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

eye, but instead of ignoring me, he walked over to where I was sitting.

“It’s freezing,” he commented.

“It’s only April!  You’re not in Arizona anymore,” I told him.  “Tessa’s cozy.  She enjoying herself, too.”

He slid down onto the step across from me.  “She is.  They’re nice girls.”

I nodded.  “They’re a nice family.  Everyone here tonight is.  It’s good for Gunnar to be around people again, to cheer him up.”  He was very subdued, maybe at about twenty percent of the energy and personality he’d had before his loss.  Even his eyes seemed different, poor guy.  I remembered that empty feeling, too.

“I saw you talking for a while with Noah Boone,” Ben mentioned.  “He was friendly to you.”

I glanced up and found him watching me.  “I’m not thinking of fraternizing with him, if that’s what you mean.  He was telling me a funny story about getting lost and ending up on the Mackinac Bridge.  I think he has a very poor sense of direction, but I didn’t tell him that.”

“That’s why you were laughing so hard.”

He’d noticed?  “I guess I was.”  I rubbed my temples and then my arms.  Davis and his wife were saying goodbye and it looked like a few more guests were heading out.  “I should probably go help Hallie clean up.”  I had to be home soon, too, to start answering calls.  But I didn’t move.  “Isn’t it so pretty here?  I wish I lived in a house on the lake.”  “Just steps to beautiful Lake Michigan,” the listing would read, and that was true.  I was sitting on them.

“I’ve never been around water too much, not anything this big.  We had a fountain in the front yard in Arizona.”  He smiled.  “The lake is very calming.”

“Not always.  But it’s so powerful, it makes you feel like your problems aren’t that big.  Whenever I feel bad, I always come to the beach to feel better.”  I glanced over at him.  “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why are you talking to me now?  I mean, I’ve been thinking that you were avoiding me for the past few weeks.  If I did something wrong, I wish you would tell me so I could fix it.  I’m always trying to make up for things.”

“Like your car?”

“That and…other things.”  I still didn’t have the money to fix the car.  The classes, the new workout clothes, the hair appointments and manicures—the costs of being a Woodsmen cheerleader were high.

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Ben said suddenly.  “You shouldn’t think that.  I told you that I was afraid about you and Tessa getting so close, so fast, but that’s not your fault.  It’s just the way you are.”  That didn’t seem to explain why Ben himself hadn’t wanted to be in a room with me, but before I could ask more, he continued.  “You make people feel comfortable.”  He pointed to Noah Boone, drinking a beer with Gunnar on the other side of the deck.  “That guy has been like a stone statue since he got to Michigan.  He’s hardly spo-ken a word.  You got him to talk to you, just like you did for Tessa.”

“That was just because I understood her,” I said, shaking my head.  “When I was a kid, I went for a while without talking.”

“You said you were shy.”

I meant that I actually hadn’t spoken, not for several months, but I just shrugged.  “I’m not shy anymore.”

“No, I don’t think you could wear those cheerleader outfits without a lot of confidence.”

I looked away.  “I guess that’s true.  I try to teach Tessa to be confident.  I only want the best things for her.”  I chewed on my lip a little.  “I’m sorry that you don’t think it’s good for me to love her, because I already do.  And I want her to love me, too, because it would be good for her.  She’s lonely.”

“Are you crying?” Ben asked, concern filling his voice.  “Are you that worried about her?”

“No.  I mean, yes, I’m worried about her, but I was just thinking that I’m lonely, too.  I get as much from being with Tessa as she does from being with me.  And also, I happen to cry a lot in general, so it’s not a big thing.”

He got up but came back in a second with a paper napkin.  “I can’t imagine why a woman like you would be lonely.  Your friend Hallie was telling me stories about all the men in northern Michigan crawling over each other to get to you.”

“That’s not true!  I’m not some kind of seductress.  That’s ridiculous!”

“Well, if I were you, I would expect to be hearing more from Boone.  He’s interested.”

I shook my head.  “Even if he is and I felt the same way toward him, I couldn’t.  He’s a Woodsmen.  Maybe I’ll hide that I came to this dinner, but I wouldn’t go that far and start seeing him or something.  Anyway, I’m not going to date anyone again.”

“Ever?” Ben asked, eyebrows raised.

“Not for a long, long time,” I conditioned.  “I broke up with someone in December and it was awful.  Terrible.  I don’t know if I’ll ever come back from it.”  But this line of conversation was only making me cry more, not really appropriate behavior for a barbecue that was supposed to be cheering up Gunnar after losing his dad.  I got ahold of myself and knocked it off.

But Ben was nodding at me.  “That was how I felt about my wife.  I didn’t know if things would ever be all right for me or Tessa.”  He glanced at his daughter, giggling with the other little girls, and his face relaxed a little.

I couldn’t reign in my curiosity.  “How did you meet her? Your wife?”

“Freshman year of college at a party, when she told me that I was coming home with her.”  He smiled slightly.  “That was Marin.  She saw what she wanted and she went after it, and we got married two years later.  Young.  Way, way too young.”

“Why didn’t you wait?” I