Chapter 11 Bennett
BENNETT
Molly’s family hugged me, Charlie, and Rosie one more time before they happily, but tearfully left the shelter. Molly led the way with a wildly wagging tail, completely unaware that she had been one phone call away from not leaving here at all.
This wasn’t over yet. Greg had threatened to sue if they didn’t put Molly down, but Jules had offered free legal representation to Molly’s family if Greg did sue, and he felt fairly certain they would win. It was enough to put some fight back into them.
And put a dim smile on Charlie’s tear-streaked face.
“Want some company?” Rosie asked her as we headed toward the parking lot.
“I need a few minutes alone.” She gave us an apologetic grimace. “But not, like, a whole night. Can I come snuggle Hansel?”
“You don’t even have to ask,” I said.
Charlie nodded absently, and I shot a concerned look to Rosie. We watched her get into her SUV, put both hands on the wheel, and stare into space.
“What happened?” I asked.
“She called off the wedding.” Rosie hopped into my truck while I stood there, still processing. “Get in. We have a lot to talk about.”
I tried to study Charlie in the rearview mirror as I drove, but the glare on her windshield made it hard to see her expression. Rosie explained to me what had happened at Greg’s office, ending with, “I’m happy, but also devastated for her.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly, understanding exactly what she meant.
“It gets worse,” Rosie continued.
“How?”
“Jules skimmed Charlie’s contract, and she’s going to be in a crap-load of trouble if she backs out of it.”
“Jail trouble?”
“Financial wreckage.”
I blew out a long breath. “She can’t afford that.”
“No. She can’t. Jules had an idea, though.”
I motioned for her to keep talking, feeling a small amount of relief. Jules usually had solid plans. His anxiety meant that he thought through everything before he made a decision or recommended a course of action.
“Well, he mentioned that the biggest sticking point is that the premise of Married in the Wild features married couples.”
“Exactly,” I said. I was glad they weren’t getting married, but I hated that this was ruining her chance to be on the show she loved and was counting on the money for.
“Exactly,” Rosie repeated with emphasis, and I could feel her hard stare on the side of my head.
I was missing something. I shot a glance over at her, and she blinked a few times, motioning her hand in a you’re-almost-there wave.
“Ex… act…ly,” I repeated slowly as we lumbered through Winterhaven’s Main Street, trying to find the meaning in one single word. What had I said? I rolled through my thoughts. Married in the Wild featured married couples. So how…?
Rosie sighed. “If Married in the Wild features married couples, and Charlie has signed a contract to go on that show, then she needs to be…”
“Married,” I finished. “But she just broke off her engagement.”
“Exactly,” she said again.
“I swear, if you say that one more time—”
“Ben. Be smarter than this.”
“Rosie. It’s been a long day, and it’s not even half over.” I let out a huff of frustration. “Spell. It. Out.”
She held up a hand like a balance scale. “Charlie needs to get married.” Then her other hand. “And I have you on record saying you’d do anything for her.” She then smooshed her hands together in a way that made my stomach tense. “See what I’m saying here?”
Yeah, I did. The words sat between us like sudden knowledge of an unexpected storm when we were far out at sea. Like I needed to make the decision to face the storm or turn back. “You want me and Charlie to get married?”
“Yes!” she squealed. “Isn’t it perfect?”
“And this was Jules’s idea?”
“Sure was!”
“So if I call him right now, he’ll stand by this being the best course of action.”
“Um,” she hedged, looking out the window. “Technically he doesn’t think it’s ethical or smart, but he’s the one who joked that finding a new husband would solve all her problems.”
“And does Charlie think his joke is a feasible plan?”
Rosie picked at a corner of her pink nail polish.
“She knows you’re proposing this to me—” She snorted at the word propose, and I cut a glare at her.
“—right?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
Even though I knew my sister better than almost anyone.
But hope is the thing with feathers, or whatever that Emily Dickinson poem on Mrs. Mabel’s bumper sticker said.
My hope had way too many feathers right now.
“She doesn’t know in an intellectual sense.”
“Does she know in any sense?”
“You two have amazing chemistry, Ben. Viewers will love it. They already have the B-roll of you doing the initial interview, and you’re so much better than Greg.
They’re getting an upgrade. Charlie will get to live her dream and earn enough money to help her mom pay off all her debt.
And you’ll finally get over Lily and see that the perfect woman for you has been right in front of you all along. Plus, Charlie and I will be sisters!”
I gripped the steering wheel, wishing we weren’t pulling up to my townhouse already.
Wishing that Rosie had gone with Charlie in her car, and this conversation had never happened.
Charlie? The perfect woman for me? I mean, she was a really cool girl.
She was funny and cute and all my favorite scents combined.
She deserved way better than that jerk Greg.
But she was my little sister’s best friend. The girl I teased about ab sketches and who had a killer swing on the softball field. If she wore pigtails, I would definitely tug them.
“I’m over Lily,” I said, pulling into my parking spot.
“That’s the part you’re going to focus on?”
“Well, I am.” But seriously. First Mrs. Mabel, now Rosie. What vibes was I giving off that made everyone think I had a thing for Charlie? Did Charlie think I had a thing for her too? “Is all of this so you can be officially related to your best friend?” I asked at the sudden realization.
“Some of it. But, like, a very small part. Hardly worth even mentioning.”
“Why’d you mention it, then?”
She pushed her lips out like I’d stumped her, then pointed out my window. “Look at her, Ben!”
I watched Charlie get out of her car and trudge toward my front door. Her shoulders were slumped, and her bun had drooped to her shoulders.
Every part of me—on the soul-deep level of needing to help people, especially people I loved who’d been dealt a crappy hand and were so visibly struggling—longed to fix this for her. But marriage was so extreme. Could I really marry Charlie, just to help her?
She leaned against the railing of my townhouse stairs, her back to us, and her entire body shuddered as she released a long exhale.
Greg had better hope he saw me before I saw him, and was wise enough to turn in the other direction.
Because any wisdom I might have had, that I’d earned from long, hard years of helping raise my little sister, from the heartbreak of losing my parents, from working on and learning to respect the ocean—wisdom that should keep me from starting fights and going on television and proposing to my sister’s best friend …
All that wisdom was giving me the double bird as it backed far, far away.
If we won, I could pay for the repairs I needed for my shop.
And it would be the adventure of a lifetime.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, hard. But the urge to help Charlie, by any means necessary, regardless of any other incentive, took solid root. “Jules is going to freak out if she agrees to this.”
Rosie’s grin widened. “Bennett, that’s the best part.”