Page 19 of An Endless Memory

Grandma hadn’t believed in TV, but she’d had Wi-Fi to stream radio stations. Cali needed to be distracted while I talked to Eliot. “Can you watch them in your room? I have to talk to Eliot.”

Cali jumped up and down as much as she could in the SUV. “You’re staying?”

Eliot’s shuttered gaze slid from her to face out the window. “For a bit.”

He was probably ready to run. I’d dragged an innocent man into chaos. Carter would laugh and claim I’d done the same to him. Some days, you’re like living with a tornado.

Eliot hauled the car seat with Kellan in it, and I carried the diaper bag. Cali disappeared in a heartbeat. At least she’d had time to eat. I’d gotten a few bites in before Linda had shown up.

I sank onto the couch. Eliot looked around the house, curiosity more apparent than trepidation or impatience. Did he see a place that had a little bit of each decade from the last seventy years in it? Oak kitchen cabinets from the nineties. Furniture from the eighties and early aughts. Wallpaper from the sixties and a touch of the seventies. I had a lot of work to do.

I would’ve had a lot of work to do.

He finally took a seat, perched on the edge of the chair Aunt Linda had sat in when she’d delivered her bad news.

“It’s just what I said.” I started unbuckling Kellan. The long end table of Grandma’s was pushed against the wall to protect my shins and so I could lay out Kellan’s various playthings.

I set him on a play mat. He loved the faux grass next to the bright-blue fake river.

“You have to get married or lose your house?” Eliot asked. “How can that be?”

“Once you understand this isn’t my house, maybe it’ll make more sense.” I fought back a yawn. Exhaustion was deep in my bones, but I had to tell him everything. I owed him. “I mean, I thought it was. Grandma always said she’d leave it to me. She passed away shortly before I moved here. So when I got the job with Sutton, I thought it was fate.” Everything was finally working out for me, or so I had thought. “Dad gave me his keys and said I should just move right in.”

“And your aunt will really kick you out?”

My heavy eyelids made blinking hard. The ten-minute snooze barely dented the hours of sleep I was missing. “I believe so. If she wavers, her fence post of a husband will do it.”

“Fence post of a husband?”

I lifted a shoulder. “That’s what his personality reminds me of. He’s just kind of there.”

The corner of his mouth ticked up. “Why’d your grandma— Never mind. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” I missed Grandma, but right now, I was upset with her. She screwed me over. “As for your other question, I’d like to think that Grandma thought I’d still be married and wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

“And what predicament is that, Lily?” he asked quietly.

I blinked, but the tears had already sprung into my eyes. “My parents would take me in, but can you imagine moving back in with your parents?”

“They’re dead.”

I recoiled at the frankness of his tone. “God, I’m sorry.”

He rubbed his temples. “Shit, no, I’m sorry. My mama ran out on us when we were all still kids, and she did it because my father was a massive bastard. To give you an idea, he left my sister Aggie’s inheritance to her now husband, who was the guy she left at the altar. He did that when he thought they had separate lives.”

“That’s awful.” I had issues with my parents, but they’d never hurt me like that. If anything, they were too loving. Carter had claimed they were enablers, and while I’d learned how much of a dick my ex really was, he hadn’t been entirely wrong. What had it been like for Eliot to grow up under the opposite?

“It all worked out because Ansen fell hard for my sister again and donated everything to her animal rescue. But to get back on topic—what else? It’s not just moving back in with your parents.”

I didn’t want to tell him my baggage, but at the same time, he’d already witnessed my worst. “This job. My ex is a veterinarian. Guess how we met?” I tried to make the question light, but my shame broke through.

“You worked for him.”

“Stereotypical, right? I was in vet school and working a few hours here and there. You know what’s even more predictable?”

“He continued to fuck the staff?”

My cheeks heated, and I dropped my gaze to Kellan. “I found out I was pregnant right after I asked for a divorce. He got a lawyer, and I got nothing.” I chewed my bottom lip. “Not nothing. I got the kids. I didn’t care about anything else, and I knew I couldn’t fight him and his parents, who wanted a more impressive daughter-in-law.”

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