Wyoming True - Diana Palmer Page 0,16

hook somebody’s husband and there will be a firefight,” Ida sighed.

“No. I promise, that won’t happen. Please?”

“Oh, all right,” Ida said heavily. “But I really can’t stay long. I’m in a lot of pain. My orthopedic surgeon has me on powerful anti-inflammatories and I can’t drive when I take them...”

“No problem at all! I’ll send somebody to pick you up and take you home. How’s that?”

Ida gave in. She laughed. “Pam, you’re hopeless. But yes, I’ll come.”

“Thanks! You won’t regret it. Honest.” She hung up.

* * *

SO IDA DRESSED in a tasteful black cocktail dress, with cap sleeves, that fell to her ankles, with her beautiful back uncovered and a neckline that came above her collarbone. She looked elegant and beautiful, her pretty face accented by red lipstick and only a hint of powder. She put a black rhinestone clip in her short black hair and picked up her small evening bag.

She’d checked on her poor horse every day. Gold, as she was called, was doing well, but she was nervous, even when her colt was with her. The wounds were healing, but slowly. The mental ones, Ida considered, would be worse than the cuts. At least, Ida thought, Gold would live. That was enough. Now came the worry about whether or not Bailey had been responsible for her injuries. But Laredo had the house and yard wired like bombs, and he had outdoor cameras everywhere, along with sensors that would alert anyone listening about intruders. Bailey was going to have a hard time hurting any of her animals again, she thought angrily. But she wished he’d try, so she could have him arrested and sent back to prison.

* * *

SHE’D WONDERED WHO Pam would send for her. She was nervous of men. Pam knew that, but not why.

The doorbell rang. She slid into her long black leather coat with its epaulets and leather belt and opened the door.

She was at a loss for words. Pam had sent a rather disgruntled Jake McGuire to pick her up. He was glaring when she opened the door, but the horrified look on Ida’s face, and the beauty of her face and her slender figure in that dress, left him momentarily speechless.

“I didn’t ask Pam to send you,” she stammered. “I don’t even know who else she invited. She said she invited me just to make the numbers fit. I didn’t want to come!”

Her embarrassment touched something deep inside him that had been frozen since Mina Michaels married Cort Grier. He reached out a big, lean hand and touched his fingers to her soft mouth to stop the words.

“It’s all right,” he said gently.

Tears, visible, stung her eyes and she averted them. “Thanks,” she almost choked.

He was entranced. Her reputation would put any decent man off, but when he was alone with her, she was nothing like that reputation. She was a puzzle.

“We’d better go,” he said gently. “Careful. There’s snow on the ground.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind snow. Ice scares me.”

“No ice. Yet.”

She locked her doors and hesitated at the steps. She had on heels that were barely an inch high and stacked, the only sort she could bear with her old injury. The snow would come up over them.

Jake suddenly swung her up in his arms and started down the steps to his car, parked right in front of the house.

Ida was like a board in his arms, frightened and too shy to tell him why.

He turned his head and looked down at her when he reached the passenger side of the big Mercedes. He stared straight into her frightened blue eyes, his own silver ones narrow and assessing while the snow fell on his wide-brimmed hat and was funneled away from her face.

She just stared up at him, vulnerable, fragile, uncertain.

“You little fraud,” he said in the softest tone she’d ever heard from him.

“Wh-what?”

He just chuckled. He put her down, opened the door and eased her inside. He didn’t elaborate on what he’d said, but he was getting some interesting information about the wild divorcée without a word being spoken. She didn’t act like any promiscuous woman he’d ever known, and there had been a few in his youth. She was far more like an actress playing a role in public to keep people from seeing the woman behind it. She was damaged somehow. He wondered who’d made her so afraid of men. Cindy had said something about Ida’s second husband. Ida had intimated that the man had been responsible