Cinderella's Sweet-Talking Marine

She tugged on the skimpy hem of her skirt before replying. “I don’t need you walking into my life and telling me what to do. What I do need is to get back to work.”

“You just fainted!”

“Because you scared me by saying you were here on official business about Johnny.” It was idiotic of her to think that the military had made a mistake. She’d stood by the grave site. Seen his casket lowered into the ground. But she’d had a vivid dream the night before where her brother, with that crooked grin of his, had told her that his death was a big mistake.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have put it that way.”

“Yeah, well…” She swung her long legs out the open car door, dislodging him in the process.

Standing, he held out his hand to assist her, but she didn’t take his offer of help, preferring to do it herself.

She was taller than he’d thought at first, the top of her head reaching to just beneath his chin. He reached out to smooth the tendrils of dark hair that had fallen across her pale face.

“When was the last time you ate?” he demanded.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, backing up to glare at him.

“You’re not pregnant, are you? Is that why you fainted?”

“No, I’m not pregnant,” she said, highly offended.

“Look, I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on with you.”

“What’s going on is that you are beginning to irritate me,” Ellie retorted. “What gives you the right to walk in here out of the blue and start interrogating me as if I were one of your Marines? I’m not. I’m the responsible mother of a five-year-old. I can handle anything.” She prayed that if she kept saying that often enough, she’d start believing it eventually.

Maybe she could handle anything, but Ben knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t handle the fact that she was swaying on her feet from exhaustion, that she was clearly struggling to make ends meet. “Why do you work here? I thought John told me you were waitressing in a nice family restaurant, some sort of mom-and-pop place.”

“I was, but it went bankrupt suddenly a few months ago. This was the only job I could get. I don’t have a college degree.” She’d left school to work, to support Perry who was getting his degree. Yet another example of how love had blinded her and made her stupid. “I didn’t want my brother worrying about me so I didn’t tell him about my new job. Which reminds me, how did you find me?”

“I had your address. From John. You weren’t there, but a neighbor told me you worked here.” He waved his hand toward Al’s Place in a dismissive move. “Let me help you. I can give you some money until things settle down.”

“I can’t take money from you.” What kind of woman did he think she was? “I don’t need any handouts.”

“John would want me to help you and he’d want you to accept that help.”

His words hit a nerve. “Don’t you dare tell me what my brother would want!” she said fiercely. “I knew him better than you did. We grew up together. Being bounced from foster home to foster home, we only had each other to count on. I knew my brother my entire life. All twenty-five years of it. And now he’s gone. So don’t you try and make me do what you want by using my brother’s name.”

She didn’t even realize she’d been jabbing her finger at Ben’s chest until he cradled her hand in his. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I seem to be messing up a lot today.”

He was certainly messing up her self-control. First fainting like that, and then going ballistic on him.

And now, with his fingers enclosing hers, she felt something new—the stirring of attraction. Her unexpected reaction threw her. The aching need to be held, to be comforted, to be loved threatened to overwhelm her.

Her startled gaze met his. This close to him she could see flecks of green in his hazel eyes, could see the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, could see a faint scar along the right line of his jaw.

The warmth from his fingers sent treacherous longings through her. It had been so long since she’d felt this powerful tug, this whirlpool of dangerously seductive sensations.

She couldn’t give in. She had to be strong.

But that was hard to do given the fact that her emotions had been dangerously close to the surface ever since her brother’s death. More and more she felt as if she were being buried alive beneath a pile of problems too insurmountable to overcome.

She knew she couldn’t give in, she knew she couldn’t give up. She had Amy to think of.

Just thinking about her little girl gave Ellie strength. Amy was the best kid on the face of the earth. And Perry was the scum of the earth for not realizing that and cherishing and protecting his little girl, instead of abandoning them when he found out two years ago that Amy had asthma.

No, Ellie, had to be strong, not just for herself but for Amy. She couldn’t be distracted by sexual chemistry.

Belatedly tugging her hand from Ben’s, she repeated her earlier statement. “I have to get back to work.”

“Why won’t you let me help you?”

Because then I might become dependent on that help and when you leave, the situation would just get worse. Been there, done that. Aloud, she said, “Because, it’s best that I stand on my own two feet.”

“So you’re telling me that you have so many friends, that you can’t use another one? You can depend on me, Ellie. I didn’t just track you down to say hi, and then walk away. I’m here for the long-term.”

“You’re a Marine, Ben. You don’t stay anywhere long-term. Your life belongs to the Corps.”

“I’ve got a new deployment relatively nearby, at Camp Lejeune. So I will be nearby. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

His smile was charming, his tone of voice encouraging. But she’d heard it before. Perry telling her she could count on him, that he’d always be there for her. Talk was cheap.

No, she had to be strong, she had to rely on herself only.

As if to prove that he was just as determined as she was, Ben stayed at Al’s Place until her shift was over. He held the door open for her as she left, and insisted on walking her to her car, which looked like it was held together with baling wire.

The ten-year-old Toyota certainly wouldn’t win any beauty contests—not with its multicolored body, a majority of which was green, except for the passenger doors which were silver. A friend of a friend knew someone who did cheap body work, and when someone had slammed into her car while it was parked in the supermarket lot, she didn’t have the money to get it fixed. Contacting her auto insurance company was out of the question because that would only raise her premiums, which she barely scraped out now.

“How many miles do you have on this thing?” Ben asked, as if suspicious it couldn’t go another mile without falling apart.

There were mornings when it refused to turn over that she wondered the same thing. “The odometer stopped working at 199,999 miles. It may not look pretty but it gets me from point A to point B.”

“Are you headed straight home?”

She nodded. She was too tired to argue with him anymore.

“What about dinner?”

“What about it?” she countered.

“Would you and your daughter join me for dinner tonight? My treat. I hear there’s a great steak house near here.”

Being strong only went so far. She was down to her last package of macaroni and cheese and one oversized generic-brand can of green beans, which was what they’d had for dinner last night.

Tomorrow was payday so she’d be able buy more food then. But tonight…

Steak? When was the last time she’d had steak?

What was the harm in going out with Ben just this once? Amy would get a good dinner. Surely it wouldn’t hurt.