Wyoming True by Diana Palmer

Author:Diana Palmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2020-08-17T15:56:41+00:00

* * *

HE PUT THE phone down. Did Ida’s ex-husband know that his troublemaker had run for the hills? Was he discouraged by the advent of lawmen after the cat was hurt? Or was he just biding his time, waiting to add something more traumatic to the mix than hurting Ida’s horses and her cat? It was worrying.

While he sat at his desk, thinking about it, he heard movement in the hall. He went out to see what it was.

Ida stopped in her tracks. “Did I disturb you? Sorry. I wanted to see if there was any coffee. Your housekeeper said she’d leave a pot heating in the kitchen. I must have dozed off.”

“You needed the rest, I imagine,” he said, smiling. “I’d like a cup myself. Come on.”

He led the way into the kitchen, noting that she was walking a little better. She was wearing jeans with a long-sleeved blue sweater that almost matched the color of her eyes. Her feet were in slippers. “Pain easing up?” he asked.

She nodded. “It fluctuates,” she said. “I have post-traumatic arthritis in my hip from the injuries. They did a partial hip replacement, and they had to wire my femur back in place and almost rebuild it. Hence the rod and pins.” She sighed. “I’m lucky it wasn’t worse.”

“You said you had damaged vertebrae, as well,” he recalled.

“Two, in my lower spine. They repaired those.” She laughed softly. “Of course, I have issues in my back, too.” She shook her head. “All my own fault, I guess. I should have known that Bailey was too good to be true. But I was so stupid about men.”

“You didn’t go out with anyone while you were in college?” he asked idly as he poured the warming coffee into two mugs.

“I was married,” she said with a quizzical glance.

He turned, grimacing. “Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.”

She smiled. “It’s okay. My reputation follows me around. It was really a stupid idea, but I was so desperate to keep men at bay when I came back here. I didn’t go out with anybody except girlfriends when I was at MIT. They thought I was nuts.” She drank coffee and sighed. “I guess I’m out of touch with the modern world. I was sheltered all my life, then I married a man who sheltered me just as much. Then there was Bailey.” She made a face.

“We all make mistakes,” he pointed out.

“Some of us make more than others,” she returned. “I was afraid I’d meet somebody else and go nuts over him and end up like I’d already done, twice. I have no sense about men, apparently.” She didn’t add the journalist she’d avoided, because he’d attracted her, too, before he died overseas. He might have been a good choice, but she didn’t trust her own judgment anymore.

“You have to take into account that you were naive,” he said. “Being street-smart takes time and hard experiences.”

She cocked her head and studied him with vivid dark blue eyes. “Are you street-smart?”

“About women? Yes.

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