Page 41 of First Date: Divorce (Wyoming Marriage Association #1)

Eric leaned against the corner of a wall in the Far Hills Ranch main house.

He’d wished Bexley and Kiernan happiness — though they clearly had that covered.

He’d eaten three of Ellyn’s special pigs-in-a-blanket, though they didn’t taste as great as he remembered.

He’d said hello to dozens of people. From Bardville, from here at Far Hills Ranch, from the Knighton area. The last group included a conversation with Dave Currick about a lawyer they both knew who’d been in an accident.

Their lawyer-talk conversation ended when another ranch owner claimed Dave. In addition to Dave’s law practice, his family owned the Slash-C ranch and he ran it.

Eric figured another ten minutes and he could leave without drawing attention.

He watched Kiernan and Bexley, across the room, turn toward the porch door to greet another arrival.

K.D.

Not a dream. Not his imagination. Not a hallucination.

Katherine Denver Hamilton.

Ellyn said, “Hi, Eric. I see you’ve spotted K.D.”

He heard Ellyn’s voice clearly, which meant she had to be close by, when she hadn’t been a second ago. But he didn’t look around to check.

All his attention was on K.D., standing there, chatting with Kiernan and Bexley, without a care in the world.

“You look surprised, Eric,” Ellyn said.

Which had to be one of the understatements of the decade. Because if he looked at all like he felt, he looked pole-axed. He’d never known exactly what that meant, but he sure as hell knew how it felt now.

“Didn’t you think she’d be here?” Ellyn asked.

“You invited her…?”

“Of course I invited her.”

And K.D. said yes.

“Eric looks surprised, doesn’t he?” Ellyn said to someone.

Jessa’s voice sounded from his other side. “He does. I don’t know why he would be. K.D.’s part of the community now. I invited her, and to my delight, she said yes.”

Cully ambled up, crossing in front of his line of sight, before moving a bit to the side.

“Nice to have K.D. here, isn’t it, Larkin. I invited her.”

“I just told him I invited her,” his wife said.

“I did, too,” Ellyn said.

Cully huh’d . “Guess she’ll know we really wanted her here.”

Eric was aware of the group near K.D. shifting, someone leaving it. But she remained there, so his brain relegated everything else to peripheral vision.

“Why are you standing here?” Pauline demanded, joining the circle forming around him. “Can’t you see K.D.’s over there? Came at my invitation. Called her up and said she should come, since I couldn’t rely on you doing the right thing — the sane thing.”

Okay, okay, he got it. They all thought she belonged here.

But that still left the other part.

K.D. said yes.

“Eric,” came Kiernan’s distinctive voice.

His leaving K.D. and coming here had to be the movement Eric’s peripheral vision caught, but wasn’t judged important enough to push aside his view of K.D.

“I invited K.D. to come to celebrate with us today and you can see she has. I saw the way of it with you when we met in Billings and … Well, I told you I owed you.”

*

K.D. never remembered how she moved away from near the door, where she’d stalled in the instant she spotted Eric across the room.

Bexley and Kiernan, the engaged couple being celebrated whom she’d never met, rescued her. They greeted her warmly by name, congratulating her on her part in the successful investigation and telling her how they’d met Eric during a snowbound and non-traditional Christmas.

K.D. saw them exchange a significant look, then Kiernan left, while Bexley continued telling her about how Eric pitched in with making decorations and presents for kids snowbound with them.

Kiernan joined Eric, along with Cully, Ellyn, Pauline, and Jessa.

Then Eric moved toward her and Bexley shoved her in his direction. Not subtle, but effective.

They were quickly shuffled into the little sewing room they’d taken her to that first day, the door closed firmly behind them, leaving them alone. The mirrors reflected back slices and angles of her and Eric, as if it might let them see all of each other if they could put together all those images.

“K.D.,” he said.

She cleared her throat. “Hi, Eric.”

“I suppose we should congratulate each other on doing the job.”

“We could do that. Or I could tell you I’ve accepted a job with the Shakespeare County Sheriff’s Department. Including some investigating.”

His smile set every line and plane of his face into the perfect position. But only for a second. “Congratulations.” He meant it, but it was for the career move.

She needed to make her priorities clear.

“Thank you. So, if you still … Well, distance wouldn’t be an issue.”

“No. Distance wouldn’t be an issue.”

She nodded, as if he’d said more than that. “But you’re wondering about other issues.”

“Yeah. I am. Because I’ve been thinking.

A lot. When we started this, I was right there with you, K.D.

Never marrying again. No way in hell. Would have said — probably did say — I didn’t believe in the institution.

But I don’t know if that was ever true. Too many good marriages in my family, among my friends, for me to dismiss the whole thing.

So, then, I thought maybe it just wasn’t for me. ”

“But now you think it is for you? Even after seeing those couples at Marriage-Save? After all the stuff they have to be counseled for?”

“That’s exactly what I think — that it is for me. Because of the couples who come out the other side. That’s what I want. That’s my bottom line.” He reached one hand toward her, then let it drop.

“Eric, remember the questions on that assessment? Statements actually, most of them. There was one about whether this was turning into a relationship I hadn’t bargained for…”

“I remember. How’d you answer?”

“Then? I said no. Now … I don’t know.”

“Not knowing’s a start. I’m not saying we’d jump right there. Not even saying I want a guarantee we’ll get there eventually. But I have to know there’s a chance. For marriage. For a family. That the door isn’t locked before we even try to open it.”

“Okay.”

“Because— Okay?”

“Yes, okay. Taking small moments of turning toward the positive.” She put her arms around his neck. “You’ve won your case, counselor.”

*

On the drive back to his house — after the shortest, most incoherent of good-byes to the others — they talked.

Talking was a heck of a lot safer for them and anyone else on the roads than what they wanted to do.

She gave him details of the dealings with Gail Bledsoe and figuring out Lily was the Marriage-Save insider feeding her information. He told her about the news conference and the reaction in town.

She described the call to her mother.

“You were right, Eric. So was Melody. I wasn’t seeing that my mother’s happy with Mark, because I saw them through my own lens.”

He cut a look toward her as they exited the interstate.

“But it was when Tal and I went to talk to Gail Bledsoe the second time that things really got clear,” she said. “I think sometimes we need a little distance to see clearly.”

“Yeah. And I’m sure that all makes sense. I might even want to hear it all someday. But right now, I don’t care. Get back to where you were realizing you were wrong and I was right. We lawyers love to hear that.”

She chuckled. “You’ll have to thank a fellow lawyer then. Because Bledsoe said things — things about you, about us, about all the things I feared. I know Melody did, too, but that was all so gentle and thoughtful that it barely dented my worries and doubts.

“But when Gail Bledsoe said the things she said, I not only knew they were hogwash — things I’d been saying and thinking and worrying about — but I wanted to hurt her. Seriously hurt her. I almost rushed it, almost blew the whole thing. My big break and I almost blew it.”

She smiled. Easy and sure. He’d never seen anything more beautiful.

“And I could have lived with blowing it because I needed to tell you that I was wrong.”

It was starting to sink in. He needed to be sure. Or maybe he just loved hearing it. “Wrong about?”

“Us. About not trying. For all of it. I don’t know if … but we won’t know if we don’t try.”

“Does that mean we can skip the dating?”

She laughed. “Not all of it. Definitely not skipping all of it.”

He parked in his drive, turned off the vehicle.

“If you want to take it slow, K.D.…”

She got out.

He met her at the walk, but she didn’t slow as they climbed the steps.

“K.D.?”

“Do you know what I’m wearing under this?”

He scanned her outfit of nice-fitting jeans with a sort of floaty dark red top and raised one eyebrow as he opened the door.

Inside, he caught her to him. “I’m willing to find out.”

He undid the top button to see more of her throat, tempting his mouth down and down.

“Here’s a hint.” She caught her breath. “Something you wanted to buy for me.”

Another button loosened its hold on the opposite buttonhole, and revealed a larger swath of what was underneath.

K.D.

K.D. was underneath. The curves and creamy skin.

He saw something else, too. The V of K.D.’s skin ran deep — was that the circle of her belly button? — but to either side of it were slinky black scraps of material.

Oddly familiar black scraps of material.

“The teddy,” he said. “You’re wearing that teddy from the shop.”

“I went back and got it. You seemed to admire it…”

His eyes snapped up to her face.

“I admire you , K.D. In that teddy, in your uniform, in jeans, in nothing — I admire you. Maybe especially in nothing,” he added because he knew honesty was important to her.

She kissed him. “Let’s put that into action, cowboy.”

*

“You think Pauline knows what we’ve been doing?” K.D. asked, nestled against his shoulder on the wide seat of the leather couch in his office.

They hadn’t even tried to make it upstairs.

There’d been a few moments when he hated that teddy. But now that it was out of the way, flung across a side table, he felt a nostalgic fondness for it.

“Yeah, Pauline knows. I guarantee it. She probably knew before you finished buying that teddy. She’s spooky about things like that. And she will use it to blackmail you for the rest of your life.”

“Pauline won’t blackmail me. She only blackmails you. But what is she going to think?”

“That I’m one lucky guy. And she’ll kill me if I blow this. But I’m going to push it anyway.”

“Eric—”

“No, I’m not stupid enough to propose. Not yet. But I’m telling you right now, I kept the rings from the Schmidts.”

She kissed him.