Starlight Web (Moonshadow Bay #1) - Yasmine Galenorn Page 0,70

my head. “I’m going on forty-one next month. I’m not a spring chicken.”

“I’m a shifter—we’re longer-lived, remember? I’m 120. I was engaged to Brindle back in the late 1960s. Since then, I’ve only dated. And yes, I’ve dated a lot and had several serious relationships, but I never again proposed. While I’ve been in love several times…well…I’ve never found someone who made me fall so hard that I couldn’t think of being without them. And usually, they moved on before I did.”

I nodded, wondering if he was averse to the thought of marriage. Immediately, I felt conflicted. I was averse to the thought of marrying again. I’d told Ari that. But now I wondered how much of that was because of Ellison, and how much of that was just because of the way I felt about marriage in general. My thoughts were spinning as I bit into my slice of pizza.

“Next question?” he asked, his eyes still gleaming.

I swallowed the pepperoni and cheese, giving myself time to think. “When was the last time you were seriously involved with anybody?”

He shrugged. “Two years ago. We broke up near the holidays, actually, two years back. Or rather, she broke up with me, and before you ask why, it’s because I wouldn’t ask her to marry me. I cared about her a lot, but I learned my lesson. We had been going out for three years, and I wanted to fall in love with her, but it just wasn’t happening. I never told her I loved her—and no woman wants to hear ‘I care about you’ after three years. So when she gave me an ultimatum—either we get engaged or she walked—I let her go. I didn’t blame her. I’ve barely dated the past two years. I just decided to put my head down and focus on work.”

I nodded. That made sense, and at least he hadn’t strung her along. I finished the slice and reached for another. “Do you have a specific type you go for?”

He laughed. “Yeah. I do. I go for the type of woman who makes me laugh, who makes me feel at ease, and who’s smart as a whip.”

I snorted. “Okay, smart ass. Actually, I can’t picture you with a bimbo. I meant…”

“Physically? I usually find myself attracted to tall women, though I’ve dated women of all heights. I like my women with some meat on their bones. I like…curves,” he added, grinning impishly. “Do you need me to be more specific?” he asked, his gaze flickering down to my chest.

“Apparently not.” I leaned back in my chair, slowly eating my way through two more pieces of pizza as we sat there in silence. Finally, I asked, “What about you? Any questions?”

“Why did you marry Ellison?”

I shrugged. “I was in love. He asked me. It was…what you did when you were in love. And…” I smiled, “there was the kitten.”

“Kitten?”

“Ellison and I both went to Western Washington University. We were walking along the path and all of a sudden, we heard a mewing. I looked up in a nearby tree, and there was a kitten stuck there, on a branch too high to reach. The poor baby was cold and hungry—I have a special connection with cats, they’re my familiar animal. Anyway, I couldn’t reach it. Nobody else seemed to give a fuck, and Ellison saw how upset I was. He climbed up in the tree, snagging his new pants, to catch the kitten. I tried but even back then, I wasn’t all that athletic.”

Killian smiled, reaching out to take my hand. “What happened to the kitten?”

“I wanted to keep it, but Ellison told me he was allergic. We found a home for it. I didn’t find out till some years later, after we were married, that he had lied. He wasn’t allergic to cats—he just didn’t like them. He only rescued the kitten to win points with me. But regardless of that fact, he saved the kitten’s life. I guess that counts for something. Anyway, it made up my mind. He had already proposed and I was thinking it over.”

“When did you get married?”

“The day after we both graduated. We got married in Bellingham, where his parents live, and then moved to Seattle. We were so full of dreams. I was already daydreaming about starting an arts journal. We scraped and scrimped the first few years, but we were happy back then. Except for me wanting a cat and Ellison refusing—by then I knew he wasn’t really