Page 57 of Love Under Snowfall

She scanned Benjamin’s face. Long gone was the shrewd scrutiny of an uppity law professor who’d gone out of his way to make his class brutal just for the sake of booting her out. For once, those deep blue eyes and furrowed brows weren’t being wielded in intimidation. Frankie found the concern that oozed off him and the resulting energy intriguing. Almost comforting. Talk about a big, fat shift in dynamic.

“Because he carried a lot of guilt about it.” She shrugged. “Probably still does.”

“Walk me through it.” And then, so as not to sound too demanding, added a gentle, “Please.”

Frankie dragged in a deep breath, expanding her ribs and puffing out her cheeks, then released it noisily.

“Fine.”

Benjamin set down his mug and scuffed his chair to face her. His full attention settled on her like a cozy weighted blanket.

“Our birth parents died in a car accident when I was four and Jon was six. I guess we didn’t have any grandparents left or they weren’t interested in taking us. Either way, the result was the same. Foster care. They split us up because finding a home that had space for the two of us was a struggle.”

Frankie only recalled flashes because she was so young. What stuck was the feeling of immense loss—firsther parents, then her big brother.

“Jon ended up in a decent setup with a younger couple who already had a kid, a boy, if I recall, about my age. Anyway, they were nice. They made his lunch for school and bought him clothes when he outgrew his old ones. They even got him a bike secondhand the first Christmas he was there. Long story short, he was lucky.”

She watched the calm waters of Benjamin’s eyes darken like clouds blocking out the sun on the open ocean. He sat there. Attentive yet silent.

“I, on the other hand, got the shit end of the deal.” Running her tongue along her teeth, Frankie engaged the practiced numbness she’d learned to build around her when necessary. “I bounced from place to place. To one family, I was a bit of a handful; to another, I was awildcat. They could label it however they wanted, but it all boiled down to the same sentiment.”

“Which was?” His tone was flat yet seeking.

“They didn’t want me.”

Benjamin cleared his throat and gripped his forgotten mug.

Frankie swatted away the thick waves of tension that vibrated off him, dismissing the niggling emotion that began to spark inside her chest.

“Anyway, I did finally settle somewhere. But it wasn’t any better than bouncing around.”

The whitening of his knuckles didn’t go unnoticed.

“I was with a couple, the Garbers. They had that old school type of marriage where the man was the head of the household and ‘what he said goes.’ It wasn’t like they beat me or anything like that, but their punishments were pretty harsh.”

“Elaborate.” The sharp demand echoed off the walls of the tiny cabin, resonating a touch longer than it should have.

“Their most common punishment was withholding food.And not only going to bed without dinner—although that happened more often than not. Sometimes I’d go a whole day without more than a glass of water. I can remember the sharp hunger pangs in my gut as I’d lie in bed dreaming about the shitty cooking of the family I’d lived with before. The summer and weekends were the worst because I didn’t have school lunch to fall back on. Once, Mrs. Garber took pity on me and snuck me a sandwich. I think she got beat for that. That’s what it sounded like anyway.

“The only good thing about living with them was that it meant Jon and I were in the same school. I was able to tell him the Garbers’ address, so he’d sneak out some nights and ride his bike over to bring me food. He got caught a couple times, and his foster parents started keeping a better eye on him. One night, he showed up to ‘rescue’ me and took me back to his house. The next morning, they found us snuggled up in his room. It was the best night’s sleep I’d had in a long time.

“Anyway, the next morning, Jon refused to let me go. He stood in front of me shouting that he wouldn’t let anyone take his sister away from him and that anyone who tried could ‘go straight to hell.’” Frankie grinned at the memory, pretty sure that moment had triggered her older brother’s fierce protective streak.

Her eyes collided with Benjamin’s, the darkened depths now a swirl of storming waves. Anger simmered there, just below the surface of his once carefully constructed reserve. She glanced away, finding it very hard to keep her eyes dry in the wake of his apparent outrage.

“They called our social worker, this frazzled, burnt-out woman with way too many cases to manage on her own, and removed us both. She didn’t know what to do other than take us home with her—which is a massive violation, by the way. But after a few days, she managed to find a middle-aged couple willingto take both of us.” Frankie smiled. “The Millers. And the rest is history.”

She recalled the sense of relief that she’d felt all those years ago as though it had just occurred. She and Jon were together again. Those years separated had been bleak, damaging Frankie so deeply that the ability to trust was next to impossible. Slowly and with much care, the Millers showed them what family was. And after three years, they asked Frankie and Jon if they could adopt them officially. She couldn’t have manufactured a better set of parents, and justified that a few years of misery was a small price to pay to be a part of something so wonderful.

Chapter thirty-one

Benjamin

Benjamin had to resist the urge to pull on his many layers and plow through the howling wind and snow in search of vengeance. The wind roared outside the little cabin, reminding him that he was not meant for colder weather and would probably die in a random snowbank after marching angrily in circles for a few hours. But it didn’t keep him from fantasizing about finding the Garbers and repaying them for how they’d treated Francesca. The image of the petite, powerful, stubborn woman sitting across from him as a young child, alone and hungry, was too much to process.

“Hey, Benji.” It took him a moment to notice the concern in her words and soft touch on his wrist. He met Francesca’s amber gaze, fighting to set aside the massive weight crushing his chest. “At the risk of making the mistake of asking you if you’re all right and then you biting my head off, I’m just going to say that it all turned out for the best.”

He had done that, hadn’t he? Punished her for showing concern in a rare moment of exposed vulnerability that day after class. Lashed out at her because he allowed herpresence—her success—to get under his skin. God, he was a prick.

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