“Ooooh.” Selina moaned as she came in the kitchen door. She was wrapped in a towel, her hair in damp strands around her face.
He grinned at the sight. “Didn’t even bother to get dressed before you came to breakfast, huh?”
“Are you insane?” She flipped open a cupboard and pulled out two large coffee mugs. “After I smelled that, you’re lucky I bothered to throw on a towel. I could have just walked out here dripping wet.”
“It’s your floor that would get messed up, not mine.” He used a spatula to fish out the last batch of French toast before he turned off the stove.
She slanted him a quick smile. “That’s why I grabbed the towel.”
They sat at the small table and chairs she had tucked into the sunroom off the kitchen. He divvied up the food on their plates and slathered his with syrup. She put sugar in his coffee and handed it to him, then drank hers black. He sipped it and found that she’d put just the right amount of sweetener in it. Well, she’d been paying attention during the time they’d been together, though he doubted she’d care to have him point that out.
“This is good, thanks.” He set his mug down and applied himself to his food.
“Yeah, it is. Thanks for cooking.” She grinned, but it faded quickly. She sat with her fork poised over her French toast, her coffee still clutched in the other hand, and a flash of guilt darted across her face. “We should hurry. We need to go in.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “We were up early. We have some time first. As you said, running ourselves into exhaustion makes for shitty investigation.”
“Hoisted by my own petard.” She saluted him with her coffee. “Maybe I’m getting senile in my old age. You can’t hold things I say against me.”
Her expression said beat that, but he was caught on the age reference. He knew she was a lot older than he was, but that didn’t meant she wouldn’t outlast him by a couple of centuries, too. “So, if you’re getting senile now, how many years do you have left before old age gets you?”
The look on her face went wary. “If I were to make it to the end of a Magickal lifetime ... maybe fifty or sixty years, give or take.”
“Same as me. Give or take.”
She shifted in her seat, her eyes narrowing as if she were trying to figure out what angle he was working. “Yeah, I guess so. Why?”
“Well, you were talking all crazy about not using what you say against you. As if that might actually happen or something.” He shook his head. “That swift slide into dementia ... it just breaks the heart.”
“Brat.” She huffed and sipped her coffee.
Chuckling, he went back to work on his food, and she did the same. They chatted about this and that. Work, clues for the case, his parents, Grim, Tess and Peyton, Tess and Luca. Just whatever came to mind. The normalcy of it was ... nice. Something he hadn’t let himself have with any woman since his wife, and that had only been on the good days. Toward the end, those had been few and far between.
“Can I ...” Selina hesitated for a moment. “What was her name?”
His wife. He knew who she was asking about, and knew she had questions. Familiar dread curdled in his belly at the thought of talking about it, but he forced that down. If he wanted to be with Selina, he had to be straight with her. As she’d said when they first began working together, she liked to know what she was dealing with. And whether he liked it or not, what had happened with his wife had defined how he dealt with relationships with women ever since. Keep it light, keep it easy, walk away before it turned serious and anyone got hurt. Never trust a woman with your soul, or she’ll crush it. He took a breath. “Heather. Her name was Heather.”
Selina remained silent, just watching him, but he could feel her waiting for him to tell her more. Or not. She wouldn’t push, he knew, but he suspected it was more because she understood that to push him to get more personal meant that he’d push her for the same.
“I was still in the marines when she died, and I think it’s safe to say she hated being a soldier’s wife.” There was bitterness to the smile that twisted his mouth.
“Being a soldier’s wife is no reason to end it all.” The elf’s fingers tightened on her coffee mug. “She could have just left you for some nine-to-five office stiff.”
“But she didn’t. She killed herself.” The words came out flat, harsh. There wasn’t a nice way to say it, so he usually didn’t. Suicide was ugly and harsh. “And she blamed me for it.”
God. He closed eyes that burned, swallowing hard. That truth was one he’d never, ever told anyone. Not even his mother knew. He’d kept it locked inside him, the guilt a thorn that festered and made it impossible to move on.
“Shit.” Selina’s slim fingers curled into his, holding his hand as she’d protested doing the night before.
He barked out a laugh. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“I mean, I’m sorry. I mean ... shit.” Her hand tightened, and when he met her eyes, he saw sympathy there that he’d never accepted from anyone else.
He shook his head, the self-loathing hitting him in a wave that threatened to choke him. “The damnable part is ... I should never have married her. My mother even told me it was a bad idea.”
Which meant he’d never been able to confess just how right his mom had been. He’d been too ... ashamed. Of himself. Of what had become of his marriage. Of having put Heather and himself in a situation he’d been warned would become a problem.
“My mother told me Heather wasn’t strong enough to be a military wife. She said it took grit to handle your husband leaving for months or years at a time and knowing he might come home in a body bag.” He gripped Selina’s hand as if it were a lifeline. “She’d lived through that and she hadn’t tried to stop me from joining up, so if anyone knew about that kind of forbearance, it was her, but I was in love and I didn’t listen. And in the end, she was right.”
Selina snorted a short laugh. “Like that helps.”
“Not really.” No, it just made him feel more responsible, as if he’d helped put the gun in his wife’s hand. And maybe he had. He didn’t know anymore. He’d obsessed over it for a long time before he’d forced himself to get on with his life. “I thought if my mom could handle it, then any woman could.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure if that’s sheer stupidity or just that my mom gave me a lot of faith in the strength of women.”
“Your mom is a pretty awesome woman, and I only talked to her for an hour.” Selina shrugged. “But people handle things differently. What can break one person won’t break another and vice versa. Did you know Heather wasn’t doing well before it happened?”
Such a simple question, with such a complicated answer. “The thing about Heather was that when she was up, there was no one happier, no one more fun to be around. But when she was down, there was nothing that could drag her out of it. I felt so damn helpless during those days, and they only got worse and lasted longer as time went on. I just didn’t know what to do for her, and she refused to get help. I tried to push her into therapy, but ...”
“You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.” Selina folded her legs up to her chest, more of that tough sympathy reflecting in her gaze.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.” Just that. No pity, no recriminations about whether or not he should have gotten married.
“Me too. It may not sound like it, but she was a really nice girl. Normal ... and we never told her about Darren and Mom being werewolves. I think somewhere deep down, I knew Heather wouldn’t handle it well. I met her sophomore year of college. I was in ROTC and she was a sorority girl.” He grinned, and it was bittersweet. “I loved her.”