Love Me Tender by Susan Fox Page B

“I’m so sorry. That’s not fair. Wasn’t there any way?”
    â€œIf we wanted to lie. Pretend we were just roommates and friends. Live a life of deceit.”
    Cassidy had learned how principled Ms. H was, so she knew that would have been impossible. “I can’t believe how ignorant and prejudiced people were. I wish you’d been born in a different time.” Today, she and Irene could get married and have children of their own.
    â€œWishes like that are a waste of time,” she said briskly.
    â€œTrue. Did you keep in touch with Irene?”
    She shook her head. “It was too painful for both of us. When we graduated from the University of British Columbia, I got a job here and she went to teach in Nanaimo. We never contacted each other again.”
    â€œThings are different now. Did you ever think of trying to track her down?”
    Her brows rose in a schoolmarmish look. “I never took you for a romantic, Cassidy.”
    â€œA romantic? Give me a break. I know the statistics about marriages breaking up. My parents live those statistics. I just thought, if you’ve never forgotten Irene, never fallen for anyone else, then who knows, maybe it’s the same for her.”
    â€œWould you like to calculate the odds of that?”
    â€œYou know perfectly well they’re incalculable.” And yet there was a spark of interest in those blue eyes. So Cassidy pushed a little. There was nothing Ms. H liked more than a challenge. “You probably couldn’t even find her. She could have moved a dozen times, she might have married and changed her name, anything’s possible.”
    â€œShe might be dead,” she said softly.
    â€œIf so, wouldn’t you like to know where she’s buried or her ashes are scattered?”
    Her landlady rose, took her cup and saucer to the counter, and began to rinse dishes and load the dishwasher.
    Cassidy got up to help.
    Ms. H glanced at her. “Do you know what I like about you?”
    â€œNot a clue,” she said cheerfully.
    â€œYou were never my student.”
    Cassidy processed that, then grinned. “They’re too intimidated by you to act like adults around you.”
    â€œPrecisely.” She shot Cassidy a sideways glance. “However, they are better schooled in logical analysis.”
    â€œOuch. How much logical analysis can you teach a fourth grader? And what’s so wrong with mine?”
    â€œThe fact that your parents epitomize the statistics on divorce does not mean that you’re doomed to follow their example.”
    â€œYou can bet I won’t, because I never intend to get married in the first place.”
    â€œThen you’ll turn out like me. Eighty-one, living alone, with only a handful of friends in my life to share an occasional meal.”
    A sense of bleakness, loneliness, stole Cassidy’s breath for a moment. She forced it away and said brightly, “Eighty-one? I’m not thinking about being eighty-one, or fifty, or even thirty-five. One day at a time, that’s my way.”

Chapter Nine
    Sunday morning, Dave finally got to sleep around five o’clock and woke a few hours later to find Merlin beside the bed, staring at him with a “take me out” plea in his eyes.
    Dave groaned and threw on gym shorts and a tee, then took the dog downstairs for a run around the block. Often, on mornings when Robin wasn’t there, he and Merlin would go several miles, but today he felt drained, physically and emotionally. It was just as well that his daughter was at Jessie and Evan’s, yet he missed her and was glad she’d be back with him tonight.
    As his shoes slapped the pavement and the poodle kept pace beside him, he wondered whether he was a good dad. Cassidy had suggested that he’d put his own needs ahead of his daughter’s.
    He could ask Jessie. Confess to even more failings as a father. She thought he was overprotective and they