looked as sad as he felt.
“Yeah. Neil started doing drugs because I demanded too much from him, so that makes his and Alice’s deaths my fault.” Ben almost gagged at the weight of that responsibility. “I might make the same mistake with Mikey and I can’t risk that.”
“You’re not going to,” Victoria shot back. “You’re no longer some young, abandoned kid who’s doing the best he can. You’re an adult. Mikey started life with a stable family, parents who loved him. That’s a whole different situation from Neil’s. And now Mikey has you.”
“No, he doesn’t, because he can’t depend on me.” Ben glanced around the old-fashioned room as the knot inside him grew. “I’m not his father. I don’t have the same knowledge, goals and experiences Neil would have passed on to Mikey. I have no idea how to be the kind of parent Mikey needs. I don’t know anything about fatherhood.”
“Fathers become fathers by learning.” Victoria shrugged. “You can do the same.”
“How? In furloughs? When I’m home for a couple months here and there? I can be sent anywhere at any time, into the worst hot spots. What if I was injured, or even killed?” He shook his head. “Mikey needs stable, full-time secure parents, here, in Canada.”
Ben knew from the way Victoria’s gray eyes turned to ice that she didn’t agree. That’s when he realized that Victoria, adamant in her principles, probably wasn’t going to support his request to her aunts. Fortunately she didn’t have a chance to voice the disapproval currently darkening her eyes because Tillie called them to the table.
With a sigh, Ben forced his focus off his rescuer and rose, gripping the handmade crutch Jake had made. He hobbled to the kitchen table, smothering a moan as his whole body protested. To his chagrin, Victoria’s sisters and the two elderly ladies were already seated, leaving only two chairs unoccupied. When he sat beside Victoria, his arm brushed hers, creating a zip of electricity that made him even more tensely aware of her.
Everyone bowed their head as Margaret said grace. Once conversation flowed around them again Victoria leaned toward him.
“It won’t make you less of a soldier to swallow a second painkiller, Major,” she whispered. She poured him a glass of water then nodded at a small white pill sitting next to his knife.
Ben craved relief from the twinges that plagued him so he swallowed the tablet, hoping it wouldn’t totally dull his senses because he had a hunch he was going to need his wits about him where this strong woman was concerned.
And yet, there was something else about Victoria—a vulnerability? Silly to say that about a woman who scaled mountains and rescued people. Yet Ben glimpsed a certain wistfulness in the tender brush of her hand against Mikey’s head and the gentle way she teased him. Both belied a soft heart underneath the tough exterior she projected. He liked her pluck.
But Ben wasn’t looking for a relationship. In fact, he never wanted to get involved, never wanted the obligation of caring for and probably failing a wife and family. He didn’t want the responsibility of wrecking another young life. That’s why he had to figure out Mikey’s situation. His nephew’s future was too precious to ruin, as he’d ruined Neil’s.
As he ate, Ben struggled to stifle his growing interest in Victoria Archer. Maybe he didn’t want to be, but he was very interested in this competent woman and why she’d been so insistent that Ben be Mikey’s father.
He also wondered how long she’d be staying here, at The Haven, in the middle of nowhere. She was young, obviously hip and unmarried, judging by her bare ring finger. Her affection for the elderly sisters was obvious, her manner with them protective.
Though she seemed at home here at The Haven, Ben didn’t get the feeling that Victoria lived here full-time. Or hadn’t until recently. Comments from her sisters and her aunts about finally coming home made him want to know more about her.
When Mikey burst out bawling because the apple crisp dessert reminded him of his mom, Victoria didn’t try to change the subject or avoid the topic. Instead she wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulders and encouraged more memories. Within minutes, she had his nephew giggling as she tried to demonstrate his description of butterfly kisses.
Suddenly Ben hoped it would take Tillie and Margaret a while to find Mikey a family, long enough for him to figure out what made Victoria’s gray eyes turn to soot when she didn’t think anyone was watching.
“Oh. You’re still up.”
Victoria paused in the doorway of the biggest room at The Haven, which was also the only one with a lit fireplace. Tillie and Margaret called this room The Salon but she’d always known it as their family room, the place where they’d shared their lives. Now it was occupied by their visitor.
“Couldn’t sleep. Probably because I ate too much of your sister’s delicious chicken pie.” Firelight flickered across Ben, seated in Margaret’s wingback chair in front of the fire, with Tillie’s lurid purple-and-green afghan covering his legs. “What’s that?”
“Hot chocolate. Want some?” Victoria didn’t want to share with him. In fact, she wished he’d stayed in his room. She wanted to be alone, to think things through, to figure out her next step. But she couldn’t think with Ben nearby because his searching blue eyes made her nervous, fidgety.
Still, he was a guest and the aunts’ lessons on hospitality had been deeply engrained in her.
“I’ll get another cup.”
“Don’t bother,” he called as Victoria scurried away like the frightened mouse she felt but didn’t want anyone to see.
She drew a deep breath for control, patted her unsettled stomach, wondering if morning sickness could also be evening sickness and if its cause now was that her baby knew his mother didn’t have a job now, or even a next step planned. Grimacing, she grabbed another mug and returned.
“No bother. There’s more in that carafe than I can drink anyway.” She filled his mug and set it on the round table, near his elbow. She added another log to the fire before sinking into Tillie’s chair and cuddling her own cup while her brain scrambled for a topic of conversation. Ben beat her to it.
“Are there a lot of fireplaces in this house?” His gaze slid from the river-stone chimney to the massive fir mantel and granite-slab hearth.
“Yes. The Haven was built to be self-sufficient. Thankfully there’s enough deadwood on the property to fuel the fireplaces.” She loved this sagging, worn chair, not for the comfort it offered but for the memories it evoked. “Tom and Jerry were very smart men.”
“Tom and Jerry being?” Ben studied her, one eyebrow arched in an inquisitive expression.
“How long has Aunt Tillie been writing you?” Victoria couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard the whole story already.
“Just over seven months. Why?”
“My aunts started writing letters to military personnel more than twenty years ago when they joined the local Legion. A former colonel suggested those who protect and serve our country might need someone to talk to and since the aunts missed their missionary
