Cinderella's Sweet-Talking Marine Read online

  “Rules are rules,” Mr. Drysdale maintained. “There’s a Gas ’n’ Go gas station next door that sells T-shirts.”

  Ellie was about to protest more on his behalf but his hand on her arm stopped her. “I’ll be right back,” he promised.

  And he was. Wearing a black T-shirt that said NASCAR Fans Do It Faster.

  “They’re referring to house cleaning,” he told her, noticing her interest in his shirt.

  “I sincerely doubt that.”

  Ben loaded two machines with the bedding while she took care of the clothes in two other machines. He watched as she carefully poured some of the perfume-free liquid detergent into each washer before moving on to the next one. He was fascinated by the way she bit her bottom lip right as she measured the clear liquid into the cap. It made him want to kiss her right there in the middle of the Sud-Z Laundromat.

  The feeling didn’t go away half an hour later as he looked through the glass window of the front loading dryer, watching his old T-shirt rolling around amongst her clothing. Some sort of silky pink camisole kept clinging to his solitary shirt, provocatively wrapping itself around the plain cotton, before playfully falling away.

  Okay, now he was sure he had it bad. Thinking her lingerie was seducing his T-shirt in the dryer was a clear sign that he’d lost his mind.

  He welcomed the sound of the buzzer on the commercial size dryers indicating that this particular event was over.

  But there was more to come as he helped Ellie fold sheets. Not a particularly sexy activity in his experience. But as he was learning every day, anything connected with Ellie was totally unpredictable.

  The cotton material was still hot from the dryer as he held two corners while she came closer with her edge of the queen-sized sheet. He was distracted by the lemony scent of her shampoo, by the feel of her fingers brushing against his, by the erotic image of making love to her as she lay naked on this floral sheet. He could almost see her dark hair covering the creamy skin of her bare breasts as she rolled beneath him….

  He dropped the sheet.

  Ellie grabbed the material before it hit the floor. When she’d asked Ben to help her fold the bedding, she’d never dreamt that it would create such wickedly provocative thoughts. She’d watched his lean fingers hold the floral material and imagined what it would be like to have him in her bed, his folded arms behind his head as he gazed up at her with the sensual promise of things to come. The sheet laying low on his bare hips, well beneath his navel….

  She clutched the sheet to her breasts, her heart thumping wildly.

  “Sorry about that.” Ben’s voice was husky. “Let’s try it again.”

  His fingers grazed hers as he struggled to find the two corners he’d held before. His fingers then grazed here breasts. Her startled gaze shot to his.

  Was that smoky passion she saw there in his expressive hazel eyes? She licked her lips, a nervous habit. He moved closer, lowering his head, his mouth millimeters away…

  “You two having a problem over there?” Mr. Drysdale shouted out from the back of the Laundromat.

  “No problem,” Ellie lied, jumping back. As if having X-Rated fantasies about Ben weren’t a problem. Especially given the fact that they’d happened right here in the middle of the Sud-Z Laundromat. Hardly the most romantic place in town, given its flickering fluorescent overhead lights and its constant smell of bleach.

  If she could get all hot and bothered about Ben merely by folding a sheet with him, she hated to think what making love with him would be like. Well, actually, she didn’t hate thinking about it, she’d been doing that entirely too much lately.

  Her first instinct was to back off, to remove herself from his powerful sphere of influence. But Amy adored him, and Ellie couldn’t let her weakness hurt her daughter.

  So she rolled the now wrinkled sheet into a ball and tossed it in the laundry basket. By the time Ben drove her and the clean laundry home, Ellie had regained her equilibrium.

  “Amy has been bugging me for the next installment of Lady Blush’s story. She was so upset that she’d fallen asleep after we got home from miniature golf and dinner and missed you telling her more of the story.”

  “I was all set to tell her about the dragon named Flamebo.”

  Ellie cracked up.

  “What, you think a dragon named Flamebo is funny? He’s got an attitude problem but he’s a softie beneath that rough exterior.”

  “Sounds like someone else I know.”

  “Me? There’s no way I have an attitude problem. Now you…”

  “Yes?” Her look warned him he was treading on thin ice.

  “Look really good today.”

  “Nice save,” she congratulated him.

  “I mean it.”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t say things I don’t mean.” The intensity of his voice let her know that he wasn’t kidding, he wasn’t being charming. He was stating a fact. Firmly, emphatically.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You do that.”

  “Meanwhile, I was wondering if you’d like to stay for dinner? Amy will be home soon and then afterward you can tell her about Flamebo.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Ben helped her make dinner, a simple meal of meat loaf and real mashed potatoes along with fresh zucchini.

  After Amy prepared for bed, Ben joined her and Ellie in the bedroom. He sat on the edge of Amy’s bed. “Now where were we…?”

  “Lady Blush wasn’t in the jail,” Amy eagerly reminded him. “And maybe there’s a dragon.”

  “Ah yes. Now it comes back to me….”

  “Did you forget ’cause you’re old?” Amy asked him. “My grandma forgets things because she’s old.”

  Ben shared a rueful look with Ellie. “No, I didn’t forget because I’m old. I was just teasing you by pretending to forget. Now back to Lady Blush. Our tough hero Sir Goodknight found the dungeon empty except for a pair of guards. He hid in the shadows and heard one of them talking about how they’d moved Lady Blush the day before.”

  “Moved her where?”

  “To Lord Breedembad’s castle.”

  Ellie’s giggle verged on a snort.

  “You’re making funny noises, Mommy.” Amy was not amused.

  “Sorry.” Ellie tried to look apologetic. “Go on, Ben.”

  “Well, Breedembad’s castle was called All-Moat because it was surrounded by a large moat, making the target just about impossible to attack. And the place was guarded by a mean dragon named Flamebo. But Sir Goodknight refused to give up. He also remembered that All-Moat was rumored to be haunted by a ghost and that gave him an idea. But first he had to deal with that dragon.”

  Ben paused a moment.

  “Go on.” Amy nestled into her pillow and hugged the newly washed Raboo tightly.

  “Sir Goodknight made sure that all his men had their combat gear ready, including their helmets. Meanwhile, back at the All-Moat castle, Lady Blush was using her sewing kit to remove a big thorn from the dragon’s foot. She and the dragon became friends. She even had a nickname for him. She called him Ernie Infernie instead of Flamebo.”

  Ellie laughed again and was the recipient of another look from Amy. “Sorry,” Ellie murmured.

  “The dragon liked Lady Blush because she looked beneath his rough exterior and saw the nice dude he was under all the fire-breathing and roaring. And even though it was difficult for her, the more time she spent with him, the more she came to trust him.”

  “What about Sir Goodknight?” Amy’s sleepy question was spoken around a yawn.

  “He was busy planning his rescue of Lady Blush. I’ll tell you all about that next time.”

  “You can kiss me and Raboo good night.” She held the toy out to Ben and then threw her arms around him to squeeze him tight as he kissed her cheek.

  As Ellie watched the two of them, another chunk of her heart was lost. Once Ben moved away, she tucked the covers around Amy and handed her the freshl
y washed kitten blanket she nuzzled every night. She kissed her little girl, blinking back the tears at how much she loved her.

  Amy patted her cheek. “See you later alligator.”

  Ellie smiled crookedly. “In a while, crocodile.” The silly good-night rhyme ritual was comforting.

  She turned out the light and left the door open a bit before joining Ben in the living room.

  He looked very serious.

  She tried to tease him. “You made Flamebo out to be the hero.”

  Ben didn’t smile. Instead he stunned her by saying, “You were right to turn down my earlier offer to help you. I shouldn’t have bluntly offered you money like that.”

  She blinked, not expecting him to bring that up now. “I appreciate you agreeing with me.”

  “I’m not agreeing with you. What I’m saying is that I should have offered you marriage.”

  Chapter Six

  Excuse me?” Ellie was certain she couldn’t have heard him correctly.

  “I said I should have offered you marriage.”

  “No way. I mean, that is not a good idea at all.”

  “Why not? If we were married I’d be even better able to help you look after Amy, to make sure the two of you were taken care of.”

  “I’ve already told you, I’m not Lady Blush. I don’t need some big knight to come rescue me.”

  “So you say.”

  “So I mean.”

  “What’s so bad about being rescued?”

  “It means you’re entirely dependent on someone else for your well-being and you have to trust them to save you.”

  “So it comes back to trust.”

  “Look, I know you mean well. And I know that you were a friend of my brother’s, a good friend.”

  Ben didn’t know how much of a good friend he was when he ended up getting his buddy killed.

  “But I haven’t known you that long,” Ellie said.

  “We can remedy that. It’s the perfect solution. If I married you then I could take care of you and Amy. You’d be protected. You’d never have to worry about money again.”

  “I’d just have to worry about being married.”

  “What’s to worry about?”

  “You’ve obviously never been married,” Ellie retorted.

  “I’m not like your ex-husband. I’m not going to run out on my responsibilities.”

  “We aren’t your responsibilities, don’t you see that?”

  But they were. His friend’s dying request had been that Ben look out for Ellie and this was the perfect way to do that.

  As if reading his mind, she said, “Look, I realize you promised my brother you’d look after us, but I’m sure he didn’t mean for you to marry me.”

  “We’ll never know that.”

  “Well, I know that I don’t want to get married.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve already been married and it didn’t work out.”

  “Lots of first marriages don’t work out. That doesn’t mean that people never marry again.” He used that voice men used when they felt they were dealing with an illogical woman.

  “I’m not people. I’m me.”

  “And I’m me. Not your scumbag ex-husband. I’m not going to hurt you the way he did.”

  “I don’t even know you.”

  “What’s there to know? You like me, I like you, Amy likes me, I like Amy. End of story.”

  “Not even close.”

  “You don’t like me?”

  “That’s irrelevant.”

  “Not really. Most people about to get married think it’s very relevant.”

  “We are not about to get married.”

  “Meaning you want a longer engagement?”

  “Meaning I’m not marrying you.”

  “Come on, at least give it some thought.”

  “What’s in this deal for you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me, what’s in this deal for you?”

  “Meaning that I couldn’t possibly be doing this out of the kindness of my heart, right? Meaning that I must have some kind of ulterior motive going on here.”

  “Do you?”

  “No.” That felt like a lie to Ben. Because he did have a motive she didn’t know about, the guilt driving him to make things better for Ellie and Amy. She didn’t know the cause of it, didn’t even know of its existence. And he planned on keeping it that way. His burden was for him to bear, and him alone.

  “You don’t want to marry me.”

  “Funny, I thought I just said I did.”

  “You’re confused.”

  “Marines don’t get confused.”

  “Look, I know all about the Marine Corps sense of honor and I realize that you think you’re honoring my brother by asking me to marry you, but really that’s not what he’d want either of us to do.”

  “So you said before. And as I said, we have no way of knowing that.”

  “You should marry someone you love.”

  “What about you?”

  Ellie’s heart stopped. Was he trying to tell her that he loved her?

  “Don’t you want to marry someone you love?” he continued.

  “Love didn’t serve me very well the first time around.”

  “My point exactly. This time we have something more going for us. A shared goal.”

  “Which is?”

  “To make Amy’s life better.”

  Pride reared its head. “Are you insinuating that my daughter has a bad life now? That I’ve failed to take proper care of her?”

  “I just meant that working together, you and I, we could do more for Amy than you can do alone.”

  “I prefer working alone.”

  “I don’t understand why you have to be so stubborn.”

  “Because otherwise you’ll run right over me like a tank. And I’ve had enough of that in my life. I don’t appreciate you coming in here and bossing me around, ordering me how to live my life. I’ve tried to tell you how I feel about this, but you don’t listen to what I say. You just keep going on with your mission with blinders on.”

  “You’re the one with blinders on. You’re so traumatized by what happened to you in the past that you’re willing to risk your future rather than look at the situation rationally or logically.”

  “I’m not the one being irrational. You are. Proposing marriage to someone you barely know? If that’s not irrational then I don’t know what is.”

  “I’ll tell you what is. Refusing to take the help that’s offered to you, refusing to see past the tip of your own nose to look at the situation logically.”

  His comments came dangerously close to something her ex-husband might have said, which made her anger flare even hotter. “Well gee, forgive me if I dare to have my own opinion and to voice it. How terrible of me not to fall into line and obey orders. But that’s not me and it never will be. So I think it’s best if you leave now.”

  “Oh sure, take the easy way out instead of talking this through.”

  “You don’t want to talk, you want to argue. No, you just want to order me to do what you want. That’s not going to happen. So you’d better leave. And take this with you.”

  She tossed him his T-shirt. He grabbed it in time to narrowly miss it hitting him smack in the face. “Fine. Maybe we could use a little time apart. Maybe that will bring you to your senses.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  She couldn’t slam the door after him for fear of waking her daughter, but boy she sure wanted to.

  What had Ben been thinking? Was he crazy proposing marriage that way? Ellie certainly wasn’t looking for another husband. Her previous one hadn’t even bothered to show up at the divorce proceedings. He’d let his attorney speak for him.

  No, Ellie certainly wasn’t looking to get married again. Doing that would only add to her problems, not lessen them.

  Cyn pounced on Ellie the second she stepped into the employee’s entrance at the back of Al’s Place. �
��I heard you and Mr. Too Yummy For Words were mixing it up at the Laundromat yesterday.”

  “You heard wrong,” Ellie said curtly, still riled up from her argument with Ben the night before.

  “You mean he wasn’t half-naked?”

  “Of course not!”

  “He wasn’t missing his T-shirt?”

  “Well, yes…”

  “Because you’d torn it off his sexy body?”

  “No. We’d been cleaning…”

  “Stop right there. A handsome Marine who cleans?” Cyn rolled her eyes and pressed her hands to her chest. “I’m in love.”

  Ellie was not amused. “Fine, then you marry him.”

  “Marry?” Cyn picked up on that instantly. “He asked you to marry him?”

  “What? What’s going on back here?” Latesha demanded as she joined them.

  “Mr. Too Yummy For Words asked Ellie to marry him,” Cyn replied.

  “Get out!” Latesha turned to Ellie. “I heard you brought him half-naked to the Laundromat, but I had no idea that wedding bells were in the air.”

  “They aren’t.” Ellie’s response was emphatic. “I turned him down.”

  “What?” Latesha’s eyes widened. “Are you crazy, girlfriend?”

  “I’d be crazy if I’d said yes,” Ellie retorted. “Ben feels responsible for me, that’s why he asked me to marry him. Because my brother asked him to look after me.”

  Latesha wasn’t giving up that easily. “If there’s no chemistry, then what was he doing half-naked at the Laundromat?”

  “He spilled soda all over his T-shirt so I offered to wash it.”

  “Mabel who cashiers at the Gas ’n’Go said she almost had a heart attack when he walked in there all bare-chested and muscular. Said she hated selling him a T-shirt, that it was a downright crime to cover up such a fine specimen. Claimed he had a perfect six-pack. And I’m not talking beer, here, I’m talking about abs.” Cyn smacked her lips. “Yes, I heard it was a mighty fine sight. I’m just sorry I missed it. He was helping Ellie with her housecleaning,” Cyn added for Latesha’s benefit, since she’d missed that part of the story.

  “Get out! A hottie like him? Who cleans?” At Cyn’s nod, Latesha turned to Ellie. “Why aren’t you grabbing him, girl?”

  “Because I hardly know him.”