Wyoming True - Diana Palmer Page 0,4

expected, it kept her free of complications in her private life. Not many men had the ego to even approach her.

Cort Grier had, but she found an unexpected friend in the jaded cattle baron who’d had his own issues with women who wanted his wealth, not himself. They’d formed a friendship. She’d opened up to him as she hadn’t been able to open up with any other man.

She was happy for him. He loved Mina and his son, and that was wonderful. But he’d been the only friend she had. When he married, she’d removed his contact information from her phone. She didn’t want it to appear that she was after him even when he married. That left the screen completely blank. She had no contacts, because she only used the phone for emergencies and surfing the internet. Her attorneys had her home phone number, which had an answering machine. She had no idea how to set up voice mail on the cell phone, so it was better not to have people call the number. That was why her contact screen was blank, and Jake had noticed. She’d have bet that his own phone contact list was overflowing.

Well, she couldn’t want a man that way, not anymore. And she had her own problems. Her ex-husband, Bailey Trent, was just recently out of prison and in hock to his gambling associates. How he’d gotten out was a mystery. She’d had him sent up for violent assault and battery. Shortly after his arrival, he’d lost his temper and killed another inmate, almost guaranteeing that he’d never get out. But he had gotten out.

He’d been calling her on her home phone, leaving threatening messages. She’d phoned her attorneys in Denver, but she wasn’t even sure what they could do about him. He left no contact number. She didn’t even know where he was. She tried a reverse lookup on her phone, but the number was blocked. What if he came after her again, the way he had the last time she’d refused to give him money, before he even went to prison?

Her hand went idly to her hip and she grimaced. She’d had a fractured pelvis and damage to her femur, injuries that had been catastrophic, to her mind. The orthopedic surgeon, a genius in his own right, had put her hip and femur back together like a jigsaw puzzle. Two surgeries, a partial hip replacement and a metal plate along her thigh with metal screws to hold it in place had alleviated most of her problem, but the pain continued and the visits to her orthopedic surgeon had increased in recent months. Oncoming cold weather usually brought its own set of complications. Secondary arthritis had set in to the damaged pelvis. She needed another prescription for the powerful anti-inflammatory medications she had to take, hence the visit.

She tried not to think about the injury her second husband had caused. He’d seemed like such a kind, sweet man. She hadn’t realized that it was an act, all of it, to lure her in and get her to marry him so that he’d have access to her inherited fortune.

She shivered, remembering. It hadn’t been a long fall, just over the side of a one-story parking garage. She’d landed on hard ground, not, thank God, on concrete. The pain had been something out of her experience. By the time the ambulance arrived, of course, Bailey was pretending hysterics and wailing that his poor wife had fallen despite his efforts to save her. It would have been her word against his, how it happened. Even in the hospital, he’d been the soul of remorse. No one realized that he’d caused the injuries, and she was too shocked and in so much pain that most of her hospital stay had been a blur. Rehab had kept her out of his hands for a while. But inevitably she had to go home. It was only a month later that he assaulted her in view of a witness, a severe beating that got him sent to prison.

She’d hoped he’d never get out. That was unrealistic. He could always talk people into things. He had a pipeline into drug trafficking and somehow he’d managed early release, probably by helping someone get access to controlled substances. The nightmare had begun all over again the day he was released from prison.

He was adamant about his confinement and her part in it. He was furious that she’d given up his name after the