Dying to Please by Linda Howard Page A

cards—
after he kicked her out—so he'd made the right call on that.
    He'd beat her to the punch in filing for divorce, but she had counterfiled and asked for everything: house, car, furniture, for him to pay all the bills for said house, car, and furniture, even though she made more at her job in hospital administration than he did as a cop,
and
she wanted alimony.
    The attorney Shannon hired was a divorce shark known for his scorched-earth tactics. The only thing that had saved Cahill's ass was a sharp attorney and an even sharper female judge who had seen through Shannon like glass. He had thought he was sunk when he heard the judge was a woman, but his attorney had smiled and said, “This is going to be fun.”
    Cahill wouldn't classify divorce proceedings as
fun,
but in his case the results had been a relief. Since no children were involved, the judge had divided everything in direct proportion to their incomes. Neither of them wanted the house, so she ruled it would be sold, the mortgage paid off, and the profits, if any, split between them. Since Shannon made twice what he did, he would get twice as much of the profit as she because she was better able to afford another house. Cahill had glanced at Shannon when that decree came down, and saw her flush with rage and disbelief. Whatever she had expected, that wasn't it. She had begun whispering furiously to her lawyer, causing the judge to bang her gavel and order her to shut up.
    Shannon got her car, Cahill got his truck, and they split the household furnishings. He didn't want the bed, because he suspected her doctor had been in it with her. But when he bought another house and moved into it, at least he'd had chairs to sit in, a table to eat at and dishes to use, a television to watch, and a brand-new bed to sleep in. After the money from the sale of the house came in, he had systematically gotten rid of everything he and Shannon had owned together. Not a single glass remained from his marriage, not a fork or a towel.
    He just wished he could get rid of the bad taste in his mouth as easily as he had gotten rid of their possessions.
    The worst aftereffect was that Shannon had made him doubt his own judgment. He had loved her and expected to spend the rest of his life with her. They'd had it all mapped out: though he had a good job with the Mountain Brook Police Department—Mountain Brook officers were the highest paid in the state—after she had received her degree in hospital administration and landed a position with a hefty salary, which she had done with astonishing speed, the plan was for him to quit the force and enter medical school. Looking back, he wondered if Shannon just had a thing for doctors. He had received some medical training in the Army and loved the challenge of it, but after a couple of years on the job in Mountain Brook, he had realized he loved being a cop more than he would ever enjoy being a doctor.
    Maybe that was when Shannon had started wandering, when he changed ambitions. Maybe she'd had her heart set on big bucks and glittering social events, and when he didn't come through with either one, she felt free to look for them elsewhere. But he'd thought she loved
him,
regardless of which object he held in his hand, a scalpel or a gun. Why hadn't he seen that something was missing? And what if he made that kind of mistake again? He had a knack for sizing up suspects immediately, but when it came to figuring out his own wife, forget it. Now he couldn't trust himself not to pick someone else just like Shannon, and be just as blind to it until he was smacked in the face with infidelity.
    “You're brooding again,” Rick said.
    “I'm good at it,” Cahill muttered.
    “Well, practice does make perfect. Hell, no wonder; you didn't even order yourself a beer. I'd be brooding, too, if I had to stick to coffee.”
    “I'll have a beer when we eat. I'm driving, remember?”
    “Speaking of eating, I'm hungry.” Rick looked around and spotted an