Beginnings Read online

  "What's wrong with how I cleaned the kitchen?" he asked leaning up against the counter.

  "Nothing. Your mother just doesn't seem like the kind of woman who would have tolerated young boys underfoot in the kitchen."

  He chuckled. "You're right. But I lived in a tiny apartment when I went to college. One of the girls in the apartment was more than a little bitchy and persnickety, so we all did our part to ensure she didn't stab us in our sleep."

  A smile slid across her beautiful mouth as she moved to him. Running a finger over his chest, she shifted her eyes to his. "You lived with a girl?"

  Ben gave her a slow nod. "Two of them."

  "Man about town." Leaning her body against his, she raised her arms around his neck, and his hands came to her hips. "And which one did you share a room with?"

  Okay, he thought, he could be playful too. "Neither, but certainly not the bitchy one."

  "So, no sleeping with your roommates?"

  "Mate. Singular." He pulled back to judge her mood. "And because I want to be totally honest, I'll admit it."

  Nichole's fingers curled up into his hair. "That's a college boy's conquest dream, right? The roommate?"

  "I suppose. Drunken night. No one else at home. But I didn't share a room with her. It just was a thing that happened a few times."

  "So as per our earlier conversation, if you slept with her, it meant that she meant something to you and you cared a great deal for her."

  In a moment the conversation could flip on him if he wasn't careful.

  "That's what I told you, and I mean it. We didn't date, not in the conventional sense. We both had a lot on our plate. But I did care for her, and if someone were bothering her or hurting her, I would help her as well."

  Nichole took a step back from him and wrapped her arms around herself.

  "I guess there's no skimming over this."

  "Just want to know what's going on."

  She turned from him and walked to the refrigerator. Pulling out two bottles of beer, she handed one to Ben. He took it, twisted off the top, and took a long deep pull as he watched her do the same. Obviously still working on what she wanted to tell him, Nichole took the caps and threw them away.

  "All of my credit cards have been maxed out, and my bank accounts drained."

  Just as Ben was about to take another pull from his beer, he stopped. Setting it on the counter he reached for her and drew her closer. "Drained?"

  "My car payment was returned. My rent. The check that I wrote the organization for football, they'll be reaching out very soon, too. I have nothing," she said, her voice shaking as she did so.

  He took her beer from her hand and set it on the counter next to his, then pulled her to him and held her as she began to sob.

  Running his hand over her hair he spoke softly in her ear, "We'll take care of this." When he felt her try to pull away, he held her tighter. "I said we, and I mean we. I'm here for you. For all of you."

  He'd never meant the words more than he did right at that moment. No one was going to mess with this little family, and at that moment, he was part of that family. The woman sobbing in his arms held his heart like no other woman ever had. He'd use everything he had to fight for her.

  When her sobbing had eased, she pulled back to look at him with red-rimmed eyes. "You don't have to do this for me. You owe my kids and me nothing."

  Resting his palm against her cheek, he kept his gaze on her. "You're all very important to me. I'm feeling things I didn't expect to feel, but they're there. Will you trust me with this? Show me the details, let me see for myself."

  He watched as her mouth opened slightly and she took a breath as if to argue, then released.

  "Ben, I'm scared. Everything I've worked for is gone."

  "And we're going to figure that out."

  "I can't pay off the debts that are going to accumulate. And the kids…"

  "They don't need to know what's going on right now. You're going to hate this, and you're going to try to turn me down, but I'm going to help you, Nichole. I'm going to lend you the money…" he lifted his finger to her lips as she began to speak. "I'm going to do it whether you like it or not. Tomorrow we're going to go to the bank and the police and let them know what is happening. Someone is stealing from you and making you and your kids suffer. Well, not on my watch."

  "You make it very hard to argue with you."

  He smiled down at her, wiping a tear from her cheek. "Good. There aren't going to be any arguments." As if to seal the deal, he pressed his lips to hers and lingered a kiss there, warm and soft.

  It hadn't been a lie. He'd never felt so much for one person ever in his life. If someone were just taking advantage of her, he could deal with that. There were things in place to take care of people like that. But what if someone was trying to hurt her? That he couldn't tolerate, nor would he.

  As her arms linked around his neck, and she sunk deeper into his kiss, he steered away from the money and the onslaught of legal problems she was about to face. Clearly, the one thing that began to dance around in his head was how he was going to gather enough courage to tell this woman, the mother of three fantastic children, that he loved her, especially when it seemed like her world was crashing down around her.

  30

  Phone calls, emails, and a mailbox full of notices had started Nichole's morning. She couldn't keep her mood intact. One representative would scream at her while the next would nearly offer to send her money to help the cause.

  The credit card companies had been understanding, as that was what they dealt with every day. She had learned that the card was a duplicate of her card, the physical card had been used, and they were going to use their sources to track the person who had charged up new clothes, Uber rides, and was having a nice vacation at her expense.

  The bank wasn't going to be able to do anything about getting her money back, but since checks had been written on the accounts, they were turning them over as fraud and they would be investigated. However, she was dirt poor, and owed fees and money to everyone.

  What she did have was a spreadsheet on her computer filled out with every account she'd paid money to, and whom she needed to contact to find out what fees were going to go along with her bounced checks.

  It was enough to plant a near migraine in her head before Ben arrived.

  Picking up her coffee, she took a long sip only to find it had gone stone cold. As she stood to refresh it, the doorbell rang. Glad to finally have Ben there, she walked to the door and pulled it open.

  He stood there with a box of bagels in his hand and a tray of coffees. "Might be late for breakfast, but bagels are good all day," he offered with a bright smile.

  "I certainly could use that." She stepped back to let him through.

  "Looks like you're already drinking coffee. Guess that was overkill."

  "This is cold. I could use another cup."

  They walked to the kitchen, and she saw him scan a look over her makeshift desk on the table. For the moment, he refrained from saying anything.

  Taking a few moments, they each chose a bagel and a cream cheese flavor, then eased against the counter as they ate standing in the kitchen.

  "It looks like you've been plenty busy this morning," Ben said as he looked back over at her pile of papers on the table.

  "I've been at it all night. I couldn't sleep."

  "I can imagine."

  "I don't understand why someone would do this. Nor do I understand how they were able to. It's not like I'm not safe with my personal data."

  Ben set his bagel on the counter and took a sip of his coffee. "I had a thought. And maybe I'm way off course, but you did once tell me that your ex-husband had a gambling problem?"

  Nichole took a thoughtful bite of her bagel and stared at him. "He gambled. He didn't do things like this. Besides, he doesn't know where I am, so he couldn't have gotten hold of anything here."

  She watched his eyes narrow on her. "He doesn't know where you are? Wher
e his kids are?"

  Nichole pushed back her shoulders and set her jaw. "Don't judge me. You don't really know anything about me or my situation."

  "Not judging."

  "Sure you are. You should see your face right now." She left her bagel on the counter and went back to her seat in front of her computer. "I don't need your help, Ben. I'll get this all handled."

  He took another sip of his coffee. His eyes remained coolly on her. "Are you done riding my ass? Your life is your life, but I'm here to help you deal with this."

  "You have no idea about my life before I came here," she said looking at the screen of her computer.

  Ben moved to her, reached for her hand, and pulled her to her feet. "Tell me about your life. Let me be a part of all of this."

  "Why?"

  She watched as his eyes hardened. His grip didn't tighten on her as if he were angry, but she prepared for it. "You mean something to me. Don't you get that? You all mean something to me."

  "You don't need the hassle of my life, Ben."

  "I guess that's my decision." He pulled her against him, and she could feel her tough exterior begin to crumble.

  "I'm overwhelmed, and I'm taking it out on you. I'm sorry."

  "People who mean something to one another do that."

  She nodded against his shoulder. "You do mean something to me."

  Ben lifted her chin with his finger and looked into her eyes. "I'm glad to hear that. And I'm not going to let our conversation go, we'll just revisit it when you're ready to talk," he said before nipping her lips with a gentle kiss. "Now let's finish our breakfast and then you can show me what you have going on here. Then, together, we will decide how to get this all fixed."

  She loved him, completely and undeniably. What man would take all of her problems on like this, and behave calmly even when she didn't? She'd tell him what she did—about leaving with the kids. But first, she would try to piece back together her life, because when she told him, it'd undoubtedly change how he felt about her.

  * * *

  Nichole had taken the next hour to walk Ben through everything she had on her accounts. Whoever had done this to her was thorough.

  Leaning back in his chair, Ben cupped his hands behind his head and stretched. "I can't help but think this feels like a personal vendetta. How did they get a copy of your credit card? Have you spoken to your family about this?"

  She shook her head. "My mother would be out here in a minute if I did that. There's no need to worry her over this. She's blissfully unaware that anything has disrupted my life."

  He supposed he understood that. The wrath of his own mother would have people shaking in their boots. Just the thought of it had him chuckling and Nichole raising her brow to him.

  "I was just thinking about my mother's reaction if I told her I was in this situation. Oh, she'd hunt them down and hurt them."

  Nichole nodded. "You understand my secondary dilemma." She flipped through a few more papers and then sat back in her chair. "So now I need to start over. Really, I guess that's what this comes to."

  Ben sat forward and scooted his chair closer. "I'm going to financially help you," he said raising his hand as she took a breath to interrupt. "I am. The credit card companies will help you on that end, but I'm going to pay off what you have with everyone else."

  "Why would you do this?"

  Covering her hand with his, he spoke softly, "Don't you get it? I'm in love with you. This is what you do for people you love."

  Her eyes had grown wide, and he knew that he'd taken her by surprise. Well, if she was going to be pissed about it then fine. She needed to know where he stood, even if this wasn't quite the setting he'd hoped to tell her his feelings in.

  "Ben…"

  "That's how I feel. And before you bring the kids into it, I love them, too."

  Tears pooled in her eyes, and she raised her hand to her mouth. "You do?"

  "I would have thought it was obvious."

  * * *

  It was stupid for her to sit there and stare at him, but Nichole couldn't help it. He loved her. Ben Walker loved her, and not only that, he'd said so, aloud, in her kitchen.

  Her heart hammered in her chest as she watched his cool blue eyes stare back into hers.

  Not only that, he loved her kids, too.

  "It is obvious. And I can tell you, you've earned a lot of points for how you handle and take care of my kids," she admitted.

  "I wasn't doing it to earn points."

  Now she held up her hand to cut off his explanations. "I know. It was a compliment. I promise."

  Easing back into her chair at the kitchen table, she let the warmth of his words continue to resonate through her. Looking at her computer screen, she hoped they were enough to get her through the mess that splayed out in multi-color panels on her computer.

  "I guess we'd better get back to this." She nodded to the computer.

  Ben scooted his chair around next to hers and looked at everything she'd inputted. "I can't believe they're using your card in Mexico. Wouldn't they have alerted you?"

  "Sure, if I hadn't called them and told them I was in Mexico."

  "Someone is impersonating you?"

  She shrugged. "Sort of. The card is in my name, but the signer doesn't sign the whole name. Just N. Lewis. What I've learned so far is the person who was in Mexico, registered at the hotel is a Nathan Lewis."

  "So they have him?"

  She shook her head. "No sign of him at all. And from what I gathered when they were trying to talk around it, you know not saying anything to protect themselves, N. Lewis is a woman, just not the N. Lewis that belongs to the card or Nathan Lewis under whom the room is checked out to."

  "So maybe it's not personal. Do we know if Nathan Lewis' credit or identity was stolen?"

  Nichole leaned in and rested her elbow on the table and rested her head in her hand. "I'll let you know when he calls me back."

  Ben's eyes widened. "You got a hold of Nathan Lewis? You should be a detective. How did you do that?"

  "He happens to be my father."

  She watched his face contort from shock to anger as he sat back in his chair. "So it is personal."

  "It is now."

  "And you don't think your ex-husband has anything to do with this?"

  She chewed on that for a moment, let it process, let it filter through her thoughts before it came out her mouth. "The person of interest is a woman."

  "Could be someone involved with him."

  "Could be."

  "If they're opening cards in your name, they have to know where you are."

  "Scary thought."

  "Because he doesn’t know where you are?"

  "That's how I wanted it."

  Ben pressed his fingers to his eyes before he lifted them to meet hers. "You ran away with your kids, didn't you?"

  "Well, at least you didn't ask me if I kidnapped them," she said with a bite before standing up and walking over to the sink.

  Resting her hands against the counter, she braced herself and told herself to be calm even if everything in her raged and burned. Didn't he say he loved her kids too and wouldn't that mean he'd want what was best for them? He deserved to know.

  "He didn't have any custody rights. He was allowed to see them if he wanted to, but he had no custody. He fought to have all of what I had, which was nothing, because he'd lost it all. In the end all he got was the divorce."

  "If he had no custody rights, then what's the problem?"

  "Like I said, his rights were to see them when he wanted, and I wasn't to leave the state without his consent."

  "Nichole…"

  "Don't lecture me. And if you don't want anything to do with this, then you should go now. If he knows where I am, it means I need to pick up and leave again."

  She didn't have to turn around to see his face. When she heard the chair kick back, and the footsteps, she knew he was walking out the door forever.

  A moment later the door clicked closed,
and Nichole slid to the floor and let the wrenching sob take over.

  31

  It wasn't his place, and he knew it, but Ben wasn't going to risk Nichole loading up her kids and driving out of Georgia in the middle of the night to hide somewhere else.

  He didn't want to risk her going to jail either. With that in mind, he was sitting in Phillip Smythe's office waiting for him to process what Ben had just told him.

  "Shit, Ben." Phillip leaned his arms on the top of his desk and let out a breath. "This isn't good."

  "That's why I'm here. It's not as if she's hiding too well. She's living in the open under her maiden name, working, with her kids in public school. If she was concerned that she'd be arrested or something, wouldn't she have changed her name or something?"

  Phillip leaned back in his chair. "There has to be more to it than just packing up the kids and leaving. I'm going to have to do some investigation and see what the parameters of the divorce agreement were."

  "Right. But what about her accounts being breached?"

  Phillip leaned forward again. "That's criminal. You seem to think that this has something to do with her ex-husband?"

  "C'mon. The man gambled away their savings, their car, and the money for rent. Phil, he left his kids homeless because of his gambling debt. Then her credit cards are stolen, her bank account emptied, and they're using her father's identity? I'm no detective, but doesn't it seem too neat and tidy?"

  Phillip nodded, his eyes coolly focused on Ben's. "Let me look for some data on her ex-husband. If he's running a straight and narrow life, she could be in a heap of trouble."

  "That's what I'm afraid of, but I don't think that's what you'll find."

  Phillip ran a finger over his temple and chewed his lower lip. "How involved are you with her?"

  "Very involved."

  "More than just acquaintances, I take it?"

  Now Ben leaned in resting his forearms on his desk. "I love her. I love those kids. Listen, I know she could be in a world of trouble, but she did what was right by all of them. There has to be more, right? I mean if they got divorced, and he could see the kids, but didn't have custody, there would be no reason to run unless there were more to it. And why mess with her parents?"