Three weeks later
Christine was shopping for tiles for their bathroom. It needed redecorating, but her heart really was not in it.
Harold had been so distant in the past few weeks. She had thought they were getting closer. She had started to care for him, so the fact that he had all but turned his thermostat down to Mr. Freeze’s summer wardrobe hurt her no end. No, that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t been rude or mean in any way. It was just that the warmth that had been growing seemed to be extinguished, and he was back to the polite but distant man she first met.
Truthfully, she’d barely seen him over the last few weeks. She desperately wanted to spend more time with him, but when she did, she kind of wished he wasn’t there at all. Being with her distant husband was lonelier than not being with him at all.
She wondered if it was something she had done – something her parents had done. She tried to ask Harold if anything was the matter, but if it were, he wouldn’t confide in her.
She tried to timidly broach the subject with her dad – whether he had said or done anything to push the two of them apart. But any attempts to bring that subject up just ended with a rant about the evils of her new pack and husband.
“Would you like any help, Mrs. Buchanan?” offered a sales clerk
“No, thank you,” she murmured.
Christine had bought quite a lot of decorating supplies from that store over the past few weeks – they knew her on sight. She picked up two green tiles and considered the different shades.
Harold would probably say they were the same. She wished he was helping her with this. Course, he would be no help – he’d tell her to get what she wanted and not have any opinion at all, but it would still be nice to hear it.
They had seen so little of one another that she hadn’t brought up the house makeover at all. He probably hadn’t even noticed the progress she was making.
A giggle roused her from her reverie as she spied a young woman, about her age, shopping for tiles too. The difference being that the other woman’s husband was with her, he was kissing her, cuddling her and they both looked incredibly happy.
The two of them made it look so easy. She doubted the female lay awake at night fretting over whether her husband even liked her.
Christine tried not to watch them as they flirted and kissed, but she couldn’t help herself. It was like looking at a travel magazine – seeing all the wonderful places she could dream about but never visit.
The couple was virtually making out. She and Harold hadn’t been together physically for almost a week. Her former efforts to change her schedule so that they could find the time to be together were kaput thanks to his erratic schedule. He didn’t seem overly concerned by the fact that they were barely having sex, but she was starting to get frustrated.
“Remembering the good times, hobbit?”
Christine yelped and dropped the two tiles. They smashed, making the canoodling couple jump. She spun to find a slightly disheveled Roark grinning at her.
“Roark!”
The sales clerk rushed over to pick up the fragments of tiles.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Christine bending to help. “I’ll pay for the damage of course.”
“That’s quite all right, Mrs. Buchanan,” she rushed to reassure her.
Christine smiled weakly until the sales clerk left.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“Mrs. Buchanan,” he sneered.
“Well, that is my name now,” she said defensively. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“Roark…”
“Christy, I love you.”
“Roark, don’t…”
He grasped her hand, growling as he felt the ring. “You should be mine, are you honestly telling me you don’t love me?”
Christine bit her lip. Truthfully, she hadn’t thought of him at all in the last few weeks – too preoccupied with her husband. But then slowly, all her thoughts of him had been replaced by Harold. She really didn’t love Roark anymore.
“Stop this,” she hissed, but he only got louder. People were starting to stare.
His face turned thunderous. “No, Christy, you should be with me. Not that asshole you married!”
She tried to pull her hand away from his. “Let go of me!”
“Is everything okay, Mrs. Buchanan?” asked the nervous sales clerk.
“We were just leaving,” growled Roark, trying to drag her to the exit.
Christine dug in her heels. “No, you were, I’m staying here.”
“Christy!”
“Let go of me!” she yelled.
Roark roared and raised his fist. She thought for a moment he was going to hit her, as did the young sales clerk who screamed for security and started throwing tile samples at Roark.
He snarled at the girl, but on seeing two burly bear shifter security guards heading his way, he dropped Christine’s hand and bolted for the exit.
The sales clerk rushed to prop her up as Christine turned to jelly. Perhaps she was being soppy, but she wished Harold was with her.
*
Harold stormed into the office. “Christine!”
“Harold?”
Christine frowned and rose to her feet shakily. In two steps he wrapped his wife in his arms. His heart thudded in his chest. Vaguely he heard a cough, and he discerned the store manager carefully leaving to give them some privacy.
The manager, Sylvia was an old friend of his mother’s - well, his mother had virtually kept the department store in business for two decades by dint of her spending habits. Sylvia called him to say his wife had been involved in an altercation and was still a little shaky. Harold got there as fast as he could. It was a miracle no cop pulled him over. But the moment he heard his wife was in trouble, he had to be with her.
He hadn’t been treating her very well in the last few weeks. He knew it, and yet he did it anyway. His father heaped as much work on him as possible, and all he wanted to do was be with Christine. When he was with her, he tried to be as distant as possible – to make it easier to be apart. But pushing her away hurt her – he could see it on her face. She didn’t understand what he was doing, and it hurt her.
“Wha ya doon har?”
The muffled voice came from his chest, and he realized he was holding Christine maybe a shade too tightly.
He loosened his grip, and she repeated herself, “What are you doing here?”
“Sylvia called me,” he told her briskly.
“I told her I was fine,” she grumbled. “I just needed a moment to compose myself.”
“What happened?” he demanded.
Haltingly, she told him.
Harold watched her carefully. “Did you know he was in town?”
Did she invite him? Did she want him there? Did she still love him? He knew of her attachment to the male before their marriage, but he was not aware of anything since then. He had thought Roark was out of her life completely.
“Not until he decided to jump out at me in the tile section.”
“What did he want?”
“He said he wanted me.”
Harold stared at her, and she struggled out of his arms.
“I know, ridiculous right?” she murmured, her cheeks blazing red. “I’m going home.”
Did he find it incredible that a man would travel across the country to claim Christine? No, not at all. He would. He’d travel to the moon to claim Christine. But he doubted this unworthy male came all this way for her – he wanted something else.
“You’re still upset.”
Christine pursed her lips unhappily. “I’ll be fine.”
“I will drive you, and I will have a pack mate collect your car,” he told her in a tone that wasn’t open to argument.
“Fine,” she sighed.
Harold wanted to be the kind of person who could say something reassuring, but still caught between fear of something happening to Christine and anger at Roark – he was useless.