Page 10 of First Date: Divorce (Wyoming Marriage Association #1)

As they walked around Bardville that afternoon, K.D. thought of all the hard work going into making this effort possible … and how much more would be needed for it to turn out splendidly as Ellyn had said.

Including Eric’s hard work.

After he told her about their dinner plans, she wondered a little how he felt about having his friends know about this masquerade. When this ended, she’d return to Cabot County and her regular life, leaving memories of this time behind.

But for him, the charade — especially this preparation — wove into his real life because of the connections with all these people he knew. Especially his close friends like Cully and Grif and their wives.

He’d taken her to the post office, dry cleaners, book shop, a tiny antiques store, and now they walked down the earthy smelling aisles of a greenhouse where the woman behind the counter greeted Eric by name. So the geraniums on his deck might be his doing, rather than Pauline’s.

At each stop, he’d introduced her as K.D. Larkin, his wife.

There’d been surprise, many glad-to-know-yous, and no nosy questions.

Which was a problem.

“What’s wrong?” he asked abruptly.

She looked around, saw that as long as the plants didn’t have ears they wouldn’t be overheard. “I thought we’d have had more opportunities to get our back story out.”

He picked up a pot. “Live and let live is the main motto in Shakespeare County, though I guarantee they’re asking each other a lot of questions right now about us.”

“Hearing our story from others first will make it more believable to the Marriage-Save people. We need to plant those seeds.”

“Well, this is the best place to plant seeds.”

She rolled her eyes. A grin started to follow, but she spotted a thin woman coming toward them and stopped it. The woman couldn’t have missed the eye roll. A grin would have ruined that indication of a strained relationship.

Her frown kept any other reaction off her face. “Stop that,” she growled.

He raised his free hand as if she’d slapped it. “Heaven forbid, I touch the ice princess.” In a cold voice, he added. “Thought we’d send those folks who showed us around yesterday a plant as a small thank you.”

“A nice thought.” That was a goof. She doubted people who thought they were heading for divorce praised each other for nice thoughts. She added with heavy sarcasm, “I’m sure they never get plants. Don’t you ever have an original idea?”

Out of sight of the approaching woman, he winked at her.

“Considerate’s more important than original.” He set the plant down hard and turned away.

She felt a pang, but he’d done exactly what needed to be done.

On the other hand, if the woman saw any break in K.D.’s expression, maybe she put it down to the mixed feelings that would fit a couple going to Marriage-Save. After all, if the fictional wife K.D. played didn’t have positive feelings for Eric, they wouldn’t bother with Marriage-Save.

The woman shot K.D. a disapproving look and asked Eric if she could do anything for him, ladling on more solicitude than seemed usual.

Maybe Sharon was responsible for the geraniums.

“I’d like to send something to the folks at Far Hills Ranch — do you know them?” he asked Sharon. “They invited us for a visit. I’d like to thank them.”

While he and the clerk roamed the greenhouse, selecting plants and arranging delivery to the Far Hills couples, K.D. lounged with unpleasantly clear boredom near the cash register, checking her phone.

After he paid, they got in his vehicle to return to his house to change for the dinner at Cully and Jessa’s house.

“Nice touch telling her we’d visited Far Hills.” K.D. kept any hint of approval out of her face, since the woman watched from the doorway as they backed out. “Covers us if anyone happens to hear about us being there.”

“You heard that? Good ears. Yeah, I figured it offered a good explanation in case anyone spotted us there already or does in the future. I left it vague and gave Shar contradictory info. She’ll muddle it more, so if she says anything that contradicts what other people see, they won’t think twice about it. ”

“I’ll never be able to show my face around here again,” she said.

“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “You should be proud of what a good job you did. Shar is one of the biggest gossips in the county and she did not take to you. Our marital problems will be all over. We’ve been separated since I moved here.

We thought we’d give it another try, but it’s not going well. You’re mostly to blame.”

“Of course.”

“Just so you know, you’re the superficial, only interested in clothes and status type. I’ve been shattered to discover that when I thought you were my soulmate.”

“I don’t think I have the wardrobe for that role.”

“Keep working on that haughty expression and you’ll be fine.”

She quelled a grin as the driver of a truck going the other way raised a hand in greeting to Eric. A couple in a troubled marriage should not be seen grinning at each other.

*

After changing and freshening up, they headed for Cully and Jessa’s house.

They drove in silence, two vehicles passing, with Eric being friendly and K.D. honing her haughty.

“I had a thought,” she said abruptly. “If we’re completely negative all the time, people might wonder why we’re even trying Marriage-Save.”

“Good thought.”

“We can allow glimpses of memories of better times or hopes for better times. Doomed of course.”

“Of course.”

She let that draw a smile, even if someone saw it.

But her smile faded as she asked, “Why are you doing this, Eric?”

It came out abrupt, but wasn’t an off-the-wall question. His motives mattered.

“Figure lawyers have enough of an image problem without something like this.”

She looked over at him. The crinkle at the corners of his eyes invited her to smile. She didn’t.

Her job required reading people.

Though she’d picked up the skill well before becoming a deputy. She’d honed it on the procession of boyfriends her mother trailed through their various apartments, campers, rented rooms. Read them fast and well to avoid … anything unpleasant.

She’d bet there was more to his motivation than one small step for rehabilitating the image of lawyers. More he kept tucked away behind the humor.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier about your wardrobe.

” Eric’s words pulled her out of her thoughts.

“This divorce lawyer and her Marriage-Save conspirator or conspirators are after money. So the more money it looks like we have, the more likely they’ll zero in on us. Your clothes don’t have that look.”

She appreciated that he said it bluntly, didn’t try to sugarcoat or lead up to it. That kept it as an issue to work out for the operation. Nothing personal. “You’re right. I could have done a little better packing if I’d known, but not much. A cop’s wardrobe tends toward uniform and casual.”

“It suits you.”

Such a simple thing for him to say, so why didn’t it leave her cold the way most would-be compliments did? Of course, it didn’t have a lot of competition considering the You’re really built — or less subtle — comments she got when breaking up bar fights.

“I have a solution,” he added. “There’s a store in Billings that a couple clients swear by. We’ll drive up and put you in their hands.”

“I can’t afford—”

“Operational expense. I’ll cover it and get reimbursed.” He parked his vehicle and opened his door. “In the meantime, c’mon, let’s get you introduced to Jessa, Cully’s wife, since she’ll be our contact.”

He got out and closed the door, allowing her no time to argue because they’d be on stage again as soon as she stepped out of his vehicle.

*

The sense of being on stage didn’t last long with Cully Grainger’s efficient introductions, followed by warm greetings from his wife Jessa, then Ellyn and Grif, plus the couple new to K.D. — Cambria Weston and Bodie Smith.

Especially not when Cully quickly cut to the chase.

“Before you get fed, you have to give me your phones. The department’s tech guy will clone them—”

Eric said, “The department’s tech guy—?”

“All right, he’s a retired guy who’s taken up tech and lives next door, but he’s good and he’ll get it all done while we have dinner and you’ll get them back before you leave tonight.

But you can’t take them to Marriage-Save.

We’ll give you new ones that will be loaded with the wedding pictures and stuff Kendra’s taking.

We’ll feed in some of your real-life stuff, but nothing to give away the whole show.

If something major comes in, we’ll either feed it to your temporary phone or wait until this ends. ”

“No way,” Eric said immediately. “I can’t have clients unable to contact me for a week. And I’m not trusting you or your tech guy monitoring client messages, much less deciding which ones I see right away. Not to mention attorney-client privilege.”

“You lawyers,” Cully grumbled.

“This lawyer came in pretty handy when we wanted the right kind of legal help,” Grif said to Cully. “How’d you like to have had those messages intercepted?”

“All right, all right.” Cully stared off for a beat.

“We won’t read anything. We’ll make sure your phone’s at Jessa’s store when you get yourself there.

You can also pick out messages that don’t infringe on your ethics that we can send through to your new phone so it looks active and legit. You, too, K.D.”

She nodded. “That’s good. It will look more like normal communications.”

“Fine,” Eric said.

They handed over their phones, but as Cully headed for the back door to take them to his neighbor, Eric added, “You better pull out the good stuff for drinking, Grainger. That time you served moonshine, I thought my head would explode.”

Bodie Smith, known to the wide world as Boone Dorsey Smith, clapped Eric on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Grif brought a couple bottles of wine to spare himself a repeat of the moonshine experiment.”

*

Grif shared a red wine K.D. had never had before — Medoc. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but she liked this. And it went wonderfully with the beef roast Jessa served.

“From Cambria’s family’s ranch,” she said in response to the compliments.

“The Weston place is where we stashed your vehicle,” Cully told K.D. as he carved.

“The B&B?”

“B&B and working ranch,” Cambria said. “My dad handles the cattle, Irene — my mom — handles the hospitality.”

“And Cambria handles the business that lets them keep doing those things,” Bodie said with clear pride.

Eric held his own with the ranching talk. Not bad for someone who’d only been in Wyoming a year and not directly involved with ranching. Although he clearly spent time at Cambria’s family ranch.

She’d been around ranching all her life and knowing it was a necessity for law enforcement in Cabot County. But her mother, who’d lived in Montana all of K.D.’s life, wouldn’t have known half of what Eric did.

As the conversation broadened from ranching, it remained relaxed and easygoing.

Driving back to Eric’s house, she said, “I’m glad I’m not really your estranged wife.”

He turned to her with a quizzical expression. “Feeling like you dodged a bullet?”

“If I’d been at dinner tonight with your friends as the woman about to take you through the divorce wringer, I can’t imagine it would have been anywhere near that friendly.”

“Oh, I don’t know. They might’ve sided with you over me.”

“Not a chance. You have good friends, Eric. You’re fortunate.” She looked at him through the flashing dark and light of thinning streetlights and thought his friends were also fortunate. “You’re going out on a limb for Cully. If this blows up, won’t it hit your practice?”

“It won’t.” He gave her another sideways look. “You don’t have a group of friends?”

“Growing up, we moved a lot. Mom mostly had a couple jobs, so I’d be in after-school programs. Depending on her job and where we lived, the program changed a lot.

As soon as I could, I worked to help out.

But I also already knew I wanted to be in law enforcement.

” She smiled. “That eliminated some kids I might otherwise have hung around with.”

“Because they didn’t approve of you or because you didn’t approve of them?”

“Both.”

“Why law enforcement?”

“Nothing dramatic, like being saved by a police officer or seeing them arrest a bad guy. I want to be one of the people doing the right thing. And even before the academy I knew I wanted to investigate. Make things right that have gone wrong.”

He grunted. “Sounds like law. Prosecuting, you try to set things right for the people as well as the victims. Private practice, it’s narrower — one person or a few — but it can run deep into a client’s life. Change everything for that person.”

She understood his liking that.

She shook her head at her thought — he was a stranger, not someone she understood — then followed up with words to give her gesture another meaning. “None of this is helpful, since we can’t talk about my law enforcement background at Marriage-Save.”

Another brief look away from his driving and toward her, this one hard to read — impossible, actually. “That’s right. We’d need to get into the wild world of insurance investigating to get into your work life.”

Both laughed.

She had the feeling they’d stepped near something, then backed away.