Summer Nights by Susan Mallery

Author:Susan Mallery
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2012-06-26T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ANNABELLE FELT THE EARTH shift off its axis. Married? Still married?

“That’s not possible,” she said. “We’re divorced. We worked out a settlement.”

He hadn’t wanted to. For a long time he’d refused. But in the end, she threatened to take him to court. He’d realized that any judge would give her a percentage of his earnings for the time they’d been married. While he’d always found fault with her, the truth was, their marriage had been good for his career. He’d written two of his bestselling books while they’d been together.

Rather than give her a piece of that, he’d agreed to the divorce. Her lawyer had tried to talk her out of the deal, but she’d explained she would rather be free than rich. After all, they didn’t have kids and she was perfectly capable of supporting herself. Let Lewis keep it all. Being away from him had been worth any price to her.

“Apparently there was a bit of trouble with the law firm,” Lewis said cheerfully. “We’re still married.” He turned to Shane. “I’m a writer. You might have heard of me. Lewis—”

“No. Sorry.”

Annabelle risked glancing at Shane, but there was no way to tell what he was thinking. Still, she doubted it would be good. After all, this moment would qualify as drama by anyone’s standards.

His dark gaze moved from Lewis to her and back. “You two probably want to talk about this,” he said, edging back toward the barn.

“No!” Annabelle said quickly. “It’s fine. I’m leaving. I have to go…” She stopped, realizing she didn’t know what to do next. Panic had seized her brain, making it impossible to think.

Lewis, here. In Fool’s Gold. The one place she’d always felt safe.

The back door of the house opened and Heidi stepped out.

“There you are,” she said. “Annabelle, I really need to talk to you. Can you give me a second?”

Annabelle nodded and started toward her.

“We have to talk, as well,” Lewis said urgently.

No, they didn’t. They’d given up the need to talk the day they’d agreed to the divorce.

“I have to help Heidi,” she said, already moving toward the house.

Lewis sighed heavily. “I can see you’re as difficult as ever. That’s fine, Annabelle. I know how to win you over. I’m staying in town at Ronan’s Lodge. I’ll be in touch.”

She hoped he was lying, but didn’t think her luck was that good. She looked at her friend and let Heidi’s supportive gaze guide her to safety. When she reached the back porch, Heidi took her arm and led her inside.

“How long has he been here?” Annabelle asked.

“Nearly an hour. Were you really married to him?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Don’t get mad, but he’s kind of a pompous jerk.”

“It took me a while to figure that out.”

“At least you did.” Her friend hugged her. “Poor you. He thinks you’re still married.”

“I got that part. He has to be wrong. We signed papers. We had lawyers. That’s the only thing I took from him, the legal fees to get out of the marriage. I liked the irony of it.

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