FH: Just Found Heaven Ch. 04: Ben

Sam blanched. He was big, built, and military trained to be cool and efficient under intense pressure in combat zones but also easily and completely rattled by one sweet, five-year-old girl.

So ridiculously cute.

Still not looking at him, I popped the rest of my cookie into my mouth to stall any facial expression that wasn't linked to chewing. Sofia didn't even bother trying to hide her amusement though she did make a feeble attempt to grab her youngest daughter to keep Emma from retrieving her plastic entourage. Adelyn grinned at me then smirked at Sam whose cheekbones were streaked with a pale pink too appropriately timed to be sunburn even in Florida where most people often walked around with an occasional blush from the wicked rays.

"From father to uncle... That's like Jerry Springer weird."

"For crying out loud!" Sam protested. "It's like Romper Room in here."

"You behave, you sit, and you drink this," Sofia interjected, addressing first Adelyn, then Emma, and finally Sam, all with the same unabashed smile. She placed a glass of water in front of Sam, then glanced at me with happy mischief sparkling in her brown eyes. "Have some respect for Padre Santiago."

"Oh, don't stop on my account," I said with a wide grin. "I feel like part of the family."

"See mami, Father Ben would like marrying uncle Sam," Emma continued, to Sam's obvious horror, and my growing amusement. "My teacher Miss Amy, says that boys can get married now too and God still loves them."

Sofia clasped a hand over her mouth as I winked at Emma. I loved this kid almost as much as I loved her uncle. "Your teacher is enlightened. We'll have to invite her to the wedding."

"Okay, on that note, we're done," Sam announced, completely ignoring my snickering, and the boos and protests hurled at him from Sofia and his nieces as he made his way around the kitchen to kiss every female cheek, with an extra peck and tickle for Emma before he grabbed my hand to drag me out of the house.

I enjoyed the simple contact just as much as I had earlier even though Sam was just whisking me away from his jubilant family.

"I think we'd have made a cute couple with Barbie as our best woman. Very forward thinking."

Sam snorted as he walked around to the passenger side of his SUV to open the door for me; another of those small, unconscious displays of chivalry and attentiveness to my welfare that made me consider options to show how appealing I found him. Most of them would probably make Sam's minor blush flare up in full force. He was still trying to accept that I was just a man beneath my collar. A man who found his boyfriend ridiculously hot.

I hid my smile as Sam shook his head. "Emma's never going to let that go now," he said as he closed my door, and then went back to the driver's side so he could get into his own seat. Once Sam was comfortably situated, I slid across my leather seat as much as I could to get closer to him.

"Girl right after my own heart then..."

***

My mind returned to the present before that memory could dip into the less pleasant territory of the moments directly following, when Max had called Sam to tell him that he was on a flight headed to Florida, and had needed a ride from the airport. Sam had gone stiff as a board, and I'd hated the look of guilt on his face when he explained to Max that he was out with me. Sam didn't have anything to be guilty about. He hadn't done anything wrong. Max had just become a victim of his own foolish choices because any man unwilling to fight for what he wants, deserves what he gets. Max hadn't gotten Sam in the end, though if I was honest with myself, there'd been a moment when I'd wondered if I'd made the right decision in choosing to fight as hard as I had for Sam.

I hadn't every been scared off by his PTSD, even after I'd ended up with a mild concussion, and a wrist sprain when he'd had that horrible nightmare that had put me in the hospital overnight for observation. I'd always known that something like that could happen, and had been prepared for it emotionally but Sam hadn't. He'd said he was leaving to protect me but finding out later that he'd left the hospital with Max had shredded my heart.

I exhaled slowly. Everything had worked out in the end, but all love stories had some darker moments because without them, you'd never appreciate how bright the light really was....

***

"Ben, Tara is on the phone for you."

I glanced up in confusion when Catherine appeared in the arched doorway of the nursery with the cordless home phone in her hand. I briefly shifted my attention away from her over to my cell phone which was resting on the small side table to the left of the wooden rocker that I was sitting in with Noah in my arms. The screen was still dark, never having rung even once during the last 20 minutes that I'd been giving Noah his late evening bottle. Over the last few weeks that I'd been staying with Catherine and her husband Raul at their home in Cuba, I'd started taking over some of Noah's frequent feedings. A colicky baby, and exhausted first-time parents were a combination that occasionally benefited from an extra set of patient hands, and I enjoyed the private moments I got to spend with my newest nephew.

I had eight other nieces and nephews of varying ages, and loved them all, but Noah and I had bonded extra quickly. I could usually get him to settle and fall asleep securely in my arms after only a few minutes, even when others couldn't; a fact that exasperated Catherine, and amused Raul. I always saved myself from my sister's maternal wrath by pointing out that I was here hiding from my life back in Florida; a fugitive from my own heart. Noah was just trying to show me that there was at least one person I loved who also loved me completely and unconditionally.

I didn't normally enjoy playing sympathy cards, but I'd been keeping an entire deck stashed in reserve until I could figure out what my next steps were going to be now that I was past the stage of anger, tears, and copious amounts of good rum. My emotions had mellowed into a quieter, more manageable pain, but I'd still been avoiding thinking about my life back home in Florida. Unfortunately, my time to be indecisive had apparently come to an end.

Noah didn't budge as I slowly eased the rubber nipple out between his slack lips and set the almost empty bottle on the table. I shifted him carefully in my arms so I wouldn't wake him, then traded his small sleeping body to Catherine in exchange for the phone. She waved me off when I got up and headed out into the hall though the expression in her eyes was blatantly curious and I knew she'd interrogate me later.

"Tara?"

"Hey Ben. How are you doing?"

"Surprised. I didn't know you had Catherine's landline number."

"Sofia gave it to me after you stopped returning the texts and voicemail messages I left on your cell. I know you needed some time and space to get your thoughts straight, but we're all worried about you."

The balmy night air wrapped around my body, sinking through my thin white linen shirt and shorts like a damp caress as I opened the front door of Catherine's house and stepped out onto the veranda. Her house was located in a relatively quiet neighborhood, but I could hear the soft strains of traditional salsa music wafting over from a neighbor's open window. It was the only thing interrupting the quiet, other than my voice, and the occasional electric snap of the mosquito zapper. Even in the dark I could make out the silhouette of the two old wooden rocking chairs that Raul had recently painted a bright tropical green a few shades darker than the color of the house. After tucking the phone into the crook of my neck, I sat in the nearest one. I had a feeling this wouldn't be a brief conversation.

"I'm all right Tara. It's been nice spending time with my family. None of my siblings or I were born in Cuba so if Raul's company hadn't transferred him here to Havana for the last few years, I'd probably never have seen it. It's a beautiful country."

"I'm sure it's amazing, but Florida also has gorgeous beaches, and a democratic society. Win-win."

My lips curved into a grin at her cheerful sarcasm, but I felt the tension in my temples when I rubbed my hand over my face. After I'd reclaimed my life starting with being ordained and assigned to my parish, I'd promised myself that I'd accept my life moving forward in whatever form it took, and never again run away from it into a world of excuses. I even preached about it in my sermons often because I believed in leading by example. Yet here I was, laying low far away from my problems.

Coward.

I exhaled slowly, but what was probably going to be another variant of an excuse stilled on my tongue when Tara said, "Sam came to the community center to find you."

My chair creaked as I shifted my weight and leaned forward with a better grip on the phone. "What?"

"Sam came to the group last week looking for you," she repeated. "I told him you were in Havana and he..." Tara's tone softened. "He was upset you left without telling him."

"Well, it's nice to know I made some sort of impact on Sam before he made the decision to walk away from me first."

I hated the bitter note in my voice as I rubbed the hand not holding the phone over my face again.

"Hey, I read him a proper riot act. Went up one side of him and down the other with beastly bestie wrath until he did that owlish blinky thing he does when he doesn't know what to say. And then he got pissy."

"You don't say," I said dryly.

As much as I loved Sam and had been willing to take so much on to save him from himself because I'd believed he and I were worth the fight, I'd also learned firsthand how hard he could lash out emotionally when he didn't know how to accept freely offered love. That character flaw had kept him from his family for three years. I wanted to believe that this wasn't my turn for a long estrangement period, but I wasn't sure that I could.

I'd tried. Tried so hard, but when Sam had walked away for me in the hospital that night after everything that had happened between us, he'd broken my heart and started my descent into self-doubt about so many of the life choices I'd made since meeting him. God had been who'd had saved me after I'd lost Charlie. The belief Charlie had shown toward his faith had sparked something in my heart and soul that had grown under Father O' Brian's tutelage and had continued to grow with everything I'd experienced with each new person I'd helped after I became a priest. God had been at my side and had never steered me wrong when I'd maintained my faith because I trusted in His plans for me.

When I'd met Sam, a man as broken and lost as I'd been in some ways before I'd learned to find home through faith and a renewed receptiveness to love, I'd thought God had put Sam in my path so I could help Sam find his own way back home. The name Samuel means, 'God has heard,' and after slowly fighting my way through the thick mortar of Sam's emotional walls, and getting a glimpses of a man who had so much potential for good laced throughout his core, my feelings toward him had shifted from those of a shepherd wanting to rescue a wayward sheep whose lost bleats had been heard by God, to the warmer, more deeply felt belief that maybe Sam had been put into my path because God had heard me. I thought I'd finally found someone who could understand my strained family dynamics because of his formally estranged relationship with Sofia and her daughters. Someone who deep down wanted to be saved, and who possessed the same ability to love deeply, that Charlie had claimed to see in me. Because of my faith in God, I'd trusted that theory and now here I was, trying to pick up the pieces of that splintered conviction.

"Tara, I'll be home in a few weeks. You don't have to worry."

"I think you need to come home sooner. Much sooner. Like maybe for the community center dance for the kids this weekend."

I felt both my eyebrows lift. That was specific. "Really? And why is that?"

"Because even though Sam was angry you weren't at the meeting and even more pissed after I said I wouldn't tell you he'd come looking for you, he still stayed."

I just stared into the dark for a moment before I stood up to pace slowly from one side of the veranda to the other. The house wasn't huge so it ended up being more of a short shuffle but still long enough for me to have time to gather my thoughts.

Sam had been reluctant to join our support group from the first time I'd made the suggestion, and he'd refused to return after the one night he'd come and left almost immediately because he hadn't been able to handle the idea of revealing his innermost thoughts to strangers. But Tara was saying Sam had gone to the group despite his apprehension and that he'd stayed...

"Did he share anything?"

There was a momentary pause on Tara's end, giving me the impression that she was nodding even though I couldn't see it. "He talked a lot actually."

"About what?"

"Things that happened in Afghanistan, about mistakes he'd made, things he'd done. He talked about Connor, who by the way, was even more of a shithead than we thought, excuse my French. Of course, Sam didn't outright call him that because he's a good person, but our poor Ranger friend needs soooo much therapy, along with frequent care packages of ice cream, chocolate, and hugs." She snorted lightly, then paused again. "And he talked about you..."

My eyebrows arched as I stopped pacing in the center of the porch. "Sam talked about me? Anonymously?"

"Nope. Obviously, he didn't share any intimate details but when he talked about how he'd stupidly ruined the new relationship he'd been building with a wonderful man he cared about deeply, he used your name Ben. Put it right out there more than a few times, which was somewhat stupid considering his audience, and some of the glares he got when he talked about accidentally hurting you both physically and emotionally, but it was also an admittedly bad-assed, all-in-balls-out moment."

I nodded slightly as I leaned against the nearest support pillar. "I can't believe he showed up... That's good. I'm glad that he was finally able to take that leap forward for his sake, but... he left me Tara."

"Ben..."

"I don't blame him for what happened at the house," I said, cutting her off before she could tell me what I already knew-- that it'd been an unfortunate accident I'd immediately forgiven that same day.

"I knew about Sam's PTSD, about the risks I could face if he ever flash backed or spiraled unexpectedly. I was prepared for those consequences. I could even forgive him for leaving me in the hospital alone for a few hours because he was trying to get his emotions under control. But he left with Max and never came back, never called. And I understand that Max is his best friend, but I also know damn well that he wants to take Sam away from me."

I closed my eyes for a moment as I exhaled deeply. It was rare that I swore anymore. Before Charlie had started playfully fining me quarters for using profanity anywhere except in the bedroom where he loved my explicitness, cursing had been an easy stress reliever for me. But I'd found new ways to cope with stress since then, and I was annoyed at myself for allowing Sam to work me up to a level where I'd taken a step backward in even an inconsequential way.

"Ben, Max is gone. He left."

"I know Tara. Sam told me that Max was here on temporary leave, but he also said Max plans to retire from the Army and come back to Florida in a few months."

"He does but it won't be to Sam. Max gave him up."

"What?" I felt my eyebrows lift again. "Sam told you that?"

"Nope. Max did when he called me from the airport the night Sam dropped him off."

I remained silent, listening to the still subtle strains of music from the next-door window. The words were too muted for me to make them out clearly, but trying to concentrate on what the song could be allowed me a temporary distraction from trying to think of what to say next. There were so many possible questions to ask, so I just chose the most obvious one.

"Why did Max call you?"

"Because we have many shared interests, and one of those interests is Sam," Tara said, chuckling softly. "Max can be a cocky, smartass dog, but that last quality makes him loyal as hell to his people. And Sam is one of those people. Max loves him."

"I'm well aware of that Tara. God knows Max didn't make his feelings a secret the night we first met, and he suggested he give me pointers on what Sam likes in bed."

"Yep, he's a dog," Tara agreed, though I detected a hint of amusement in her voice that said she wasn't taking my unfair, uncharacteristic rancor personally. "But what I meant is that Max loves Sam enough to want what's best for him, wants who is best for him and he knows he isn't that guy. Max gave Sam up and he wanted me to know that. Probably because he suspected I'd eventually tell you. Max is admirably pragmatic, and a good person despite his frequent bouts of Mickey Mouse bullshit," she added as if she was preempting any possible caustic responses from me. "He just plays a devil-may-care dick very convincingly."

My sigh made static crackle over the line as I leaned my head back against the pillar. "I don't know what do Tara."

"I'd normally suggest praying on it like you usually tell me to do but I'm assuming you've probably exhausted that option. So, I'd start with tracking down a tub of ice cream, maybe something smooth and coconutty considering the climate, and then eat it in front of your laptop while you look for one-way flights back to Florida. You can work out the rest on the airplane in between beauty naps."

My reluctant chuckle escaped, but I didn't open my eyes. "I thought God had a plan for Sam and for me. But maybe I just misread the signs."

"Ben, you've always told me that there's no science to faith, so there isn't a formula to check for the accuracy of any decision that we make ahead of time. We just have to go with whatever we feel most strongly in our gut at that decision-making moment and then let it play out. One day when we're standing in front of the pearly gates, we can ask God what gives but for now, trust yourself because He trusts you to do what you think is right. Free will is a bitchy, double-edged sword."

This time when I chuckled, I allowed my eyes to open. I inhaled deeply and for the first time in weeks, I didn't feel smothered by anything other than the thick island humidity. "I'll be home in time for the dance. But please don't tell Sam. I need to think about what I'm going to say to him. We have a lot to figure out."

"I won't say anything. I think you guys need your own private, take my breath away, Top Gun moment, even though Sam was an Army Ranger not Navy. Same sexy idea though."

Even though Tara couldn't see it, I was sure she could hear the slight smile in my tone. "So it shall be written, so it shall be done..."

***

And it had been because though I'd been the one who physically came to Florida and went to the dance that night after shaving and changing into my lightweight, green linen shirt and black slacks that were my go-to for events in this simpler life, it'd been Sam who'd actually been the one to show up. Shown up as in giving me the rose from his lapel like any properly prepped Bachelor, before laid all his cards on the table with his rambling confession after the wall closing Sam off Sam's emotions had apparently crumbled. If I hadn't kissed him when all that heartfelt, telenovela worthy romance had poured out of his mouth, he probably wouldn't have stopped talking.

I grinned when I thought how that was still a way to shush Sam when I needed to refocus him, even if it was just a quick kiss in public. Sam still struggled with initiating public displays of affection, but he was getting better at it. Hooking his fingers lightly through the loops in my jeans was one his favorite discreet ways to keep me close when we were at social events together. He wasn't a sensualist in the same way that Charlie had been, but my touch always seemed to comfort and ground Sam as much as his comforted and delighted me. We were two sides of the same coin and had our own love language like any couple that knows each other well. And in just a few hours, we'd be sharing glimpses of that bond to the world....