“Hello, Doreen.”
And, sure enough, it was her ex-husband.
Chapter 8
Monday Morning …
Doreen stared long and hard at her ex, her heart sinking. She barely even recognized him. He still wore the same high-end luxury suits he always wore. But he looked older, thinner on top, and maybe even a little thicker at the waistline. She frowned, as she studied the man she had spent so many years with. “Mathew?”
He gave her that lopsided grin that had endeared her to him in the first place, but she was long past immune to it now. “What are you doing here?” she asked quietly. She didn’t ask him in, as she leaned against the side of the house, trying to ignore the fact that Mugs was almost hysterical with joy at seeing him. But then that was a dog for you. They were loyal to a fault. Mathew looked down at the dog, and she watched the corner of his lip curl up.
“He looks disgusting,” Mathew stated. “When did you last have him in for a shampoo and a nail trim? He looks so disheveled.”
“Well, he looks natural,” she muttered. She didn’t want to take offense, but those visits to the grooming parlor cost hundreds of dollars. And that was food for weeks right now.
He shook his head, looked around at the house from the side yard, and said, “So this is where you landed, huh?” He shook his head again. “Unbelievable.”
“Well, when you don’t get any settlement after fourteen years of marriage,” she said, stiffening her back ever-so-slightly, “you learn to find a new perspective on your life.”
He gave a laugh. “That was my business. I built it,” he said. “Nothing for you there.”
“Why are you here?” she reiterated. She knew that Nick wouldn’t want her talking to him at all. He pushed his hands into his suit pockets. Another mannerism that he used to do all the time, and then—wait for it. And there it was—that little rock back on his heels, as if he were somebody important, waiting for the rest of the world to figure it out.
“Is it wrong that I wanted to stop in and see you?”
“Yes,” she said bluntly. “We haven’t had anything to do with each other since I left the house.”
“Well, you didn’t leave willingly,” he reminded her.
“No, I was kicking and screaming, as I recall,” she said, not liking the reminder. “It was my home.”
“No, it is my house,” he said, with that shark smile. And then he waved a hand. “But that’s all water under the bridge.”
“And why is that?” she asked, her fingers tapping her arms, wishing she had a way to get out of this; yet she was curious and wanted to know what he was doing here. Why here of all places, and what did it have to do with her? And did he have anything to do with Robin’s death?
“I was in town,” he said. “I just thought I’d stop and see how you were doing. Is Nan here?”
“No,” she said. “She’s at Rosemoor.”
“Ah, so she’s in the home,” he nodded, with satisfaction. “Finally. That’s where she belongs.”
Doreen gasped at that.
He shook his head. “You know she was getting loony.”
“She is my grandmother,” she said stiffly. “Nan is very well loved.”
“That’s got nothing to do with it,” he said. “She was off her rocker and needed more care.”
“Well, she’s fine where she is right now.”
He looked out toward Mugs, who had wandered away a bit and appeared to see Goliath for the first time. His eyes widened. “Is that a cat or a bobcat?”
“It’s Goliath,” she said. “He’s a Maine coon.”
“Another one of Nan’s lost strays?”
She winced at that because, if one of Nan’s lost strays were around, it was Doreen. “Definitely one of Nan’s pets,” she corrected. “You haven’t told me why you’re here.”
She looked around at the neighborhood to see several people surreptitiously looking at them, while she talked to him. She peered around the side of her house to look at the rental car. “Green Jaguar, huh?”
“Not much for rental cars here,” he said, with a sniff. “This one’s a private car I had to rent.”
“Oh, do people do that?” she asked in amazement. “It seems a little off.”
“Well, when people need money,” he said, with a negligent shrug of his shoulders, “they’ll do almost anything. Including renting out their vehicle.”
“Interesting,” she said, not quite knowing what else to say to him because he had yet to clarify why he was here. So she just stood and waited, trying to use Mack’s patience strategy to get Mathew to blurt out something first.
He studied her for a long time. “You look different without all that makeup.”
“Well, I look like me,” she said, with a bright smile.
He nodded, and there was a seriousness to his tone, as he said, “I like it. It’s very fresh looking.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You used to tell me how I looked tired and old without it.”
“And you did,” he said, with another sharp nod. “So, whatever you’re doing here has changed you.”
“At that, I can agree,” she said, with a bright laugh. “My life is very different, and I’m quite happy with it.”
He looked at Nan’s house, looked at the neighborhood, and shuddered.
“Nope, it’s definitely not for everyone,” she said, with a nod, “but I’ve made a place for myself.”
“But you could also unmake it,” he said. “It’s obviously not up to your standards.”
“It takes money to live up to the standards I used to live within, when we shared our home,” she said. “But you weren’t into sharing anything.”
“Of course not,” he said. “I earned the money. It’s mine.”
“Well, you didn’t earn it all on your own,” she said, glaring at him. She remembered what Mack and Nick had said. They were right. She had spent a lot of time helping him build that business. “Particularly when we first got married,” she said. “You didn’t have any big fancy businesses then.”
“Exactly, but I spent the marriage building them. You didn’t.”
“You mean, the marriage where I got to be this little arm candy and look pretty every day, all day, and talk to your business associates and dig out little bits of information from their wives?” she said, with a sniff. “It was all part of the business.”
“But it’s not like you were making any money. It’s not like you were doing any of the business work,” he pointed out. And then he held up a hand. “And I can see that you’ve probably had a tough time of it. I mean, look at where you’re living,” he said. “And I’d be more than happy to talk about a settlement.”
At that, she could feel a bolt of awareness go up and down her spine. “What settlement?”
“Well, I can see that the last few months have been rough on you,” he admitted. “And I should have had more compassion for where you’d have ended up.”