Lillian nodded sharply. “Yes. But that means you’re going to have to get out of the car, and my mother’s going to see you, even if you don’t come inside.”
“I’m happy to come inside.” Cal was pretty sure that wasn’t the point Lillian was getting at, but he wanted to make it all the same.
“It doesn’t matter whether you do or not,” Lillian said, “my mother’s going to insist on talking to you. And she isn’t going to be nice.”
Cal laughed. Was that all? “Lillian, I work at a national park. I’m the authority people go to when they’re not happy with what the regular staff are telling them. Believe you me, I’ve dealt with plenty of people who weren’t very nice. And that’s without even counting being back in Iraq. Compared to that, people not being very nice to me is a cakewalk.”
Lillian was quiet for a second, and then she said, “You know, I don’t know that anyone’s ever compared my mother to an Iraqi insurgent before.”
“I can bet she takes at least as much planning before engagement,” Cal said.
Lillian laughed, a short humorless burst. “I’m sure she does, honestly. But—Cal, this is my mother. It’s not the same as an angry tourist.”
“Why isn’t it the same?” He’d encountered some entitled mothers traveling with their families before, that was for sure.
She said, so low it would’ve been difficult for a non-shifter to hear her, “I don’t want her behavior to affect your opinion of me.”
Hearing that Lillian cared so much about his opinion gave Cal a surprisingly warm thrill. His leopard’s continuous growl even softened, mellowing into a purr.
Cal didn’t know why this woman suddenly meant so much to him, but he suspected it had to do with how impressive she was. He had immense respect for everything she’d been through, and particularly that she’d survived it with her head held high, retaining her pride—and her confidence in herself. The way she’d insisted she could handle all of this without help...Cal supposed she’d gotten used to not being able to lean on anyone else. She probably thought the whole world was unreliable.
And he was determined to prove that wrong.
“No matter what she says or does,” Cal said, hearing the fierce conviction in his own voice, “it’s not gonna affect my opinion of you. I swear.”
Lillian looked over at him, a quick, flickering glance. Like she wasn’t sure she believed what she’d heard, and had to check to make sure. Cal looked back steadily.
Lillian was going to come out of this knowing that someone respected her, and believed she deserved better than what she’d gotten.
“She’ll treat me like a child,” Lillian said carefully, as though testing the truth of what he’d said.
“A woman who treats her adult daughter like a child is showing how little she knows, not how little you know,” Cal said. “I promise, Lillian. If she behaves badly, that reflects badly on her. Not on you.”
Lillian breathed in and out, and Cal could see the shakiness of it in the slightest shiver of her shoulders.
She was full of contradictions, he thought. So strong, proud, and confident—and yet there was this vulnerability hiding under the surface. So solidly practical and capable—and yet, from what she’d said about her ex, she’d been carried away by beauty, philosophy, and literature.
Most of what Cal had seen so far had been the outside layer of strength and practicality. He admired the hell out of it. But he also wanted to know what lay underneath.
Did Lillian show it to anyone, after her asshole ex had trampled all over it? Cal suspected not.
Show it to us, his leopard purred. She can show us all of herself. We’ll wrap it up, protect it, treasure it.
Cal reminded himself, and his presumptuous-as-hell leopard, that there was no guarantee Lillian would want to open up to him like that. And if she didn’t, well, he’d have to take himself on his way without getting what he wanted.
Because if there was one thing he did know, it was that this woman had had enough of people taking what they wanted from her.
They pulled up in front of a good-sized house in a nice part of town, and Lillian turned off the car. She took a slow, deep breath and turned to Cal. “Ready?”
“I promise you, Lillian,” Cal said, looking her right in the eye, “this isn’t going to cause a problem between us.”
She looked a little steadier at that. Or Cal flattered himself that she did, anyway.
The door to the house was already open, and an older woman was coming out the door. Cal could see her resemblance to both the sisters, but the lines on her face weren’t like those that were faintly starting to appear on Lillian’s. They were frown lines, lines of her forehead scrunching together and her eyes narrowing. This woman looked like her face naturally fell into an expression of judgment and dissatisfaction.
Right now, she was zeroing in on Lillian, as she came down the walk to meet her. Lillian was stepping out of the driver’s side with a resigned expression.
Cal got out of the car, came smoothly around to stand at Lillian’s side, and held out his hand as she approached. “Good morning, ma’am. My name is Cal Westland, and I’m a ranger over at Glacier National Park.”