Page 1 of First Date: Divorce (Wyoming Marriage Association #1)

THREE DAYS AGO

Bardville, Wyoming

Eric Larkin heard the shop bell ring over the door of Nearly Everything on Big Horn Avenue in Bardville, Wyoming, as he walked in.

In the year he’d lived here, it had become a familiar, even a friendly sound. Nothing to disturb his peace of mind at all. What did set off alarms in his brain was the way the four women huddled near the entry to the back office turned toward him. Specifically, the way they looked at him.

Back in his days as a prosecutor in Chicago, the defense team sent him that kind of look when it was about to try pulling out a witness to testify that the defendant had been having tea with the pope at the time of the crime.

Jessa Grainger owned this store. Ellyn Griffin and Rebecca Chandler were from Far Hills Ranch in the next county south.

Nice women, every one of them. In fact, Jessa’s and Ellyn’s husbands were the reason Eric landed in Wyoming.

They’d encouraged him to move here nearly a year ago for a fresh start.

None of those women was likely to try pulling a tea-with-the-pope rabbit out of her hat.

The fourth woman was Pauline Ohlrich, his assistant, if that’s what you called a woman who ran his law office and did her best to run his life.

She’d have no compunction about pulling a tea-with-the-pope rabbit out of her hat if she got it in her head that it was for Eric’s good.

A few words floated to him, as if they’d been let loose before the speakers recognized him.

Something about marriage association came from Rebecca.

Sort of a trial run. That was Jessa.

Don’t know how that will get the result— Pauline started.

Ellyn stopped the words with a one-handed tamping-down gesture. To his amazement, Pauline complied.

Wished he knew that trick.

He raised a hand in greeting to the group. Each woman waved back. Three smiling, Pauline not.

He turned to his left, toward the self-serve coffee. He poured himself a cup and picked up a canister of his favorite. Pauline’s campaign against his caffeine habit included refusing to buy coffee for the office.

“Eric, come talk to us a minute, will you?” Ellyn called.

“Sure.” He followed the aisle down the side of the store then across the back to where they stood.

All four watched him intently.

“Something wrong?”

“Yes, something is,” Ellyn said. “And we need your help to make it right. You’re perfect.”

*

Deputy K.D. Hamilton listened closely to the sheriff of Cabot County, Montana — her boss — but still hadn’t heard anything to tell her the assignment.

“…sort of a loan of your services.”

“To Shakespeare County in Wyoming?”

“Yeah, yeah. County seat’s Bardville and the Sheriff there’s named… uh, Cully Grainger. You’ll report to him.”

“Okay. But what—?”

“Thing is, Tal Bennett asked for you.”

“Tal Bennett,” she repeated blankly.

She’d heard of Bennett from the guys in the Cabot County sheriff’s department, where he ranked as a legend.

He’d started his career here, before he’d jumped to the FBI, where he appeared to be on the fast track.

Until he abruptly quit, disappeared for more than a year, then resurfaced as a private investigator in central Wyoming.

“Yeah. Owns that Tal Bennett Investigations that’s been making a splash. Pretty darned insistent, too, considering the number of strings he pulled to guarantee I said yes,” grumbled the sheriff.

“He wants me on this operation?”

“Said that, didn’t I? So, what do you say?”

“Where and when?”