She pulled back and closed the door with a yogurt cup in her hand. Yogurt was something you wouldn’t normally find in his refrigerator, except he’d had his housekeeper stock up with Angela’s favorite foods.
She yanked an earbud out when she saw him standing there. He caught a snippet of Beyoncé and “Run the World (Girls)” before she turned off her iPod. “’Morning.”
“’Morning,” he repeated.
“Is that the hat I bought you online?”
He glanced back at his cowboy hat by the door. “You mean the one I get razzed about because it came from California.”
“There are cowboys in California.” She peeled back the yogurt lid and licked it before tossing it into the trash.
“Yeah, but they’re all transplants.”
Settling back against the cupboard, she rolled her eyes and set about eating her breakfast.
His gaze dropped to where the pink sports bra barely covered her breasts, let alone her midriff. The open sweat jacket, also gray, had afforded only a glimpse of skin from behind. He liked this view better.
For a woman to get that much muscle definition she either had to be taking ’roids or doing about two hundred sit-ups a day. Her hair was pulled back and he noticed the beads of perspiration on her brow. “How far’d you run?”
“Three miles.”
He moved to the fridge, though he wasn’t hungry.
For food, anyway. She had a glow about her that he attributed to running, but it left him with an uneasy feeling. “Going easy on yourself today, huh?”
“I did just drive how many miles yesterday?”
“Is that why you slept in?” he asked, looking around in the fridge for nothing in particular.
She reached over and swatted his arm, and he closed the door of the Subzero empty-handed. “You could have woken me up,” she said. “Did you get Ryder off to school okay?”
“We have our routines.” Driving him up to the main road to wait for the school bus every Monday through Friday was one of them.
Hatch could have allowed Ryder to ride his bike up to the mailbox and chain it there for the ride home, the way Hatch had done as a kid. But their short commutes in the morning and occasionally the afternoon gave them time each weekday to catch up.
Most afternoons, weather permitting, he’d hike or jog that mile up the road and they’d have a nice long walk back to talk about their days.
“Though I will say, with you here and this being the last week of school and all, he did not want to go today.”
“Can I ride with you this afternoon to pick him up?” She threw her empty yogurt cup into the recycle bin. “Or will that mess up your routine?”
He reached around her for a glass in the cabinet above her head and she slid along the counter to give him room at the sink. He ran tap water into the glass despite the cold water in the fridge. “I can never tell if you’re teasing me.”
He hadn’t meant to say that.
Did she really think he was so regimented?
Okay, so maybe he was a little habitual about his schedule. But he wasn’t that bad. Was he?
“I’m not teasing. Not about that.” She held his gaze before dropping hers.
Whatever teasing had been going on dropped with it. This was as good a time as any to pick up where they’d left off last night. “Have you made a decision about the job?”
“Yes,” she said.
He nodded, accepting her answer for what it was. And ignoring the pang he felt somewhere near his chest. “And the county fair?”
He’d promised Ryder he’d ask again. He hadn’t mentioned the job to the boy because breaking that news was his mother’s business. But maybe the start date was negotiable.
“About staying through the Fourth of July, you mean?” She tugged on her ponytail—which she often did when she was anxious about something. “Actually, yes,” she said, letting her hair fall to her shoulder. “I did some online research last night.”
She took a deep breath. “Now is probably as good a time as any to give you that divorce I’ve always promised. And that will allow us just enough time to get through it.”
“SOUNDS GOOD.” He drained the glass he’d been holding for no good reason.
“If it’s all right with you, I’d like us to tell Ryder together. When we pick him up this afternoon?” She’d tried to make her words sound upbeat, and wound up sounding forced.
“Sure,” he replied.
“Okay.”
“I’ve got a full day of work ahead of me.”
“Is there anything I can do? You know I’m used to working with men. And used to following orders.”
And not much good at being idle.
“Can’t think of a thing.” He set his glass on the counter.
“Mend fences, herd cattle? Dress deer?”
She’d meant to be funny. He knew she didn’t know the first thing about his cattle operation. But he was always saying he wanted to show her the ropes. Why not today?
He should have picked up on the part about the deer.
Of course he remembered that. He remembered everything that was important to him.
She watched him all the way out the door, expecting him to…what? From the moment they’d said, “I do,” a divorce was what he’d wanted. What they’d both wanted.
So why’d she feel so crappy right now?
“Aren’t you even going to ask?”
He turned around. “Darlin’, I don’t have to ask. I’m only surprised it took this long for someone to find you.” He grabbed his hat from next to the door.
“Meet you back here at three?”
He tipped his hat on the way out.
Wow, seriously. No reaction from him at all.
No I’m so happy for you. Or Tell me about this guy you just met. Where’d you meet him? Where’s the ring? You sure that rock’s not cubic zirconium?
Or He’s not good enough for you!
I thought I warned you away from Special Ops guys.
Where was the relief she should be feeling? Instead, she felt as drained as the glass left sitting on the counter. She picked it up and loaded it into the dishwasher.
It wasn’t like Hatch not to pick up after himself. Because of his mother, he never left anything sitting around.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“LOOKS LIKE BIG RED just kicked you in the balls.” His foreman entered the stables, letting a stream of sunlight in with him.
Hatch stood off to the side, backed up against a stall. The pain in his gut had him doubled over, and he was finding it hard to breathe.
“Go away,” he said without conviction.
Smitty closed in on him. “What’d you do this time?”
“How long does it take to get a divorce in Wyoming?”
“That bad?” he asked. “Twenty days from the day you file.”
Hatch took a couple more deep breaths and forced himself upright. Pressing his back against the stall, he slid halfway down into a crouch. The pain had subsided, but not the panic.
He rarely had these kinds of panic attacks anymore. The last one he remembered was before he’d even met her, shortly after his return from Iraq.
But this morning, one minute he was walking out toward the equipment barn to check on a tractor, and the next he was doubled over in the stables.
Sensing his distress, the three mares left in their stalls were pawing at the ground and snorting.
“Seems to me,” Smitty said, “when a man feels physical pain at the thought of divorcing his wife, he might want to think twice about it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been praying for the day I’d get her off my hands.”
He just hadn’t realized how the thought of her with another man would affect him. He should have recognized that glow on her face. The only time he’d seen it was when she’d been lying naked across his chest, staring down at him with those incredibly innocent eyes.
What an idiot he was.
The tattoo. The thon
g.
They screamed sex.
“You do realize you’re the chick in this relationship, don’t you? You have to be the one to tell her how you feel.”
Hatch glowered at his foreman, then dropped his head into his locked hands. “I don’t know how I feel. Part of me is relieved.”
Or should be relieved, since he’d always believed this was exactly what he wanted. They’d stay together until she found someone else.
Well, she’d found someone.
“You’ve got twenty days to figure it out,” Smitty said, turning a feed bucket over to sit down on, so that they were at eye level. “Of course, maybe you put off filing until you’re ready.”
“She’ll just file.”
“She can’t.”
Hatch lifted his head.
“She’s not a legal resident of the state. And she has to have been for at least sixty days before she can file for a divorce. She hasn’t lived here ninety consecutive days in six years. Ran into that problem with my second wife. No good run-around that she was took off to Montana with—”
“Smitty, I could kiss you right now.”
The older man scowled. “If’n you’re that horny, you might want to start by moving your wife into your bedroom.”
That wasn’t an option.
But filing for a divorce ninety days from now was better than filing today. Especially when it meant she had no choice but to stick around.
“YOU READY?” Hatch stood in the doorway.
Angela was sitting at his desk in the den when he showed up at three o’clock on the dot. She’d found his jumbled notes for a new accounting program. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I thought maybe I’d take a look and see how I could help—”
“Knock yourself out.” His expression remained impassive. But at least he hadn’t objected to her helping.
The contrast between his stoic acceptance of their divorce and the pictures he’d surrounded himself with was mind-blowing.
They were smiling in every one of those photos.
The picture of her and Ryder dressed like pirates. The Halloween following her first deployment, her son had insisted they each wear a black eye patch. She hadn’t been exactly sure how that would go over with Hatch, but it had sort of become their thing.
The following year he’d had Ryder for Halloween and they’d dressed like monsters. Ryder as a mummy and Hatch as Frankenstein.
Both with fake bloody eyeballs popping out.
“These are good memories, aren’t they?” Angela murmured.
“You’re not going soft on me now, are you?”
She just might. Her favorite memory had nothing to do with Halloween. It came from another year, in which he’d kept Ryder to the end of school and then driven him to San Diego.
Hatch hadn’t stayed long.
Two weeks. And with one of his SEAL buddies.
During the day he’d gone to the base and harassed the BUD/S in training while hanging out with the SEAL instructors. He’d been offered an instructor position that would have brought him out of retirement and back into the field he loved.
She’d kind of hoped for Ryder’s sake that Hatch would take the job. Yet he’d returned to Wyoming and she didn’t hear any more about it. But she had her suspicions.
She knew city driving freaked him out.
In fact, she’d done most of the driving during those two weeks. She thought that maybe one too many close calls on busy streets had made him eager to return to a less populated area.
That and the fact the ranch had started to take off, so he’d had to choose one over the other. But she’d never forget that was the summer he’d taught them to surf.
In the picture the three of them wore wetsuits and were monkey-piled on top of a surfboard, Hatch on the bottom, her in the middle and Ryder on top.
She hadn’t realized how long she’d been staring at that photo until Hatch cleared his throat. “You ready?”
She picked up her purse and followed him out to the truck. To reach the mailbox required only a few minutes. Hatch checked for mail as if that was part of his routine. Routines were very important to him. She wondered if he’d ever strayed from his rituals.
Although she hadn’t spent much time at the ranch over the past six years, the prospect of not spending any time at all here in the near future once again saddened her.
They should be talking about how they would answer Ryder’s question about their divorce. Instead, they waited in silence a few minutes more before the big yellow school bus rolled to a stop and Ryder got out.
He waved to the driver and his friends still on board the bus, before climbing in the backseat of the truck.
Angela shifted around in her seat. “How was your day?”
He shrugged. “You know. Last week. We didn’t do much. Cleaned chalkboard erasers. Cleaned out lockers, that sort of stuff.”
She doubted that was all they’d done, but she let his remark go. Hatch turned the truck around and she realized the ride back was so short they might not have the time they needed.
Since they hadn’t discussed how they were going to proceed, she took the lead. “Say, you know how I promised we’d spend more time together soon?”
Ryder nodded and she continued, “And you know Hatch married me so I could join the Marine Corps,” she prompted. “Now that I’m getting out we won’t need to stay married.”
“Okay, cool.”
“Cool.” She’d managed to get through her explanation without using the D word. And Ryder seemed fine with the news.
Slanting a glance toward Hatch, she wondered if he thought the explanation too simplistic for an nine-year-old. She’d expected more of a reaction from Ryder, just as she’d expected more of a reaction from Hatch this morning.
“One more thing,” she said to Ryder as they pulled into the yard. “We’ll be staying through the week of the Fourth.”
“Yes!” Her son pumped his fist.
“But I don’t want any more outbursts like the other day, or we’ll leave right then and there. Understood?”
When had she started sounding like a mom?
Ryder hopped out of the truck. “Will we be moving again when we get back to San Diego?” he asked with the long-suffering sigh of a military brat who’d moved too many times to count in his young life.
What Hatch had provided for her son was stability. But she’d be able to provide that from now on.
“We are.” She left things at that as he scrambled into the house, eager to dump his backpack. One more day and for a whole summer he wouldn’t have to worry about lugging it around.
“YOU DIDN’T SAY MUCH.” She’d followed Hatch toward the equipment barn.
“Wasn’t much for me to say.” He didn’t really have a destination in mind. He was just trying to put some distance between them. It wasn’t working.
“You must have something to say.”
They’d reached the SteelMaster, a big aluminum building with a sliding door on each end and four garage doors on each side. Here he housed his equipment.
“Plenty.” He slid one of the end doors wide without another word.
He’d been thinking about their marriage—or rather, pending divorce—all day. About his expectations six years ago compared with today. And to be honest, not much had changed.
“Would you prefer I stay at Maddie’s?”
“I would, but he wouldn’t.” Hatch nodded toward the house.
Hatch still wanted her, and he was going to lie his ass off about it. From that day to this, he’d been waiting for one thing: her to grow up.
He could have had her years ago.
If he’d been willing to clip her wings.
“Are we going to spend the whole month fighting? Or just not talking?”
“Probably.”
The barn was one big open concrete bay. He passed the stall with the tractor he’d been working on, and headed for the far corner.
“I’m getting married in six weeks.
”
Six weeks? “How long have you known this guy? And how come I haven’t heard anything about him until now?”
She crossed her arms. “I met him on the flight home.”
“I suppose you love him.” Hatch tried to keep the contempt from his voice. Most people didn’t know what love was. He sure as hell didn’t. “And he loves you.”
Even when it was staring him in the face.
“I wouldn’t be standing here asking you for a divorce otherwise.”
If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it comes back demanding a divorce, you’re screwed.
“I’ll file,” he agreed. He didn’t need sixty days or even sixty minutes to figure out what he wanted. Or to realize that it might be too late. “On one condition.”
“You want Grandma Shirley’s pink Cadillac,” she said, guessing at what lay beneath the tarp.
“No,” he said, removing the car cover. He just wanted to show her he’d been taking care of the old Caddy. The way he’d been taking care of Ryder.
And maybe she’d see beyond that to why.
Plus, he did have one really big demand that would probably piss her off. So he wanted to be in a place where she wouldn’t start throwing things. “I want shared custody.”
“You’d better be talking about the Cadillac and not my son.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AS FAR AS BOMBS WENT, he’d dropped a pretty big one. She’d had no idea he felt that strong an attachment to her son. She knew how Ryder felt about Hatch. But Hatch played his cards pretty close to his chest. Angela had stood there in the aftershock and accused him of trying to use Ryder to manipulate her.
Words she wished she could take back.
To be fair, Hatch hadn’t known they’d be moving to England. When he found out, he dropped all demands. And settled for so little she wanted to cry at the unfairness of it. Two weeks a year at the ranch.
As if his wanting less meant he loved Ryder more, she felt self-centered and selfish. Friday rolled around, and despite their agreement, he still hadn’t filed for a divorce. He wanted those two weeks in writing.
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