Page 27 of Wyoming True

Well, after all, she was reticent about her ex-husband and the way he’d treated her. It was too early in their relationship for buried secrets.

“I’m not fond of it myself,” she said belatedly. “I don’t like the taste and it’s not a good idea to take it when I’m on powerful anti-inflammatories. Like drinking battery acid,” she added with an amused smile.

He smiled back. “I get your point.”

“Do you take anti-inflammatories?” she asked.

He nodded. “Very few, though. My injuries weren’t in joints.”

One side of her pretty mouth pulled down. “Mine were. My hip and my thigh. It messed up my knee, too, but not badly enough to need rebuilding.”

He frowned. “It must have been one hell of an injury.”

She thought back to the fall, to the agony she’d felt until she’d been found and transported to the hospital. Then the endless hours of tests and surgery and recovery, and then more surgery due to complications following the first surgery.

“It was,” she said flatly.

His pale silver eyes narrowed on her face. She looked as if she’d visited hell and come away with memories that wouldn’t die. He knew how that felt. But it disturbed him that someone had deliberately hurt her. He was fairly certain that it had been her second husband, who was now out of jail and after her.

“Did he hit you with something?” Jake asked her abruptly. “To cause those injuries,” he added.

She met his eyes. “No.”

“Then how...?”

She swallowed, hard. “He picked me up and threw me over the side in a parking garage, onto the ground below,” she said finally.

CHAPTER FIVE

JAKESTAREDATher with absolute horror. “He what?” he burst out, enraged.

She shrugged. “He said I deserved it. We’d been to a party and the hostess’s husband danced with me. He was twenty years my senior. Just a very nice man, nothing out of the way. Bailey was livid. We’d been married less than a week, at the time.”

“Did you have him arrested?”

“Nobody saw it,” she said simply. “He was at the hospital every minute, telling everyone how guilty he felt that I’d accidentally fallen and he couldn’t get to me in time.”

“What a piece of work,” he muttered.

She sighed. “He was very good at lying. He could convince people that black was white. I had no comeback. I’d been so crazy about him that I could hardly believe he’d done it. But the feelings I had for him were already long gone, completely gone. He tortured me, in ways I don’t even like remembering. Then after the fall, when I got out of rehab, I was trying to recuperate from the surgery, but that didn’t save me. So I had to have another surgery, to repair the new damage.” Her eyes closed. “I tried leaving once, but he brought me back and made violent threats about what he’d do if I tried it again. I was terrified of him. I knew he meant it. I was so weak and in so much pain that I didn’t have the strength to try again.” She stared down at her hands. “A few months after we married, I smiled at a man in a restaurant who’d been kind enough to pick up the purse I’d accidentally dropped. When we got into the parking lot, Bailey drew back his fist and knocked me winding. But this time there were witnesses. They had to pull him off me,” she added, shivering. “I thought he was going to kill me. The police came. He was arrested and taken to jail. I refused to bail him out. I called my first husband’s attorneys and they handled the divorce.” Her eyes closed. “I’ve been afraid of men ever since.”

“No damned wonder.” He was outraged. “What sort of weasel does that to a woman?” he asked angrily.

“A coward,” she replied simply. “He was afraid of other men. He wouldn’t say a word to someone who made him mad. He’d come home and take it out on me. At least there was finally proof of what he was doing to me. It was such a relief to be able to go to sleep and not worry if I’d live until morning.”

“They should never have let him out of jail,” he bit off.

“He served his time. They had to let him out.” She looked back out the window. “At least I have people watching out for me on the ranch.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, noting his hard face and glittering eyes. “I’ve ruined our dinner before we even got to it.”

His eyes caught hers. “I’m sorry for what he did to you,” he said quietly. “I’m glad you told me the truth.”

She smiled sadly. “I don’t lie well. I was raised to believe that lies are evil.”

He chuckled. “I was raised that way, too, but there are times when lying is an absolute virtue. I mean, if a woman asks you if a dress makes her look fat, and it really does...”

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