She had no idea how long it would take for her to feel ready to have kids with a different guy, or if…
A different guy. She couldn’t even imagine it. The very idea of being pushed into the dating pool made her want to melt down.
“Oh God, I don’t want to be single,” she said, pressing her head against the window of the car.
“It’s notthatbad,” Cara said.
“I’m sorry. I know… I didn’t mean…”
“I know. And you guys have been together for a long time. But maybe it’s the beginning of something good for you.”
“Assuming I don’t get fired on sight.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Did you actually talk to him on the phone?”
She shook her head. “No. I talked to… I think it was his brother. He was nice.”
“Really? I mean, I knew… I knew that he had siblings, but I just assumed that they were as stony as he is. He was like talking to a sheer rock face. Very few words. Very direct.”
“Well, if he’s that direct, then you’ll know exactly where you stand the minute that you show up.”
“I guess. But I’m not sure that I can handle that. I already had to listen to my husband tell me that our marriage is over and that he has a girlfriend. I think my truth limit is somewhat overfilled.”
“Well, there’s always being pathetic.”
“What?”
“You’ve driven across the whole country. Your husband just left you. Be pathetic.”
Marlowe looked out the window and mused on that. She was allergic to being pathetic. But quite apart from anything else, she didn’t think that Cody Grayson was going to be particularly sympathetic, no matter how pitiful she seemed.
Chapter Two
“Are the new resort managers coming in today?”
Cody turned his horse so he could get a good look at his younger brother, Walker, who had a smart-ass look on his face, and he hadn’t even said anything smart-ass.
Yet.
“As far as I know,” Cody answered.
As if he didn’tknow. As if he didn’t have an estimate down to the minute on when they would arrive. He was eager to get the hotel opened and get some of the responsibilities of the resort off his plate.
He’d inherited this big parcel of land from the father he’d barely ever known, and it was important to him to make something out of it. Maybe it was to give a middle finger to the old man now that he was dead, a middle finger he hadn’t gotten the chance to give him during his life, on behalf of his mother, who had grieved the loss of a relationship that had been shit anyway for so many years it had put her in an early grave, and for his brother and sister who had always seemed to long for a relationship with that bastard.
Cody couldn’t say that he personally grieved the lack of relationship.
If he grieved anything, it was the fact that his father had been a lonely, miserable, selfish asshole until the end. That was sad in its own way.
But the old man had cultivated that life. He’d alienated every person who could have possibly cared about him. Had abused every connection he could have had. Had abandoned the one woman who’d ever loved him.
His father’s isolation hadn’t been accidental. Rather, a pursuit of years of hard work at being a genuinely terrible human being.
Cody had no choice but to accept it.
There was no point taking his father’s miserable personality personally.
