by Anna DePalo
“Beautiful,” she murmured as she gazed at the picture-perfect landscape. It was as rugged and fascinating as the man she was here to see.
Wandering into the living room, she wasn’t at all surprised to see a stone fireplace with a rough-hewn mantel surrounded by a grouping of heavy leather furniture and rustic wooden end tables. The room was so cozy and inviting, she felt as if she belonged there, which was absolutely ridiculous. She belonged in Seattle, in her own apartment with its modern decor and view of the city. And try as she might, she couldn’t imagine how it would have been living here with Blake. If that wasn’t enough to convince her that she’d made the right decision, she didn’t know what was.
But as she looked around at the colorful Native American throws on the back of the large leather sofa, and the pieces of vintage tack and Western accents hanging on the walls, she had to admit that Blake’s home had a warm, friendly feel to it that her place had never possessed. An uncharacteristic loneliness suddenly invaded every part of her. She did her best to tamp it down.
She loved her life in Seattle. She had a great job as buyer for a large import/export dealer and although she didn’t have much of a social life, she did occasionally go out with some of her coworkers for happy hour after work. But as she thought about how long it had been since that had happened, she took a deep breath. She really couldn’t say she had a lot in common with any of them anymore. They were all either married or in committed relationships and were more interested in going home to their significant others than hanging out to talk shop.
It was odd she hadn’t noticed that before she met Blake. And she had to admit that when she did realize it, she might have had second thoughts about her decision to end things with him. In the end, she hadn’t let that sway her and resigned herself to being the only one in her office with no one to go home to.
But the more she thought about it, the more her loneliness increased. Shaking her head to dislodge the unsettling feeling, Karly turned to go back into the kitchen to wait for Blake and walked right into his broad chest. Stumbling backward, she would have fallen if not for his big hands encircling her upper arms to steady her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Her voice failed her as she gazed up into his sexy brown eyes. For a split second, she thought she caught a glimpse of the warm, compassionate man she’d thought she was in love with. But just as quickly as it appeared the glimmer was gone, replaced by a closed-off stare.
“You’d better watch your step,” he said, his deep baritone sending a shiver coursing through her. “One of these days those ridiculous shoes are going to cause you to fall and break an ankle.” Before she could find her voice and tell him that she didn’t need his input on what she should or shouldn’t wear, he released her and motioned toward a door across the room. “Let’s go into the office for this talk you seem to think is so important.”
Blake stepped back for her to precede him into a study off the living room, and as she seated herself in the burgundy leather armchair in front of his desk, Karly forced herself to stay calm. The heat from his calloused palms through the fabric of her dress when he caught her had set her pulse racing and made breathing all but impossible.
She tried to calm herself as she stared at the outdoor scene intricately carved into the oak desk’s front panel. She’d just as soon face off with the bear fishing in the stream as she would having to deliver the news she’d traveled over a thousand miles to give Blake.
“So what brings you all the way to Wyoming, Karly?” He removed his hat and hung it on a peg by the door. “I’m betting you didn’t make this trip by choice.”
He wasn’t going to make their meeting easy and she really hadn’t expected him to. When they’d decided to dissolve their marriage eight months ago, they had both said things out of hurt and frustration that she was sure they both regretted.
“Please, Blake. Can’t we at least—”
“What do you expect from me, Karly?” he interrupted, sinking into the chair behind his desk. “I haven’t seen or heard from you since just before the first of the year. After we spent Christmas in Las Vegas, I came home expecting my wife to be joining me here for New Year’s Eve. Instead, I get a call telling me you’d changed your mind. If I wanted to stay married, I’d have to give up my life on the Wolf Creek Ranch, quit riding bulls and move to Seattle because you decided you couldn’t live out in the middle of nowhere.”
“That isn’t exactly what I told you,” she said, defending herself.
“Close enough,” he stated flatly.
“You were just as adamant that you couldn’t live in the city,” she reminded him, feeling a little guilty. He hadn’t been as insulting in his assessment of Seattle as she’d been about where the ranch was located. But dredging up what he said and what she said wasn’t getting to the point of her visit. When they continued to glare at each other for what seemed an eternity, she sighed and shook her head. “I didn’t come here to argue with you, Blake.”
“Why are you here? I thought we settled things when I signed the papers without contesting the divorce.” He frowned. “By the way, I’d like to get a copy of the final decree. You said your lawyer was supposed to mail that to me, but like everything else you promised, it didn’t happen.”
Karly stared down at her tightly clasped hands. She supposed he was right. She had made several promises that she hadn’t been able to keep. She’d meant to keep them at the time. But once she went back home to pack her things and close her apartment, her sanity returned and the fear of failure had her second-guessing everything that had happened in Las Vegas.
“When I took the documents back to Mr. Campanella after you signed them, he suggested that I file for the divorce myself in Lincoln County on the eastern side of the state,” she finally said. “Which I did.”
Blake frowned. “Why?”
“The dockets in Seattle are filled with other domestic matters and it can take up to a year or more just to get a court date,” she explained. “All I had to do was mail the signed documents to the courthouse in Lincoln County and after the ninety-day cooling-off period the divorce would be final.”
“Mail them?” His frown darkened. “I thought a lawyer and at least one of the petitioners had to go before a judge for a divorce. At least that’s how I think it is here. Is it different in Washington State?”
Rubbing her temples, Karly tried to concentrate. This was what she’d come here to tell him. It was also where everything got extremely complicated. “If the petition had been filed in Seattle, Mr. Campanella would have been present. But Lincoln is one of only two counties where residents of Washington State file uncontested divorces by mailing the paperwork to the county clerk. Neither petitioner has to be present, nor do they have to have legal representation.” When she noticed his skeptical expression, the tension headache she’d been fighting began to pound unmercifully. “It’s really quite simple. The judge looks over the papers, signs a final judgment and sends it back.”
“That sounds out of character, for a lawyer to pass up a case like this,” Blake said, frowning. “Most of the ones I know would jump at the chance to make some easy money.”
“Mr. Campanella is the grandfather of one of my coworkers,” she explained. Karly really appreciated the woman’s offer of help. When she’d come back from Vegas and realized the enormity of what she’d done, she’d been in a panic to fix her mistake. “Jo Ellen asked him to guide me through it all and he agreed. He suggested that I use the courts in Lincoln County since ours was a simple, uncontested divorce. He said it would save time and cost a lot less than going through the court system in Seattle. I agreed, and followed his instructions.”
Blake nodded. “I guess that makes sense if you’re in a hurry to rid yourself of an unwanted husband.”
His words were bitter and cut like a knife. She had to swallow around the lump forming in her throat. He had no idea how hard it had been to make the decision not to follow her heart and move
to the middle of nowhere with him. She had witnessed the unhappiness and resentment created when her mother followed her heart and it had ultimately ended her parents’ marriage. Karly had reasoned that it was better to end things before it came to such hard feelings between herself and Blake. But there was no sense in dwelling on the mistakes and heartaches of the past now.
“I never said I was in a hurry to get rid of you.”
He stared at her for a moment before he shrugged. “That’s debatable, but it’s not the issue. I need a notarized copy of the final decree.”
Karly nibbled on her lower lip as she nervously met Blake’s fathomless brown eyes. The time had come to lay out the reason for her visit and apologize for making such a mess of everything. “Actually, I don’t even have a copy of it myself.”
“Didn’t they send you one?” he asked, his frown turning to a scowl.
“No, but I’m sure they will,” she said evasively. She needed to explain what happened before she told him the reason she’d traveled all the way to Wyoming. “The import company I work for sent me to their offices in Hong Kong for several months shortly before the ninety-day cooling-off period was up and I wasn’t able to check on it from overseas.” Her head pounded as she thought about how badly she’d handled something as important to both herself and Blake as their divorce. But she’d been sad and unsure as to why she’d felt so badly about a logical, sensible decision that should have brought only relief. “When I got back last week, I called to inquire about our copies of the final decree.”
He must have been able to sense that there was more to the story because Blake’s scowl darkened. “What did they say?”
Shaking her head, Karly took a deep fortifying breath in order to tell him the rest of what had happened. “I called the Lincoln County courthouse to see if I could get a copy of the final decree...”
When she let her voice trail off as she searched for the right words, he prompted, “Yeah, I got that. You called about the papers. And?”
Karly briefly closed her eyes as she tried to gather her courage for what needed to be said. Opening them to meet his suspicious gaze, she did her best to keep her voice steady. “Apparently the papers were lost in the mail because the court clerk has no record of us ever filing for a divorce.” She had to take a deep breath before she could finish. “It appears that we’re still husband and wife, Blake.”
“We’re still married,” he repeated as if he had a hard time grasping what she’d said.
“Yes.” She hurried on as she reached into her purse to take out a new set of divorce papers. Her hand trembled slightly as she placed the envelope on the desk in front of him. “I’m really sorry for the inconvenience. Once you sign these, I’m going to fly to Spokane and drive over to the Lincoln County courthouse to file them with the clerk myself.”
“So all this time, I’ve been thinking I’m a free man and I wasn’t,” he said, sitting back in the desk chair.
“Have you met someone?” she asked before she could stop herself.
He raised one dark eyebrow as he stared at her. “Would it matter if I had, Karly?”
Yes! “No,” she lied. Thinking quickly, she added, “I was, um, afraid this snag might have derailed plans you might have made with someone else.”
He continued to stare at her for a few moments before he smiled, shook his head and opened the envelope to remove the document. Reaching for an ink pen, he signed where she had flagged the papers with colored sticky notes.
“Well, you’re stuck with me for at least another ninety days,” he said, sliding the pages back into the envelope and pushing it across the desk’s shiny surface toward her.
Karly winced at his acidic tone. She knew he was disillusioned and extremely unhappy with the situation. “I’m really...sorry, Blake. I never meant for any of this to happen.” At least, not the mishandling of their divorce.
“Yeah, well, it did,” he said, sounding resigned. “When you file these at the courthouse, make sure they send me copies of everything.”
“Of course,” she said, nodding as she slid the envelope back into her shoulder bag. She hesitated a moment as she tried to think of some way to say goodbye. Deciding there wasn’t anything she could say that wouldn’t make matters worse, she rose to her feet. “I’ll be in touch if there’s anything else we need to do.”
“Did you drive all the way from Seattle or is that little toy in the driveway a rental?” he asked, standing up.
“I rented it when I flew into the Cheyenne Regional Airport,” she answered, wondering why he wanted to know.
“I’ll check under the car before you leave to make sure you didn’t do some kind of damage to the undercarriage,” he said, taking his wide-brimmed hat from the hook as they left the room. “You hit quite a few potholes on your way up the lane. Drive slower on the way back. You’ll be less likely to damage the car.”
“Who’s responsible for taking care of the roads around here?” she asked. “They’re in terrible condition.”
“The county is responsible for the roads leading up to the ranch property lines, but ranchers have to keep the roads on their land plowed in the winter and graded in the summer,” he explained. “We took care of grading the road after the snow melted off in the spring. But once the rainy season hit it washed out a lot of places. We were waiting until it dried up to work on the road again, when we have time.”
“I think it’s safe to say it’s dry enough,” she said as they walked out of the house. She didn’t know much about caring for a ranch or tending to roads, but she did notice the red sports car was coated with a thick layer of Wyoming dust.
His deep laughter sent heat racing through her veins and reminded her of the carefree man she’d met eight months ago. The man he’d been before she’d told him she couldn’t be his wife after all. “It won’t be an issue much longer,” he stated. “The new owner is having it asphalted all the way to the county road.”
“Why didn’t the previous owner do that?” she asked, walking across the yard with him to the rental car.
“After her husband died, she wasn’t interested in anything but trying to sell the ranch to a land developer. When she tried for a couple of years and failed to find a buyer, she finally sold it to one of her husband’s sons from a previous marriage,” he answered, sounding a little angry as he kneeled down to peer under the car.
She briefly wondered why he would be upset by a property dispute between the owner’s heirs, but she abandoned her speculation when her cell phone chirped. Taking it out of her shoulder bag, Karly looked to see who was texting her. Her heart sank as she read the message. It was an alert from the airline, informing her that due to a contract-workers strike at the Denver airport, all flights had been canceled until further notice. Since the only commercial airline going in or out of the Cheyenne airfield was from Denver, she wasn’t going anywhere until the labor dispute was settled.
“Lovely,” she muttered sarcastically. Now what was she supposed to do?
She’d packed light because she hadn’t expected to be away from home for more than a couple of nights. And she certainly hadn’t planned on having to find a local place to stay indefinitely while the strike was settled.
“Looks like everything is intact,” Blake said, unaware of her dilemma. He straightened to his full height as he dusted off his hands. “When does your flight leave?”
“It’s not leaving,” she said disgustedly as she opened the browser on her phone to see what lodging was available in the nearest town. “All flights in and out of Denver have been canceled due to an airport workers’ strike.”
He remained silent for several long moments and when she looked up, he was staring at her. “Looks like you’ll be spending some time on the Wolf Creek Ranch after all,” he said, folding his arms across his wide chest.
“No, I’ll get a room in town,” she said determinedly. It had been hard enough to see him again, to sit across the desk from him. She couldn’t imagine spending the ni
ght in the same house with him, knowing he was so close and not being able to touch him or have him hold her.
He pointed toward the mountains to the west. “Not tonight you won’t. I can’t, in good conscience, let you drive on unfamiliar mountain roads in the dark. Hell, it would be a miracle if you didn’t get lost or end up hung in the top of a tree after missing a curve and going over the side of the mountain.”
“You can’t allow me to drive back in the dark?” she demanded indignantly. “I have news for you, buster. If I choose to go, you aren’t going to stop me.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head as if trying to gather his patience. When he opened them, he looked directly at her. “I realize we won’t be married for much longer, but right now, I’m still your husband,” he finally said. “I take my vows seriously. It’s my job to keep you safe until a judge says otherwise. I’d feel a lot better if you would at least wait to make the drive until tomorrow morning. It’s safer.”
Karly was surprised by his grudging admission that he thought he should protect her. There hadn’t been anyone who’d cared about her safety since her mother passed away several years ago. But as nice as it was to have someone worry about her well-being again, she needed to remember that Blake was only doing it because he felt it was his obligation. He’d signed the divorce papers. He must be as ready to undo their mistake as she was.
Sighing heavily, she tried to decide what to do. Everything about this trip had gone awry. Her flight from Denver to Cheyenne had been delayed for over two hours due to a dangerous storm front moving through, the drive to the ranch had taken three times as long as she had anticipated due to the car the rental agency had provided and her meeting with Blake hadn’t gone as quickly as she’d thought it would. The way her luck had been running, it was very likely that she’d end up in one of the disastrous scenarios he mentioned.
“Eagle Fork is only twenty miles away,” she said, glancing at the sun rapidly sinking behind the mountains to the west.
“It takes a little over an hour in the daylight to drive down the mountain to get there. How long do you think it would take you to get back at night?” Blake pointed toward the road. “Do you really want to drive on unfamiliar, rough mountain roads in the dark? At least stay tonight.”
