His fox murmured,Never,and Sam nearly agreed with it out loud.
"Did you know…" Lola pressed her lips together, looking up at him. "In between graduation and you signing up for service, they tried buying me off. They offered me fifty thousand dollars to leave town and never contact you again."
"Jesus Christ." Sam sat back, heart contracting painfully. "No. No, I didn't know that. What…you didn't take it." That much was obvious. He could all but see his parents offering the money: his father's thin face pinched with disdain; his mother's cool eyes calculating, expecting to succeed. Neither of them had ever counted onhimrejecting their money and choosing military service over being dependent on them; there was even less chance they could imagine Charlotte Nelson, a girl with no money to her name at all, standing on principle.
The corner of her mouth turned up and she stirred her soda, lookingverylike the teenager he'd left behind so long ago. "I told them they were cheap bastards and to come back with a dollar figure that meant something."
Sam choked on a laugh. "Fifty grand was a lot of money back then, Lola!"
"It still is." She gave him another thin smile. "They counter-offered at two-fifty."
"Holy shit. They offered you a quarter of a million dollars to leave me?"
"They did." Lola dropped her gaze to her soda again, then met his eyes. "And upped it to half a million when I said no."
"Good God. You must have been tempted."
"You know, I was more…disgusted with them, I think, than tempted. I mean, I certainly had some moments later where I thought, if I was going to end up without you anyway, it sure would have been a lot easier to do it with half a million dollars than without, but…they were so smug, Sam. They were so sure I would choose money over you."
"Because they would have," Sam said quietly. "Both of them. Either of them. If anyone had offered them that kind of money to walk away fromtheirrelationship, they'd have taken the money and run."
They were only married,his fox said with a sniff.Not fated mates.
Sam nodded agreement. His parents had regarded the stories of shifters and fated mates as old wives' tales; their marriage had been commercial, if anything. He thought they'd been fond of one another, but he was certain they were both far fonder of financial success. They'd seen his relationship with Lola as puppy love, and they'd simply refused to believe him when he'd come to them starry-eyed and happy just after his high school graduation, to say that fate had struck and he was going to propose to Lola.
They hadn't even believed it waspossible. The idea that his bond with Lola was as deep and meaningful as Sam claimed sounded ludicrous to them, literally unbelievable. He had to assume that meant their own bond, despite twenty years of marriage, was simply not that profound. It was the only time in his life he'd felt sorry for his parents.
Whatever sympathy he'd had for them back then evaporated now. Slowly, helplessly, he said, "I'm so sorry that you ended up without meandwithout any money. You deserved so much more, Lola."
"Don't get me wrong." She gave him a crooked smile. "I didn't intend to leave you for any amount of money, but the fact that they offered made me even more determined to stick it out. I was nothing if not stubborn."
"One of the many things I loved about you." Sam took a deep breath and stirred his own milkshake. "What happened at the funeral?"
"Oh, God. The whole town got to watch your mother scream how this was all my fault at me. If I hadn't 'seduced you with my wicked ways' you wouldn't have signed up, and you'd be alive and well and engaged to someone suitable and...it went on for a while. No one told you about it?"
"People mentioned the funeral was difficult." Sam heard the thread of anger in his own voice and worked to modulate it: his anger was at his long-dead parents, and the last thing he wanted was Lola worrying he was mad ather. "But no. No one told me that. I didn't leave the house much after I came home. I'd lost you. There didn't seem to be any point. So probably my own hermiting worked against me there. I'm so sorry, Lola. I never would have allowed them to treat you that way."
"I know. It's part of why they hated me. Even when we were sixteen, it was so obvious you were going to choose me over them, that you would havemyback, not theirs... God, they hated that. But when the funeral was over, I just couldn't stay. I couldn't stay with their poison in my ears, and the truth is, they had money and influence here, Sam. I wasn't going to be able to hold a job, not if they didn't want me to. I wasn't going to be able to go anywhere or do anything without people whispering about how sad it was, or…" She hesitated, shook her head, and finally said, "I had to leave. I knew I had to leave. So I did, before it got any harder."
"You are the bravest person I've ever known."
Lola laughed. "I don't know about that. But thank you."
"I mean it. That must have been terrifying. And infuriating." Sam made a face. "Knowing you could have had half a million dollars to make it easier."
"I couldn't have, though. I could live with who I was, this way. That way? No." Lola shook her head again, then made a face, too. "Which still didn't stop me from thinking, yeah, it would have beensomuch easier with the money, but I don't feel like that was inconsistent. Money always makes things easier. The only people who don't think so are rich."
"Where did you go?"
"Chicago. I thought it would be easier to disappear into a big city, although—" Lola broke off abruptly, color rising to her cheeks as she frowned into her soda. "Some things would probably have been better if I'd gone somewhere smaller. I was hospitalized for a while and I…I lost control of some things, then. Things I could never fix. The system was too big, too…unfriendly to people like me."
There's something she's not telling us,Sam's fox said, and he nodded internally.
I know. But she doesn't have to tell us everything. Obviously it's still hard for her to talk about, and I'm not going to push her.Aloud, he said, "Just tell me you're okay? Healthy? That youwereokay?" He offered his hand again, palm up, and she carefully fitted hers against his.
"I was, after a while. I am, mostly. I mean, I'm healthy. I worked for a while. Nothing exciting, waitressing, mostly. And I got married," Lola said almost gently. "Peter Brown. He was a good man. We moved out of Chicago and had Jennifer, Charlee's mother. He died when Charlee was little, and I thought, that was enough. I'd had you, the love of my life, and a kind husband, and that was enough. Everything else that I might have wanted had been lost so long ago. I let it go, as best I could. Until the day Charlee called and told me you were alive."
"I'm…sorry for your loss," Sam said after a moment, feeling strange about it.
