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

I looked out, blinded by the spring sunshine and totally without a clue.  Where was I going to find my car?  Where was I going with my life?  “Yes, I’m great.  I want to go by myself.  Bye.”

A few hours later, I had located my wrecked car, cried buckets in it, and then dropped it off with Caitlyn’s dad.  Mr. Waite was appalled when he saw the paint job, the front-end damage, and the miniscule amount of vomit that I just couldn’t get out of the interior.  “Caitlyn’s lucky that you were there to help her,” he told me.

“I’m glad I was there, too.  She’s a great girl.”

He smiled in a way that reminded me a lot like his daughter.  “I’ll see what I can do with…this,” he said, and looked a little like he might puke himself when he studied Anthony’s car.  Something even worse than before seemed to be happening where the paint had been scorched and the car appeared to be molting, almost.  It wasn’t pretty.

“What’s this car?” Tessa asked me when I picked her up in the loaner I’d taken from Mr. Waite.  “Did the other one break?”

“It’s getting fixed.  Isn’t that good news?”  I tried to look only at the positive and ignore the throbbing in my leg.  “What should we do to celebrate?”

We decided to go home and have a baby doll party.  On the way there, she told me that she’d also played dolls at day care with Ana Belén.  “She’s nice,” Tessa said quietly.

She had a friend.  My heart swelled.  “Maybe she would want to come over and try out your dolls.  I could talk to her mom,” I suggested, and Tess nodded.  My heart got so full that I cried a little behind my hair again.

We were in the middle of the party, serving everyone pretend cookies (“cookies that Daddy made,” Tessa had clarified) when we heard the boom of a car door slamming.  It was much too early for Ben and no one came up here, not even delivery drivers—they just tossed the boxes down at the road.  “Stay here,” I told her, and wobbled with no crutches into the living room, just in time to see a car throw up a cloud of dust as it went down the driveway.  It seemed to have deposited a man and a bag on the front lawn.  He stood and stared at the house through mirrored sunglasses and I looked at him from behind the curtain.  With his dark hair and tall frame, he looked so familiar to me, but I couldn’t place how I knew him.

I opened the front door.  “Can I help you?” I called, and then, when he pulled off the sunglasses, I recognized who he was.  “Kayden?  Kayden Matthews?”

He looked at me now, assessing every inch of me.  “Hello there,” he called back, and started to walk toward the porch.  Tessa ran and stood behind me, peeking around my waist, and he caught sight of her and stopped.  “Tessa?  Jesus, you’re so big!  I haven’t seen you since you were a few weeks old, in the hospital.  I’m your Uncle Kayden.  Your dad’s brother.”

“I was in the hospital?” she whispered.

“When you were born.”  I put my arm around her.  “Does Ben know that you’re here?” I asked him.

He kept walking up onto the porch.  “Who are you?  Ben’s girlfriend?  He didn’t get married again, did he?”  Kayden didn’t slow down as he came inside and Tessa and I hopped out of the way.

“No, I’m not Ben’s wife!  I’m Tessa’s nanny.”

He looked at me again, running his eyes up and down my body.  I had on Ben’s big sweatshirt, the one I’d taken home with me the week before, but I might as well have been naked from the way he stared.  “Just the nanny?” he asked, and laughed.

“Tess, go back to your room,” I told her.  “I’m going to let Ben know that you’re here,” I said to his brother.  It was only mid-afternoon, but from the look of Kayden and from the smell, I was guessing that he’d been drinking.  More than a little.  Ben texted back almost immediately, saying that he was coming home.

Then Kayden’s phone rang and he answered, “Benny boy.  How are you?”

I left, walking into the kitchen so it didn’t look like I was hanging onto every word of their conversation, but totally eavesdropping.  From this side of things, it sounded like Ben was laying into him, because Kayden kept saying things like, “It was spur of the moment!” and, “I just wanted to see my brother.  Did I need an invitation?”  Finally, he hung up, and to my surprise, called to me by name: “Gaby?  Where did you go?”

“Just in the kitchen,” I called back.  “Can I get you anything?”

He appeared in the doorway.  Kayden looked so much like his brother, with the same beautiful brown eyes streaked with gold.  His were surrounded by bloodshot whites, though, and dark circles.  His brown hair was longer, too, reminding me of the pictures I’d seen of Ben in college.  They had the same straight, strong features, the same tall frame and wide shoulders, the same long fingers made for gripping footballs.  In other words, Kayden was just as handsome, and from what I remembered of him, he knew it.

“I remember you,” he said, echoing my thoughts.  “We’ve met before, when I played for the Woodsmen.”

I nodded.  “I’m Gaby Carter.”

“My brother told me.  As in, ‘Stay away from Gaby Carter.  Don’t bother her.’”  Kayden laughed.

“Well, I would appreciate that, too,” I said.  I gathered up the pieces of apple I’d cut for Tessa’s snack and some of the bunny crackers that she liked, and put them on a plate.  “Ben said he’d be home soon,” I remarked over my shoulder, and went back to Tessa’s bedroom.  Despite not having seen her for almost five years, Kayden didn’t appear to want to now, either, because he didn’t follow me.  As