Wild in the Moonlight by Jennifer Greene Page A

that I didn’t want to be an active dad. I’ve always wanted that, always tried to be. I just traveled so much. Over the years, I always talked to them twice a week. We spend time together every holiday and school break. And I usually hang there at least a month every year to just be around them, part of their routine. Only lately…”
    â€œLately what?”
    â€œWell, lately, they’re fighting all the time with their mom. Most of it seems to be pretty standard teenage girl, mother stuff. Rules. Roles. But sometimes she’s had it, and then I think…”
    â€œYou think what?”
    â€œThat if I lived in a more settled way, I could have them with me for a while. Most parents don’t seem to like the teenage years, but for some strange reason, it doesn’t bother me that they’re being difficult and impossible. If anything, I feel like now I could be a better parent to them.” Okay. He’d stripped naked some of his heart to tell her that. And left him hanging besides, so it was her turn now, he figured. “What about your ex?”
    Her hand dropped away from his. She lay back, facing the stars. “Well…his name is Ed. Simpson, I always called him. Back in college, I took one look and just knew he was my first and only true love. He was a warm, family kind of guy, good sense of humor. Fun. I quit my last year of school to help him finish faster—he got his social work degree. He was always one to reach out to help someone else.”
    â€œSounds like a saint,” Cam said, and was briefly tempted to spit and paw the earth—but naturally he was too mature.
    â€œNot exactly,” she said wryly. “He’s married to someone else now. In fact, they had their first child five months after the wedding. And he called me this morning to tell me about their newborn son.”
    â€œI don’t understand why he’d call you.” It wasn’t hard for Cam to deduce that the creep had cheated on her, judging from the age of the first kid.
    â€œWho would? I wouldn’t take him back for a fortune, am over him in every way a woman can get over a man. For some reason he seems to still think I’m his friend. That we’re still good friends.”
    â€œSo, are you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen why on earth do you let him keep calling?”
    â€œBecause.” She lifted a hand to the moonlight. “Oh, cripes, I don’t know why. In the beginning, I acted friendly out of pride because I never wanted to let on how much he’d hurt me. And then I just didn’t seem to know how to cut him off. I know they’ve really been struggling to afford their growing family.”
    â€œStruggling? I thought your ex was wealthy.”
    She frowned. “Why’d you think that?”
    â€œBecause…I thought you said or implied you’d gotten a pretty good settlement from the divorce. When you were talking about how you could afford to put up the greenhouses, not have to care if you lost money on the lavender, all that.”
    â€œOh. Well, I did get a good lump of money from the divorce—but not because Simpson gave me anything for free. We had a house together. He wanted to stay in the house to raise his kids, and I didn’t need or want to stay there, so he owed me my share. Actually, I’d earned more than him back then. But the point was—”
    It wasn’t that hard to finish her sentence that time. “You wanted to spend any money you got from themarriage. It felt like ugly money somehow. As if it could sabotage your luck if you used it in a relationship with someone else.”
    â€œYeah. And I know that thinking was superstitious.”
    â€œIt is. But I remember feeling that way after my divorce, too. Then it wasn’t about money. I gave her all the money I could, wanted her to have it. She had the girls. But the ‘stuff’—furniture, paintings, the things