Page 108 of Heart Breaker

There she is.

The woman I’ll choose today and for the rest of my life.

THIRTY-NINE

Wes

James left us on a quiet Thursday morning, eight days after our wedding. The sun had only just begun to rise, painting the sky the same soft shades of pink and gold that had filled the horizon on our wedding day. I’d like to think he planned it that way. He held on until he walked his little girl down the aisle and watched her marry the man she’d fallen in love with. He waited until he knew she wouldn’t be walking through life alone and then he finally allowed himself the peace he’d fought so hard to reach.

The house had been full of laughter only a few days earlier. Family spilling from every room, gathered to watch us open wedding gifts and carry on the celebrations. Claire and her sister cooked way too much food and we sat around telling wedding stories and listening to Poppy convince anyone who’d listen that she’d been the best flower girl in history.

James had smiled through all of it—more than I’d seen him smile in months. When the last car disappeared down the driveway that evening, quiet had settled over the house almost instantly.

I found James sitting on the back deck under a blanket where Claire helped him get comfortable, watching the sun disappear behind the trees. He looked over as I stepped outside.

“The sunset tonight is worth every second,” he said quietly. “The sky has really been putting on a show lately.”

I nodded, taking the chair beside him. “Yeah, it has.”

We sat together without saying much after that.

After a while, I noticed the exhaustion settling into him in a way I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t just that he looked tired, it was as though every ounce of effort he’d been putting in over these past months had finally caught up with him. I helped him to his feet, keeping one hand lightly at his back as we made our way inside. He was asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.

The next day, the hospice nurse spoke quietly with Claire in the kitchen while Lottie looked on, resting her head against my shoulder. I couldn’t hear every word, but I didn’t need to. The look on Claire’s face when she walked out of the kitchen to check on her husband said it all. We were running out of time.

The next couple of days passed quietly. James stopped eating and he slept more than he was awake. Somehow, none of it caught us by surprise. We’d all been watching this moment inch closer for months.

James didn’t want any dramatic goodbyes or tearful speeches, just his family filling the house with quiet conversation and familiar faces before slipping back to their own lives. He’d spent the last few months saying everything that mattered. He told Claire every single day how much he loved her. He reminded Harper how proud he was of the woman she’d become, and he’d hugged Lottie a little longer every time she walked through the front door.

And me…he’d entrusted me with the greatest privilege of my life.

There was nothing left unsaid—that was one of the greatest gifts he gave the people who loved him. He didn’t leave any of us wondering. He left us knowing. In true James fashion, he refused to let the house become a place where people sat around waiting for the inevitable. If he caught Lottie lingering too long by his bedside, he’d smile and tell her to go for a walk with me. If Claire skipped lunch, he’d remind her there was soup in the fridge. Even as tired as he was, he was still looking after everyone else. I think, deep down, he wanted us to remember how he lived, not how he died.

In the end, it was just James and Claire. Exactly the way he’d wanted it.

Later, when Claire found the words to tell us what happened, she said it was peaceful. He reached for her hand, looked at the woman he’d loved for more than thirty years and told her he loved her one last time.

Then, quietly, he was gone.

The house fell into a silence I’d never experienced before, as though the walls themselves understood someone irreplaceable had left them. Lottie folded into her mom’s arms the second she heard, neither of them saying a word. They just held each other while I stood there helplessly. There isn’t a manual for watching the woman you love lose her father.

I wrapped my arms around both of them, and we stayed like that for a long time. Eventually, Claire pulled away, brushing at her cheeks before apologizing for crying. Lottie shook her head immediately.

“You never have to apologize for loving him.”

Those words nearly undid me.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur of phone calls and quiet conversations. I made coffee that no one drank, set a sandwich in front of Claire that went untouched until Lottie gently convinced her to take a few bites.

The funeral home staff arrived just before noon, and I watched from the front window as they wheeled James from the house he’d spent a lifetime inside. Lottie reached for my hand before they even knocked on the door, her fingers trembling against mine. She didn’t cry. She just leaned into me, resting her head against my shoulder as we watched the car disappear down the driveway.

There wasn’t a single thing I could say that would make this hurt less, so I didn’t try. I just held her, because sometimes love doesn’t mean finding the perfect words, it just means being present.

By the time we finally walked through our front door that night, my body felt as heavy as my heart. I followed Lottie to our bedroom, where she sat on the edge of our bed still wearing the same sweater she pulled on that morning.

She looked up and our eyes met. Neither of us said anything for one long heartbeat before she stood and crossed the room and collapsed into me. The first sob of tears escaped before I could even wrap my arms around her.

I held her as tightly as I could, listening to the sounds of a daughter whose heart had just been broken as she fisted the back of my shirt and her whole body shook against mine.