Page 34 of Love Everlasting

Just never delivered them late at night.

“Something wrong, Tess?” Ben’s manner turned serious as he slipped his hands in his pockets, but the twitch of a smile and eyes warm with affection gave him dead away.

“No, Dr. Doom, there isn’t, so you can wipe that smirk right off your face.” She rammed the cookie plate hard into his chest, doubly annoyed when it felt like a brick wall. “Here,” she snapped, “this is the third batch I’ve baked in two weeks, but you wouldn’t know since you never seem to be home.”

He grabbed the plate, skimming her hand with his thumb before her arm jerked away. His smile was tender. “I thought you baked these for Jack and Lacey,” he whispered, his husky tone getting on her nerves when it rippled her stomach.

“I did,” she hissed, too far gone to save face. “Because you’re obviously too busy to even come by.”

“I’ve been spending most of my spare time on the boat these last few weeks, Tess.” Sobriety stole the humor from his eyes as he set the plate of cookies on his sofa table, his gaze never leaving hers. Stepping outside, he closed the door behind him. “You know—to think. Pray. Talk.”

Talk? Her imagination went wild, detonating the bomb ticking inside.

She bludgeoned a finger to his broad chest. “Are you seeing someone else, Ben Carmichael?” she shouted, not giving a whit if anybody could hear her ranting in the middle of the night.

“Yes,” he whispered, tugging her close with a shuttered look that immediately snatched all protest from her throat. Before she could object, he burrowed his lips into the crook of her neck, mouth skimming up to suckle the lobe of her ear. “I am.”

Any other time, Ben’s lips would have melted her on the spot, but this time she didn’t feel a thing but the awful stab of his response, and immediately she started pummeling his chest with a sting of tears in her eyes.

“My ex-brother-in-law,” he said quickly, reeling her back in with a soft chuckle as he brushed a kiss to her lips. Cupping her jaw with one hand, he held up the other with two fingers crossed, a bit of the devil sparkling in those amazing hazel eyes. “We’re like this, you know.”

She blinked, mouth falling open before he sealed it with an intimate kiss. Stifling a moan, she pushed him back, palms flat to his chest while she fought off more tears. “You and C-Cam?” she stuttered. “You made amends?”

“Not just amends, Tess.” He traced a finger down the side of her face, the look of love in his eyes all but swelling her throat. “He’s my new fishing buddy, although I will admit, the boy has a lot to learn.”

“B-But how?” she whispered, caressing his shadowed jaw with a feeling of awe, hardly able to believe Ben had done this for her.

He shrugged and leaned back against the house with a faint smile, arms circling her waist to draw her in close. “God railroaded me, I’m afraid, prompted by your prayers, no doubt. Ever since you laid down the law, I was dragging my feet on confronting Cam face-to-face.” His smile kinked. “Until I ran into him in Marv’s office a few weeks ago after I took Jack and Lacey out on the boat.”

His chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. “You were right, Tess,” he said quietly, his smile fading into a sobriety that bordered on reverence. “Cam was the last holdout in that hedge of bitterness I built over the years, and God knew it needed to come down. So we talked, we yelled, then we talked some more, and I asked his forgiveness for ruining his sister’s life.” His jaw stiffened as he looked away, as if embarrassed by a sheen of tears. “Because I’m done harboring hurt, Tess.” His gaze reconnected with hers as he stroked her hair with the same tenderness she saw in his eyes. “And I don’t want anything to ever ruin this precious love that we have.”

Her chin began to quiver.

“So it would appear,” he continued with a tap of her nose, “that your objections to marriage have been effectively laid to rest.” He leaned in to tease her mouth with his own, his words feathering her skin with a delicious heat. “Bitterness toward Cam corrected. Check.” He strayed to gently tug on the soft flesh of her lobe. “Jealousy toward Cam corrected. Check.” His laughter rumbled hot against her ear with a teasing flick of his tongue, coaxing a faint moan from her throat. “Friendship with Cam established. Check, Check.” He finished her off with a kiss that made her go limp in his arms before he dug into his pocket for the ring he tried to give her before. “So Phase One accomplished, Ms. O’Bryen,” he whispered, “and now we move on to Phase Two, yes?”

Overcome with both gratitude and desire, she lunged to hug him with all of her might, tears staining his shirt as she pressed her cheek to his chest. “Yes, yes, yes, and oh, Ben, I love you so very much!”

His husky chuckle tumbled her stomach as he placed the ring on her finger, a dangerous smile matching the heated look in his eyes. “Enough to break a few rules with a little temptation? Like snuggling on the couch to watch a movie?” He slowly traced the shape of her lips with the pad of his thumb, his intentions abundantly clear. “And I have Häagen-Dazs …”

Tess gulped. Häagen-Dazs and Ben—Lord have mercy!

Swallowing hard, she put as much distance between them as she possibly could, given the tight circle of Ben’s arms to her waist. “Häagen-Dazs is one temptation I’ll succumb to anytime, Dr. Carmichael, but out here on the patio, if you will.” Tugging free from his hold, she stood on tiptoe to slowly graze his lips with her own before holding out her hand to admire her ring. “Because the way I feel about you right now, Doc?” A warm shiver pebbled her skin as she hurried to claim one of his Adirondack chairs, tucking her legs to settle in with a shaky wink. “I sure don’t trust myself inside.”

Chapter Nineteen

“I’m telling you, woman, you missed your calling.” Sam wiped the sweat from his face with the bottom of his “Pediatrician … I see little people” T-shirt, revealing a tan six-pack that depleted all moisture from Shannon’s throat. “I swear you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met,” he said, repeating a compliment he often doled out during their counseling sessions. “And I’ve met some pretty brainy chicks in med school, Shan, but you’re a bloomin’ genius, you know that?”

In plotting a relationship between the player and the princess in her novel, yes. Shannon humored him with a patient smile as they headed toward the Camp Hope gym after a basketball game with the kids. But in pursuing a friendship between a player and a ghostwriter? Shannon’s smile went south. She couldn’t be too darn smart if she was starting to look forward to these “sessions” more than she should. After several times of hanging out following camp and almost daily texts, her friendship with Sam had grown to the point where she’d rather spend time with him than write or hang out with her friends—two things that had always satisfied her loneliness before.

The only bright spot was that her romance novel was coming along swimmingly, the need to channel all her pent-up feelings for Sam fueling her cause. And although the growing closeness between them alarmed her at times, she truly believed the spiritual groundwork she was laying far outweighed the risk to her heart. A risk she completely gave to God since she now believed her friendship with Sam was in His plan all along. “Define genius,” she said as he bobbled the basketball back and forth.

He focused on the ball while he spun it on his finger, providing ample opportunity to study him unaware. A dangerous thing to do. The more she saw of the “real” Sam with his wellspring of vitality, the more she was drawn into the vortex of a man who at the core, possessed an almost childlike humility and hope. A little-boy innocence of sorts that was so at odds with the self-confident charmer about town. There were times like now when the player was nowhere in sight, giving way to a crazy and carefree man whose energy for life was so strong, it sent her heart spinning more than the ball on his finger. “You know, a woman so in touch with her feelings—both spiritually and emotionally—that she’s a beacon of truth to all those she knows and loves.”

Shannon deflected the heat in her cheeks with a wry smile. “Gosh, Doc, you make me sound like the Statue of Liberty.”

He paused the ball mid-spin, his faint smile belied by the intensity in his eyes. “That’s because you are, Shannon, to me anyway. You’ve liberated me, kiddo, in more ways than you know.”

“I’m glad,” she whispered, uttering a silent prayer she could one day usher him into the true freedom of faith. “So, Dr. Love … why am I a ‘genius’ today?”