thinking about when I was growing up, and that I’d always wanted a sister or a brother to play with, but it never happened.”
Duke nodded. “I get that. I have a younger brother, but he was enough younger than me that we didn’t have all that much in common until we both grew up. I was his babysitter, and the instructor of all big-brother duties when we were young.”
Cathy smiled. “That was Daddy for me. Growing up in Alaska was a whole other way of life.”
Duke’s eyes widened. “That was your childhood?”
She nodded. “I was homeschooled at first, so my whole world was Mother and Daddy, and his sled dogs. I learned a lot of things early on, not the least of which was how to shoot a gun. It was the difference between life and death there. We were always hunting for food, or protecting ourselves from becoming food for some furry four-foot.”
“I am in awe,” Duke said. “No wonder backpacking across the country did not faze you.”
She shrugged, thinking of the elaborate lifestyle she’d abandoned so willingly.
“It all came back to me when I needed it to,” she said, and then paused. “I need to tell you something that only Dan Amos knows. I had to tell him so he would rent me the house without running a credit check.”
Duke’s stomach suddenly knotted. He’d guessed from the start she had secrets.
“I’m listening.”
“I was twelve when Daddy died, and Mother and I left Alaska. She moved us to Las Vegas. She moved us to a desert, with no forests or rivers, and the shock of desert life was hard on me, but it saved her. I look back now and know she had to leave, because she couldn’t be in Alaska without him. Everything there was a reminder of him. So I began public school, which was a whole other thing I had to conquer after being homeschooled, and she went to work as a hostess in a casino. I finished growing up there.”
“That must have felt like another world,” he said.
She nodded. “In so many ways. But when I got old enough, I went to work in the same casino, and that’s where I met the man I married.”
“Was he an employee there, or a customer?” Duke asked.
Cathy hesitated, but if they had any kind of chance of making this friendship into a relationship, she wasn’t keeping secrets to make it happen.
“No. He owned it…and had interests in two others. His family goes four generations back into the history of Nevada. From silver mines to the gambling world of Las Vegas. I lived in a mansion. I had servants. And we traveled the world…when he wanted to. At first, I was seduced by the money and the lifestyle, and it took Mother away from hustling drinks for gamblers and into her own house on the estate, but it didn’t take long for the shine to wear off. He was often verbally abusive when something displeased him, so I didn’t displease him.”
She didn’t know there were tears in her eyes until Duke reached across the table and took her hand. She took a breath and kept talking.
“I lived that life for many years…too many. And then Mother died. And I no longer had to pretend his anger was okay. And I no longer had to pretend I didn’t know about all his other women. It took a couple of years for me to get the courage, but I finally filed for divorce, and when I told him, he went nuts. He wasn’t a man who lost at anything. He didn’t want me anymore. He didn’t love me. But I belonged to him, and if anyone was going to make life-changing decisions, it would be him.”
“Did he hurt you?” Duke asked.
“He tried. I locked myself in the bathroom and called the police. They escorted me and the bag I already had packed out of the house, and I got my own apartment. He fought the divorce every step of the way because he didn’t want to give me alimony. He kept saying I had abandoned him. But I knew stuff about his lifestyle he didn’t want made public, and Nevada divorce laws were in my favor. We hadn’t signed a prenuptial agreement, and the judge ruled a huge settlement in my favor. It was a pittance compared to what he has, but it was millions—literally millions—way more than I would have ever expected.
“And then the day it was final, he