Page 13 of Wyoming True

CHAPTER THREE

IDAHATEDTAKINGthe huge ibuprofen caplets. They hurt her stomach, even when she took them with food, and she had to take an antacid just to tolerate them. But they did help with the inflammation and the pain.

Her car had required a part that had to be sent for, so it hadn’t been returned the day Jake drove her home. It would be ready today, though. The mechanic, a former Jaguar mechanic at that, had told her on the phone. She didn’t really mind. She couldn’t take ibuprofen and drive anyway.

She scrambled some eggs and made a piece of toast to go with them. She didn’t have much of an appetite. All she could think of was how dangerous Bailey was, and what he was capable of doing to her. The pain in her hip reminded her graphically what could happen when she refused him.

Over the few months of their brief marriage, he’d turned her from a happy, fun-loving woman into a frightened recluse who wanted nothing to do with men ever again. The trial had been quick, by judicial standards, and Bailey had sworn vengeance from the courtroom when he was convicted. Ida had been in the room, compelled to learn the outcome of the trial firsthand. She could never forget the look on her husband’s face. Well, ex-husband. She’d divorced him while he was in jail awaiting trial. Her attorneys had made him aware of what they could do if he refused to consent to it. So he’d consented, reluctantly. But he hadn’t known that she was cutting him out of her will at the same time. She wondered if he knew even now.

She’d refused to go to his bond hearing when he was arrested, afraid of what he might do to her. The attorneys in Denver had concurred. One of them knew the assistant DA who tried the case. He’d made the man aware of just what had been done to Ida by the defendant, a drastically different story from the one the defendant had told. Bailey had no money of his own, no property for a cash bond, so he was forced to stay in jail until the trial. After the trial he went straight to prison. It was the first time in months that Ida had felt safe. She subsequently changed her surname back to that of Charles Merridan, her first husband. She didn’t even want Bailey’s name to be a daily reminder that she’d been stupid enough to marry him.

She’d told only a handful of people about the threats. Her attorneys had hired a temporary bodyguard for her. He was masquerading as a cowboy who helped with her small horse ranch. He lived in the old bunkhouse that she’d renovated as a guest cottage. Nobody thought anything about it, because of her reputation.

She grimaced. She hadn’t told Jake. When he found out about the bodyguard, and he would, he’d assume that the bodyguard from Texas was just another lover, because he was young and good-looking. She was going to hate that. Jake was a good, kind man. She wished he thought better of her. But then, give a dog a bad name... And she’d given herself a very bad one, encouraging gossip that protected her from the attentions of local men.

She hated her own beauty that made her attractive to men. She downplayed it by not wearing makeup and going around in clothes that concealed her exquisite figure. But there was the occasional party and she dressed for those. They’d become an ordeal until Cort Grier had helped her out by pretending an interest in her.

At the party she’d been flirting with an older man deliberately, because she knew he was married and unlikely to want to start something with her. Sadly, her idea backfired. He became very aggressively interested, and his poor wife went to the restroom in tears. She backed off after that and ran into Cort Grier, who left with her when the party ended. She’d wanted so badly to apologize to the man’s wife, but she hadn’t known how to approach her. Very few people in Catelow knew the real woman behind the vivacious flirt with the sordid reputation. It wasn’t the facts of any case; it was what people believed about it. Ida was a call girl who tried to steal other women’s husbands. That was the latest gossip, after the notorious party.

Well, it was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it, to be scandalous? She’d thought it was the best way to keep men at bay. It had worked, so far. She had no interest at all in another marriage or getting involved with a man. She was convinced that she didn’t have the judgment God gave a billy goat, much less the ability to spot an abuser when she saw one.

She finished her meager breakfast and went into the living room, carrying a cup of latte from her European coffee machine along with her in a delicate blue-and-white bone china cup and saucer. She put it on the coffee table and just stared at it.

She drank too much coffee. It kept her awake at night. That would have been a problem if she hadn’t had the daily pain that ensured that she actively avoided sleep. She hated it when the lights went out, because that was when the bad dreams came. Horrible dreams, full of violence only half remembered when she awoke.

So she avoided sleep. She avoided men. She avoided almost all contact with other human beings. Her only companion was old Butler, curled up in his kitty bed, sound asleep.

There was a wide-screen television, the latest model, with every satellite channel known to man on it. But the centerpiece of the room was a grand piano. Ida’s first husband had played beautifully. He had her taught.

She was a quick study, too. She’d always loved music. Piano came as naturally to her as breathing, to his utter delight. She memorized his favorite pieces and played them for him when they were at home together, which wasn’t often.

Leaving the coffee on the table, she went to the piano, positioned the bench, sat down and put her right foot near the pedals on the floor.

Her very favorite song was an old one that her grandmother had loved. She’d had several recordings of it by different singers and groups, but it was the one by Steve Alaimo that was her favorite. Ida had grown up hearing it, loving it. Her hands went to the keys and she began to play, her eyes closed, the music filling up all the empty, frightened places inside her.

She was oblivious to everything around her when she played, even to the sound of the doorbell. It did finally get through to her. She stopped in the middle of a bar, jumped to her feet and moved as quickly as she could to the front door.

Jake McGuire was standing there, watching her curiously.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you drive up.”

“One of my men drove my Mercedes over here. He’s waiting for me.” He studied her. “Your radio was pretty loud,” he said. “No wonder you didn’t hear the cars. My grandfather used to play that song. What’s it called?”

“‘Cast Your Fate to the Wind,’” she replied.

“Catchy tune.”

“It is,” she agreed, without telling him it was she, herself, playing it.

He handed her a smart key on a key ring with a silver leaper, the Jaguar symbol, attached. “It handles like a dream,” he remarked. “I might even consider getting one of my own.”

She smiled. “Thanks for all the trouble.”

“It wasn’t. Trouble, I mean,” he replied.

She stared up at him with conflicted emotions, feeling things she didn’t want to feel. He was only being kind. It was indifferent kindness. He didn’t even like her, for God’s sake!

He was having the same kind of issues. His perception of her had changed. She wasn’t the wild woman he’d thought she was. He was curious about her. He didn’t want to be.

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