Page 104 of Waiting For A Girl Like You (Haven House #4)
The kids charged up the steps, with Xavier leading the herd and Holden taking up the rear. The group passed in a flurry of cheers, invading the house with their demands to be fed. A crash and excited voices echoed off the high ceilings, bouncing around the space and coming outside.
“Yeesh, I guess they were hungry,” Holden said, walking by them on his way in. “I hope nothing’s broken.”
“I built this house to withstand hurricanes and children,” Ben told him, very much proud of that fact. “They could run amok anywhere and still be completely safe.”
As everyone went inside, he and Simone relaxed again on the sofa. But their peace was short-lived. Seconds later, Annabeth darted outside, tiptoe running over to them. “Now?”
Meeting her daughter’s excited gaze, Simone showed no reaction. “Now what?”
“Is he proposing today?” Annabeth propped her hands on her hips. “Tell me, Mother.”
“I don’t know why you’d think I’d know.”
Clucking her tongue, Annabeth aimed her stare at Ben. He hated when she did that. She looked so much like Simone when she was younger, and it felt like stepping back in time. “Ben. Do you know?”
He reminded himself to treat this like a negotiation. After all, Annabeth was the daughter of Simone and Devon Howard. She was the niece to Ty. There was no out-bullshitting this woman.
“I know…” He paused. “That you should probably be prepared.”
“Prepared?” She cocked her head to the side. “Should I paint my nails, Ben?”
Ah, hell.
“Yes?”
Annabeth did a little dance and dropped a kiss on his cheek before running back inside. “Thanks, Ben.”
Simone barely had enough time to give him a death glare before Rowan was coming their way. The dog he and Annabeth adopted trailed after him, and while Ben wasn’t much for dogs, he liked Bea and thought she looked damn cute dressed in her Christmas tutu.
“Did you tell her?” Rowan asked Simone. “She came in and kissed me so hard that Bea started barking because she thought I was getting assaulted. ”
“How could you think that I would tell her?” Schooling her features, Simone rested her fingertips on her throat. “Of course, I didn’t say anything.”
Rowan physically relaxed, and Bea even wagged her tail. “Thanks, Simone.” He turned to go back inside, whispering to Bea as they left. “See, I told you GiGi wouldn’t say anything.”
“I cannot believe you,” Simone whispered when they were alone. “We promised not to say anything.”
“You promised,” Ben pointed out. “Not me.”
Simone planted her sharp elbow directly into his ribs. “You better not be pulling this crap when I’m gone, or I’ll make you sorry.”
Comments like this were coming more and more from her lately, and it was really pissing him off. Something was going on, and she was being very Simone about the whole thing.
“Cut the shit and tell me.” His tone surprised even him, but that was the fear taking over. “You keep talking about when you’re gone. You’re not going fucking anywhere.”
“Watch your mouth.” Simone stiffened, like she was bracing herself. “My heart. It’s not working like it should.”
He waited, and when she took too long, he nudged her. “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t have a heart.”
Wiping at a tear, she leaned into his side when he wrapped an arm around her.
“Last year, when that Zanmi woman gave me the injection, the doctors at the hospital noticed the irregularity then. I’ve been to see a cardiologist several times since, and I’m doing what they say to do, but it’s still on the decline. ”
“Decline?” The word stuck in his throat. “Give me the details.”
“They say it’s a mix of age and stress-related wear and tear.” She rested her hand on his chest, right where his own heart beat strong. “It’ll get me, eventually.”
“Just don’t let it be soon, okay?” Taking a deep breath, Ben laced his fingers with hers. He hated how his voice trembled, but Simone wouldn’t judge. Well, she would, but he was fine with it. “We have grandkids to watch over.”
“I’ll do my best.” She kept her eyes on the sunset, smiling softly at the few people on the beach. “And you’ll do the same, Benjamin.”
“We have a deal,” he murmured. “And I keep my deals. Remember? ”
“That I do.” She nodded. “And speaking of deals... thank you for letting us bring him home to her.”
Michael Sinclair. The day CeCe’s journals were found, they had both agreed he should be with her, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of soul searching to do as they waited for information.
And once they knew it could finally happen, it had been one hell of a fight with the government.
They’d won, and in the end, Sinclair’s ashes had come to rest in Haven’s graveyard, allowing him to spend eternity with CeCe.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for the burial.”
“Rowan handled it.”
Unable to sit still for very long, Simone rose to stand, and he joined her, knowing that’s what she wanted. “Michael’s parents are nice, normal people, Ben. I told them they could come and visit him whenever they wanted.”
“That was good of you.” He braced his hands on the cool metal railing, looking out over Firewater Beach in all its glory. “Especially considering that, as of tomorrow, you’ll no longer own Haven House.”
She smiled at that. “They’re going to argue when we tell them.”
“The proposal will distract Annabeth, and I’ll talk to Abe.”
“Abraham is so much like Ty,” she sighed. “But with Izzy… Ben, they’ve been together a year.”
“We might actually marry him off.”
“And I like her,” Simone said, as if shocked by the fact. “I really and honestly like her as much as I like Lenora, and I think that between those two and Rowan, my babies will be okay without me.”
Without me. She’d already accepted her fate, and he hated that she had gone through this alone.
“Promise me something,” he said, pulling her close again. “You keep doing what you’re doing, keep listening to the doctors, and I’ll never let you go through anything alone.”
She felt so small in his arms, and he wondered how he hadn’t noticed the weight loss or the way her eyes no longer held the same glimmer in them as they once did.
But he noticed it now and was already making plans to find the best damn cardiologist in the country to treat her .
“This isn’t a threat—or maybe it is—but you know that if you leave me, I get to tell the grandkids a bunch of wild stories about you,” he said, resting his chin on the top of her head. “And I’ve got plenty.”
“You do not.”
“Try me.”
Slipping from his hold, she returned to the railing. A light breeze teased the ends of her short hair, and she closed her eyes, her lips curving at the departing warmth of the day. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No. It doesn’t matter.” She opened her eyes, and for a moment, that mischievous twinkle he thought might be lost forever shone brightly once again.
“Because when it comes down to it, everything we do is just another story. Devon. Laura Jean. Miranda. Livy. CeCe. Ty. Albie… They’re nothing but stories now, their lives reduced to tall tales we hope to remember as the years pass. ”
Abe’s hearty laugh carried from the open door, and Ben turned with Simone to watch their family—the very best pieces of them—enjoy the holiday.
In the corner, Annabeth waved mistletoe over Rowan’s head while Bea barked at their feet.
Selah and Lenora were curled up on the floor, deep in some animated debate with Abe and Izzy.
Liam and Samuel had Theo and Harper hoisted on their shoulders, helping rearrange ornaments on the massive, twenty-foot Christmas tree that no one could agree on how to decorate.
Snuggled on the couch with Albie in her lap, Josie chatted with Holden while Diego and Xavier played video games.
And in the kitchen, Evie and Jamison worked side by side, setting up the food. They scrunched their noses at the same time, the resemblance to Laura Jean striking Ben directly in the heart.
“We’ll all become tall tales one day,” Simone said, almost too quietly to hear over the happy sounds pouring from the home he’d purposely built for times like this.
“Take those Fairweathers in the graveyard. One day, we’ll be just like them.
One day, no one will know that any of this was real, and we’ll become just another story until we’re forgotten altogether. ”
“We won’t be forgotten.” A tear slid down Ben’s cheek, and he let it fall, too lost in the moment to care. “Because when it comes down to it, SiSi... we gave them one hell of a story. ”
Simone smiled at the scene inside the house, watching as their family created memories that would last long after the two of them were gone. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I think maybe we did.”