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It had been hard, but the alcohol had been the least of her problems when she was married to Richard.
One time, she’d embarrassed him at a dinner party by admitting she’d never read Ulysses. He’d had a few too many drinks, and he’d launched into a monologue that began with a few witty jokes at her expense and ended with a dissertation on her shortcomings. It went on so long that she’d fantasized about standing up and dumping her dinner in his lap. She’d imagined herself walking out, hiking half a mile home in the dark in her heels. Locking him out of the house until he sobered up.
She’d done nothing. Not that night, and not for days afterward. Finally, when it seemed possible it could be funny, she’d told Jamie.
Verbally abusive, Jamie had said. Never good enough for you. You should leave him.
But those were all Jamie’s words, and she hadn’t been able to absorb them, to believe them. Part of her had understood the logic behind her brother’s hatred for Richard, but she hadn’t known how to make it her own logic, her own hatred. Not until Henry came along.
In the divorce, she’d gotten the house and a custody agreement that allowed Richard three hours’ supervised visitation with Henry each week. Richard had gotten everything else. Ellen considered it a victory.
Caleb leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Ellen waited for his sympathy, but it wasn’t what she got.
“No boyfriend?” he asked.
Surprised and grateful, she made a snorting sound of dismissal, the sort of accidental pig noise she was always embarrassing herself with. “No.”
Caleb rubbed his finger and thumb over his jaw, looking ponderous but with mischief in his eyes. “A girlfriend, then.”
“Come on, I’m not gay,” she protested. “Just, you know, divorced. A mom.”
“You say that like it’s the same thing as ‘washed up.’ ”
It is.
“Camelot’s a hard place to be thirty and single,” she pointed out. “All these college girls running around are tough on the ego.”
“They’re kids. They could hardly compete with you.”
When she glanced over, he was smirking at her. Served her right. She’d fished pretty deep for the compliment.
Caleb’s smirk was dead sexy.
Her libido growled and started pacing back and forth across her lower belly.
Don’t look at him, Ellen told herself, but her furtive eyes snatched tidbits to catalog. Shoulders so broad, he just about filled the whole chair. His throat where he’d unbuttoned his shirt. The shadow of stubble on his neck and jaw.
Here was a species of man she had no experience with. She’d always gone for the Heathcliff types, men with wild hair and deep thoughts. Army guys didn’t do it for her. Or they never had before.
Oh, not good. Not good at all.
She couldn’t have him. There was no room in her life for
any man, let alone one this … big. Even if she had the feminine wiles to capture his attention, what would she do with him? You’d roll right over and let him take charge.
And then she’d be back at square one, weak-willed and malleable, chained to the whims of another man who didn’t want or respect her enough. No, thanks.
When Jamie had said she should find a boyfriend, he hadn’t meant this at all. Her brother had been thinking of somebody bland and amiable, a Little League coach who’d buy her penne with marinara and give her a peck on the cheek when he dropped her off at home. Whereas Ellen’s interest in Caleb was more of a restless urge for clutching, desperate, sweaty coupling. She wanted, for the first time in three years, to have actual, physical, hot-as-hell sex. With a man.
Not remotely in the cards. But if it were, would he go for it? Was Caleb merely being nice, buttering her up so he could try to slap a fence around her house or whatever it was he thought needed doing?
Her intuition said no. Of course, her intuition had allowed her to marry Richard. She had no reason to trust instincts with such a shitty track record.
Ellen let the back of her head hit the chair with a solid thunk and polished off the rest of her wine. The muddled, murky sip at the very bottom of her glass matched the inside of her head, which suggested she’d already had more wine and more Caleb than were advisable for one evening. She should probably call it a night.
“So were you in the military?”
Whoops. Go to bed, woman.
