Just a Cowboy. Rachel Lee
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to mind his own business.
“Well, the truth is duller,” she admitted. She could tell him part of her story, she decided. Just part. And for some idiotic reason, it seemed to want to burst out of her for the first time since she’d tried to tell the police and her lawyer. As if she’d been sitting on a powder keg of feelings for way too long and needed just one person to listen. Just one. Even her lawyer didn’t quite believe her. And Hank might not, either. But the words still wanted to spill, as if she needed to vent them, regardless of the response.
“I’m getting divorced,” she said.
Hank hesitated, then leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I don’t know how I endured the last eight years—honestly. Anyway, you’re right, I’m on the run.”
“He’s abusive?”
“He can be. But it’s not exactly him I’m hiding from.”
“Then what?”
“I think he paid someone to try to kill me.”
Okay, Hank thought, this was like a movie. Only the woman sitting in front of him, much as she might look like a movie star, wasn’t sitting on a set reciting lines. She could be crazy, of course—always a possibility. But something about the way her eyes tightened as she spoke the words made him quite sure she believed what she was saying.
And there was no way on earth he could just walk away from that.
“What happened?” he asked her, knowing he was about to get involved one way or the other. He’d never been one to stand back if someone needed help. Unfortunately.
She shrugged. “It’s an old story. Dean mistreated me so I left. I got a lawyer. The lawyer figured I should get a lot of money and went hunting for all of Dean’s assets, at least the ones he hadn’t already sheltered. Then he notified Dean’s lawyer of the amount we were asking for as a settlement.”
She drew a long breath. “It was a lot of money. At least I thought it was. Apparently, Dean did, too, because one night he called me and told me I wouldn’t live to collect it.”
“You believed him.”
She shook her head. “No, honestly, I didn’t. I mean, that seemed extreme under any circumstances, even though he’d banged me around a bit. I didn’t figure him for a killer.” Her blue eyes lifted to his, looking so very sad. “It seems like a huge step from hitting someone when you get mad to actually killing her.”
“For most people it would be.”
She nodded. “So I didn’t even mention it to my lawyer. All I did was tell him I didn’t want so much money. But then Dean did this really odd thing.”
“What was that?”
“He agreed to the settlement. Without a fight.”
“Why do you think that’s odd?”
“You’d have to know Dean. He was all about money. But even my lawyer didn’t think it was odd. He said Dean had a lot to lose by the publicity from a messy divorce, and probably just wanted it over with.”
“That would have been my guess.”
Kelly nodded again. “Yeah. That’s how it seems. Except I kept remembering him saying I wouldn’t live long enough to collect it. But I couldn’t put the pieces together. Or maybe I didn’t want to put them together.”
She stood up suddenly and started pacing the kitchen, rubbing her arms as if she were cold. “I couldn’t believe he’d really hurt me, more than hitting and screaming as he’d done before, and while I couldn’t believe he’d part with all that money so easily, finally it seemed like my lawyer had to be right. Dean had more to lose by fighting, because it would come out that he’d hit me. And…I’d lived with the man for eight years. As hard as it was to believe he’d accept the settlement, it was harder to believe he would do anything that extreme. In all those years, he only gave me some bruises. That’s wrong, but it’s not murderous.”
She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. “Regardless…I guess part of me still wanted to believe he was the man I’d fallen in love with. That, after all those years, I really knew him, even his faults, and he couldn’t possibly be capable of murder. I believed that right up to the moment some guy grabbed me in the parking garage, stuffed me in his trunk and then tried to drown me.”
Hank swore. The kitchen was darkening at last, and now it felt darker with something more than the night. “How’d you get away? Did the cops get him?”
“I’m in good shape and I know some self-defense. I fought hard, and we splashed so much in the water I think he finally got afraid somebody would come. Or maybe that we’d attract an alligator. He gave up and ran.”
“My God.” He could too easily imagine her terror and desperation. Assuming it was true, of course. “And the police?”
“The cops decided it was a random crime. They didn’t think Dean had anything to do with it. Guys who are mad say things like that all the time, they said, especially ones who are being divorced. And I didn’t have any proof that Dean was behind it. Maybe he wasn’t. My lawyer didn’t even think so.”
“But you were scared enough to run.”
“Yes.” She looked at him from haunted eyes. “What kind of lunatic grabs a woman, drives her somewhere and tries to drown her? Without doing anything else? He didn’t even empty my wallet. I suppose people like that exist out there, but it just didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t risk the possibility Dean had put the guy up to it.”
He rubbed his chin, then said gently, “Have you considered that, by running, you might have made it easier for your ex?”
“What do you mean?”
“You already reported to the cops that you thought he was behind the attack. If someone tried to get you again, he’d be the first person they’d look at…unless you were halfway across the country.”
“Maybe, but they’d have to prove it. And it won’t matter to me if I’m dead, will it?”
He couldn’t argue that point.
She came back to the table and sat again. “I could be wrong. I know I could be. But the risk is too great. So I left town with the cash I inherited from my mother and I’ve been moving ever since. I don’t even know if I’ll go back for the hearing.”
“Do you have to?”
“One of us has to show up. My lawyer thinks Dean won’t. So if I don’t show up, everything is left hanging out there unfinished. The whole divorce action might even be dismissed, and right now I don’t think that’s so bad.”
“You want to go back to him?” The idea shocked Hank, just from what little she had said.
“No. Never.” She sighed again and hugged herself. “I hate even thinking about this. I guess I’ve been doing it for too long, arguing with myself. The thing is, I already owe my lawyer a ton of money. If I don’t get at least part of that settlement, I’m going to spend years trying to pay him off. On the other hand, right now my lawyer isn’t willing to lower our settlement demand when Dean has already agreed to it. Apparently, that leaves it all but decided. Nothing left but to make an appearance in court and get the official seal. So I can see his point.”
“I can see that, too.”
“But if neither of us shows up for the court date, the case will probably be dismissed and we have to start over, and maybe I can persuade my lawyer to basically just bill me for his expenses.”
“I see.” He did indeed. “Do you feel you’re