Page 26 of First Date: Divorce (Wyoming Marriage Association #1)

SATURDAY

Albert didn’t remain outside the closet door, but made rounds of some sort. Unfortunately, those rounds were neither long enough nor regular enough to be sure of avoiding him on the way back to their room.

They decided that after timing several of his returns.

When he did return, he settled for a while at a point down the hall that likely coincided with a couch there.

“He’s too close and he comes back too fast,” K.D. said softly in one of the interludes when Albert was on a round.

“Yeah. As I said, trapped.”

They found — moving with care — the cushion she’d spotted, and sat side by side on it, with their backs propped against the wall.

At one point, to the last discernible sound of Albert’s once again departing footsteps, Eric said, “So, that counseling’s interesting, huh?”

“In what way?”

“The questions. Makes you think about marriages. How they work. How they don’t.”

“I suppose.” Though she didn’t have the context he did. She knew how she felt about marriage. But he must have once believed in it … before experience taught him otherwise.

As if his thoughts followed the same path, he said, “I won’t ever get married again.

Just like I won’t go looking for baskets of goodies left by the Easter Bunny.

Some things you realize don’t work for you.

Might work okay for other people, like friends and all your relatives — hell, you might see a lot of evidence that it works more than okay for other people—”

“Or evidence that it doesn’t.”

“Cynical, just like Pauline said.”

“She said it of you, too.”

“Oh, yeah.”

She grinned and thought she could feel his grin in the dark, too.

Then he said, “You told Melody we don’t have the same values.”

“Right. Your family, my family not at all alike.”

“Different experiences, not different values. Your values and your mother’s family’s values are totally different.”

“Just because we both like honesty and the right thing being done…”

His nod — felt by the movement of air, rather than seen — detoured her from that sentence’s destination.

“Yeah, those are a start. Which— Was that?” His voice dropped even lower.

“Yeah,” she breathed. “He’s back faster this time.”

They stilled as the footsteps passed their hiding spot. They faded as they continued down the hall.

This time, though, there were more soft noises than Albert’s previous pauses. Items being set on a hard surface — probably the tables that flanked the couch, the thunk of shoes hitting the floor, a deep, satisfied sigh.

Eric put his mouth near her ear. “Setting up camp for the night.” She nodded.

A snore, softened by the door and distance between them reached their ears.

She turned and put her mouth near his ear. “If he falls deeply asleep, we can try to get out. In the meantime, might as well rest.”

“Yeah.”

That brief agreement had an underpinning of strain to it. But he was certainly entitled to his secrets. She intended to keep hers.

*

She’d fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder.

Thank heavens she woke first. Not only so she could remove her head from his shoulder, while hoping he wouldn’t know it had been there in the first place, but also so she could listen carefully, then give him a shake and say, “We gotta move now.”

That sounded more confident than she felt.

But they did successfully slip away with Albert still snoozing on the couch. With their shoes off, they silently went up the stairs, and back into their room, still pitch dark with the curtains drawn, so unless the rumored cameras had night vision…

They slid into bed without a word, back to back.

She was so tired she didn’t think she moved once until the alarm went off.

When it did, she recognized two facts.

Eric was already in the bathroom.

And she was facing his side of the bed, with their pillows now angled into each other.

*

“Oh, you just missed Eric,” Izzy said when K.D. entered the dining room at breakfast. “He said he was going to look for you.”

In keeping with their roles, K.D. muttered that he couldn’t have looked very hard, since he didn’t find her.

Izzy and Orion shared a look. “Come join us,” Izzy invited.

She accepted the offer. They were pleasant, but more important, they could be good sources of information.

Between easily answering their questions thanks to Pauline’s drilling, she picked up a few more tidbits about the routine at Marriage-Save, including that everyone — professionals, support staff, and guests had considerable interactions with the people of Bardville.

Easy enough for any of them to relay information to Gail Bledsoe.

K.D. headed toward their counseling appointment without eliminating anyone.

Eric arrived from the other direction as the door opened, leaving no time to find out what he’d been doing.

*

Melody greeted them with a smile.

She asked general questions about how they found the accommodations and they gave general answers.

“I want to check in with the two of you for a moment to see if anything came up from yesterday’s session.

No?” she added to their twin headshakes.

“Okay, then I’ll speak with each of you separately while the other answers questions on this assessment.

K.D., you stay here with me. And Eric, you can use the room just outside that door for the assessment. ”

Melody took her over a number of topics, all of which Pauline had covered. Melody was an easier questioner. It was satisfying to field the questions and build their cover.

Even when Melody asked about K.D.’s childhood.

“You were raised by a single mother you said. Tell me about that.”

Not her favorite topic, but she had experience telling people enough to satisfy them. Job interviews, well-intentioned co-workers, even not-so-well intentioned people.

She told the outlines of how hard her mother worked to raise her, how she’d supported both of them, while never giving up the dream of Mr. Right rescuing her.

She stuck with her mother’s background in Mississippi, but had her move to Chicago instead of Montana when her family turned their backs on her and her unwed pregnancy.

K.D. finished with a quick gloss over her mother’s marriage, without including what she thought of it.

She did all that almost automatically, while another part of her concluded she wouldn’t need to devote a lot of mental power to these counseling sessions. Good. More for the investigative aspect.

Until …

The first mini stumble came when Melody asked, “When you and Eric first were intimate, how were sexual relations between you?”

They’d known there would be questions about their sex lives. They were supposed to be a married couple, after all. They’d agreed to say they hadn’t been intimate since their problems started. And since that was shortly after the honeymoon ended, they’d figured that covered most of it.

But Melody wanted to hear about the supposed start of their relationship.

“Fine. Good.” The sensations of Eric kissing her the second time for the wedding video recreated themselves. “Very good.” She caught herself and added, “Before we got married.”

“Did sex between you change after marriage?”

“Some,” she said cautiously. Thank heavens Pauline hadn’t brought this up. The idea of sorting out details of their mythical sexual history in front of the older woman pushed her imagination to the brink.

Besides, there had to be a number of people going through Marriage-Save reluctant to talk about sex. She’d be one of them.

Only Melody didn’t leave it at that. “In what way?”

“More routine.” That had to be a safe answer. She added, as if presenting a new concept, “Less variety.”

“You and Eric were more adventuresome before marriage?”

“I guess.”

“Why do you think that is?”

She couldn’t blame kids and the time they demanded. Money troubles didn’t fit their scenario. Those were the two biggies according to the research Pauline shared with them.

Discord over differing views on having kids as they’d discussed? She shouldn’t blurt that out when they’d decided to let the counselor “find” that issue.

Stick as close to the truth as possible, Tal said. There was no truth between her and Eric to stick to and she had no direct experience of marriage, so, she drew from what she did know.

“Marriage turns the woman into a drudge and the man into a supervisor.”

“Does it have to?” Melody’s pleasant voice asked.

“Have to? Maybe not. But it does.”

Melody paused a beat. K.D. had the idea she wanted to argue. If so, she substituted another question.

“What attracted you to Eric at the start?”

Worse than going blank — bad enough — in the first micro-second something unconnected to K.D.’s brain suggested a few things. It stalled her effort to dredge up words for a noticeably long time.

Melody’s attention remained even, unstressed.

K.D. knew how to do that, too, when questioning a suspect.

She also knew that as the questioner, bells and whistles would be going off saying she’d hit something significant.

“You mean when I first saw him — met him — or when we started dating?”

If she’d been on the other side of this questioning, she’d immediately put that down to a delaying tactic.

Not good. Not good at all.

“Let’s start with when you met him. What did his assistant say about him that got you to agree to meet him.”

“You haven’t met his assistant if you think I had a choice.”

Melody smiled dutifully, but kept her look expectant, conveying that didn’t get K.D. out of answering the question.

What attracted you to Eric at the start?

Memories fired off fast. Seeing him in Cully Grainger’s office, his face as he looked toward the mountains during their drive to Casper to find wedding rings, his feel and taste during their wedding kiss. Kisses, plural, for stills and video.

She shoved them aside with discipline. What could Pauline have said to the fictional her that would have ensured she’d meet him? Sure as heck none of those memories.

Probably nothing. She’d have turned down Pauline flat. The way she turned down every other person’s effort to get her to meet some man. Firmly enough that they didn’t try anymore.

Casting around for another approach, she thought of Hilary. How would she answer this question … under the influence of truth serum?

“He had a steady job.”

God, she should have gone with broad shoulders, tight butt, and strong jaw.

“What was the state of your job at that time, K.D.?”

“Rock solid. At a library.”

Mistake. She should have said shaky. Let the counselor think she was a gold digger, after Eric for his career. That would make her a strong candidate for the divorce lawyer, if Melody was the one feeding information to—

“What about Eric’s job being steady appealed to you.”

Second chance.

“Being a lawyer’s a career, isn’t it? Working for one of those big corporations, he’d make a lot of money.” She’d channel Eric’s ex. A lousy person, but a great role model for this.

“Had you met other well-to-do men? Dated any?”

“Sure. But he wasn’t old like them. But he doesn’t have real ambition.”

Except to live a good life, help people through legal tangles, and—

“What else attracted you?”

She concentrated on materialism. “He treated me all right. Took me nice places. Gave me orchids.”

Melody flicked a quick look toward the end table beside the couch where K.D. sat.

“We only have another minute or so—”

K.D. did not let herself relax. She’d had an academy instructor who’d drilled into them that easing up at the wrong time could be fatal — and the wrong time was any time.

“—if there’s anything else you’d like to bring up…?”

“Nothing I can think of.”

The counselor reminded her they’d have regular one-on-one sessions, plus the opportunity for additional ones if K.D. wanted them.

No way .

She worked to keep that sentiment off her face.

While swapping places under Melody’s direction, Eric gave K.D.

an even look as he walked in. With her back to Melody, she tried to warn him with her look, but doubted it conveyed much.

How well could a look say, watch out for the question we didn’t cover — what attracted us to each other at the start?

How would he answer?

She didn’t wonder out of personal curiosity, but in case knowing would help cover holes in their cover story.

After fumbling that part with Melody, filling out the questionnaire was a piece of cake.