“I knew your dad was a widower but I never knew how your mom died.”
“A city bus ran a red light and broadsided her car at an intersection.”
“When you were how old?”
“I was fourteen.”
“And how long after that did your dad come here and start the school?”
“A year.”
Ben’s eyebrows arched. “So you’d just lost your mom and when you moved here and he became obsessed with this place it was like losing him, too.”
“Actually, I guess it was. A little,” Clair said. “I’ve never looked at it that way, but you’re right. Thinking back on it, that is how it felt to me.” And the fact that Ben had such insight was yet another thing about him that impressed her.
But even so she couldn’t let him think unkindly of her father, so she said, “Not that my dad wasn’t a great guy. He actually never neglected me or ever left any doubt that he loved me. He just… Well, I guess he just dealt with my mother’s death the only way he could. And for him, that meant quitting his job as a high-school teacher and finding something that filled more of his time.”
“So he taught high school before opening the school?”
“He did.”
“Then why did he opt for making it a treatment facility for younger kids when his experience was with older ones?”
“That was because of me. He decided only to take kids from eight to twelve so I wouldn’t be living and working in close proximity to boys my own age and older.”
“For safety’s sake to keep you away from someone who might be predatory or because he didn’t want some hellion like me corrupting you?”
There was that hint of devilry again that gave his oh-so-handsome face just an added bit of sexy allure. But again Clair tried not to notice. Too much, anyway.
“Both reasons—so I wouldn’t be in contact with someone who could do me harm and so he didn’t end up with one of his charges as his son-in-law,” she confirmed, thinking that if Ben had been around here when they were both sixteen or seventeen and turned on the charm, he just might have weakened her defenses that much earlier.
But she didn’t want him to know what she was thinking and so she continued talking about the boys her father had accepted into his program.
“Even some of the really young kids were a handful, though. My dad paid me to work around here after school, and there were times, with certain kids, when things weren’t pleasant.”
“I’m sure that’s an understatement,” Ben said. “While I was doing my master’s thesis I worked in a facility for kids even younger than your dad accepted here. I saw plenty that no one would expect from a small child. I had a five-year-old call a therapist a name that would have made a longshoreman blush and then slash her arm with a razor blade he had hidden in the sole of his shoe—something he’d learned from his big brother’s time in jail.”
“Wow,” Clair said, duly amazed. “Dad didn’t take any kids with a history of violence against other people, but he did have a few who could hurt themselves when they had a bad day.”
Ben’s mention of work and doing his master’s thesis seemed like an opening for her to ask about his education and credentials—something she was curious about since owning the school didn’t require anything more from him than that he hire the professionals he needed, and she didn’t know what he’d done after high school graduation. So rather than continue trading war stories, she said, “You have your master’s degree?”
“I have my bachelor’s in psychology and my master’s in counseling.”
That made her smile.
“What?” he demanded, smiling, too, albeit with some confusion tingeing it. “You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, I’m not doubting your word. I was just thinking that you were a long way from being the guy anyone in our senior class would have thought of as the person most likely to end up with a graduate degree.”
He laughed. “Predictability was never what I was known for, no.”
Which was also part of his appeal, part of what made him the bad boy in the first place. Certainly he’d taken her off guard that night at the reunion and led her to even surprise herself.
“I still don’t know exactly what you do for a living,” he said then. “Or how it is that you can take time off from it to be here.”
“I run my own day-care center,” she confessed. “And since I’m the boss and have a lot of comp time to get back, I left my assistant director in charge while I’m gone.”
Pregnancy hormones had made Clair unusually tired and her strenuous day caught up with her all of a sudden, making her yawn without warning.
“Oh! Where did that come from?” she said after the fact, embarrassed.
Ben laughed but she wasn’t sure whether it was at her yawn or at her embarrassment over it. “Looks like I wore you out today,” he said then.
“Hey, I made it longer than Cassie did,” she countered.
“Well, to be honest, you tried to cash it in when she did. I just didn’t let you,” he reminded. “But maybe I’d better let you go get some rest now so you’ll be ready to introduce me to the food wholesaler and the laundry service rep tomorrow.”
“Maybe you’d better,” Clair agreed, knowing the pregnancy fatigue wasn’t something she could ignore.
She stood and began to gather the paper plates and pizza boxes that still littered the coffee table but Ben put a halt to that.
“Leave it. I’ve abused you enough for one day. I’ll toss all this after I get you home to bed.”
Had he intended that to sound as suggestive as it had?
He must not have because he amended it, “Or at least after I get you out to the cottage.”
But there was still an edge of mischief to his tone that told her that even though he might not have meant his original comment to be as suggestive as it had come out, he was more amused by his slip of the tongue than rattled by it the way she would have been if she’d said it.
“I mean it. Leave the mess,” he repeated when she didn’t immediately stop cleaning up. “Come on, I’ll carry this box of stuff out for you.”
He stood then, took her one-eared stuffed dog from its perch on the coffee table and handed it to her. “If you have to have something to keep your hands busy, carry this poor, abused animal while I take the box.”
Clair didn’t have any choice but to accept her toy as he picked up the box, but still she said, “That’s not heavy. I can take it myself and save you the trip.” Although tonight she liked the idea of having him walk her to her door.
For no reasons she wanted to analyze too closely.
But Ben wouldn’t hear of her carrying the box herself. “It’s the least I can do after how hard I worked you today—even if you did stand me up for breakfast.”
“I’m sorry about that,” she said, omitting the fact that he was partly responsible because thinking about him had been the cause of her not getting to sleep early enough the night before.
“Yeah, well, tomorrow it’s nothing but dry toast, and I’m not doing that until you actually show up,” he threatened with only mock sincerity.
“Tomorrow I’ll be on time. Early, even. I swear,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” he retorted facetiously, as if he didn’t believe her.