Ben said with a weak-sounding laugh. “Sorry, kid, but you’ve got the wrong guy.” He continued to shake his head incredulously. “What’d your mother do—send you out to find me?”

  “No. Neither of my parents know why I accepted the teaching contract in Hard Luck. I gave your name to the Red Cross, and they traced you here. I came to meet you, to find out what I could about you.”

  “Then it’s unfortunate you came all this way for nothing,” he said gruffly.

  “It’s funny, really, because we are alike. You know the way you get three lines between your eyes when you’re troubled or confused? I get those, too. In fact, you’re the one who mentioned it, remember? And we both like to cook. And we—”

  “That’s enough,” he snapped. “Listen, Bethany, this is all well and good, but like I already said, you’ve got the wrong guy.”

  “But—”

  “I told you before and I’ll tell you again. I never knew any woman called Marilyn. You’d think if I’d slept with her, I’d remember her, wouldn’t you?”

  His words were like stones hurled at her heart. “I don’t want anything from you, Ben.”

  “Well, don’t count on a mention in my will, either, understand?”

  She nearly fell off the stool in her effort to escape. She retreated a step backward. “I…I should never have told you.”

  “I don’t know why you did. And listen, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go spreading this lie around town. I’ve got a reputation to uphold, and I don’t want your lies—and your mother’s—besmirching my character.”

  Bethany thought she was going to be sick.

  “It’s a damn lie, you hear? A lie!”

  “I’m sorry. I—I shouldn’t have said anything,” she stammered.

  He didn’t answer her right away. “I don’t know anything about any Marilyn.”

  “I made a mistake,” Bethany whispered. “A terrible mistake.” She turned and ran from the café.

  Chapter 10

  In all the years Mitch had lived in Hard Luck, he’d seen very few mornings when Ben wasn’t open for business.

  Mitch wasn’t the only disgruntled one. Christian met him outside the café. “Do you think Ben might have overslept?”

  Mitch doubted it. “Ben?” he asked. “Ben Hamilton, who says he never sleeps past six no matter what time he goes to bed?”

  “Maybe he decided to take the day off. He’s entitled, don’t you think?” Christian asked.

  Mitch had thought of that, too. “But wouldn’t he put up a sign or something?”

  Christian considered this, then said, “Probably.” He frowned at his watch. “Listen, I’m supposed to meet Sawyer over at his place.”

  “Go ahead.” It was clear Christian had the same fears as Mitch. Something was wrong. “I’ll check things out and connect with you later,” he promised.

  Ben’s apartment was situated above the café. Mitch had never been inside, and he didn’t know anyone who had. Ben’s real home was the café itself. He kept it open seven days a week and most holidays. Occasionally he’d post a Closed sign when he felt like taking off for a few days’ fishing, but that was about it.

  The Hard Luck Café was the social center of town, the place where people routinely gathered. Ben was part psychologist, part judge, part confidant and all friend. Mitch didn’t know a man, woman or child in town who didn’t like him.

  Growing increasingly worried, Mitch went around to the back door that led to the kitchen. After a couple of tentative knocks, he walked into the dark, silent café. Flicking on the light switch, the first thing he noticed was shattered glass on the floor.

  “Ben!” Mitch called out, walking all the way inside.

  Nothing.

  The door to the stairs leading to Ben’s apartment was open, and Mitch started up, his heart pounding in his ears. He paused halfway, afraid of what he might find. If Ben was dead, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d come upon a body. The last had been when he’d found Lori.

  He broke out in a cold sweat, and his breathing grew shallow. “Ben,” he said again, not as loudly. It was another moment before he could continue upward.

  The apartment itself was ordinary. A couch and television constituted the living room furniture. Small bath. Bedroom. Both doors had been left ajar.

  “Ben?” he tried once more.

  A moan came from the bedroom.

  More relieved than words could express, Mitch hurried into the room. Ben was sprawled across the bedspread. It took him a full minute to sit up. He blinked as if the act of opening his eyes was painful.

  “Are you all right?” Mitch asked.

  Ben rubbed a hand down his face and seemed to give the question some consideration. “No,” he finally said.

  “Do you need me to call Dotty? Or take you to the clinic?”

  “Hell, no. She can’t do anything about a hangover.”

  “You’re hung over?” To the best of his knowledge, Ben rarely drank.

  Ben pressed both hands to his head. “Do you have to talk so blasted loud?” He grimaced at the sound of his own voice.

  “Sorry,” Mitch said in an amused whisper.

  “Make yourself useful, would you?” Ben growled. “I need coffee. Make it strong, too. I’ll be downstairs in a few minutes.”

  Mitch had the coffee brewing and had swept up the broken glass by the time Ben appeared, his eyes red-rimmed and clouded. His gaze shifted toward Mitch before he took a stool at the counter.

  Mitch brought him a cup of coffee the minute it was ready.

  “Thanks,” Ben mumbled.

  “I’ve never known you to get drunk,” Mitch said conversationally, curious as to what had prompted Ben’s apparent binge.

  “First time in ten years or more,” he muttered. “It was either that or…I don’t know what. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of options. Fight, I guess, but there wasn’t anyone around to punch. Not that it would’ve done any good, since I had no one to blame but myself. Damn, but I messed up.”

  “Can I help?” Mitch asked. He’d often gone to Ben for advice about something or other, including his feelings for Bethany. Most of his visits had been on the pretext of wanting a cup of coffee. It appeared that the tables were turned now—so to speak—and if he could assist Ben in some way, then all the better.

  “Help me? No.” Ben shook his head and instantly seemed to regret the movement. He closed his eyes and waited a moment before opening them again.

  “You want me to make you breakfast?” Mitch asked. “I’m not a bad cook.”

  He couldn’t tell whether Ben was taking his offer into consideration. Lowering his head, Ben muttered something Mitch couldn’t hear.

  Mitch leaned closer. “What did you say?”

  “Have, ah…have you seen Bethany this morning?”

  “No.” He’d actually come to tell his friend what had happened between them last night and—once again—seek his advice.

  “Have you tried calling?”

  “No.”

  Ben gave a slight nod in the direction of the phone. “Call her, okay?”

  Mitch looked at his watch. “It’s a little early, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe, but try, anyway.”

  Mitch wasn’t keen on the idea. “Is there anything in particular you’d like me to ask her?”

  Ben propped his elbows on the counter and covered his face with both hands. He rubbed his eyes, and when he glanced at Mitch they seemed to glisten. “I didn’t know,” he said in a frayed whisper. “I…never knew.”

  “What didn’t you know?” Mitch asked.

  “Marilyn was pregnant.”

  Ben might as well have been speaking in a foreign language for all the sense he made. “Who’s Marilyn?” Mitch asked in calm tones.

  Ben dropped his hands. “Bethany’s mother.” He paused. “Bethany’s my daughter. I’m the reason she came to Hard Luck, and when she told me…I pretended I never knew any Marilyn.”

  “You mean—”

  “Yes!” Ben shouted, pounding his fist on the counter. “I’m Bethany’s father.”

  Mitch swore under his breath.

  “It was the shock. I…I never guessed. Maybe I should have…I don’t know.”

  Mitch sat on the stool next to Ben, feeling the weight of his friend’s burden as if it were his own.

  “When she told me, I denied ever knowing her mother and then—” his face contorted with guilt “—I said some things I regret and sent Bethany away.” Ben wiped impatiently at his eyes. “She ran out of here, and now I’m afraid she won’t be back.”

  “I’ll talk to her if you like.” Although Mitch was happy to make the offer, he didn’t know if he’d be a help or a hindrance. His own track record with Bethany wasn’t exactly impressive.

  “Would you?” Ben clung to Mitch’s words like a lifeline in a storm-tossed sea.

  “Sure.” Mitch needed to see her for his own reasons, anyway. “I’ll do it right away,” he said, eager now to find her. They’d parted on such cool terms Bethany might not be as eager for his company. But Mitch was willing to risk her displeasure. She needed him. When he’d been in pain and grief, she’d been there to comfort him. Ben’s rejection must have left her reeling. Mitch suddenly understood how important it was to be the one to console her.

 

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