Texas Proud

by Diana Palmer

He glanced toward the counter, where she was picking up her order and smiling at the female clerk.

  Maybe it was an act, he mused. Maybe she pretended to be nervous toward a man when she was stalking him. The problem with that theory was that she hadn’t come near Jake since the party. In fact, when she left the café, she went the long way around to the front door, so that she wouldn’t have to pass the table where he was sitting.

  He finished his coffee and took the cup back to the counter. “You make good coffee, Cindy,” he told the new employee, who was a married grandmother.

  She grinned at him. “Thanks, Mr. McGuire. My husband runs on black coffee. He’s a trucker. If I couldn’t make it to suit him, I’d be in divorce court in no time,” she joked.

  “Fat chance. Mack’s crazy about you,” he chuckled. He glanced toward the door. “The happy divorcée doesn’t eat with the common folk?” he added.

  “Oh, you mean Ida,” she said. She grimaced. “She doesn’t go out much. She lives near us, you know. One night I heard her screaming and I called the sheriff’s department. I was afraid somebody might have broken in on her. Cody Banks, our sheriff, was working that shift and he went by to see what had happened.”

  He frowned, just waiting.

  She sighed. “He said she was white as a sheet and looked as if she’d seen a ghost. She told him it was an old nightmare that she had from time to time and she apologized for disturbing the neighbors.”

  “Nightmares.” He shook his head. “Who’d have thought it?”

  “I went over to see her the next day, it was Sunday, on my way to church, to apologize for calling the law. She just smiled and said she didn’t blame me. She apologized, too, for making a fuss.”

  “Did she say why she had the nightmare?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “She mentioned something about her second husband making a threat. He’s involved in some illegal stuff, I gathered, and she’s rich.”

  “Did she get rich by divorcing him?” he asked with a grin.

  She shook her head. “Her first husband had the money. The second...apparently he married her for what she had. Nobody knows much about it.”

  “Did she move here recently?” Jake asked. “I don’t mix much with local people, even though I have my ranch and I still own the feed supply store here. I’m away on business a lot.”

  “Her grandparents were from here. So was her mother. In fact, she was born here. But when her father got a good paying job in Denver, they moved away. She was in fifth grade.” She drew in a breath. “It was just after Bess Grady killed herself.”

  “My best friend had a crush on the Grady girl. He took it hard,” he commented, not going into details. Like Cindy, he’d gone through school here. He hadn’t always been rich. “What about Ida’s parents?”

  She shook her head. “Her father had a massive heart attack when he was just thirty-five,” she said with a sigh. “Her mother lived on, but not happily. She lived only for Ida. When Ida was eighteen, her mother went on a cruise and fell overboard. They never found the body.”

  “That would have been hard,” he conceded.

  “So Ida was working for a graphics firm in Denver, right out of high school, and her boss felt sorry for her, I guess, because he married her shortly afterwards. There was gossip, they said, because of the age difference. He was very wealthy and had never been married at all.”

  “Was it a happy marriage?” He hated asking. He didn’t know why he even cared.

  “Well... There were some issues.”

  “I heard he committed suicide.”

  She nodded, looking around to make sure nobody was within earshot. “Her husband left her everything, and there was a lot. He left her a note, thanking her for being so kind to him.”

  He was touched, despite his distaste for Ida.

  “Maybe she’s not all bad.”

  “Nobody is all bad, Mr. McGuire,” she replied. “Some people have worse lives than others, is all.”

  He shrugged. “Seems so.”

  She smiled gently. “You still missing Mina?”

  He smiled back. “A little. But she and Cort and the baby are happy in Texas. I’m glad for them. I keep in touch with them through her dad, who’s managing their family ranch outside town.”

  “You’re a good loser.”

  “Not much choice about that,” he replied. His pale silver eyes were sad. “You can’t make people love you.”

  “Isn’t it the truth?” she agreed.

  * * *

  He went out to get into his car and spotted Ida standing by her Jaguar with her cell phone to her ear. The Jag had a flat tire.

  “Yes,” she said wearily. “Yes, I know, but it’s going to take two hours to get somebody out here, and I have to be at the doctor’s by two!”

  Jake paused beside the car.

  She stared at him, surprised.

  “I can run you to the doctor. Leave the key with Cindy Bates, inside, and tell whoever you’re talking to where they’ll be. Have him lock the car and give the key back to Cindy when he’s done.”

  She was just standing there, surprised at how easily he organized things. A voice was coming over the smart phone.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said into the receiver. “Listen, I’ve had the offer of a ride. I’ll leave the key inside the café with Cindy. She can give it to you and you can hand it back to her when you finish. That work? Great. Thanks so much. I’m really sorry...of course. Thanks.”

  She hung up. She glanced at Jake warily. “You’re sure it’s not out of your way?”

  He shook his head. “Give me the key.”

  She handed it to him. He gestured to a red Mercedes and used his own smart key to unlock it. “Go ahead and get in. I won’t be a minute.”

  He didn’t wait to see if she complied. He just turned and strode back into the café. Ida stared after him with mingled discomfort and appreciation. He was very handsome. Tall, fit, muscular without it being overly obvious. He had beautiful manners and eyes that seemed to pierce all the way to the soul. If she’d been able to find a man attractive, he’d have been at the top of her list. As it was, that was impossible.

  * * *

  She was sitting in the passenger seat with her seatbelt fastened when he climbed in beside her.

  “I’ve never driven a Mercedes. Are they nice?” she asked, to make conversation.

  “They’re immortal and almost never break down. Where are we going?” he added abruptly.

  “Sorry. Aspen Street, just past the bakery.”

  He nodded, cranked the big car and pulled out of the parking lot.

  She held her bulky purse in her lap and dug her nails into it. He couldn’t know how difficult it was for her to sit with a man who was more or less a stranger. He disliked her and made no secret of it. Jerking out of his arms and running at that party they’d attended separately had just made things worse.

  She stared out the window as he drove, not even trying to make conversation.

  She directed him to the parking lot of a group of orthopaedic surgeons. He didn’t comment, but she was young, or seemed to be. He associated orthopaedics with elderly people.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she said quietly.

  “You’ll need a ride home,” he replied. “Give me your cell phone.”

  He spoke with such authority that she handed it over without thinking.

  He took it and pulled up her contact list. It was blank. He looked at her with a faint scowl.

  She swallowed, hard. “Why do you need my phone?”

  He pulled up a screen and put his own contact information into it. He handed it back. “That’s my cell phone number. Call me when you’re through here and I’ll drive you back to your car.”

  “I can get a cab....”

  He just looked at her.

  She
bit her lower lip. “It will be an imposition.”

  She was fascinating him. The image of her he’d built up seemed nothing like the reality. She was uncomfortable with him, shy, withdrawn. He’d only seen her being vivacious, the life of the party. Was it a mask?

  “I have to check in at my feed store and look over some accounts with the manager. It won’t be an inconvenience.”

  “Well...okay, then. Thank you.”

  He shrugged. He turned off the engine, went around, and opened the door for her. She actually flushed.

  “Is that not allowed in our modern, too liberal society? Opening doors for women?”

  “I like nice manners, and I don’t care if it’s acceptable or not,” she stammered.

  He cocked his head and looked down at her with open curiosity.

  “Thanks again. I’ll be late,” she added, glancing at the plain watch on her wrist. She turned and walked slowly toward the building.

  It wasn’t really blatant, but he could see that she limped a little when she walked. Odd. An old injury, he wondered? A fall or something? Not his business. But he was curious about her. Far more curious than he wanted to be.

  * * *

  Ida sat in the waiting room for her turn to see Dr. Menzer and tried to understand why Jake McGuire, who obviously disliked her, had been so kind to her. She didn’t expect kindness from men. She pretended to be a wild woman, just to make men leave her alone. She exaggerated her reputation, let it be rumored that she had high standards for her bedroom and talked about fictional men she’d had affairs with to give the idea that she’d gossip about a man who didn’t measure up to her expectations. As she’d 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, 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. Two surgeries and a steel pin had alleviated most of her problem, but the pain continued and the visits to her orthopaedic surgeon had increased in recent months. Oncoming cold weather usually brought its own set of complications. Arthritis had set into the damaged joint. She needed another prescription for anti-inflammatory medications, 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 had been a long fall. Very long. The pain had been something out of her experience. By the time the ambulance arrived, of course, he was long gone. It would have been her word against his, how it happened. It wasn’t until months later that he assaulted her in view of a witness and got himself sent to prison for the second vicious attack in six months.

  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 divorce and gone back to the surname of her first husband, Merridan. He was furious that he couldn’t make her send him money for the pain and suffering she’d caused him. She owed him and he planned to collect. She had all that nice money and he was destitute. She could pay up or unpleasant things might happen, he suggested just before she hung up in his face and blocked his number. She remembered some of the unpleasant things that had already happened and she felt sick inside.

  Cody Banks, the local sheriff, had been a sympathetic listener. He was one of the few people in Catelow who knew the woman behind the mask. He’d been kind to her. He promised that Bailey Trent wouldn’t get near her. He encouraged her to take out a restraining order. She had, although the clerk had told her that they were very rarely worth the paper they were printed on. She phoned her attorneys in Denver and had them send an investigator out to keep an eye on Bailey. She could afford the expense, which might save her life. Bailey used drugs. He was dangerous even when he didn’t.

  She couldn’t believe how naïve she’d been about him. Coming from a marriage with a man who had loved other men, she’d had no faith at all in her ability to attract a man. It wasn’t until her husband committed suicide and left her the note that she’d even known about his sexual orientation. She’d thought that she simply wasn’t appeal to him.

  He’d been a kind, sweet man, always taking care of her, doing anything he could to make her life happy and easy. His loss was painful.

  Then, there was Bailey Trent. He was rugged, authoritative, a real he-man, at least to Ida’s naïve eyes. They’d dated and he’d been passionate with her, but he hadn’t insisted on intimacy until they were married. That, too, she thought miserably, had been calculated. She’d been desperate to have him, in thrall to her senses for the first time in her life. He’d taken advantage of feelings she couldn’t help to rush her to the altar.

  And then had come her wedding night. Nothing in her young life had prepared her for the depravity some men reveled in. She had nightmares about what he’d done to her, that night and others, when she was too bruised and frightened to fight back anymore. She’d tried to run away once, and called the police, after he’d injured her so badly. But he’d found her and convinced her protectors that she’d overreacted to what was basically just a sad accident. He loved her desperately. He couldn’t live without her. He told everybody.

  Ida knew better. He couldn’t live without her money. But she was encouraged to forgive him and make her marriage work. Her sweet friends who’d taken her in had been happily married for twenty-five years. They had no idea what her life was like. And she was too ashamed to tell them.

  “Mrs. Merridan?”

  She lifted her head and came out of the reverie quickly. She smiled at the nurse as she got painstakingly to her feet and followed the younger woman back to the treatment room.

  * * *

  Dr. Menzer examined her and grimaced.

  “What did you do?” he asked.

  She flushed. “It’s autumn,” she began.

  “You can hire big strong hefty men to lift those heavy pots into your sunroom,” he said shortly and watched her flush. She did the same thing every year, just before frost warnings went out, getting her precious herbs and flowering plants inside. “You’ve no business trying to do it yourself.”

  She made a face. �
��I can’t let my flowers die. And I love fresh herbs.”

  “Buy some at the store.”

  “It’s not the same,” she pointed out.

  He drew in a breath. “Ida, there are things you just can’t do anymore. Heavy labor tops the list. You have to be sensible.”

  “Sensible.” She sighed. “He’s out of prison, you know,” she added, her blue eyes poignant. “He wants money. He says if I don’t give it to him, I can expect even worse than I had before he was convicted.”

  “Talk to Cody Banks.”

  “I have,” she replied. “I took out a restraining order as well. But if somebody wants to kill you, he can,” she added.

  “If he wants money, killing you isn’t in his best interest, now is it?” he returned.

  “I guess not. I had a new will drawn up when he went to prison, guaranteeing that if I die, he inherits nothing.” She drew in a long breath. “The nightmares came back, when he called me. I thought Bailey was the ideal man’s man. Boy, was I wrong.”

  “We all make mistakes.”

  “Yes, but most of us don’t end up in intensive care when we make them,” she replied with a faint smile.

  “You survived at least,” he replied. “That’s something.”

  “I guess.”

  “I’m going to have Melanie call in a prescription for stronger anti-inflammatories,” he said, typing on his computer. “You’ll take them for five days only, then ten days off. That way you’ll be able to keep your liver and save your kidneys.”

  “Powerful stuff,” she commented.

  “Very. And don’t take them and try to drive,” he admonished.

  “I won’t. Thanks,” she added. “For the meds. And for listening.”

  “Who else have you got?” he asked reasonably.

  “Sad but true.”

  “You should come to supper one night,” he told her as he got to his feet. “Sandy would love to make you that terrific meatloaf she does, along with some homemade bread.”

  “Your wife is a wonderful cook. And I appreciate the offer. But...”