He wanted to go over tonight. Talk to Lillian again, tell her what was up.
Ask her about that husband.
But it was late. She needed sleep, if she’d been running scared from a stalker for days now. Cal could wait until the morning.
“Sounds good,” Teri said. “We’ve got Joel and Nina here, camping out, so it’s a full house if anyone decides to show up.”
“Good,” Cal said, filled with an odd kind of satisfaction at the idea of the group of them all pulling together to help. “See you tomorrow.”
“First thing!” Teri hung up.
Cal was left shaking his head at the phone. How that girl managed to be so upbeat no matter what, he’d never know.
Meanwhile, it was time to get back to the Park and finish up his interrupted workday.
And keep himself from heading back to that cabin and giving those mountain lions an idea of what this Marine thought about terrifying women because of some asshole’s debt.
That was an assumption, he reminded himself. He’d never met Lillian’s husband—ex-husband—and so he had no idea whether the man was an asshole or just a good man who’d gotten into a bad situation.
But he was leaning toward the former. And his leopard growled agreement.
He wondered if that was what had led to Lillian’s air of being so—confined. Contained. As though her personality was kept so carefully managed, so deeply buried, that it could only come out through that lens of perfect, feminine courtesy. He could imagine her at some kind of state function, taking hands and greeting people, all with that calm, reasoned tone of voice that she’d used to describe being scared and upset.
It made him angry.
And that didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t any of his business whether Lillian Lowell had perfect manners or not, and there was nothing wrong with it if she did.
But he couldn’t help wondering what was underneath. And who she showed it to, if anyone. And how he might find out.
Stop it, he scolded himself. The woman was scared, and obviously wary of shifters, for all that her sister was one. The right thing to do was to protect her, show her how shifters could be decent people, and let her go on with her life.
And meanwhile, get back to the Park and do his actual job.
***
Lillian woke up to a strange sense of well-being.
Normally, her day started with a rush of anxiety. She’d be thinking about what her mother needed before it was time to leave for work, what problems and upsets had arisen during the night, how quickly she could get everything done.
She envied Teri so much, sometimes. The way she’d just taken a step and...flown away.
But that wasn’t an option for everyone. Lillian couldn’t leave the way Teri had, so she was just going to have to deal with it.
But having a morning off, even if it was because of a crazy shifter stalker, was an unexpected relief.
Lillian got up, resigned to wearing the same clothing she’d worn yesterday. She hadn’t wanted to go home and potentially lead the mountain lion there, so she didn’t have a change—and she was four inches taller than Teri and noticeably more curved, so she wasn’t going to be able to borrow anything.
She’d called her parents the previous night to let them know she wouldn’t be home. She’d spoken calmly and simply, declined to say why, and hung up. Teri had watched her with envy.
“I didn’t realize you knew how to do that,” she’d said. “It took me forever to learn how to stop getting all defensive and justifying myself. Why don’t you do it more often?”
Lillian had just shrugged, not wanting a repeat of the argument about why she was still living at home, and gone up to bed.
Now, it was morning. A quiet morning, despite the number of people in the house. Lillian washed up, dressed in yesterday’s clothes with only a little wince—fortunately, she always carried deodorant in her purse—and came downstairs.
Zach was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. It was such an odd sight, to see a man in the kitchen, as though flipping pancakes, humming to himself, still barefoot, was just an ordinary thing to do in the morning, that Lillian almost stopped and stared.
She recovered herself before he noticed, though, and said, “Good morning. Can I do anything to help?”