How To Win. Lass Small

they’d been divorced for seven months, three weeks and two days...exactly.

      Just because they were divorced, she hadn’t said anything about their second anniversary. No card. No call. Nothing.

      At the time, he’d courteously called so that she could thank him for the flowers. She hadn’t answered her phone until after eleven. Where had she been on their anniversary? Grieving for their lost marriage, drinking rot gut in some sleazy bar?

      Kayla was not a drinker. At best, she’d have two small glasses of wine in maybe three months. She wasn’t any kind of drinker.

      Where had she been on the night of their second anniversary?

      He hadn’t asked. He’d hinted several times, but he hadn’t out and out asked. Actually, he’d pushed. She hadn’t noticed.

      They hadn’t talked long on the phone. She’d been in a hurry. And she’d never once mentioned the milestone day. Of course, they were divorced. Even so, it seemed to Tyler that she should have remembered it had been two years since their wedding.

      She hadn’t been very open with him. When he’d finally talked to her that night, she’d asked, “Now what’s the matter?”

      And he’d said, “I just called to say—hello.”

      “It’s after eleven, and I have to get to work early. Goodbye.”

      And she’d hung up! She had! On their second anniversary! It was probably a good thing they were already divorced.

      Women are insensitive. It was always the man who bought the woman flowers, smoothed things between them and took the woman out to eat. And just because the eatery wasn’t an Indiana Casa D’angelo! or a Café Johnell, she’d slide her eyes around the place and her face would be pinched.

      Kayla wasn’t at all sophisticated. She had no notion as to how she ought to act. Once she’d gotten up from the table and just flat out left a place. It was after a guy had slid off the bar stool and lay on the floor... ignored by the staff. But the staff was behind the bar, and he had been short. The bartender probably thought the guy had left.

      Kayla had never considered the atmosphere—other than to bury her nose in a lace-edged handkerchief. Tyler had tried to expand her experiences, but she was too limited. She did not accept variations.

      How could a sixth-generation TEXAS woman be so unknowing? She wasn’t a delicate Easterner, she was a solid TEXAS woman!

      Tyler picked up the phone and punched the redial. It rang in his ear twenty-four times. He hung up eventually. She probably was asleep and had turned off the bell. No curiosity. She just lived her life in a vacuum.

      Kayla really never did bend enough. She never had. Like the dogfights. That night they’d found a gathering and stopped to see what it was. It was a dogfight and he was curious. He’d said to her, “Just a minute.”

      It wasn’t long before Tyler frowned and turned to say they’d leave.

      She was gone.

      In that brief time, she’d vanished. She’d bought four of the dogs at a staggering price and left the place, taking them with her. There had been no room for him in his car with her and the four dogs, and without consulting him, she’d just...driven away!

      Tyler was ticked. She’d abandoned him in that obnoxious place!

      He’d had a couple of offers for rides, but the women had looked dangerous, so he’d walked.

      At a public phone, he’d dialed the sheriffs office to alert him to the dogfights. By the time he got home, he was calm.

      Kayla was asleep. Deep in their throats, the four dogs had growled a warning at him. None barked. They might waken her. Tyler had slept on the living-room sofa.

      When he’d wakened the next morning, Kayla was gone. Gone. None of her clothes were in their closet. She’d moved out. She had taken the dogs.

      She blamed him for the dogfights? That irritated him. She could have waited and listened. He was ticked.

      Tyler had walked around. The apartment was silent. Even with all the furniture, the place was empty.

      So he’d called at her parents’ house. Obviously Kayla had contacted them with her side of the breakup. Her mother had said to Tyler, “Hello, dear. You’ve thrown it all at the fan.”

      Her mother was that way. She said outrageous things but she altered the words for politeness. Her mother was why Kayla was the way she was.

      Kayla’s dad was an observer. Although Mrs. Davie was open and clear, Mr. Davie was quiet, probably suspicious, and watched. That time he’d said to Tyler, “You goofed.”

      And Tyler had replied, “Not entirely.”

      As time passed, Tyler tried to get in touch with his wife, but she was never there. Her car was gone. No matter when he’d go past the Davie house, her car wasn’t there. And she never answered the phone. The cook, Goldilocks, or her parents said, “I’m not sure where she is right now. I’ll tell her you called.”

      So he had the divorce papers served. He’d thought that would stir her up.

      She signed them.

      Before Tyler knew what was really happening, he was divorced. Uncontested.

      He got all the furniture except for the several pieces of antiques that had been in the Davie family for all eternity. She’d picked out their furniture. It was okay. Discreet. He’d have had the upholstery more colorful.

      When he wasn’t there, she’d come to their apartment and collected the rest of her things. But she’d left all of her keys.

      There is nothing more irritating and deflating than a woman who won’t fight to keep a man.

      With all that furniture as his, his mother refused to have him back home, even briefly, so that he could heal. He had to stay where he was. But he didn’t heal.

      There wasn’t a day dragged by that he wasn’t aware Kayla wasn’t there. She’d be back. She had a hungry body. She was ethereal. Pure. She wouldn’t sleep around. He was her only partner in sex. She loved his body. She’d be back, and he’d explain.

      He’d kept the place clean for seven months, three weeks and two days, waiting for her to open the door with her key and fling herself into his waiting arms.

      No key. She’d left them all on the dining-room table. She didn’t plan to...ever...come back.

      She wouldn’t even call him.

      She never answered her phone. Just her mother. Or her father. Or one of her sisters. Or Goldilocks who ruled the Davie household but was supposed to just be the cook.

      All of them just said Kayla wasn’t there.

      So...where was she?

      They never knew.

      She’d been abducted by aliens. No. There wasn’t anything he could do about rescuing her from aliens in star ships. How about slave snatchers?

      He’d go out in his cousin Wally’s boat and chase down the bigger boat and rescue all the captives. But like Scan Connery in the film, Tyler would put Kayla into a rowboat and they’d drift away. He’d show her how they’d made love. She liked sex.

      Kayla loved him.

      When would she remember that?

      When would her hungry body go on overdrive and force her to come back to him? She’d kick open the door, come inside and stand, looking at him with greed in her eyes. Her uncontrolled breasts would be heaving with her desire as her hot eyes would rake over him mercilessly. Yeah.

      Then he found out she wasn’t living at her parents’ house, she was with a friend. She and those dogs. Henrietta was certainly a tolerant woman. She had cats.

      Cats—and dogs who had been rescued from a fighting