Page 284 of Taken Away

Hurting in a way he could hardly bear.

His mind drifted back to the hallway outside the conference room.

The look on her face.

The shock.

Perhaps he’d known before then.

Perhaps he had known the night she stood in the barrel room with rain in her hair and fire in her eyes.

But in that hallway, when her mother’s words had cut her open, something inside Bennett had gone still.

Clear.

He loved her.

Not halfway.

Not in some future he could keep at a safe distance.

He loved her with everything in him.

And he could no longer pretend that love was betrayal.

Bennett rose and stepped into the other room.

The house creaked around him. Outside, the wind moved through the trees. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once and fell silent.

He stood near the framed photograph of Claire.

Bennett looked at her for a long time.

“I’ll always love you,” he whispered.

The words did not feel like goodbye.

They felt like truth.

Claire would always be the first love of his life.

The woman who had taught him what marriage meant.

The woman whose absence had shaped him for years.

But love was not a room with one door.

He knew that now.

Harold had died, and still his love had remained tucked inside a Bible, waiting for the daughter who had never known to come home.

Mabel had died still trying to give Aubrey what had been stolen from her.

Love survived.

It changed shape.

It waited. It made room.