Page 19 of Wyoming True

She hesitated, drew in a breath, then nodded.

“By whom?” he asked.

She looked at him with wide, pained eyes in the light from the map reader. She grimaced. “I...can’t talk about it.”

“Your second husband,” he guessed. “Was his name Merridan?”

“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “It was Trent. When I divorced Bailey, I reverted to my first married name, Merridan. Most of my stocks and bonds and my land holdings were still in that name anyway. I changed my will, too,” she added darkly, not choosing her words, “so that when I die, all my holdings go to various charities. He won’t get a penny.”

“There’s gossip that he was in prison.”

Her pale face turned to his. “Was. Yes.”

His face went bland. “So he’s out now, is he?” Jake asked.

She bit her lower lip.

“Out for blood, too, unless I miss my guess.”

“Blood. Money. It’s all the same to him,” Ida said.

“You think he hurt the horse?”

“I don’t know. Laredo, he’s the new man, he’s set up cameras outside, just in case...”

“Is he really a cowboy?” Jake asked.

Her small breasts rose and fell with her inner torment. “My attorneys felt that I needed some protection, on the ranch,” she blurted out.

He didn’t say a word. But he was assembling puzzle pieces in his mind. It all became clear quite rapidly.

“Why was he in jail, Ida?” he asked quietly.

“Proprietary information,” she replied, her voice barely audible. “Thanks for transporting me back and forth to Pam’s.”

“Thank you and good night?” he mused.

She sighed and forced a smile. “Something like that.” She started to open the car door, but she was slow.

He beat her to it, opening it for her. She struggled to get out. Her back was painful, like her hip. She ground her teeth together at the pain.

“You okay?” he asked and sounded concerned.

“It’s going to rain, or snow, or something,” she predicted. “My bones hurt really bad when the weather changes.”

“A complaint I hear from my cowboys,” he replied. “They have all sorts of injuries. Working around livestock carries its own dangers.”

She nodded. “My father was thrown from a horse when he was very young. He broke a rib, which punctured a lung. They barely got him to the hospital in time.”

He walked her to her door. “Are you going to be all right?”

“A heating pad and one of those horse pills will ease the pain. Thanks for asking.”

He tilted her face up to his with a big hand under her chin.

“You really are beautiful,” he murmured as his head bent, his coffee-scented breath going right into her mouth seconds before his chiseled lips moved down and settled right on it.

CHAPTER FOUR