Free A Chance of a Lifetime by Marilyn Pappano Page B

driveway, her short legs making long strides while Bennie dragged in dismay. The Sweet house. Had Mama planned to come here all along, or had she just chosen the family because Justice, sitting on the porch, was the first neighbor they’d seen—
    Bennie’s feet came to an abrupt halt without input from her brain. That wasn’t Justice sitting still as a statue in the red rocker. No, it was a younger version, a taller one, a leaner one.
    It was Calvin.
    “Mama!” she whispered, but by now her grandmother was just a few yards short of the porch steps.
    What was she supposed to do now? Of course she knew what Mama expected of her: following along obediently, smiling, and being friendly. But that wasn’t Bennie’s first choice. Maybe standing at the end of the driveway like a fool while Mama dropped off the pie? Mama never just dropped off a pie. She would stay and visit, say hello to Justice and Elizabeth, and give Miss Emmeline an opportunity to take credit for teaching her how to make that special meringue.
    Or she could run back home like a coward.
    Oh, no. Benita Pickering Ford was not and had never been a coward. She’d been standing up for herself all her life, knowing first her daddy and then Mama had her back, but she hadn’t relied on them too often. She fought her own battles and stood up to her own bullies.
    And Calvin Sweet wasn’t going to change that.
    Stiffening her spine, she strode along the driveway, reaching the steps just a few seconds behind Mama. She followed the old lady up, folded her arms across her middle, and waited strong and steady for the confrontation to come.
    “I heard you were in town,” Mama said with a broad grin. “About a week, isn’t it, and you haven’t come to see me so I can hug your neck yet.”
    “I, uh…” That may have been all he meant to say. It was hard to tell since Mama had hold of his neck, and it was even harder to tell from ten feet away if she was hugging him or strangling him.
    J’Myel had always accused Mama of using a hug as an excuse to get him into a headlock. That’s because you’ve always been up to something, Mama responded. For every hug you deserve, you’ve probably earned two headlocks.
    Bennie’s chest tightened. After J’Myel died, she’d become an expert at breathing using just a tiny portion of her lungs. Filling them took too much effort, gave her mind too much time to run through a million precious memories. In the moments it took her to breathe deeply, a tear could fall, and the first one was always followed by a flood of tiny, salty, anguished ones that didn’t end until she was a limp, exhausted, soggy mess. And she would not let Calvin turn her into a soggy mess.
    With her hands tightened into fists, she took another breath, then slowly directed her gaze past Mama to finally settle on Calvin for the first time in years. At the moment, she couldn’t remember exactly when things had started going wrong between them, when J’Myel had stopped starting every sentence with Me and Calvin… It had been years. A lifetime. Too much time had passed, too many hurts, to ever forgive.
    He was six feet tall, but even after all the years of working out and literally running for his life, he was as lean as ever. J’Myel had bulked up tremendously. When he’d come home for their wedding, he’d had to borrow a dress uniform from one of his friends because his muscles didn’t fit into his old one anymore.
    Calvin was still sleek, muscular but not-in-your-face so. There were a few hard lines etched into his face, and his eyes were flat—not emotionless, but wary. Unwelcoming. There was none of the mischief or the gleam she’d always associated with him, none of the pleasure at seeing her.
    Well, that was only fair, because she wasn’t feeling any pleasure at seeing him, either. Her chest hurt, and the air simmered around her, and she wanted nothing more than to vent her anger, to stomp her feet, to stare right through him, to freeze him to