Ben measured the rise of the handrail with his eyes. It was sturdier than an ordinary metal handrail, with a cap wide enough to sit on, and slats below.
He went to her. “You aren’t afraid of heights?” he asked, his mouth near her ear.
She turned, slipping her arms around his neck and letting him boost her up on the edge of the rail. “No.”
His house was at the summit of the cliff, sitting taller than the rest, and the view from this vantage point was incredible. He exhaled a deep breath, unbelievably happy to be here with her. It was almost like…
Surfing.
He stilled, feeling a wave of panic rush over him.
“Are you afraid of heights?” she teased.
“No,” he said, but his voice sounded strange, far away. He couldn’t compare a woman to surfing. He loved surfing.
Then she pressed her lips to his, and he forgot about surfing. He forgot about everything but her hot mouth and gorgeous body, splayed before him, ripe for the taking.
He kissed his way down her silken throat to the valley between her breasts, aware of the cool breeze in his hair and the sweet salt smell of the ocean mingled with the scent of her body. He kneeled and dipped his tongue inside her navel while she moaned, threading her fingers through his hair.
Then he went lower, sliding his palms up her thighs. “You’re not going to fall, are you?”
It was a joke, but she made the mistake of looking over her shoulder. And clutched at his T-shirt, as if losing her balance.
He stood, securing his hands around her waist. It took several seconds for him to catch his breath. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“Like what?” Her voice was shaky.
“I thought you were going to fall.” He studied the drop to the rocks below, his gut clenching with apprehension. It was a very long way down. “This is kind of dangerous, now that I think about it.”
“How did your wife die?”
The question made him feel like he was about to tumble over the edge. “I’m trying to go down on you three stories up, and you want to talk about my wife?”
“Maybe this is the perfect time to talk about it,” she countered.
“Oh, yeah. Perfect.” He swallowed dryly, looking out at the dark blue Pacific. The waves weren’t epic, but they were good enough for practicing some tricky technical maneuvers. If only he could make with a quick cutback right now, to get out of this situation.
“She was murdered by a drifter,” he said evenly. “Strangled to death.”
“Oh, Ben,” she whispered, pressing her face to his shoulder.
“I found her,” he blurted, unable to help himself. He’d never been able to describe the scene to another person, not even the detective who’d taken his statement. Maybe if he could get the words out now, he could honor Olivia’s memory without being paralyzed by guilt. “She’d been drawing water for a bath, and it was the sound that first alerted me.”
She tilted her head back to look at him, and he knew his face was bleak.
“I heard the water running, so I went to look. The tub was overflowing, soaking the carpet, and she was…there.”
Summer covered her mouth with one hand.
“I pulled her out,” he muttered, still hating himself. “I didn’t realize…I was so stupid. I didn’t even see the marks on her neck.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “Later, they said she’d been alive when he left her. She had water in her lungs. He hadn’t finished the job.” A tide of emotion welled up, but he shook his head, refusing to let it overwhelm him. “I don’t know how long I held her before I started CPR. By the time the ambulance arrived, I was out of my mind. The EMTs had to physically restrain me. I broke two of her ribs.”
“Ben,” she said kindly, “accidental injury isn’t unusual when performing CPR.”
He knew that, but it didn’t matter. He would never forgive himself. “If I’d been home, I could have protected her. But I wasn’t home. I was out surfing.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “The story of my fucking life.”
She regarded him with sympathetic eyes, but didn’t offer any platitudes.
“If I’d treated her right while she was alive, maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad. But I didn’t. I was a shit husband. And a shit father. Jesus, I didn’t even marry her until Carly was in elementary school. I was never there when she needed me.” He knew he was getting maudlin, but he couldn’t stop. The words were like a poison inside him, and he couldn’t keep them there any longer. “At least when I was drunk, I had an excuse. But giving up drugs and alcohol didn’t make me a superhero. I was still a selfish, irresponsible ass.”
He didn’t expect her to argue with him, and she didn’t. Maybe that was part of his attraction to her. Like Olivia, she didn’t cut him any slack.
“Why didn’t you marry her?” she asked. “Until later, I mean.”
“I wanted to,” he admitted. “I asked her before Carly was born, and every year after until she said yes.”
“What made her give in?”
“I got sober. She wouldn’t have me until I’d been a year sober, and celibate.”
“Celibate, too?” Her tone was light. “This woman was a paragon.”
He gave her a wry smile. “It’s one of the recommendations of AA anyway. And I’d already fucked everything that moved, so it wasn’t much of a sacrifice. Besides, she was the only one I wanted.”
Easing herself off the edge, she slipped out of his arms. “I should go.”
“Hey,” he said softly, reaching out to grab her wrist. She turned her head, trying to hide her tears, but he saw them. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.” Then comprehension dawned. It wasn’t the story about how his wife died that made her cry, it was his description of how much he’d loved Olivia. Still loved her.
What woman wanted to hear that the man she was about to go to bed with was in love with someone else?
“Fuck,” he said, wanting to kick himself. “I didn’t mean to make her sound perfect. She wasn’t. She cursed at me in Spanish all the time, and laughed because I couldn’t understand her. She was vain about her looks and that bugged the hell out of me.” He searched for something worse, something convincingly bad. “And she cheated on me.”
Wiping her cheeks with the sleeve of his robe, she said, “She didn’t.”
He smiled, knowing he had her. “Yes she did.”
“With who?”
He shrugged, with some difficulty. “It didn’t really matter, because it was a one-time deal, and it was my fault anyway. I left on a three-month tour the week after our honeymoon. Laird Hamilton backed out at the last minute, and when they asked me to go, I said yes without even thinking about her, much less asking her opinion. The next day I was in Tahiti, getting pounded by thirty-foot waves with a six-foot drop to the reef.”
“You are an idiot.”
He laughed harshly, agreeing with her.
“Did you cheat on her, too?”
“No,” he said, sobering. Not liking the question, or the context under which she’d asked it before. “And I didn’t go on any more surprise tours.”
Sonny stared back at Ben, finding him devastatingly handsome and painfully sincere. Every time he opened up to her she fell in love with him a little bit more. It was so ironic that his devotion to his wife, the very reason he would never be able to commit to another woman, was what made him irresistible to her.
In her mind, she was stepping over the threshold of balcony doors, walking past the stark, soulless interior of his bedroom, and right out of his life. In reality, and a repetition of their short, tumultuous history together, he wouldn’t let her go. And she allowed him to detain her, because she wanted to stay.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “I loved her. She was the mother of my child, and I really loved her. Being with her was as comfortable as breathing. She drove me crazy sometimes, but it was never like this.” He put her hand against the middle of his chest. “There’s nothing comfortable about you.”