Elli (A Second Chance Novel Book 1) Read online

  Elli glanced in the direction in which BJ had run, but couldn’t see her in the darkness. The fire doubled in size, and Elli raced to it, beating it with the blanket. “I’ve gotta call nine-one-one. Ugh. I wish you dogs could use my cell phone.” She didn’t want to stop battling the small blaze to make the call, but fumbled to punch 9-1-1 with one hand while beating the blanket on the fire. The number was probably still on the phone from the last time she called. At least Rachel was off, she thought—like that would stop the Bienvenues from descending on her again. They’d say she set two forest fires!

  Just as she was about to make the call, the edge of the blanket caught fire. Elli stomped it out then, continued to beat the blanket on the three-foot section of weeds still burning. Jenny thought it was a game and started to leap after the blanket. “Stop, Jenny. No.” Jenny got a good hold on a piece of blanket and started to tug. She growled and shook her head. “Stop.” Elli used the other part of the blanket to hit the fire, giving Jenny even more encouragement. She thought Elli was playing with her and tugged harder, yanking the blanket from Elli’s hand. “No.”

  Elli looked at the small fire and was out of options. She had nothing to stamp it out with…unless she used her shirt. Without a second thought, she yanked her shirt off of her body and started beating the fire with it. Swoosh. The top went up in flames.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Ben! Help!” Elli started stomping on a low section of the fire, wearing only a black bra and jeans. She looked at him as he rushed to her side, pulling off his shirt. He stomped and beat down the fire.

  Elli fell against her car and fought back tears. “Oh my God. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come when you did.” Jenny walked up to her with the charred blanket and dropped it at her feet.

  “We could’ve used that a few minutes ago,” he said, scratching Jenny behind the ear. He put his arm around Elli’s shoulder and hugged her against him. She lost her battle with the tears and they slid quietly down her cheeks.

  “She stole it from me. You little beast. I should have let Doug shoot you.”

  Ben leaned back and looked at her. “What? Doug wanted to shoot Jenny?”

  “Bad joke.” She wiped away the tears. “I hate crying. I’m just so tired. I was scared. I thought I’d have to face the Bienvenu firing squad with accusations of starting another fire.” She sniffed. “I don’t know how in the world it started. The exhaust and spinning tires and…oh, I don’t know. There was probably some trash on the side of the road.”

  “Probably one of those signs.” Ben pointed to a line of paper signs stuck in the ground along the roadside. “No parking.”

  Elli started to laugh, and Ben hugged her tighter to his naked chest. She turned and faced him. “Thank you.” She smiled. “How did you know I was out here?”

  “BJ told me you were in trouble.” He motioned with his head to the car. Elli looked inside and saw BJ sitting in the driver’s seat with her paws on the steering wheel. “You should’ve let her drive.”

  Elli smiled. “Look at us, Ben. We’re practically naked in the middle of the road.”

  “Not naked enough.” Ben’s eyes darkened and he spread his legs enough to pull Elli tighter against him. He lifted her chin toward him. His hand smelled of smoke and man.

  Elli sighed. “Just a look from you and I go to places that are naughty and unsafe. Why do I do that when I know you don’t like me?” He rubbed her back, then slid his fingers under the strap of her bra. She shivered when he trailed a line of kisses along the side of her neck.

  “Tell me about those naughty places, cher. In detail.” Elli threw her head back and laughed. Ben seized the moment and with tongue and teeth, feasted his way down her neck to the middle of her cleavage. Elli shivered. This man knew how to pleasure a woman and here, on the side of the road next to a car stuck in the ditch where anyone could see them, she was going to let him.

  “I can only think of one naughty place,” she whispered in his ear. “It’s on a dark road on Sugar Mill Plantation.” She nibbled on his ear a moment in the way she had learned he liked, and Ben smiled.

  “Tell me more about this dark, naughty place on Sugar Mill Plantation.” He pressed himself against her center, and Elli arched her back to move in tighter.

  “This place,” she said, in a raspy voice she barely recognized as her own. “It’s a cool night at this place and our exposed flesh is chilled from the air at the same time it’s heated from wanting each other.”

  “Mm, you got that right, cher.” He dropped to his knees and began to kiss her abdomen and navel. He slid his finger beneath the waistband of her jeans and played a while before unbuttoning them. His mouth, sweet and wet, kissed each inch of flesh he exposed as he unzipped her jeans. Elli groaned. “Tell me more about what we do at this naughty place,” he said, his voice deep and breathy on her abdomen.

  “I…can’t…talk.” He slid her pants to her ankles, and Elli slipped off her running shoes to step out of them. Ben grabbed her bottom and pressed his mouth against her center.

  “Try or I’ll stop,” he growled. “Tell me what you are feeling in this naughty place.”

  “Heat.” She moved with him as he used his tongue over her panties, exciting her. “Desire. Wanting.”

  “What do you want, cher?” He slid her panties down her legs in a slow, seductive motion. Elli felt the silky fabric brush against every inch of flesh down her legs. Then, his mouth was on her.

  “This. I want this,” she managed in a hushed voice. She gripped his shoulders to try to remain upright on boneless legs.

  Ben growled again and it vibrated through her core. Elli felt the beginning of an orgasm deep inside her and let her entire body flow into it. Ben slipped his finger inside of her and bright light exploded in front of her. She screamed out and the dogs began to bark. She and Ben ignored them as he stood and pressed against her. Elli moved against him to continue the rhythm he started. Ben gripped her hips tighter, sliding his body against hers in an erotic dance. He was so hard. His breathing heavy. Elli slid down his body, unzipped his jeans and took him as he had taken her. She hadn’t noticed, but the dogs stopped barking and lay on the ground.

  “You are killing me.” He ran his hands over her head and let her do the pleasuring. She could feel his restraint and wanted him to let go. She slowed the rhythm, explored, tasted, enjoyed, until the muscles in Ben’s legs started shaking. He pulled her up and kissed her deeply. Elli wrapped her legs around him as he drove into her. He looked into her eyes and her heart fluttered. Something unguarded and important was shared in the moment, that one look, but Elli didn’t know what. If she had to give it a word, it would be trust, but she was too much awash in the passion to think of that now. They shattered in each other’s arms seconds later.

  Elli and Ben remained leaning against the cold metal of the car, now heated by their bodies. Neither spoke nor moved for a long time. They were still breathing hard as Ben hugged Elli tighter against his warmth. She rested her head on his chest and her palms on his shoulders.

  Ben spoke first. “Should I be worried that we didn’t use protection?”

  “No. I don’t have any communicable diseases and I’m good on the birth control front. No worries. Should I be worried?”

  “Nope. I’m good.” He yawned. “If I had any strength or sense, I’d get us off the road where someone might happen by.”

  Elli smiled. “By someone, I know you are referring to a Bienvenu.”

  “Yeah. I am.” He patted her on her naked bottom and moved her an arm’s length away. His eyes slid down her body, and he grinned his sexy crooked grin. “Why don’t you slip that bra off, cher, and be naked all the way for me, to complete my fantasy.” He ran his finger down the side of her waist, and then he surprised her by tracing the faded scar running from hip-to-hip. Elli stepped away and reached for her panties. “You sensitive about that scar?”

  “Yes. I am.” She slipped on her bright purple
panties. “More Kryptonite.”

  “It’s not mine,” He stepped on her jeans and stopped her from putting them on. “What is the scar from?”

  “You are so frustrating, you know?” He smiled, obviously enjoying her calling him that. “You send mixed signals, Ben. When you are like this, you are so ridiculously charming, when we are together…” She sighed deciding not to identify what their lovemaking meant to her. “Then, at the bayou side today, I felt you pushing me away. You were trying to corral me in that imagined fence you have to keep me locked in and distant.”

  “I can’t disagree with that.” He blew out a breath. “This is different. This is just wanting to know why you have the scar across your hip. It’s not about relationship building.” He tugged her into his arms again and ran his hand over her head, tucking a curl behind her ear. His actions didn’t embody his words. His gentleness and affection touched her, and Elli felt vulnerable. Oh my God. This man could steal her heart.

  “It’s just a surgery scar, Ben.” She shrugged her shoulders and looked away. “I have a few of them. Most everyone who knows me in LA knows about it. It’s not a secret.” She cleared her throat. “I was sick just over three years ago and had four surgeries as a result.”

  He turned her face to look at her. Elli saw the genuine concern in his eyes. Her heart constricted. This was what the cold and distant Ben looked like when he let his guard down. “How sick?”

  Yes, she felt vulnerable, but telling him the truth would give her strength and resolve. It would protect her heart. It would make him want to stay at arm’s length from her.

  “I had stage three breast cancer.”

  She kept her eyes locked on his, wanting to see the moment he put up the shield to protect himself from that kind of harsh reality. She’d seen it before in others whose personal fears didn’t allow them to be too empathetic or be near it for long.

  Elli didn’t wait for him to speak. “I don’t mind talking about having cancer with you, it’s just we aren’t supposed to have this kind of personal conversation.”

  His eyebrows furrowed, then he nodded.

  “Talking about my cancer is…intimate.” Elli blew out a breath. “We said we would keep our relationship superficial. I’m not sure it’s good for us to do otherwise.”

  He nodded, again. “Agreed.” He handed Elli her jeans. “Tell me about it anyway. I promise to not care.”

  “Very funny.” She slipped into her jeans. “I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma. My first line of treatment was a lumpectomy, then chemo and radiation. After I finished treatment, the doctors said they didn’t see any NED—new evidence of disease.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Elli shrugged. “They think I am progression-free. Another term doctors toss around. They used to call it remission. Now they attach percentages to the possibility of recurrence. They gave me a twenty-percent chance of recurrence because of the stage of my cancer and the fact that it infiltrated three lymph nodes.” Ben opened the car door and motioned for her to sit inside. He stood just outside the car as she continued.

  “About a year and a half ago, I attended a lecture about genetic breast cancer testing on the advice of a friend who was going. Afterward, I decided to have the simple blood test to determine if the cancer I had was genetic.” She cleared her throat again, for it felt tight and raw. “My mother and her mother died of breast cancer.” He squatted to be eye level with her but didn’t say a word. “Well, I tested positive. The geneticist I consulted with recommended I take preemptive measures before I got a new cancer. He said I had an eighty-seven-percent chance of getting a new breast cancer. My chances of ovarian cancer were really high too, since the same gene mutation is blamed for both cancers. If I was proactive, I could reduce my chance of a new breast cancer to four percent. I liked those odds better. I didn’t want to have to go through chemotherapy and radiation again. I would, if I had to, but I didn’t want to.”

  Ben took both of her hands into his. “So what were the preemptive measures?”

  “Prophylactic nipple sparing double mastectomy and surgery to remove my ovaries, fallopian tubes, and uterus,” she said in a detached voice void of the emotion that went along with all that she had been through. For some reason, it was important to her to declare the information without emotion. She stared at him for a long moment, wanting to catch every nuance of his reaction. Did he think she had been overzealous with her medical treatment? Did he think she was reasonable and correct? She wasn’t sure why his opinion mattered so much to her, but it did. “Ben, do you understand what I’m saying?” she asked, when he just stared at her with no telling grimace or frown or arched brow. “I had both surgeries, Ben.”

  “You had reconstruction?” He lifted his hands and gently touched her breasts. His eyes softened. “Must’ve been really talented doctors.”

  “They were all amazing. The doctors spent nearly seven hours performing the mastectomy and DIEP flap reconstruction. They used my stomach fat and microsurgically transplanted it to make breasts.”

  He winced. “Ouch. Sounds painful.”

  “It was, but only for a few weeks.”

  “And hard,” he whispered.

  “Yes, it was. But not as hard as you’d think and not as hard as having cancer. Fighting it, even with painful surgeries and debilitating chemo, is the easy part. You are engaged in doing something to get rid of the invader threatening your life—it gives you a sense of control. Having treatment is hopeful.” She bit her lower lip. “Ending your treatment is both a joy that you are well enough to end it and a dread that the beast that could be hiding in your body is not being hunted. You can believe the cancer has been wiped out, but there is always the knowledge that it can return.” She rubbed her chilled arms, and BJ climbed from the driver’s seat where she had been sleeping, to snuggle at Elli’s hip. “Sweet girl.” She began petting BJ as she continued. “You know a lot of people think the nauseating side effects of the chemo or the burns from the radiation are the hardest part. For me, it was hearing the doctor tell me that I had cancer and I could die despite all efforts to fight it. No matter what I did, I could fail. I never failed. I was a damn overachiever who succeeded at everything I did.”

  “I’m sorry. You are a brave woman to keep pushing forward.”

  “People always tell me how brave and courageous I am to go through what I have, but the truth is, you go through it because you don’t have a choice. That doesn’t make you a brave person. All I did was fight for my life. At the end of the day, it was God who decided to let me stay on earth for a while longer. He makes that decision. Not me.”

  “Yes, He does.” Ben stood, walked around the car to the driver’s side, and climbed in. “Well, I’m glad you’re alive and well.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled at how sweet he was to say that. “Me, too.” She closed her door. “You know, there are times I can actually appreciate having gone through all that I have in the last few years. My amazing, loving father died a few months before my diagnosis, but it wasn’t until I, first-person, stared death in its ugly face that I learned to appreciate life. I realized that almost everything that I thought was important was just—stuff.” She smiled and Ben nodded.

  “Dogs are born knowing that. They are so damn uncomplicated. The best things I learned about life are from my dogs.”

  “They live in the moment and that was what I set out to do, not knowing dogs had invented it.” She laughed. “I gave up on a movie producing career I loved so I could live like there was no tomorrow. I traveled the world, climbed the Himalayas and the Rockies. I hiked rainforests in Brazil. I tasted strange, exotic foods in towns I can’t even pronounce in tiny countries I hadn’t known existed. I slept on the ground under the stars and enjoyed my own company. I woke up every day and quoted William Wallace, aka Mel Gibson, inBraveheart—‘Every man dies. Not every man really lives.’” She shook her head. “If I hadn’t had cancer, I wouldn’t have had that grand adventure.”

/>   “Especially not in just three short years.” Ben looked out the window and whistled. Jenny and Doe came bouncing toward the car. He opened the door and let them inside. It took a few minutes before they settled in the backseat and went to sleep.

  Elli looked at her dogs and smiled. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I like my three crazy dogs.”

  “Four. You are forgetting Donna.”

  “Donna, I’m not so sure about.” She laughed. “Of course, I like that prissy girl. These three are eager and clumsy and lovable. They don’t have an agenda. Donna, on the other hand, is manipulative, selfish, and sneaky.”

  “Sounds like the woman I married.”

  Elli shivered and rubbed her arms. She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about Sarah Leblanc. Something told her that they had shared enough for one evening. Besides, what she really needed to talk about was selling Sugar Mill Plantation. She needed to get funding for the foundation, soon. Ben seemed to be in a malleable mood.

  She took in a deep breath. “Ben, do you think we can ever sit down with a willingness to resolve our differences over what to do with Sugar Mill?” Ben’s posture immediately changed. He now sat rigid.

  “No,” he said simply. “I don’t want to do anything with the plantation. I’m not willing to compromise on that point.”

  “So, let me be clear on what you are saying.” She knew she was raising her voice but couldn’t stop it. “You want to keep the status quo. No change. You want to pretend I have no claim to the kennel, the land, and the house. Is that right?”

  “Don’t forget, I also want you to go back to California.”