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

familiar smile that he wore when he talked about his daughter.  It made my stomach flip a little at its sweetness.

“Tell me about her as a baby,” I requested, and we talked about Tess for a while, and how she was doing now.

“You love her so much,” I commented, and it actually made me tear up, how much he did.

“Of course.”  He looked over at me.  “Would you ever want to have kids?  You seem like you’d want to be a mom.”

I swallowed.  “I did, at one point.  My former boyfriend already had a family—I mean, he already had children, and he didn’t want any more.”  And then, one month, my period had been late.  Very late.  For just a little moment, I had allowed myself to consider having a baby with Shep, starting a family of my own.

“That was ok with you, to go along with what he wanted?”

I had made it be ok.  I had told myself that I was glad when I opened up a new box of tampons.  “I just accepted it as the way it was.  I mean, I don’t think you should try to talk someone into a kid he doesn’t want!  But it made me consider things.  I thought at the time that maybe I did want kids of my own.  Now, of course, I realize that I don’t, because that definitely isn’t the path I’m on.”  Ben’s palm was heavy and warm on my leg through the tight jeans

“Because you don’t want to be with anyone again.  A relationship, getting married, all that.”  He gazed at me out of his dark eyes.

I swallowed.  “Do you still feel that way?”  For just a moment, it was so silent in the house that I could hear the whisper of breath that caught in my throat after I said the words.

“Yes.  Like I told you before, that’s not what I want, either.  Never again.”

I definitely heard my sigh.  It rattled out before I could stop it and Ben’s fingers tightened for a moment on my knee before he moved his hand.

Chapter 9

“Gaby.  Gaby, are you asleep?”

I jerked my head up from where it had drooped down and rested on the old-fashioned cash register in Holliday Booksellers.  I had hit a few buttons with my forehead, apparently, and the little display said, “NO SALE.”

“I’m not asleep,” I told Hallie.  “Sorry, I’m not asleep anymore.”

She put a stack of books onto the counter next to me.  “Another late night?  How long are you going to keep doing that hotline?”

Marley picked up her own head from where she had been looking at her phone under the counter rather than at the science text on the top of it.  “What hotline?”

“I answer calls for help at night,” I explained.

“What, like Batman or something?  You wait for a light to shine in the sky?”

That made Hallie laugh but it made me think of Ben, who had been my own personal Batman on Friday night.  He’d cleaned my car and gotten me ice and made me laugh with his stories about Tess—

“It’s pretty serious, actually,” Hallie was saying when my mind settled back on the conversation.  She looked at me, waiting for me to take over.

“I answer calls on an abuse hotline,” I said.  “For women to call, if they need help.”

“Seriously?”  Marley stared.  “That was what you were doing on the phone at night when you stayed at our house?  I thought you were getting paid for…”  She glanced over at Hallie and trailed off, and whatever she thought I’d been up to, it was probably bad.  “How did you start doing that?  Why?”

“I saw a sign posted at the yoga studio my sister-in-law goes to that they needed volunteers.”  My mom had thought it would be a good idea for me to take a class with Kristi so we would have a common interest, but her only interest that day had been to show me how I was really bad at yoga.  “I did a lot of training for it,” I explained.  “I had to get a certification.  They don’t just stick you on the phone and let you say whatever.  I thought I’d give it a try because, um, well…”  Now I trailed off, because it was hard to explain to Marley.

“Penance,” Hallie said.  “You wanted to pay something back, but you have, Gaby.”

I shrugged, knowing that wasn’t true.  I could spend the rest of my life listening to those heartbreaking stories to help other women and it would never even out what I had been doing to Shep’s wife.

Marley looked back and forth between us.  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.  Somebody better explain, like, now.”

But her foster dad came in then, carrying several big boxes, and Marley had to go help him stock the shelves.

“Gaby, you’re going to have to forgive yourself at one point,” Hallie told me seriously.  “You made a mistake and believed a big asshole when he told you lies.  And you got fired, and your heart broken, and you’re miserable.”

Hallie pretty much told it as she saw it.

“I think that’s enough,” she said firmly.  “I don’t think it’s fair that you’re walking around with a hair shirt on and he’s living his best life with his family, like he never did anything wrong.  When actually, this was Shephard Sterling’s fault.”

“Wait, what?  What did you say?”  Marley came running back from the biography section to join us at the counter.  “Damn, I missed it!”

“You didn’t miss anything.  I have to go,” I told them both.  “I’m late to get to my mom’s house.  Thank you, Hallie.  I’ll definitely think about what you said.”

She smiled.  “Who would have ever thought I would be giving relationship advice to Gaby Carter, the girl voted ‘Most Likely to Become a Supermodel’ in our yearbook?”

“That didn’t mean anything at all,” I answered, but Marley had gotten stuck on another point.

“What relationship is Gaby in?  Are you talking about the new