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What was he doing? What was he going to say that would stop her from leaving? He didn’t know, he just was having a hard time seeing her walk away again.

“You’ll let me know if you need anything more, won’t you? Maybe a hand with the move?”

“I think I’ve got it all covered, but thanks. Good-bye, Henry.”

The words, so final, were a kick in the gut.

With that, she turned and continued the rest of the way to the elevator. He wanted to shout something more. He wanted to ask her—no, beg her—to stop. To please reconsider. To…not leave him.

But he’d realized long ago that he couldn’t

stop someone from leaving.

There were just some things he couldn’t control. But he could limit the amount of power, of control, he gave people over his emotions.

By making it clear to Benny there could be nothing more between them than what they already had, he’d protected himself—and her—from the inevitable heartache that would follow.

His dad had suffered so much after leaving Henry’s mom that he’d never recovered again.

Henry wouldn’t make that same mistake. He couldn’t. And someday, Benny would thank him.

Chapter Twenty-One

“No one is going inside empty-handed. You’re all going to help me carry something,” Daisy said after pulling into their parents’ driveway just after one on Sunday, the following afternoon.

The doors were thrown open, and three kids hopped out with boundless energy and excitement that Benny couldn’t help but envy.

It was the big day. The happy celebration of her father’s life, a party for which everyone her father loved and cared for was arriving en masse to surprise him—including his brother and his family from Wisconsin. It was a day to be happy. Grateful.

Not like her heart had been pulverized and then shoved back into her chest, raw and aching.

But as Daisy had reminded her, it would get easier.

Benny was holding on to that promise. It was what pulled her through every morning this long week after laying her heart out and having Henry stomp on it.

Kate and Payton met them at the door and took some of the pans from their arms.

“Any word on what Dad is up to?” she asked her sisters-in-law.

The two women looked at each other and grinned. “Cruz, Dominic, and your dad are all stuck in a boat in the middle of the lake, last we heard,” Kate said. “Not intentionally. I think it’s fair to say we have a couple more hours to get everything together before the guests start to arrive.”

“Whose idea was it to go on this father-son fishing expedition anyway? None of them fish.”

Payton looked sheepish. “I hadn’t realized that when I booked the package. It had just seemed so perfect at the time, and I really wanted to make a good impression for Father’s Day.”

Benny couldn’t help but smile at the image of the three men stuck elbow to elbow on a fishing boat in the middle of nowhere. “How did they get stranded, anyway?”

“Something about the engine. They radioed the outfitting company and they’re sending someone to get it up and running—and gave us a heads-up as well in case we grew worried.”

In the kitchen, they set all the platters down while shrieks from the kids running wildly in the backyard carried inside. Curious to see how things had progressed since the rental company was to have dropped off the tables and chairs and tents, Benny and Daisy went out to the backyard to check things out.

It was beautiful.

When Payton had first mentioned the possibility of transforming the backyard for the party rather than renting out the church hall, Benny had been pessimistic. She’d envisioned cardboard tables and red-checkered tableclothes, maybe a barbecue in the corner. Something that would have been more appropriate for a casual family dinner rather than the scale of the party they’d been planning.

Instead, the area looked more immense and elegant than she’d thought possible. Several round tables had white tableclothes and linens and pretty but simple floral arrangements for a centerpieces. White wood chairs—rather than the metal ones from the church—completed the look, as did two small canopies covering the oblong tables at one end of the yard for the food. The final touch to the scene was the large square floor laid down for dancing, a must for her mom, where the kids were already dancing and spinning around.

“Where is Mom?” she asked.


Tags: Ashlee Mallory The Sorensen Family Romance