Chapter Seven – Cath

“That was wonderful,” Catherine told Julius as she placed her knife and fork down on her plate. “You have a good chef.”

“I do. I try to tempt the best of the best to my hotel. Of course, it helps that he is a mountain lion shifter and loves the outdoors. The surrounding mountains were the deal-clincher.” Julius sipped his coffee. She watched him, her eyes drawn to the fullness of his lips, and the mesmerizing flecks of amber in his eyes and the way they crinkled up when he smiled.

“The hotel setting is unbelievable. You must get a lot of repeat business.” Cath poured herself a cup of coffee, focusing on the hot liquid rather than her hot host. She stifled a giggle. Since her great outpouring of emotion, she’d felt lighter, younger even, as if when she shed that emotion, she also shed a thousand years of sadness.

“We do. Especially of the shifter variety. Word-of-mouth advertising has done us very well. Once a shifter samples the freedom of a vacation here, with good food and comfortable beds, they come back, year after year. Sometimes a couple of times a year for weekend breaks, to recharge their batteries.”

“Can we explore more of the hotel?” Cath asked, finishing her coffee. Her phone beeped in her purse. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” Julius had been doing his own fair share of watching. A warm sensation threaded its way through her veins, he made her feel attractive. As a woman, not a wife or a mother, just an attractive woman.

“It’s from Liam.” She read the text and replied, telling him she was having fun. “All those times I checked up on him are coming back to haunt me.”

Julius chuckled. “It’s good that he cares.” After wiping his mouth with a napkin, Julius stood up and came around to offer her his hand. He was an old-fashioned gentleman in so many ways. Or perhaps he simply liked the feel of skin on skin. Cath sure couldn’t mistake the frisson of electricity that passed between them each time they touched.

“So where to now?” Cath asked as they left Julius’s apartment. He’d been true to his word, and despite them visiting his private apartment, with his bedroom adjoining, he hadn’t made a move on her.

More’s the pity, her naughty side said in a seductive voice, which she immediately silenced.

“I said I’d show you some of the older parts of the building.” He climbed a staircase that wound around in a spiral, the wooden handrail worn smooth with use.

“I thought your apartment was the highest room in the hotel.” Cath followed behind Julius, past small windows that looked out in different directions, giving glimpses of the area surrounding the hotel.

“This turret is the oldest and highest part of the building. You can’t see it from the front of the hotel. And the staircase is too narrow for guests. This is where the history of the house is contained. Odd bits of furniture, letters, and photographs.”

“Didn’t Eloise take everything with her?” Cath asked. “When she left?”

“No, the house she moved into was too small to take it all. And then when she moved into the retirement home, she asked me to store some other keepsakes she couldn’t bear to part with.” They arrived at the top of the staircase and he took out a key and opened the door.

“And you did?” Cath asked, standing on the threshold and peering inside. She’d expected a murky room, filled with cobwebs and a layer of dust. But everything in the room had been recently cleaned.

“I did.” Julius stepped into the room, and she followed.

“This is incredible.” Cath looked up at the domed ceiling, with its wooden beams and small gargoyles looking down from the carved ends. “Gothic.”

“Yes, the family swayed towards romance and the macabre, if you ask me. The effects of living with their so-called curse. There’s even a Gothic-style retreat in the gardens.” Julius moved to one of four windows, one set in each wall, which between them gave a wonderful view of the whole of the hotel grounds and beyond.

“I can see why they loved the house so much.” Cath stood on tiptoes, going from window to window until she had seen it all, then she turned back to the items in the room. There was an old dresser, adorned with photographs. “Are these the family?”

“Yes. I kept the dresser up here because there is no way to get it down without taking it apart. It must have been a feat of ingenuity to get it up here.” He lifted a more recent photograph and passed it to Cath. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Cath ran her finger along the glass covering the photo of a young woman, standing next to a man whose arm was draped across her shoulders. They were laughing, full of life, full of happiness. “What happened to him?”

“He went to war and never came home. Missing in action. Eloise lived here all her life, convinced he would come back to her. He never did. Another mark of the family curse.”

Tears pricked Cath’s eyes. She passed the picture back to Julius, who placed it on the dresser, next to frames filled with happiness and family. Children in bonnets, in large old-fashioned strollers. Boys climbing trees, girls on ponies.

Her hand reached for his, and she pulled him to face her. With her free hand, she stroked his cheek, her thumb brushing his lips. Julius didn’t breathe; he stood still as if carved from the same wood as the ceiling beams. “Loneliness is a terrible thing.” She pressed her hands to his chest, her fingers gripping the lapels of his immaculate suit. Julius bent his head, his eyes questioning hers.

When their lips met, he breathed once more, a gasp filled with longing finally realized. Julius wrapped his arm around her waist and held her close, the warmth of his body seeping through their clothes to heat her already feverish skin. She wanted him. It was a lightning-fast thought that struck her, sending her senses reeling.

Cath broke their kiss, taking a step backward, her fingers pressed to her lips as if they were scorched. “That’s why you keep her things. Isn’t it?”

He nodded. “We are kindred spirits, caught up in loss.”

Cath rested her head on his chest; she loved the steady thump of his heartbeat. “Not anymore. I think you have been found, Julius. Or I have been found.”

His hand cradled the nape of her neck, his fingers massaging her flesh. They stood together, in a room filled with memories, and Cath decided it might be time to make some new ones of her own. To step outside of who she thought she was. No longer an abandoned wife, or single mother.

“So, anchovies.” She broke the connection, the closeness of Julius overpowering. Cath needed space to think and breathe.

“Anchovies,” Julius repeated as he walked to the door. She followed, with one last look at the turret room and its contents. He’d brought her here to show her that photograph, to try to explain how he’d felt all these years, as if a part of him were missing. What he didn’t realize was how much more he’d shown her.

He kept these objects for a woman he barely knew, because he understood what they meant to her. His depths of compassion were immense. If Cath cast aside all her reasoning as to why they shouldn’t be together, she was left with no choice but to allow him in.

“I’m looking forward to our picnic.” They reached the bottom of the spiral staircase.

“Me too. I’m afraid to let you go.” He chuckled. “I don’t want to. I’m afraid you’ll disappear again.”

She kissed his lips. “I’m not going anywhere.” Cath wasn’t implying she planned to stay the night. “Except home. I promised Liam I’d help him with his wedding vows.”

“I’ll take you home now. I don’t want to keep you out late and get you in trouble.” Julius’s eyes flashed with humor.

Cath laughed with him as they walked toward the elevator. “I want to laugh, more than anything, Julius. If we are supposed to be together, then let’s live with joy in our hearts.”

“I concur.” Julius pressed the button and they waited for the elevator to arrive, their fingers entwined.

“Are we going to give your staff more to talk about?” She looked down at their joined hands.

“Why not?” Julius stepped into the elevator, and she followed. They stood side by side as the doors closed. “Although I doubt anything would shock them. Working in a hotel is quite educational.”

“Educational?” Cath asked.

“The things people do, to themselves, to others. You name it, we’ve seen it.” He leaned down and whispered, as the doors opened into the hotel lobby, “Should I kiss you?”

“No!” She tempered her voice. “I don’t think I’m ready to be the center of that much gossip.”

“Pity.” Julius winked as he led her out of the elevator.

“You are a rogue,” Cath chided.

“Oh, I’d like to be,” Julius responded as he opened the door and they exited the hotel. “But I am a gentleman.”

“You are,” she agreed.

The journey back to Bear Creek was filled with small talk. They had both shared enough of themselves for one day. Cath needed time to digest all that had happened and to then decide if this was what she truly wanted. She wasn’t too old to get swept along with the romance of the situation. However, she had no wish to make a huge mistake again. She couldn’t risk her heart.

“I’ll pick you up at eleven tomorrow,” Julius said as he walked her to the door of the store. Cath had seen activity inside the store, as Leona and Liam hid out of the way, but she was certain they were spying on the older couple outside the window. This really was a role reversal. Cath could remember watching out of the window when Liam stood on the doorstep with a girl. Of course, he had been thirteen, and it was his first kiss.

“Thank you, Julius, for everything. I’ve had a wonderful day.” She smiled up at him, and his eyes crinkled around the edges as he lowered his head. “I’m going to kiss you.”

“I know.”

“Your son is watching.” His eyes crinkled a little more.

“Then you’d better make it a good kiss.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and drew his head in. When their lips met, she didn’t care who was watching. Julius made her insides turn to liquid fire. It was reassuring to know certain parts of her body still worked. Despite their lack of use.

She coughed as that thought hit her. Sex. This would lead to sex. She was an adult, what was wrong with that? But it had been so long.

“Goodbye, my Catherine,” Julius said seductively.

“Goodbye, Julius.” Cath stood and watched him walk away. She was his Catherine. There was no point trying to deny it.

“So?” Liam’s question snapped her out of her daydream as she entered the store, where he and Leona were hiding behind a rail of waterproof coats.

“So, what?” Cath asked, heading for the stairs to his apartment above the store.

“So, what happened?” He beat her to it, and blocked her path.

“We had lunch.” She couldn’t help but smile at his expression. “Even old people need to eat.”

“You aren’t old,” Liam retorted. “And I just want to know that everything is all right.”

“Everything is fine. Just fine.” Cath kissed his cheek. “Thanks for caring, Liam.”

“You know I want you to be happy, right?” he asked. Leona was busy straightening a rail of hiking pants.

“I know. And I am. But I need to take it slow. I need to know this is the right thing for me.”

“I understand that.” Liam caught hold of her hand. “Is he a shifter?”

“Yes.” Cath searched Liam’s face. “He says I’m his mate.”

Liam nodded slowly, not meeting her gaze. “You and my father weren’t true mates?”

Cath sighed. “I believed we were. At least he told me we were when we met.”

“He lied?” Liam locked eyes with her.

She nodded her head and then hugged her son. “Yes. But I don’t regret one moment. I know things have been rocky with your brother and everything, but I don’t regret one moment of it all. I’d do it all over again if it means I have two wonderful sons.”

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, Liam.” She held her son for the longest time. Whatever the future might bring, she would never wish away the years she spent being a mom.