Married in Haste

“Oh. Oh, Sammy…” Ben patted the sad-eyed child’s back as he carried him to his recliner. “I wish making contact with the Almighty were so simple. But…he’s everywhere, you know, watching over us. Like…maybe the reason I picked today to visit your aunt is that I’m supposed to help her.” Ben gave the four-year-old a coloring book and opened it to a picture of a partially colored ark. “Ah…I believe your aunt was saying you guys might need one of these,” he teased.

He needed to get out of the room before Sam asked more questions. Ben figured he was the last person able to explain why any supreme being let kids lose their moms and dads. He left the room no wiser than before.

Upstairs, he put his foot into two inches of water on the bathroom floor.

Abby was draped over a gurgling commode, mumbling at a pipe wrench that kept slipping off a valve cap. Rolling up his shirtsleeves, Ben relieved Abby of the wrench. He threw his considerable muscle into budging the solidly stuck shut-off cap.

“I think it gave a little,” Abby said. “Ben, I’m sorry you walked into this mess. Oh, there…you got it. Oh, no! The valve twisted off.” A gusher shot everywhere. “Ben, make it stop!”

Leaping aside, he swore roundly.

“Shh.” Abby clapped a hand over his mouth. “We don’t use language like that in this house.”

“Apparently you don’t ask for help in this house, either. Why are you just standing there watching Old Faithful? Get me a damn phone book.”

“What for?”

“Something you should’ve done at first splat. To call a plumber.” So saying, Ben whipped out the phone Sam thought he could use to call heaven. Directory assistance was close enough to heaven’s hotline to suit Ben. As he was connected to a local plumber and gave the man terse directions to the house, Ben wrapped a white towel around the broken pipe to stem the geyser.

“My best Egyptian cotton towel. Ben, what are you thinking?”

“Something else I should’ve done when I first walked in,” he growled, closing off her sputtering tirade with a kiss that drove the air from her lungs.

CHAPTER FIVE

BEN SET ABBY DOWN, then had to grab her arms to hold her upright.

A bit stunned, she did rally. “Here I thought my day had tanked. If that’s your standard method of dealing with hysterical women, Dr. Galloway, I can see why your practice grows by leaps and bounds.”

Laughing, Ben leaned in for another, slower, more sizzling and satisfying kiss. “This brand of superb bedside manner is reserved for an elite few, Ms. Drummond.”

“You’re full of it, Ben, you know that?” Casting a furtive glance over her shoulder and down the hall, Abby segued to a new subject. “How are the girls? I thought Erin looked…different. But I guess that’s understandable, since everything’s changed because of the quake.” She shrugged. “Which may be all it is with Erin. I shouldn’t forget she’s by nature a serious child.”

“True. But you’re dead on, Abby.” Ben bent again to twist the soaking white towel tighter. “Erin’s not bouncing back. Not like Mollie, anyway. Erin’s whole personality has nose-dived.”

“With time and hugs, maybe she’ll be her old self again. It’s been almost two months. But it feels like forever. I still step into a room and expect to see Elliot and Blair.” Her eyes were glossy, and she turned aside. “Nighttime is the hardest on the boys.”

“For the girls, too.” Ben’s back tensed. He should be the man with answers.

Abby stroked a hand up his side. She thought how good the hard outline of his ribs felt, and wondered if men didn’t need the hugs she’d spoken of.

She missed Ben’s touch. Even if they’d had a casual dating style, they’d been demonstrative with each other. Whenever they saw each other, Ben had doled out a squeeze or two. Vastly different from the brief impersonal brush of their cheeks at their respective family funerals. Different, too, from the almost desperate kiss Ben had just delivered.

Would their lives ever get back to normal? The first few weeks after the quake, Abby thought Ben had disappeared from her life. On those occasions, an ache settled in her chest. And yet she’d accepted that was the way things might have to be.

Abby understood that she and Ben had obligations and responsibilities that came before any personal wants or needs. For perhaps the first time, she realized what it felt like to walk in her brother’s shoes. Elliot, who’d selflessly put his life on hold until she was grown and off to college. Did she owe his children any less?

Straightening away from the valve again, Ben started to take Abby in his arms. A commotion downstairs split them apart. Although Abby had wrenched loose from his touch and taken a step back before the disturbance began. “Sorry, Ben. I’m afraid the timing here is off. Besides which, Ruffian’s going crazy in the laundry room. I think the plumber’s arrived.”

Ben tried to reconnect with Abby’s eyes, to no avail. Giving up, he said magnanimously, “I’ll stay right here, if you’d care to rescue the poor man. Send him on up. Since I made this major mess, I’ll do the explaining. Maybe you could spend a few minutes reassuring Sam. He’s down there coloring an ark like mad. I’m afraid he’s worried his home’s in danger of floating away.”

“Poor Sam. I only just brought him home from the hospital today when all heck broke loose. I’d checked the twins out of school early so they could ride along. We’d barely gotten home when Brad reported that Mike had scooped a dead fish out of one of the tanks. The minute he flushed it, he dropped the strainer.” She rolled her eyes. “I tried the plunger. That did nothing, except maybe compound the problem. You showed up as I decided I’d better shut off the water to the toilet tank.”

They heard one of the boys bellowing for Abby. “Go,” Ben urged. “By the way, you maybe should also check on the status of a gerbil. The older twins had him in a remote-controlled truck. They sent him down from the second landing.”

“Noah and Mike,” she exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “Harry’s their gerbil. Brad and Reed have hamsters. Yesterday I caught them harnessing their pets to G.I. Joe’s parachutes. Luckily I caught them before they dropped them over the bannister. I don’t know why Blair didn’t go completely gray.”

“Hmm. I wonder if that’s what my nurse Anita meant when she said I should jump for joy that I have girls to raise instead of boys. You ought to meet her, Abby. She raised six boys on her own.”

“And she’s still sane?” Shaking her head, Abby turned and walked out. Ben heard her tripping lightly down the stairs.

It was twilight by the time the plumber finished, took the check Ben wrote out, packed up his tools and left.

“Ben, you shouldn’t have paid the bill. It’s my house. Well, not mine, actually,” she amended when the twins declared the house belonged to them.

“I broke the shut-off valve,” Ben said by way of explanation.

“Yes, but the problem occurred before you set foot in the house. And…speaking of feet… Your Italian leather loafers are history, pal.”

Ben surveyed his soaking shoes as well as the lower edges of his slacks. “Abby, you’ve got no idea what gets dripped on the shoes of a pediatrician throughout a normal workday.”

“I think I have a fair idea. You still shouldn’t have to pay,” she murmured.

“I paid the plumber because you said you’d feed this hungry mob.” His sudden boyish grin creased his cheeks, which had begun to sport a five-o’clock shadow. “My stomach is growling.”

“My guys missed lunch as well as dinner. Hey guys—and I’m including girls—how about I order in pizza tonight?”

Erin Drummond, who hadn’t budged from one small corner of the couch since they’d first arrived, was the lone dissenter. “I want to go home, Uncle Ben.”

Kicking off his shoes and peeling off wet socks, he walked barefoot to the couch and sat beside her. “Hey, mouse, what gives? I know you like pizza.”

She held herself stiffly aloof. “I don’t like it here. It’s noisy, and boys are dorky. Noah keeps saying he’s going to turn that awful dog loose.”

Abby gasped. “Noah David Drummond. I’m ashamed of you. What do you have to say for yourself, mister?”

The boy’s square jaw lifted pugnaciously. “Let them go home. Who wants Erin Drummond hanging around looking bug-faced?”

Mollie flew at Noah. “My sister’s not bug-faced. You take that back.” She punched him in the mouth and blood spurted.

Although Abby reached for the combatants, Ben moved faster. But Noah shoved Mollie hard. Her back struck the recliner, causing Sam as well as Mollie to cry out.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Erin cried, slamming her book closed as she popped to her feet and glared at Noah. She stretched out a hand toward Mollie.

Ben’s two-fingered whistle rent the air. “Time out,” he snapped, his scowl sufficient to send both girls scurrying toward the door. The older twins froze in place. The younger ones dropped the Hot Wheels cars they were lining around the room’s perimeter. Kneeling next to Sam, Ben softened his voice while he efficiently checked the boy’s legs for possible injury. Then he examined Noah’s swelling lip. Used to the sound of crying, Ben didn’t realize all the other kids had joined the chorus. Not until he rose and assured Abby that Noah was okay.

“What’s gotten into the ones who weren’t involved?” he asked Abby.

“Perhaps we should postpone sharing pizza,” she responded, circling her arms around the four boys. “It appears we’ve all had an eventful day. I’m sorry, Ben. We didn’t have a chance to catch up.” She checked her watch again, but instead of meeting Ben’s confused eyes, she let her gaze stray toward the kitchen, where the dog had set up a racket again.