The Hardest Cut by Jamie Bennett (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

By the end of the book, Tessa’s face was out, and she was even nodding slightly or shaking her head when I asked her questions.  No actual words, but that was a great start!  I totally got that it could take a while to warm up to someone, so I wasn’t bothered at all.

Ben came back into the bedroom then, still looking as ticked off as when he left it.  “Mrs. Haberman is gone,” he said sternly, and although I hadn’t even met her, I felt a little sorry for the sleepy old lady.  But it wasn’t a great idea to conk out when you were taking care of a child who was only four.  Or maybe five?

“How old are you, Tessa?” I asked her, and she held up four little fingers.  “I had no idea you were such a big girl,” I commented, and she looked pleased.

“She’s talking to you?” Ben asked, like he was shocked.

“We get along great,” I confirmed, and smiled at Tessa.  She’d talk, eventually.  I had gone for a few months not saying a word at one point in my life, but I’d come around.

My comment made him frown for some reason, like it was a bad thing that we were getting to be friends.  “Let’s go talk in the living room,” he told me, so I said goodbye to Tessa, who hid again, and followed him back to the main cave.  The wing chair was empty, and Ben pointed to it.

“I fired Mrs. Haberman, effective immediately.  Are you interested in taking care of my daughter?  I’ll need someone starting tomorrow.”

“Don’t you want to see my résumé first?  Or, do you want some references?” I asked, but I immediately realized that had been the wrong thing to suggest because I certainly couldn’t get a reference from my former employer, Sterling Standard Realty.  Ben could talk to my best friend Hallie from the bookstore, or even my teachers from high school if he wanted to take me up on my suggestion, but I decided to move on from the idea anyway.  “This seems very sudden,” I told him.  “I just walked in and you fired someone.  Shouldn’t we move a little more cautiously?”

“Yesterday, Mrs. Haberman fell asleep and left water boiling on the stove.  I came home to find the pot melting on the burner,” Ben informed me.  “I need someone now and I thought of you.  I know the Woodsmen are investigating your background because they’re very, very careful, so I assumed you’d be a safe hire.  Is there a reason you’re hesitating?  Are you not actually interested?”

I tried not to show any fear on my face.  The Woodsmen were investigating me?  I knew they were looking at my social media stuff, but…  “No, I’m not hesitating for any reason at all,” I assured him.  “But what you just said about the team—that is a problem.  Not that they’re investigating me!” I hurriedly put in.  “I just mean that I’m not supposed to, um, fraternize with other people who work for the organization.”  We had been told several times to stay away from the players, but I assumed it meant that everyone Woodsmen-related was off-limits.

“Fraternize?”  He suddenly smiled a little.  “I don’t think we’d be doing that.  You’d be my employee, which is fine, according to the woman in human resources who answered my email after I got your name and checked on you.  Anyway, you don’t work for the team yet, right?  And you’re not sure if you will.  It may not even be a problem.”

He meant that maybe I wouldn’t make the squad, that I’d get cut, so that fraternizing or employing or whatever wouldn’t be an issue.  “I think I can,” I said, and repeated it, like the kids’ book about the train going over the mountain.  I’d been spending a lot of time in the children’s section at Holliday Booksellers.  “I think I can.  I think I can!  I really plan to make the cheer squad.  And if it’s all right with the Woodsmen, my future employer, then I guess that I can be here for the hours we talked about.  Just temporarily, until I get my own real estate business up and running.”

“Then have a seat,” he suggested, and I avoided Mrs. Haberman’s sleeping chair and went to the couch.  “We’ll do an actual interview.”

I tried not to get nervous at that prospect.  This was obviously what someone would do when he was hiring a stranger to watch his daughter.  It wasn’t like he was looking for anything specific in me.

“Did you grow up around here?” Ben asked.

“I did.  I’ve lived here my whole life, except when I went away to college downstate.  I majored in business and minored in dance.  I love it up here and I really wanted to come home after I graduated.  I lived with my mom again, at first, but I got a job pretty quickly and bought my own condo, and that’s where I live now.  It’s a nice complex with amenities like a pool and a tennis court and the HOA fees aren’t too bad.  A condo is a good option for someone my age who doesn’t want to deal with upkeep and maintenance.  Speaking of which, have you thought about plowing your driveway?  It’s really long and that hill will be tough.”

“What?”  He looked a little dazed.  “Plowing?”

“In the winter, you’ll definitely need someone to plow if you want to get in and out of here, even in your truck.”  This seemed to be news to him, but I remembered that I’d read he was from Phoenix.  And he’d gone to college in Texas, and his last coaching job had been in Alabama, so he probably wasn’t used to a real winter.  “Do you like being so far from town?  What made you purchase this property?”

“I—no, it’s a rental.  I signed the lease sight-unseen after I took the coaching job with the