Cal laughed softly.
Lillian looked at him. His eyes were crinkled at the corners. Suddenly their color didn’t seem so darkly iron-gray—there was a hint of silver in them that she hadn’t noticed before.
“I don’t mean to make fun of you,” he said. “It sounds like a nightmare to me, frankly. But the way you described him—I can picture him no problem. I can see how you must have felt, living with someone like that. Please keep going.”
Lillian waved a hand. “Well, there’s not much more to tell. We started fighting, and then fighting more, because I was both the breadwinner and the housekeeper and I resented it, but he thought I was getting all worked up over nothing. And believe me,” she could hear the emotion starting to come out in her voice, “there is nothing more frustrating than having your spouse tell you, over and over, that they don’t care that you’re unhappy.” She shook her head, feeling the echoes of remembered pain, then took a deep breath and continued.
“But he could never see it that way. He thought that he could just...convince me that I was being wrongheaded, and that his way was the best way. And then we’d eat air for dinner every night, I suppose.”
“Or absinthe and Great Art.” Cal’s voice was wry, and he was looking at her with such...intense compassion that she had to look away.
So she smiled humorlessly at the front window and said, “Oh, no. That was the other thing. First we had to move to New York or Paris or Berlin. Someday. And then we could start that chapter of our lives. Where he thought we’d get the money to do that, I have no idea.” She paused. “Well, I suppose now I do.”
“The gambling,” Cal said softly.
Lillian nodded. “It’s so easy to see what he thought would happen. He’d win big, come home one night and surprise me—’Honey, we’re moving to Paris!’ And then we’d live a life of leisure, I suppose. Without considering that no matter how much money he won, I’m sure he’d run through it like water, because that was just the kind of man he was. Anyway, that’s how he excused going along with the judge’s ruling about splitting the debt. It was all for me, you see.”
“Even though you didn’t know about it and would’ve told him not to do it if you had,” Cal finished.
Lillian nodded. “So there you go. The whole silly, sordid story. If I’d left him the first time he told me washing the dishes didn’t matter, everything could’ve been prevented.”
“If he’d realized something was wrong and maybe learned that even in Paris, dishes still need to be washed, then everything could’ve been prevented,” Cal said with a hint of ferocity that surprised her. “From my perspective, all of the ifs should be on his side. You married a college student with his head in the clouds—well, there’s plenty of those out there. The question is, when do they realize they’re not in philosophy class anymore and grow up.”
He’d taken a step or two forward, so he was standing right next to her, as though ready to take her arm, offer his help. It felt strange to be so—so supported like this. Lillian wasn’t used to having someone so staunchly on her side.
Her mother had berated her for being so foolish as to marry a man who would leave her in debt, her father had declined to comment, and she’d left Teri out of the loop as much as possible, not wanting her baby sister to learn what an idiot she was. Her college friends had all moved on, and Lillian kept a professional face on at the library, not wanting to be the subject of gossip at work.
But it had made the divorce the loneliest thing she’d ever done. And she’d accepted that all of the struggle and pain would be hers alone, forever, because it seemed best to keep it inside—to protect herself.
But Cal was right here, towering over her and looking like he wanted to protect her.
“Well,” she said briskly, not sure how comfortable she was with the feelings that Cal’s warm, fierce gaze was giving her, “all the ifs in the world aren’t going to help anything now. Lew has kept gambling, and it’s still a problem.”
“But it shouldn’t be a problem for you,” Cal insisted. “The man’s caused you more than enough problems, and he should’ve figured that out by now.” A long pause. “Maybe someone should tell him that.”
Lillian was certain, suddenly, of what Cal was thinking. That ferocity was still there, and his eyes—much more silvery now, it must be the light—had darted toward the door.
“Do not go threaten him or rough him up.” Lillian countered his intentions before he could get more specific. “He’ll weave it into some story about how he’s the victim and he needs my help more than ever. And he’ll likely call the police on you.”
She surprised herself with the severity of the tone. Maybe it was ridiculous—looking up at this powerful ex-Marine, telling him what he could and couldn’t do on her behalf.
But Cal was nodding. “Yes, ma’am.” A quirk of a smile, as the ferocity faded into the background. “As satisfying as I might find it, right about now.”
“Believe me,” Lillian said dryly, “so would I. But it won’t work, and it’ll likely get you in trouble.”
“I’d risk trouble, but not if it didn’t help you out.” Cal shook his head. “That’d just be dumb. All right. We’ll find another solution.”
That was another novelty: she’d objected, and Cal had listened to her. She wasn’t looking at half an hour of arguing her point, followed by the likelihood of him doing it anyway.
Which was something she’d thought she’d left behind when she divorced Lew...only to move back home so she could repay her debt and remember that her mother was exactly the same way.
But Cal was just—respecting that she knew Lew better than he did, and accepting that with, We’ll find another solution.
Then she really heard what he’d said. “Wait,” she objected. “We don’t need to find anything. I really don’t want to take you away from your job any further, or get you in trouble with the local shifter community, or get you caught up in anything illegal. That’s absolutely not fair to you.”
“None of this is fair, Lillian. And I’m more interested in how unfair it is to you. Besides,” Cal said slowly, “one of the reasons the Glacier area is such a haven for shifters is that everyone respects one another and pretty much minds
their own business. I told Wayne Hennessey in so many words that you were part of our community, and he straight-up ignored me, just threatened worse.”