The sun was just beginning to sink toward the volcanic peaks across the Rio Grande when they exited the terminal. Streaks of red and gold and flaming orange tinted the sky as they claimed Ben’s SUV and drove to Pat and Dinah’s house to pick up Maria.
“So?” Pat asked when she answered the door and ushered Alex inside. “How was Vegas?”
“Still bright and glitzy and completely unreal.”
“Your friend Chelsea make it to the ceremony?”
“She did. So did Ben’s best man. They were both in uniform. Mostly.”
Keying her phone, she brought up the souvenir wedding photo that the wedding planner had texted to her and Ben’s phones.
“Darn! No Elvis?”
“No, thank goodness. Not that anyone would notice with Chelsea spilling out of her halter.”
“True.”
Alex tucked her phone back in her bag. “How were the girls?”
“Fine. They wore themselves out and are both zonked out on the sofa.” She slanted Alex a quick glance. “Sure you don’t want to just leave her here tonight? This being your honeymoon and all?”
“They have school tomorrow. It’s enough of a battle to get Maria up and out the door at our own house. You’d need a bulldozer to do it here.”
“Your call. You get her, I’ll carry her backpack.”
Alex had to stifle a grunt when she lifted the fifty-plus pounds of sleeping child. Maria woke only long enough to whine petulantly at being disturbed before wrapping her arms around Alex’s neck.
When the two women appeared by the car, Ben popped out of the driver’s seat and opened the rear door. Maria had outgrown her booster seat and five-point harness months ago but she was too sleepy to just buckle in and leave all slumped over.
“I’ll ride in the back with her,” Alex told him.
Unfortunately, she had Maria’s head pointed the wrong way and couldn’t slide her into the seat. She tried angling around. That didn’t work, either.
“Here, let me.”
He transferred the sleeping girl from Alex’s arms into his. Maria gave another bad-tempered whine, then rolled into his chest and burrowed in. Ben looked so startled at having the seven-year-old’s nose stuck in his chest that Pat laughed and Alex had to smother a smile.
“She’s always cranky when she’s half-asleep,” she apologized. “I’ll slide in first and you can hand her to me.”
* * *
They reversed the process after the short drive to the casita. Ben cut the ignition, climbed out and opened the passenger door to gather the still-sleeping child in his arms. Maria didn’t whine this time. Just drew up her knees, mumbled something incoherent and cuddled up against him again.
Alex slid out and refused to acknowledge the pain that lanced into her. Why couldn’t Maria’s father have cradled her like this? Held her just once and showed some love?
In Janet’s last, agonizing months she’d admitted that her absent husband had resented Maria’s claim on her time and attention. Eddie had never played with the girl. Never showed her any affection. And in one of his drug-induced highs, he’d claimed that his former girlfriend had slept with half the band before she dumped the kid on him and took off for parts unknown. Any of them might be the kid’s father. Alex had settled that with a court-mandated DNA test when she’d gone after the bastard for child support.
Except, she acknowledged grimly as she unlocked the casita’s front door, her determination to get the deadbeat dad to own up to his responsibilities had totally backfired. The incontrovertible proof that Eddie was, in fact, Maria’s father had come less than a week before his arrest on drug charges. Now the asshat was in prison, still not contributing to his daughter’s welfare and getting back at Alex by blocking every one of her attempts to adopt his daughter.
Her sham marriage to Kincaid had to tip the scales, she thought furiously. It had to.
Her jaw tight, she led the way to Maria’s room and yanked down the bed comforter. Ben hooked a brow at the suppressed violence but eased the girl into bed and murmured that he’d wait in the kitchen while Alex got her undressed and settled for the night.
* * *
Alex had sternly banished all thoughts of her sister’s ex by the time she followed the scent of fresh brewed coffee to the kitchen. Ben was leaning a hip against the counter with a steaming mug in one hand.
“Helped myself,” he said, hiking the mug. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not. I’ll have some, too.”
Yikes! The first sip reminded her of their weekend together, when he took his coffee strong enough to grow hair on his chest.
Not that Major Ben Kincaid would final in any of the hairy chest contests conducted with some frequency in Vegas’s less reputable lounges. Chelsea had dragged Alex to one but the fur-covered contestants had totally turned her off. Ben, she now remembered, sported a light scatter of silky black that dusted his pecs, arrowed down his chest to his belly and...
No! She’d better stop right there! She’d laid out the conditions for their fake marriage up front. No point in renegotiating them at this point. Not when he was taking off for parts unknown in a few hours. Which reminded her...
“You mentioned that you moved out of your apartment and put your things in storage. Where were you going to stay tonight?”
“I’ve got a room at the Transient Lodging Facility at Kirtland. But...” He glanced at his watch and shrugged. “I have to be at the Base Ops with my crew at 0400. I’ll probably just hit the TLF to change into my uniform, then hang in the crew lounge until takeoff.”
“You’re not going to fly across country with no sleep!”
“Not hardly.” He laughed. “Remind me to explain air force regs governing mandatory crew rest to you sometime.”
The mutual realization that he wouldn’t be around to explain crew rest...or anything else...hung in the air until he broke the awkward silence.
“My crew is one of ten being ferried across the Atlantic in the back end of a C-17. The transport crew will do the flying. The rest of us will spend the whole flight sawing z’s.”
“Can you tell me where you’re going?”
“No. Sorry.”
The silence stretched a little longer this time. Alex took another cautious sip of coffee and was hit by the unsettling realization that the kitchen she’d so lovingly decorated was just the right size for her and Maria. She’d painted the walls a sunny yellow herself and spent hours haunting Old Town’s bazaar for the terra-cotta sun faces arranged above the cooktop. Ben, however, seemed to shrink the kitchen’s proportions by at least a third.
It wasn’t his height, she had to concede, or those broad shoulders. It had to be that Special Ops confidence. The quiet air of authority he exuded even with his back in a lazy curve and his hips propped against her kitchen counter. Somehow, some way, he owned the room.
“Why don’t you hang here for a while?” she suggested.
He looked interested. Very interested.
Reluctantly, Alex popped his bubble. “We could go into the living room, put up our feet and talk.”
“Right. Talk.”
“I might need to know more about my...uh...husband than his name, rank and serial number.”
Dammit! She’d better learn not to stumble over the H word. And, she realized as she led the way into the living room, she actually had no clue what his serial number was.
“It’s