A Husband in Wyoming

by Lynnette Kent

  “Maybe. Or maybe I just gave them something to complain about.”

  “Something different to complain about, you mean. Thomas and Marcos are always whining about this or that.”

  “From the things they said, though, I gather they don’t have easy lives. One story can’t change everything. But it’s a start.” She joined him as he walked away from the creek. “It would really be great if we had books they could keep.”

  “The Marshall brothers did some reading as kids. We probably have books stashed in boxes in the attic.”

  “You might not want to give those away. And these kids would probably really appreciate new ones. How many of them have ever had a new book of their own? The first novel I ever bought is still sitting on my shelf.” Jess blew a frustrated breath. “I could order titles online, but they wouldn’t get here until at least Monday. And I’ll be gone by then. Which is okay, because you’ve got plenty of help. But...” She shrugged. “It would be fun to watch them discover stories. The way I did.”

  “Then I guess this is your lucky day.”

  She gave him a sideways look. “Because you kissed me?”

  He’d said it without recalling that part of the morning. “Of course.” He flashed her a grin and winked. “But also because I happen to know someone who owns a bookstore.”

  She pretended to be surprised. “There’s a bookstore in Wyoming?”

  Dylan scowled at her. “Spoken like a true New Yorker. Not only is there a bookstore in Wyoming, there’s one in Bisons Creek.”

  “Never heard of that place.”

  “It’s the town closest to us—you didn’t pass through on the way in, but it’s about a five-minute drive from here.”

  “Well, then, I can go right now, and bring back the books before dinner.” She gave him a big smile. “That’s terrific.”

  They reached the barn and saw Caroline heading from the ranch house to the bunkhouse with a ream of paper in her arms and a bundle of pencils in her fist.

  “Writing stories,” she called. “What a great idea!”

  “Is she always so cheerful?” Jess asked. “And so busy?”

  “Definitely busy,” Dylan confirmed. “Though when we thought Ford was returning to San Francisco to work, ‘cheerful’ did not apply to Caroline. But since he’s come home and they got engaged, she’s all smiles. Ford, too, which is kind of weird. He’s always been the serious one.”

  A wistful expression drifted through Jess’s hazel eyes. “Lucky for them.” Then she shook her head. “How do I get to the bookstore?”

  He cleared his throat. “One thing about this particular shop—it’s not always open. The owner is a friend of mine, Kip Glazier. He rode bulls until an injury took him out of the sport. Now he has a tidy little horse ranch to take care of, but he decided the area needed a bookstore, so he set one up. Let’s go down to the studio and I’ll call him to ask if he can meet us there.”

  Jess frowned when Kip said he couldn’t arrive till four. “So I guess the books have to wait till after dinner.”

  “The kids will be mellower then,” he suggested, and she laughed at him.

  “Sure.”

  “We will, too. After dinner,” he said, in answer to her questioning stare. “Why don’t we get cleaned up, meet Kip and then have supper in town? We have an excellent bookstore and a diner in Bisons Creek.”

  “A booming metropolis. But that sounds good. We can work on the article while we eat.”

  “Right.” He hadn’t thought that far ahead—hadn’t thought at all, in fact, beyond the idea that as long as they were in town, they could have a meal that didn’t include teenagers or his brothers. Thinking ahead did not appear to be one of his skills today.

  Bringing her to the studio again, for instance. Jess was prowling the room, examining the sculptures. “The whole is definitely greater than the sum of the parts,” she said, staring at the eagle.

  Dylan went over to make coffee. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Be my guest. But the same was true of your abstract work. The figures you produced came in groups, and it was the relationship between the members of the group that gave the whole ensemble meaning.” She accepted the mug he offered. “So why did you stop? Why is this—” she used her arm to indicate the entire studio “—more valuable to you?”

  Dylan retreated as far as the table behind him would allow. Taking a sip of coffee, he tried to construct a reason that would make sense and convince her to leave him alone.

  “I don’t know how you’ll package this for your audience,” he said. “You must be an excellent writer, though, to have won that prize when you were seventeen.”

  “I am good. But a talent for writing isn’t all the business requires anymore.”

  “Beauty and talent ought to be enough.”

  “What is it I’m supposed to package?”

  He gulped down more brew. “First, there were the materials. Concrete, plastic, iron, aluminum—hard, usually. Unyielding. From there, it’s a step to uncomfortable. Then there’s the size—I was working with forklifts to move the sculptures. The cost of transport could eat up most of a commission fee, if there was one. How about the environmental factors? When the world decides abstract art has gone out of fashion, what happens to those pieces? A landfill, where they never degrade? Or a jetty on the ocean, maybe, with other big lumps of concrete. Trash. I was basically creating pieces of trash, which people decided they liked until they changed their minds.”

  She tilted her head toward the eagle. “How is this different?”

  “If we threw all of these sculptures out onto the prairie, they would eventually become part of the prairie again. The glues would dissolve, the finishes would degrade, the wood would fall prey to insects and weather and degenerate. Inside, they will last decades. Outside, these all revert to their original components.”

  Jess nodded. “The materials speak for themselves—wood you pick up off the ground, natural glues, stains and finishes. And the size, of course, is manageable.”

  “These sculptures can be moved by hand. They’re scaled to be appreciated as parts of our lives, not to overwhelm with brute force. When I was twenty, brute force appealed to me. Then I grew up and realized I couldn’t impose myself on others, on nature. That wasn’t how I wanted to connect with the world.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to create a whole from these different parts. “I guess all this boils down to the idea that I don’t want to create sculpture in opposition to the natural world. I want my work to be an extension of the world I live in. Make sense?”

  “Sure.” Passing in front of him, she walked her mug over to the coffeemaker and headed for the door. “I’ll be at the house when you’re ready to go to the bookstore. That gives you a couple of hours.”

  With the door open, she looked over her shoulder to meet his eyes. “Maybe by then you’ll have figured out what would be so damn terrible about simply telling me the truth.”

  Chapter Five

  At four fifteen, Jess was sitting in the living room, chatting with Susannah and watching Amber play with her baby doll—carefully wrapping and unwrapping the blanket and pretending to rock her to sleep. The little girl lifted her head when the door opened. “Dylan!”

  The doll dropped to the floor as she jumped up and ran to hug his knees. Grinning, Dylan picked her up and tossed her toward the ceiling. “How are you this afternoon, Miss Amber?”

  “Fine.” Caught securely by his steady hands, she settled in the crook of his arm. “Did you come to play with me?”

  “I can play with you for a minute.” He wore a maroon-checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up at the cuffs, black jeans and boots. His damp hair waved back from his face, exposing his striking bone structure. At that moment, he looked more artist than cowboy. “What shall we play?”

  “Horsey!”

  “We can do that.” He carried her with him and sat down in one of the recliners by the fireplace. The little girl slid
down to sit on the points of his knees. Holding her hands and bouncing his knees, he said, “Ride a little horsey into town, uphill, downhill and all around.” On the last word he straightened his legs and she fell backward, hanging upside down from his grip.

  “Again!”

  Watching the two of them, Jess couldn’t help smiling. Amber’s giggles made her think of a bubble bath with froth you could hear. A glance at Susannah revealed a mother’s love and pride, along with affection for the man entertaining her daughter. As for Dylan, he was enjoying himself, too. He would be a terrific dad one day, when he had kids of his own.

  Jess sobered at the image that idea conjured up, though Dylan’s future children had nothing to do with her.

  Amber took four more rides before Dylan stood up and set the little girl on her feet. “That’s your ride for the day, Sunshine. Ms. Jess and I have to drive into town.” He looked at Susannah. “And we’ll get dinner while we’re there, so don’t worry about us for tonight.”

  “Have fun,” Susannah said as Jess stood.

  Jess smiled at her, and walked through the screen door as Dylan held it open. By the time she stepped off the front porch, she allowed the smile to fade. She’d been angry when she left the studio two hours ago, and her mood hadn’t changed.

  Dylan came up beside her, his expression as stern as she’d seen it since her arrival. “This is my truck.” He opened the passenger door of one of the big pickups parked near the house and shut it once she was seated. Climbing in on the driver’s side, he started the engine, reversed the truck and then headed down the long drive she’d traveled yesterday, all without saying a word.

  Jess had been driving yesterday, focused on her destination and not the scenery. Today she took a chance to enjoy the landscape—rolling green fields stretched to the horizon in every direction, with a backdrop of blue-green mountains and that incredibly blue sky arching overhead.

  “This place is so beautiful,” she said sincerely. “I love the flowers mingling with the grass.” Blossoms in pink, yellow, blue and white popped up everywhere.

  Without glancing her way, Dylan nodded. “Now you know my answer to at least one of your questions—who would want to work anywhere else?”

  “I concede your point.”

  The remainder of the ride to town passed without conversation. Dylan didn’t speak and Jess was certainly not going to venture another question for him to dance around.

  Part of what he’d said to her this afternoon was probably true—environmental issues, the difficulties in creating gigantic art installations and the question of material use were debated in art circles year in and year out.

  But she didn’t believe those were his main reasons for deserting a promising career. Those were the kinds of concerns artists incorporated into their work, refining and evolving their style. No one vanished from view because he thought concrete was heavy and bad for the planet.

  Dylan didn’t want to tell her the truth. Pretty soon, she’d begin to suspect he’d murdered someone and run away so he wouldn’t get caught. If she could discover anyone who’d gone missing besides Dylan Marshall, she might actually start looking for proof.

  The little town of Bisons Creek fit into the cleft of two swells in the prairie, with a wide Main Street but no traffic light. Brick buildings lined the thoroughfare, their design more utilitarian than decorative, and the houses along the road tended to be practical instead of pretty. There were lots of trees, though, which surprised Jess. And many of the businesses had placed planters beside their front doors and filled them with brightly colored flowers.

  “Is there a creek in Bisons Creek?” she asked. Watching, she saw the corner of Dylan’s mouth twitch in what might have almost been a smile.

  “Not anymore.” He turned onto one of the streets that crossed the main road. “There was, when the place was settled in the 1890s. But highway construction diverted the water, so the town is now high and dry.”

  “Is that good or bad? I know there are lots of water issues in the West these days.”

  “In this case, it’s a good thing. The creek ran along the east side of town. Old photographs show a muddy mess on Main Street when the banks overflowed. People are probably just as happy to live without that hassle.”

  Dylan stopped the truck in front of a small house with clapboard siding and a sign on the front porch rail that announced The Necessary Book.

  “Cute name,” she said as they followed the sidewalk to the house. “I hope he stocks at least seven readable books for teenagers.”

  “More like a hundred,” Kip told her, when they got inside. He was shorter than Dylan and whip thin, with dark hair and sparkling blue eyes. “Teenagers are my target audience—they’re the ones we need to get hooked on reading and to continue. Come this way.”

  He led them into what would once have been a bedroom, but was now painted black with fluorescent designs scrawled on the walls in chalk. “Kinda crazy, but I get decorating advice from my teenaged nieces.” Beanbag chairs in neon colors sat in the center of the room, with bookcases of various sizes and colors lining the walls. “I’m sure we can find what you’re searching for in here.”

  “Pretty terrific, if you ask me.” Dylan bent to examine the selection on one shelf. “If this store had existed when I was younger, I’d have been in here whenever we came to town.”

  Jess knelt by a different assortment to run a finger along the titles on the spines. “We need this one.” She pulled it out. “And this, and this.” Grinning, she looked up at Kip. “You’re a treasure chest hidden in the middle of the desert. I may have to write an article about The Necessary Book.”

  Dylan gave a long whistle. “Better watch out, Kip. Give her an interview and she’ll want to pry out your deepest, darkest secrets. Being a rodeo star, I expect you’ve got quite a few.”

  Laughing, Kip held up his hands. “Not me. Pure as the driven snow. I showed up, got on my bull, got off and moved on.”

  His friend stared at him, one eye squinted. “I seem to remember quite a few buckle bunnies clustered around that old jalopy of yours. Let’s see, there was a Gretchen, and a Marla. Bobbie Jean and Terri...”

  Walking on her knees, Jess moved to the next bookcase. “Not all secrets have to do with...um...romance.” But it was interesting to note that his mind had jumped in that direction. Maybe those rumors about his disappearance being linked to a woman were truer than she’d realized. She would have to review her research and pull up the few facts she’d found. Having met the man, she might better understand what she’d learned.

  “The best ones do,” Dylan assured her, further piquing her interest.

  At the end of an hour, the three of them had selected four times as many books as she’d intended to buy. “This way, they have choices,” she said, handing Kip her credit card. “I can’t begin to guess what each of them might select to read.”

  Dylan leaned an elbow on the counter. “I just hope they appreciate your effort. Your feelings won’t be hurt if the reaction isn’t exactly...enthusiastic, will they?”

  Kip shook his head. “You are not the biggest fan of humanity, that’s for sure. Our friend here used to be an optimist,” he said to Jess, “always seeing the bright side. But since he came back home, he’s taken a darker view, especially when it comes to the population of the planet. Some days, he’s downright gloomy about it.”

  A glance at Dylan revealed that he was definitely gloomy about the direction of the conversation. “Reading the news these days is enough to depress Pollyanna. Have you got what you need, Jess? We haven’t even checked out the rest of the store.”

  “I could spend hours just browsing.” She picked up the bag of books. “But Kip probably wants to get home to his ranch. Thank you so much for opening up this afternoon.” At the door, she looked back. “Can I call you about an interview? I’d like to run the idea of an article by my editor.”

  He shrugged. “Sure. I can use the publicity. Take it easy, Dylan. You two have a
nice evening.”

  Jess frowned as she crossed the porch. Kip sounded as if she and Dylan were on a date.

  The man in question stood at the bottom of the steps, hands held out. “Let me carry that for you.”

  “It’s not heavy. They’re all paperbacks.” She stepped around him on the sidewalk and headed toward the truck. She couldn’t decide what bothered her more—that this wasn’t a date or that Kip had assumed it was one.

  “Okay.” Dylan got to the truck ahead of her and opened the door. “Let me hold the bag while you get in.”

  She glared at him. “Are women in Wyoming so helpless that their men have to do everything for them in case they hurt themselves?” She regretted the words as soon as she said them—there was no call for bad manners, even if she was irritated with...with somebody. About something.

  But he took her seriously. “As a matter of fact, Wyoming women are strong, independent, capable and intelligent. And to show them how much we appreciate all they can do, we like to offer them special courtesies.”

  Jess expected him to turn around and leave her to shut her own door.

  Instead, he simply took the bag away from her. “So if you’ll climb in, I’ll shut your door and then stow these books. Do you have a problem with that plan?”

  What could she say? “No.”

  To his credit, he didn’t slam the panel, but closed it gently. He did the same when he put the books in the back. By the time he’d seated himself and started the engine, Jess was feeling thoroughly ashamed of her temper tantrum.

  “I apologize for being ungrateful,” she said, staring straight ahead. “All this gallantry makes me nervous. I’m not used to it.”

  “I find it hard to believe that the men you go out with in New York don’t use good manners.”

  “They aren’t louts. They chew with their mouths closed.” Not that she’d dated much in the past few years. Before she’d reached thirty, the Manhattan singles scene had lost its appeal. “Some of them open doors.”