An Unexpected Clue

“Yeah.” Ava stepped away from Emily and dried the tears from her eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m not normally this weepy.” She couldn’t give in to raging hormones. Her baby needed a mother who was strong and determined to see her through life without a father. “I guess I’m just tired from my walk.”

“You shouldn’t have gone so far. Two miles is a bit much when you’re as far along as you are.”

“And as big as I am, is what you meant to say, isn’t it?” Ava grinned. “Go ahead, your turn to tease me. I did enough when you were pregnant with your two.”

Emily’s mouth twisted. “It’s funny how they drive you nuts and you look forward to having a spare minute without them, but then you miss them so much you can hardly stand it when they’re gone.”

“When is Drew bringing the boys back from his mother’s?” Ava asked. Drew was Emily’s ex-husband.

“Day after tomorrow.” Emily gathered her keys and purse. “I’d have taken them myself if Theresa hadn’t quit the day before we were supposed to leave.”

“They couldn’t find another blackjack dealer to fill in?”

“I wish. I miss my boys when they’re gone.” Emily sighed. “I’ll be home by two-thirty. I’ll have my cell phone on vibrate. If you need me, leave a message. I’ll check it every fifteen minutes.”

“Don’t worry. It isn’t as if the baby’s due yet.”

“You never know. Babies have a way of coming when you least expect, and you were having premature contractions just a week ago.”

“I haven’t had one since I’ve been here.”

“Don’t take any chances, sweetie.” Emily kissed her on the cheek and opened the front door. “And don’t open the door for anyone but me.”

“I’ll be fine.” Ava shooed her outside and held the door. “You’re such a worrywart.”

“I’m just a concerned sister. Now go lie down.”

“Yes, Mother.” Ava smiled and waved as Emily drove off. Then she turned and trudged back into the house, her body tired, her mind churning up old memories of her and Ben, a constant reminder of what she’d lost.

Ever since he’d disappeared, Ava had called herself every kind of fool. She’d fallen into the same trap as her mother.

Falling in love with a bad boy was always a mistake. They never stuck around for the duration. Her own father had been a sexy devil with dark hair and green eyes. Emily took after their father. Ava resembled their red-haired mother, but she got their father’s green eyes instead of their mother’s pale blue.

Her mother had been lured into believing her father had mended his gambling ways and finally settled down to raise their children. He’d promised to love, honor and cherish her until death. In her father’s case, until he could no longer fight the addiction. Gambling.

When he’d disappeared, he’d left her mother heartbroken and destitute with two small daughters to raise by herself.

She’d gone to work at a casino using skills her husband had taught her and working her way up to card dealer in less than two years. The hours were terrible, but the money put food on their table. She traded babysitting with another mother working the day shift. They’d struggled. And they wouldn’t have had to if their father had lived up to his promises.

Ava swore she’d never marry anyone remotely connected to gambling. She’d never marry a liar or a man who didn’t honor his promises. Ha! Eating your own words didn’t taste so great. She’d committed sins against every one of her promises to herself.

Her feet hurt and the small of her back ached, testimony to walking too long that day. She’d have to relax or risk going into labor early. The doctor had warned her about overdoing it during her last month. The baby needed the last few weeks of pregnancy to fine-tune its developing organs.

Ava switched off the lights, intent on going to bed. Instead, she eased her body into the lounge chair. She should put on her nightgown and climb into the four-poster in the guest bedroom, but she wouldn’t be any more comfortable lying down as reclining. The baby already weighed heavily on her internal organs. She couldn’t imagine getting any bigger.

As she flipped through the channels, she came across an oldie and would have skipped right past it, but she hesitated when An Affair to Remember blinked onto the screen. Before long, she was bawling her eyes out. With tears streaming down her face, she finally shut off the television and lay staring up at the ceiling until her eyes burned and she blinked. Once, twice…Give it up, girl. She closed her eyes.

A little girl in a flowing white nightgown ran through the dirty backstreets of Vegas crying out for her daddy. Ava ran after her, her heart breaking for the child. Soon she couldn’t distinguish between herself and the child and she was crying out but not for her daddy.

Ben! She ran toward a tall, dark-eyed man with dirty brown hair and a stubbled beard that darkened his face. The more she ran, the farther away he drifted. Breathing so hard her sides hurt, she staggered to a halt, holding her hand out to the man who was now nothing more than a shadowy image.

How long she slept she had no idea. A minute, an hour, it didn’t matter. The noise that woke her did matter, however.

She struggled to consciousness, sure she’d heard a door open somewhere or the sound of metal clattering. A glance at the clock reflected nine. Hell, she hadn’t been asleep for more than thirty minutes. Had Emily forgotten something?

Ava rocked forward in the chair and stood. Yet another reason to sleep in a lounge chair, easy in and semi-easy out.

She walked to the front door and pressed her eye to the peephole. The front porch light shone down on the lighted porch, darkness lay beyond the square of concrete.

“See? No Emily, no salesman, no bogeyman and no Ben.” When she said his name out loud, she closed her eyes, her desperation morphing to anger as an image of him appeared in her thoughts. She held out a hand to him, but he didn’t take it. Why? Why did you leave us? One day your daughter will be out there alone, crying for her daddy. Sadly, I’ll be all alone, too.

The image of Ben stood in stoic silence.

Don’t you have anything to say for yourself? You’ve ruined our lives, do you hear me?

His image faded.

Ava’s anger faded, replaced by sorrow. She reached out to keep him from disappearing, to keep him by her side, but her hand touched the cool wood panels of the front door. All her life she’d dodged love, afraid to commit for fear of being deserted. She couldn’t become her mother, wouldn’t let her child mourn the lack of a father. She wouldn’t let him disappear again, damn it!

She opened her eyes to the solid wooden door standing between her and an unknown future. She’d make it on her own, if she had to. And she’d love her child enough for two parents.

When she turned back to the living room, the man of her dreams and nightmares stood in front of her, dressed in a crumpled tuxedo, the shirt unbuttoned at the neck, the tie gone, a ragged beard covering his chin and more handsome than any man had a right to be.

Ava’s vision blurred at the edges. “Ben?”

“Ava.” The deep timbre of his voice filled her senses, dispelling her dream state in that one word.

Gray turned to black as Ava’s knees buckled and she sank to the floor.

HE HADN’T MEANT to scare her, but he couldn’t come through the front door without possibly alerting the neighbors. When he’d climbed over the privacy fence, he’d tripped over the trash cans on the other side, making enough noise to disturb someone’s dog. Between barking and trash cans rattling, he thought for sure Ava and Emily would be calling the police. He’d hurried to the Florida room on the back deck where he found the screen door unlocked and the sliding door into the house equally unsecured.

Had Nicky Wayne already been here?

Was Ben too late? Panic had seized him and he charged into the house. That’s when he’d seen her standing by the front door, her back to him, her long auburn hair hanging down over her shoulders in loose waves. To be this close after so long, he stopped and stared, his heart lodged in his throat.

Then she’d turned, her face losing all color, her beautiful green eyes widening in shock.

When her eyes rolled backward, Ben lunged for her, catching her before she hit the floor.

He struggled to steady her, his body weak from lack of nourishment and the long jog across town. But he cushioned her fall with his own body. For the second time that night, his shoulder took the brunt of the impact, pain shooting through him in waves.

He didn’t care. Ava was there in his arms and she’d grown even more beautiful since the last time he’d seen her. The color returned to her pale cheeks, infusing the porcelain whiteness with the faint blush of a rose.

“Ben?” Her auburn lashes fluttered upward and emerald eyes stared up into his. “Am I still dreaming?”

“No, sweetheart, it’s really me.” His chest filled with such an aching sweetness, he thought he would explode. All those weeks in captivity, he’d dreamed of her, of when they’d met, when they’d first made love, and when he’d finally hold her in his arms again. She was the reason he’d survived.

Her hand lifted to her hair, pushing it out of her eyes. “Ben? How…what…where…you’ve been gone so long, I thought I’d imagined you.” She stared around as if the rest of the room had finally come into focus. “Why are we sitting on the floor?”