Wyoming True - Diana Palmer Page 0,26

you,” he guessed.

She sighed. “Something like that.”

“Has he spoken to you?”

“If you can call threats speaking,” she conceded. “He thinks that because I have so much money, he’s entitled to a share of it.”

“After what he did to you?” he asked, startled.

“Oh, in his mind, it was all my fault,” she replied. “I caused him to lose his temper by flirting with other men.” She looked at him evenly. “I never did it deliberately in those days. I was too afraid of Bailey. I only do it now to keep men from coming too close. It usually works.”

“Usually.” He smiled.

“There’s always the rare exception, like that man at the party Pam Simpson had for Mina Michaels, before she married Cort Grier,” she added. She grimaced. “I thought it was safe to flirt with him, because he was married. His poor wife! She was in tears and I felt so miserable about it. I didn’t know what to say to her, how to explain what I’d done. I truly could have kicked her husband,” she added coldly.

“You created a reputation for yourself,” he reminded her. “It’s hard for people not to take you at face value.”

“I was afraid,” she said heavily. “So afraid that if I’d find someone else, that I’d be tempted again. There was a journalist, after I divorced Bailey,” she recalled, not noticing the suddenly stiff posture of the man across from her. “He was kind and sweet, but he liked danger. He was drawn to combat zones, and he said he could never settle to a nine-to-five job.” She lowered her eyes. “I ran. I was very attracted to him, but I’d lost the ability to judge character and I couldn’t trust my own feelings.” She looked up. “He was killed in one of the incursions overseas, following a story for his magazine. So maybe it was just as well, the way things worked out.”

He fingered his hot coffee cup without looking at her. He’d felt a skirl of jealousy. He wasn’t happy about it.

“You went around with Cort Grier before he got involved with Mina.”

She laughed. “Yes. He wasn’t what I expected at all. He was nice. He didn’t even make a pass at me. We just sat and talked about life and played chess occasionally.”

Both eyebrows arched.

She saw that. “Yes, I know, I fall into bed with every man who asks, and Cort was a known playboy...”

“I didn’t mean to be insulting,” he said. “Mina’s still a sore spot with me.” He grimaced and sipped coffee. “I kept hoping she wasn’t serious about him. She liked me, but not in the way I wanted her to. She was the most unique woman I’d ever known.”

“She really is unique,” she said, fighting down waves of jealousy. He hadn’t gotten over Mina at all, and she’d better remember it. “I read about some of her exploits. I hope Cort’s going to be able to keep her close to home.”

He chuckled. “The baby’s doing that,” he said. “She really doesn’t want to go crawling through jungles with a child to raise. So her commandos go out on missions and come back and tell her all about them.” He shook his head. “I met them at the christening. They’re a great bunch. Most have families of their own.”

“Funny, you don’t think about commandos having families. I mean, it’s a high-risk profession, right?”

“Very high risk.” His eyes took on a faraway look, full of remembered horror. “We found one of them at an outpost we were occupying. The insurgents had...” He stopped abruptly before he told her what had been done to the man. It wasn’t fit conversation for anyone who hadn’t been in combat.

“It was something very awful, I gather?” she asked.

“Very awful,” he conceded.

She smiled. “Thanks for not sharing it. I don’t have a strong stomach.”

“You must, to be able to understand quantum mechanics,” he teased.

She laughed. “It’s mostly mathematics,” she pointed out. “I had a good brain for that.”

“So did I, years ago. Now my head is filled with weight-gain ratios and marketing strategies.”

“It’s still math,” she reminded him.

“So it is.” He studied her quietly. “You could still teach.”

“What, quantum mechanics?” she teased.

“No. High school math. Or science. Or both.”

She made a face. “It would require more education, and I don’t want to bury myself in academia. I like having free time. Maybe it’s frivolous, but I’ve spent a lot of years in what felt like confinement.”

“Do you like to travel?”

“Oh, yes,” she said at once. “When