He’d always had a tendency toward overprotecting me, and there were times that trait had been beneficial, but in everyday life, his over-attentiveness felt more like smothering. I could sympathize with how losing his job might prick his self-esteem and I’d been trying to give him room to adjust.
It had been four months. He had gainful employment and marketable skills. I wanted a partner in marriage, not an alpha male who needed to be bigger, better, stronger than me. He’d undergone a drastic personality shift after he’d been laid off.
“You’ve got that look in your eyes. What’s up?” he asked.
I shook myself out of my revelation, a sense of sadness settling on me. “Just thinking.”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” he teased.
A joke, and yet in my current state of mind, it wasn’t funny.
“What has you thinking so hard?”
I held my breath. Kyle needed to get out from under this spell before I even considered telling him what I’d been thinking. “Is there an address?”
“No. I sent her a message,” he replied.
“Then I guess we wait and see. What did you say?”
His eyes took on a stormy look. “I do know what I’m doing.”
I was done with his attitude. “That wasn’t the question.”
“I pretended I was a customer looking for one of her dreamcatchers.”
Normally, I might have congratulated him on his smart thinking, but until he stopped either feeling sorry for himself or demonstrating his superiority over me, I was inclined to let the magic play out.
Except I was the one responsible for transferring the spell, and the consequences would impact the rest of his life and livelihood. I couldn’t do that to him, no matter how unpleasant he’d been lately.
Time to change the subject.
“You want dinner?” I asked.
“Something on your mind?” he challenged.
To hell with the eggshells. “Yeah. The longer this goes on, the more I’m wondering how you see me. See us.”
“The longer what goes on?”
“The whole ‘I can’t marry you until I can take care of you’ thing.”
He stopped. Met my gaze. “I won’t have you taking care of me.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not how things work.”
After all we’d been through, I’d thought we’d made inroads into an equal partnership. “Why don’t you explain to me how things work?” I tried to keep my tone even, but I’m sure he heard my skepticism coming through.
“We’ve been over this,” he said.
Was he dismissing me again? I drew a deep breath, trying to manage my words. “Yes, we have, and I’ve tried to be sympathetic to your feelings, to understand how losing your job at the department has affected you. This relationship is supposed to be based on mutual love and respect and trust. Not who takes care of whom.”
“Call me old fashioned,” he said. “I can’t give you the kind of life you deserve right now. If this is about setting a wedding date again, I thought you understood what I wanted.”
My temper threatened. “You pushed me to make a commitment to you, and then you backed out. Where’s your commitment to me?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do. You want to be the one in control. The breadwinner. The protector.”
“Is that so wrong?”
“Yes.” The word surprised me as much as it did him. “I want the man I marry to be my partner, not my guardian, even when life throws challenges at us.” I glanced around the house. “I’m going to be okay. For all the inconvenience, the world has granted me a gift that will sustain me. I may not get rich, but the earth provides all I need. You, you’re an able-bodied man. You have talents to offer that will keep you employed, as well.”
“All I’ve ever wanted was to be a police officer,” he said.
“I get that.”
His expression darkened. “I don’t think you do. I had a job, and now I don’t.”
“You’ll find another one, but you shouldn’t have to put your life on hold while you wait.”
“You mean your life,” he said. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Respect. The knowledge our relationship isn’t going to change with an unfavorable wind.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
He knew what I meant, and he knew I wasn’t letting him off the hook. All day he’d belittled my talents, discounting them. As hard as it was for me to share that part of myself with him for fear he’d reject me, he’d made it clear he’d been humoring me. He didn’t believe in my extra talents. I needn’t have wasted my time. We stared at each other for a long, silent moment.
“Where does that leave us?” he asked.
“You tell me. You’re the one who postponed the wedding.”
“I think I’ve made myself clear on my position.”
I nodded. “Yes, you have. I believe you’ve also made yourself clear that you’ve decided not to sell your house. Seems pretty straightforward to me. Isn’t that why you wanted to talk?”
Kyle huffed and turned away. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Are you saying you don’t want to marry me?” he asked.
“I think you’ve made that decision for me, haven’t you?”
He paused with an intake of breath. “So that’s it?”
No denial, no attempt to correct me. I corralled the jolt of emotion. “We’re going to have to work together to find a solution to this problem with Daria, which means you’re going to have to trust me a little longer. Can you do that?”
“Who’s the police officer here?”
I cocked an eyebrow. Technically, neither one of us was.
Kyle studied me a moment longer. “I’ll get my own dinner at home.” With that, he walked out the door.
Chapter 9
Cassandra was dressed more casually when I arrived at the boutique Monday morning, wearing distressed jeans and a modified, off-the-shoulder t-shirt. She
