Chapter Fifteen
ELI HAD SKIPPED, figuratively, down the dirt path between the clinic and his cabin. Call it what you will, but he had fallen under Amarie’s spell. Last night he’d dreamed of Amarie’s magic fingers wrapped around a part of him below the belt. He’d spent the workday harder than a Corso’s jawbone. Could he be addicted to Amarie after one kiss?
“What do you mean someone is living in my house?” Red clouded his vision. Amarie’s suggestions to his real estate listing had increased the online queries fivefold. Spotlighting the key features of the home with larger images while removing the pictures of the multiple peace gardens and the wasted square footage had boosted the viewings. But this…
“Mr. Calvary, please lower your voice, I can hear and I want to keep it that way.”
This being his third agent, but the first to actually coax a buyer to return, he promptly bottled his anger, but the pressure continued to build.
“Who’s in my house?”
“As I tried to explain. I went to show the house to an interested couple, and a woman answered the door.”
“What woman?” Eli swallowed. Bile constricted his throat because he knew the answer.
“Your ex-wife?”
Impossible. Illogical. Then he heard her voice. Blood thundered in his ears before hell froze in his veins. Irrefutable. Cara had returned to their home. No. Never that. She had invaded his house. He was considering the likelihood that he could be addicted to Amarie after one kiss. The mention of Cara yanked him from starstruck to thunderstruck.
“Give her the phone,” he snapped, biting off the curse clamoring in his head to break free.
He heard some rustling, then—
“Eli, honey.”
The one voice he never wished to hear again.
“Cara, I’m not your honey. What are you doing in my house?”
“Please don’t be upset. I have nowhere else to go,” she sniffled.
He imagined her soft doe eyes, red-rimmed from crying. Black mascara, because she’d never be seen without her makeup, would streak down her pale cheeks.
“That was never your home. Or mine.”
“Eli, why are you being so mean to me. I ran into a hiccup—”
“Keep my dog’s name out of your mouth.”
“Oh,” she sighed, “you still have our dog.”
“He was never our dog. He came after you left.”
“Okay,” she drawled. “I can see you’re still your same old grumpy self.”
“Cara, what is it that you want?”
“I need to stay in the house for a few months. Nine at the most, until I can get my life together.”
“Nope.” His response struck his own ears like a bullet, tearing through any sympathy he would feel for anyone else in Cara’s predicament. “It’s on the market. It will stay on the market until it’s sold.”
“Eli,” she whined. In the past, he would’ve softened like fresh apple butter on warm toast. Not anymore. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Not my problem. You stole my savings knowing my father bankrolled it, liquidated my retirement account. Spend that.”
“It’s gone,” she sobbed. “Seriously, how many times are you going throw that in my face? You were owed that money.”
Eli’s fury erupted. “Don’t ever say that again.”
“Fine, I’ll keep your family secret. But the truth of it, whether you want to admit it, is we were married. Which made me family. The judge sided with me, remember? As your wife I had every right to that money.”
“My father—” He swallowed. “It was a gift from father to son.” A gift he had foolishly squandered on an ugly house and an even uglier divorce.
“Not really… and it’s gone. Your father would’ve moved on by now,” she retorted.
Eli sobered.
“And so is our marriage. I’ll give you until the morning to get out of my house. If you’re there tomorrow, the police will escort you off my property.” He rarely lost control. And Cara… everything about her was reckless. Loving her had led him down the same destructive path. Fault lay with him for trusting her with information he’d never shared with his family. His father had taken the family’s history with the Pendletons, the money situation to his grave. Eli should’ve done the same.
“Eli,” she whispered, “where would you have me go?”
“Cara,” he sighed, “you are no longer my responsibility.”
“You didn’t feel that way a few months ago. You made a promise to always provide for me.”
“As your husband. As a man who loved you. I’m neither of those anymore.”
“B-but, Eli.”
“Be gone in the morning, Cara.”
He was done talking to his past. The memories of what could have been were too painful to confront after a grueling day in the clinic. “Put the realtor back on the line.”
“Hi, Mr. Calvary. What would you like to do about your, ah, ex-wife? The family is considering other properties.” The realtor’s tone was too chirper for the situation. Eli knew the woman probably felt uncomfortable having heard all his business, but it couldn’t be helped. Reality had kicked him in the teeth when Cara had packed up and left. He had no reason to spare her the bruising he still felt.
“You let that family know that the house is still on the market. Have the locks changed. And,” Eli paused, “whatever you do, do not give that woman a key.”
He wanted Cara locked out of everything that was important to him, including that awful house. She would never possess the power to hurt him again.
“Understood Mr. Calvary. Thank you,” she sighed. “Thank you so much.”
He hung up the phone, more upset than he’d been in months. A part of him said that he didn’t have to be mean to Cara, but he vibrated, his anger and disappointment a dog whistle on his eardrums. How dare she come back to him. How dare she ruin everything he had planned for their future. How dare she think his heart was still open and available to her.
Eli would be a fool to ever make himself that vulnerable. That’s when he remembered Amarie was on her way over to study with him for the upcoming licensure exam. As complementary as they were, he reminded himself not to get in too deep. Their attraction, though undeniable, required boundaries. He respected her and appreciated her business savvy. With Amarie he would never be in danger of having his heart broken. She was pretending, just like him and he would be wise to remember that in all their interactions… even when kissing was involved. Especially if kissing happened at the wedding.