Page 7 of First Date: Divorce
… a woman as window-dressing to get him inside …She’d dress up any window.
Especially those legs that occupied more than their share of her height.
But he focused on reading K.D.Hamilton’s expression the way he might someone he was deposing.
Strong, straight nose.Wide mouth in a slightly rounded face.He suspected her chestnut hair being drawn back in a severe knot at her nape was meant to offset that fullness.Sharp, high cheekbones.Eyes the aqua of an inlet in the Caribbean lit by sun.
From the moment K.D.Hamilton walked in, she took him apart, studied each piece, and put him back together with her eyes.
Not comfortable on the receiving end of that.
He glanced at K.D.Hamilton as he made one of the turns that would get them to Far Hills Ranch.
So far, they hadn’t said a word to each other.
*
The silence ended only when they’d turned onto the long ranch road that led past other houses to the main house of Far Hills Ranch — called the home ranch.
He eased off the gas, falling farther behind the vehicles they followed, so dust didn’t envelop them.
“Sheriff Grainger said it would be good for us to be seen together, but why wouldn’t they already know what your wife looks like.”K.D.had a habit of talking abruptly, without any throat-clearing or head-turning.
“No wife here.I was married five years, moved here after the divorce.”
She cut him a look.“I meant for the cover story we’re using for the investigation.”
“We — Cully and I — figured we’d say we were married in Illinois.When we separated, I came here.Going to Marriage-Save is a last-ditch effort at reconciliation.”
“You moved here — Wyoming — when?”
“A year ago.To Bardville.”
The quiet in the car hummed with her speculation.Or maybe that was the sound of her laser look burning into his profile.
“Sheriff Grainger knew you before you moved here,” she said.
“Why do you think that?”
“No one has that much unholy glee about someone else’s discomfort unless they’ve known them longer than a year.”
She was sharp.Not only in the general observation, but in picking up Cully’s delight — unholy glee — at Eric’s discomfort with twists in this situation.
“Yeah, we’ve known each other a while.He suggested I move here.”
At last, she stopped watching him, looking straight ahead through the windshield.
“If people know your real-life history of being divorced before you came here—”
“They don’t.Except a few.Grainger knows.His wife, Jessa.And Grif — that’s Ellyn’s husband.You’ll meet him soon.I don’t broadcast my private life.”That got another flick from her aqua eyes.Did he imagine a hint of approval?
“The only other one is my assistant.You’ll meet Pauline later.For general consumption, we’ll say we’ve been estranged for a while, giving it another try at Marriage-Save,” he said.
He pulled in next to Tal Bennett’s pickup in front of the large, white main house.
The two-story structure, with a wrap-around porch and broad, welcoming steps, was known as the touchstone for the extended family, as well as the hub for the extensive Far Hills Ranch operation.
As they started up the steps, the door swung open from inside.
