LITMIR.BIZ

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kind of host are you?” Cassie chastised as she came farther into the room, sounding very sisterly. “You’re supposed to get up and serve your guests.”

      This time Ben used his mug to motion toward the two unused place settings on either side of him. “I would have served you both if you’d have shown up when we agreed. But I’ve already had my breakfast and finished my second cup of coffee. Now I’m going down to the basement to get started while you two eat.”

      “Are we that late?” Cassie asked Clair.

      “About an hour,” Clair confirmed. “He told me seven-thirty and it’s eight-twenty-five.”

      “I suppose we can’t fault you, then,” Cassie conceded as Ben stood, then took his breakfast dishes to rinse and put in the dishwasher.

      Clair marveled at the fact that he didn’t seem angry with them.

      “See you both downstairs,” he said then, disappearing through the door that concealed the steps leading to the basement.

      “Looks like we’re on our own,” Cassie said.

      “I think that’s what we get,” Clair confided as she removed the platter of food from the oven, taking it to the table as Cassie brought the coffeepot.

      Clair bypassed the coffee to avoid the caffeine, and she and Cassie shared the remaining breakfast foods.

      As they did, they only discussed what they’d decided to do today—retrieving, inventorying and putting away the bed linens, towels and other necessary items that had been packed in boxes and stored in the basement when the school had been closed after Clair’s father’s death. Then they joined Ben for what proceeded to be a very busy day of climbing up and down steps, sorting, counting, discarding anything that was too worn, and assigning closets, shelves and drawers to everything they kept.

      Clair didn’t hesitate to let Ben know how her dad had organized things when he was in charge, but ultimately it was Ben’s decision as to what he wanted where, and she didn’t argue with him when he changed a few things.

      They worked until well after dark that evening, and when they were finished, they were exhausted. It was too late to prepare anything substantial for dinner by then, so they had pizza and salads delivered.

      They ate in the living room around the coffee table before Cassie confessed she was beat and left Clair and Ben still sitting on the floor—Clair with her back resting against the front of a leather easy chair and Ben angled so that one long arm was braced atop the matching sofa cushion so he was partially facing her.

      Ben hadn’t had much to say most of the day—at least not in the way of anything that didn’t pertain to the work they were doing. It had been Cassie and Clair who had chatted while he had basically hung back, more involved with the heavy lifting and the matters at hand than in socializing.

      That fact left Clair uncertain if he might prefer that she say good-night, too, now that his sister was gone. But Ben surprised and pleased her a little by not giving her the chance to make her own exit yet. Instead, he pointed his chin toward an old, battered cardboard box they’d brought up from the basement earlier in the day when they’d discovered it contained some of Clair’s childhood memorabilia.

      “Did you find any treasures in there?” he asked.

      “Like a long-lost antique I could take to one of those road shows they do on television and find out it’s worth thousands of dollars?”

      “Maybe.”

      “Unfortunately, no. There are just some dolls and doll clothes, a stuffed dog with one ear chewed off, and my first patent-leather Easter shoes. Nothing of any great value, only some mementos that somehow got stuck downstairs, I guess.”

      “Who chewed the ear off the dog?” he asked with the hint of a smile shining out from the scruffy-looking day’s growth of beard that was reminiscent of what he’d had when he’d greeted her the evening before because he’d been too busy to shave a second time today, too.

      “I’ve been told that I dragged the dog everywhere and gnawed on his ear whenever I was feeling shy or upset,” she informed him.

      “Can I see?” he asked with what Clair thought was a hint of mischief in his expression.

      “It isn’t pretty,” she warned, giving tacit approval.

      Ben pulled the box closer and peered inside, surveying the contents.

      Clair watched him.

      He was dressed much as he had been the day before in jeans and a T-shirt—this one gray. But the T-shirt fitted him like a second skin, accentuating the well-developed muscles of his torso, and she couldn’t help wondering how anyone could look quite that good with so little effort.

      And he definitely looked good.

      After a moment of peering at the contents of the box, he reached in and extracted the dog as if he’d made his decision about what piece of Halloween candy to pick from the bowl.

      The dog was ragged and soiled and, indeed, missing one ear.

      “You must have been really shy or really upset,” he observed with a wry half smile.

      “Potty-training can be hard on a person,” Clair joked defensively.

      “How long did you drag this poor fella around?”

      “Until I was seventeen.” She’d delivered that joke deadpan but he realized she really was kidding and laughed.

      “You weren’t potty-trained until you were seventeen?”

      “Sixteen and a half but I still kept Charmagne around until I was seventeen.”

      Ben chuckled again. “Charmagne?”

      “That’s her name. She’s Charmagne the Shih-tzu.”

      “And she’s a girl, huh?” he said, turning her over with a devilry that no doubt helped earn him his bad-boy reputation.

      But Clair laughed anyway. “Charmagne is a girl’s name, so yes, she’s a girl. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

      “No, I can see that you’re right,” he said as if he’d been able to tell.

      He set the stuffed toy on the coffee table as if he wanted to keep it in sight, and then settled his gaze on her again. “So this stuff is from before you came here.”

      “Long before.”

      “I kept wondering today what it was like for you when you grew up here.”

      “It was okay.”

      “Not a rave review. Are you warning me that if I ever have kids of my own I should raise them somewhere else?”

      Clair shied away from the if-he-ever-had-kids-of-his-own part of his question as if it were a live electrical wire loose from its moorings. But she did answer his question about her own time at the school.

      “I didn’t hate it here. I guess what I sort of resented—and really, only sort of—was that no matter what happened, at any hour of the day or night, my dad insisted that he be hands-on involved in it.”

      “For instance…”

      “For instance, my sixteenth birthday. He promised me a dinner out, just the two of us, at the best restaurant in Billings. Only just when our salads were served he got a call from the school—he always left orders when he was going to leave the grounds that he was to be called for everything and anything that happened, and even if he didn’t hear from whoever was in charge when he was gone, he called to check with them every hour. Anyway, that night, one of the kids had had a nightmare, but even though it was already under control, we had to cancel the rest of our dinner and come back.”

      Ben made a face. “It’s great for the kids in the program that he cared so much. But definitely lousy for you.”

      “It

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