Page 22 of Wyoming True

Her eyes lowered.

“It must be one hell of a bad memory,” he said after a minute. “We’ll make some better ones. Supper. Next week. I’ll text you.”

She looked up at him with a feeling akin to rebirth. Her breath sighed out and she smiled. “Next week,” she whispered.

He was tempted to pull her close and kiss the breath out of her, but she was going to need gentle handling. She was damaged. Odd, how much he wanted to protect her. It was a feeling he hadn’t indulged since Mina had been part of his life.

He smiled, tipped his hat mischievously and walked back to his car. “Lock the doors,” he called back.

She laughed. “You lock yours, too.”

He threw up a hand.

She went inside and locked the door, leaning back against it with a long, sweet sigh of pure delight.

THEDELIGHTWASgone in an instant when her cell phone rang and she answered it absently.

“New man in your life, huh?” came an insulting, angry voice over the line. “Well, you belong to me, and he’s not getting you. Nobody’s getting you.”

“We’re divorced,” she said icily.

“A divorce you obtained through fraud, by blackmailing me,” he shot back. “I can prove that, in court. You owe me!”

She hung up on him, shocked and terrified. The phone rang again, but she darted to a side table where she kept pens and paper. She wrote down the number and phoned her attorney, Paul Browning.

“Calm down, now. It’s okay. Do you have Laredo’s number?”

“Laredo.”

“Your bodyguard,” he prompted.

“Oh. Him.” She drew in a breath. “Yes.”

“Call him right now and tell him what happened,” he replied. “I’ll get the wheels turning here. If Bailey Trent wants trouble, he can have it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Try not to worry. The laws are in place to protect you. There’s a restraining order. If he steps over the line, he’ll go back to jail. He knows that.”

“It doesn’t stop him from phoning me and terrifying me,” she blurted out. “I should get a new number!”

“He’d just find it out. He has a friend who works as a skip tracer for a detective agency,” he added. “Changing the number will do no good.”

“I feel so helpless,” she blurted out.

“Take a pill and go to bed. Make sure your doors are locked and sleep with the cell phone. Wouldn’t hurt to talk to the local sheriff, as well, and the parole officer on your husband’s case. I’ll do the latter. His parole officer is in Denver, where I am.”

“Thanks, Paul,” she said.

“We’ll take care of you,” he said warmly. “Try not to worry too much. It’s just a tactic. He thinks he’ll frighten you into paying him off.”

She didn’t tell him that it was working. But it was. “Okay,” she said instead.

“I’ll be in touch.”

The line went dead. She looked around her with wide, frightened eyes. It was one thing to deny Bailey money, but she knew all too well what he was capable of. Would she never be free of him? She forgot to mention her injured mare to Paul. She’d have to call him in the morning and tell him.

Meanwhile, she phoned Laredo in the bunkhouse and told him what had happened.

“He can call you all he likes,” Laredo drawled, “but if he sets foot on the place, I’ll have him in jail so fast his head will spin. Don’t you worry, Mrs. Merridan. I’m on the job.”

“Okay. Thanks. Listen, do you think Bailey hurt my mare?”

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