“No, it’s okay. Nothing between us tonight, Ben.”
“God, Liv, I need you. All of you. I want your eyes on me, watching what I do to you.”
Liv didn’t say a word, nor did she move from where she was. Her eyes stayed locked on his, never wavering as Ben’s slow rhythm took them both over the edge.
12
“Are you feeling as though you’re a hostage yet?” Ben asked two days later. They hadn’t seen another person since they’d left Ben’s parents’ house the night she got there, but they hadn’t spent the entire time in bed either.
Ben drove her around the ranch, somewhat stupefied that they didn’t run into one of his brothers, or even the other ranch hands. He wondered if his dad had warned everyone to be scarce.
“Not at all. Although…”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess. You want to go riding today.”
Liv stared at him. “How did you know?”
“When you’re nervous, you like to ride.”
“Am I nervous?”
“We won’t be able to avoid seeing other humans much longer, which means you may meet more of my family. And that makes you nervous.”
“What about your boys, Ben?”
“Is that what you’re most nervous about?”
“I understand if you don’t want me to meet them.”
“They already know about you, Liv, and I want you to meet them more than anything. They won’t be back here with me until Monday, but I thought it would be nice to have dinner with them Saturday or Sunday. So it’s not too overwhelming.”
“For me, or for them?” She laughed.
“You have a charming daughter. I have two rough and tumble boys. One is at the beginning stages of puberty, so he’ll be as awkward as humanly possible around anyone of the opposite sex. The other is still a little boy. He will crawl into your lap, and never want to leave.” Luke was his rascal, but also his cuddler, the one who never wanted to sleep in his own bed, wanted five more minutes of talk time, or another story at bedtime.
“Will I meet their mother?”
Ah, there it was. That’s what bothered her, meeting his ex-wife. Her husband had died, but if they were divorced instead, he would’ve been nervous about meeting someone important enough to father her child.
“We should talk about them.”
“Who them?”
“Your husband, my ex-wife. I want you to tell me about him. What made you fall in love with him, your life then.”
“Scott and I weren’t married very long before he died.”
“It’s still part of who you are. In a way, it’s harder. With my ex, we decided we didn’t want to be together anymore, she didn’t die. I worry sometimes about living up to his memory. Particularly given how he died.”
Liv hadn’t seen this one coming. Liv never talked to anyone about Scott. She painted a picture for Renie, but it wasn’t based on reality. Most of what she told her daughter was how she imagined Scott would’ve been as a father. He wasn’t a father yet when he died.
As much as he wasn’t sure about living up to Scott’s memory, at least Scott wasn’t a living, breathing, human being. He still saw his ex-wife at least once a week. How could she compete with that?
“Liv?”
Why did he want to talk about everything all the time? She didn’t remember her father ever being so talkative. “I heard you. But, Ben, I don’t want to talk about him, and I don’t want to hear about her.”
“Come on, Liv, tell me about him. How did you meet?”