The Heiress(21)

Me in another life, I think now, looking at him as he offers his hand to shake. Me if I stayed here.

“Glad you made it,” Ben says, his glance brushing off of me, but fixing on Jules in a way that has my hands clenched into fists before I even realize it.

“The Prodigal Son returns,” he continues even though he’s staring at Jules. She’s smiling back at him, polite, but her toe nudges mine just the littlest bit.

A reminder, probably, that I owe her five dollars. Somewhere around Nashville, she had bet me someone in my family would say those exact words and I, stupidly, had thought that even Ben wasn’t that much of a cliché.

“And even better, he brings a new Mrs. McTavish,” Ben goes on, gesturing at one of the photographs on the table with the Tiffany lamp. “This house is named after the last McTavish bride, you know. Anna. My great-grandmother. Her maiden name was Ashby.”

He swings back to Jules. “What’s yours?”

I should’ve warned her about this, the family’s obsession with genealogy and who birthed who, like a dead relative you never met can tell someone everything they need to know about you.

Jules waves one hand. “Technically, I don’t have one. I mean, I kept my last name when I married Cam, so it’s actually Ms. Brewster. Jules Brewster.”

She offers her hand for him to shake, and Ben stares at it for a beat, thrown off his game. “Ms. Brewster,” he says, and, finally, he shakes her hand. “Okay, cool. I mean, it’s the twenty-first century, why not?”

His free hand forms a fist, snakes out, and I brace myself out of old habit. The thump on my arm doesn’t land as hard as it once did, though, and I wonder if he got weaker or if I got stronger. Maybe he has the same thought, because I see the way his eyes widen for a second, how he clenches and unclenches his fingers at his sides.

I’m not some skinny seventh grader anymore, Ben, I think, remembering the purple bruises I’d study as I lay in the massive bathtub upstairs. Violet splotches on my biceps, my thighs. Never out of anger, no, Ben would never. Always just “messing around,” just “guy shit,” just “Cam gets it, dontcha, Cam?”

Always the brightest smile and the hardest eyes.

The smile has faded, but the eyes are still like granite as he says, “Well done, man, well done,” like Jules is a twelve-point buck I’ve just brought home, not my wife. “Although, hey, some advice. You may wanna rethink that when you two have kids. Confusing for them, having parents with different last names. If Dad were still alive, he would’ve told you himself. His father was actually a Franklin, but of course Great-Grandad insisted Nana Nelle and my dad stay McTavishes.”

He shakes his head with a rueful chuckle. “So, yeah, trust me, you wanna have the same last name as your child. Otherwise people might think you two weren’t married at all. Or divorced. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“I would rather die,” Jules replies with big eyes, and I choke back a laugh as I take her hand, our fingers interlacing.

Confused again, Ben looks at her, a half smile playing around his mouth like he can’t tell if he’s being made fun of or not.

Men like him aren’t used to being mocked, which is probably why men like him exist in the first place.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” I tell him, taking his focus off of Jules, and those hard eyes meet mine, one corner of his mouth lifting.

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m not,” I agree. “But it’s the kind of thing you have to say, isn’t it?”

Ben’s smirk melts into a grin, and that fist hits my upper arm again. “Missed you, Cam,” he tells me. “Mean it.”

“I doubt that.”

“No, I’m serious,” he assures me, and then crosses his arms over his chest, his biceps bulging. “There was never any bullshit with you.”

He looks back at Jules, and gives her another one of those killer smiles. “Pardon my French.”

“No fucking worries,” she replies, and he barks out a laugh, throwing his head back.

“All ri-i-ight, Miss Jules,” he drawls. “But try not to say that in front of Nana Nelle. One funeral this month is enough for me, thanks.”

“Where is Nelle?” I ask. I don’t actually want to see her, but I’d like to get this over with. The sooner we’ve gone through the motions of the whole homecoming thing, the sooner I can leave.

“Not feeling up to company today, she says,” Ben replies, rolling his eyes. “One of her headaches. She’s had a tough time, since Dad died. She’ll meet you both at breakfast in the morning. Libby is headed out with friends tonight, I’m pretty sure. As for me, I have work to catch up on.”

It shouldn’t surprise me that Ben has a job. He’s thirty-four, for fuck’s sake, he should work, but I still find myself blurting out, “What is it that you do? For a living, I mean.”

Ben raises his eyebrows at me. “Umm. I’m a lawyer?” he says, implying that I absolutely should have known that. “Estate stuff, wills and trusts. I mean.” He spread his arms wide. “I figured the family could use someone who actually knew his shit in that regard, right?”

He’s smiling, his teeth still so damn white, but his eyes have gone hard. I make myself smile back even as I feel my throat go a little tight. “Right.”