MATCH MADE IN WYOMING

by Patricia McLinn

  As for the man himself being nearby…

  She darted a look at him.

  "Better use the light while we have it," Cal said without looking up from his book.

  She jolted, and her book tumbled onto the floor. He picked it up and handed it to her with slightly raised brows.

  "You okay?"

  "I'm fine. Just, uh, a little tired of reading, I guess."

  "Cabin fever?' he asked, deadpan.

  "Maybe I should try one of your murder mysteries." She cocked her head and opened her eyes wide at him, suppressing an evil grin. "I bet they're full of good ideas for getting rid of irritations."

  A startled expression crossed his face. Although he quickly masked it, she felt a surge of triumph at surprising the unflappable Cal Ruskoff.

  His voice was dry once more when he said, "Remember, they all get caught."

  "I suppose so." Her theatrical sigh relinquished the notion with regret. In her normal voice, she added, "You like murder mysteries, don't you."

  "Yeah."

  "Have you read them long?"

  "Yeah."

  So much for trying to draw him out with general questions. She might as well go for the direct.

  "Did you always want to be a cattle rancher?"

  "I'm not a rancher. Matty is. Dave is. I'm a hand."

  "Okay, did you always want to be a cowhand?"

  "No. Just happened. Did you always want to be a lawyer?"

  "Not always. By high school I knew." In the hopes of showing him how it was done, she answered as if he'd asked out of interest instead of an obvious effort to turn the tables. "I like the idea of setting things right and law – at its best – can do that."

  He made a sound of skepticism if not outright disbelief, but he said nothing she could argue with. Nor did he follow up on her answer. So much for setting a good example.

  But she did not give up so easily. "So working here wasn't the fulfillment of a dream to discover the Wild West."

  "Working here was the fulfillment of a dream to not be where I used to be."

  "Where was that?"

  "East of here."

  "That leaves a lot of territory."

  "Yeah, it does."

  "So you left your family and friends behind, and drifted this way."

  "Yup."

  "Don't you ever think about going back? Don't you miss your family?"

  "No. Do you miss Ohio?"

  This question was clearly to divert her from his flat, all-encompassing negative answer. He never thought about going back to where he'd come from. He never missed his family. Taylor felt a shiver at the coldness that lay at the heart of those negatives. It seemed so raw a loneliness that the desire to know what caused it was offset by the unwillingness to probe at his pain.

  "I do miss Ohio sometimes, and my family a lot. But this is my home now. I can't imagine leaving it. Besides, I couldn't leave my practice. People count on me."

  "I suppose you decided you wanted to become a lawyer from watching 'Perry Mason' reruns on late night TV or was it 'L.A. Law'? Wanted all that courtroom drama, and pulling out the case for the client after the last commercial." He didn't quite sneer, but he came close.

  "No."

  "Perry Mason wasn't your hero?"

  "No." Let's see how he likes having his method turned back on him.

  He stared toward the fireplace for a dozen heartbeats, but then his gaze came back to her. "Who was your hero?"

  "Atticus Finch."

  "Who?"

  "From To Kill a Mockingbird. Gregory Peck in the movie."

  "Why him?"

  Pleasure filtered through her. Now he was asking because he was really interested, not to mock what she had to say.

  "Because he believed in justice. He believed in having the law serve justice. He stood up for what he believed in, and he tried to get others to see justice. He was disappointed, but he was never bitter." Did she imagine that he flinched at that final word? "Also, because he loved his children, he had humor and he was kind to Boo Radley."

  The silence stretched long enough for Sin to stand up, curve his body in the opposite direction, circle three times and drop again to the rug in front of the fire, sighing deeply.

  "That's an awful lot to live up to."

  "Yes, it is. Sometimes I feel as if I'll never achieve any of it."

  "Not even loving your children?"

  It was so unexpected. Of all the things she'd mentioned, for him to focus on that one … their eyes locked.

  "I hope to someday."

  "That sort of thing can't wait forever."

  "What are you? The alarm for my biological clock?" His grin flitted into view at that. "I've still got time. At this point, I'd prefer to have a husband involved in the scenario as the father."

  The humor in his expression stepped back and something fiercer took its place. If she didn't know better … but, no. At most, it was his contemplation of the mechanics of how babies got started, harking back to his rough words that morning.

  The memory fanned an ever-present ember in her, stirring a heat that put the fireplace to shame.

  "So how did Atticus Finch come to be in Knighton Wyoming?" Cal asked.

  "By way of a major detour to Dallas."

  "Dallas? You said you were from Ohio."

  Grew up in Ohio, went to school in North Carolina, law school in Virginia. The best job offer took me to Dallas. I hadn't intended to work in corporate law, but I figured I could learn a lot, maybe put aside some money, then…

  "Didn't work out that way?"

  She chuckled, and was pleased that she could now. "Well, I did put away some money. And I learned a lot. Maybe too much. Especially about myself. But I didn't realize that until—"

  A log on the fire shifted as its support burned through, dropping down, noisily disrupting its fellows and sending a spray of sparks out.

  "You didn't realize what you'd learned until you had an epiphany," he stated in a gentle prod.

  "That's an awfully dramatic word for what happened."

  "What happened?"

  "I was home in Ohio for the holidays – just Christmas, actually. Had to fly back to Dallas the next day to depose a witness. I was reading my five-year-old nephew a book he'd received as a present. A story about a boy, his neighbor, named Mama Abedelia and his pet frog, and how he learned the difference between right and wrong."

  She remembered the scene vividly. The soft light, the hum of the household muted beyond this cozy room, the Christmas smells of pine and cookies and turkey faintly permeating the air, the warm, sleepy solidity of her nephew against her side as he cuddled to see the pictures while she turned the pages and read. Only the strangest thing happened, the boy she read to in her vision no longer had her nephew's curly auburn hair and warm brown eyes, but straight, sandy hair with blue eyes that weren't guarded at all, but wide and open—

  "How did it end?"

  She jerked at Cal's voice interrupting her odd vision.

  "The Mama Abedelia story? I don't really remember." Still uneasy at the drift of her thoughts, she produced a smile to mask her reaction. "Happily, I'm sure."

  "Your epiphany. How does that end?"

  "Oh. Of course, sorry. I was reading the story and I found myself telling this five-year-old that it really wasn't as simple as Mama Abedelia made it sound. That there were circumstances and obligations that could complicate right and wrong tremendously, and that gray was the only universal color. It's a good thing my sister-in-law came in then or I probably would have been lecturing the kid on statutes and interpretations in a few minutes. Sally gently took the book from me, and said, 'It's as simple as you make it,' then finished reading the story to Mikey herself. And I stood there with that phrase going through my head over and over. It's as simple as you make it."

  "That was it? That was your epiphany? It's as simple as you make it?"

  "Basically, yes. I told you epiphany was too dramatic a word. Although it did lead to some big changes.
When I returned to Dallas, it was as if I'd taken a giant step back and I could see things clearly for the first time. Like I'd been a member of a sort of cult, and now I was outside it, and I could see how strange and destructive and … weird it was."

  "So you quit."

  "Not right away. I had cases I was working on, and even if the firm and the clients were… Well, I still had obligations. But I started looking. And when I saw an ad in a trade journal about a small office in Knighton, Wyoming, for sale, I took it. I wasn't fully aware at the time of quite how small, small was," she added ruefully, "so it was a good thing I had that money put aside."

  "No regrets? No fast-track-to-partner twinges? No nostalgia for astronomic billable hours."

  She noted his familiarity with that terminology, surprising for a rootless ranch hand. "None. That kind of law had nothing to do with justice. It was a game of trying to get the client off no matter what. A kind of con game of working around the truth. Sometimes letting the audience glimpse it, more often hiding it, like some kind of cheap shel—"

  She bit off the word too late.

  "Shell game," he finished flatly. "Like you say I play."

  "I didn't mean it the same way."

  "Didn't you?"

  "No. The shell game I was just talking about is meant to deceive people, or to deceive justice. You're right that I think you're hiding things. But maybe you have your reasons. There's a reason in nature for creatures to have shells – protection."

  He shrugged. "I'm going to read more before the light goes."

  And that was that.

  Except, when he put the book down and stood, apparently in preparation for fixing supper, he paused a moment, staring at something over her shoulder. She twisted around – he was staring at the seascape painting with the sailboat.

  "My great-aunt Eva introduced me to mysteries. She loved to try to figure them out. But the red herrings would always catch her."

  Tears stung at Taylor's eyes as he went to the kitchen without once looking at her. They could have been from the sadness that underpinned his unemotional words. Or they could have been from the knowledge that he had given her a gift. A small, precious part of himself.

  * * *

  The light wasn't good enough to read by after a supper of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, and cleanup hadn't taken much time at all.

  Maybe he should consider trying some of the elaborate dishes in the cookbook he'd picked up last summer at the library's used book sale. If he used more pots, cleanup would take longer, Cal told himself as he spread the dish towel on the counter to dry.

  And there'd be less time when he no longer had a reason to delay going into the living room where Taylor sat, and this time with no book to hide behind.

  He tuned in the battery-powered radio to the weather forecast. It confirmed what he'd already suspected – the storm was beginning to wind down, but nobody was going to be going anywhere for a while yet.

  He turned the radio off, put it away, and then there was nothing left to do.

  On his way into the living room, he picked up an armload of logs and added two to the fire before taking a seat on the couch.

  Taylor was sitting on the floor, her back against the edge of the wing chair, her bent legs crossed at the ankles and Sin curled up in the circle her legs formed, with his head propped up on one knee. She was using a brush from the tote bag on his fur.

  As Cal passed them to get to the couch, Sin raised his head a moment, gave the man a definitely gloating "I'm here and you're not" look, then dropped his head back in blissful satisfaction.

  Yeah, but she gave me hot chocolate.

  How was that for pathetic? Comparing indulgences handed out by Taylor with a dog? And all in his own head, no less. Nearly as pathetic as the warm contentment he'd felt sitting at the table and letting her ply him with hot chocolate and the last of the chocolate cookies from his cupboard.

  He couldn't remember the last time he'd had hot chocolate. He was as close to certain as he cared to be that the woman who'd made it for him had been his great-aunt.

  "He had some tangles in his coat. Hope you don't mind," Taylor said.

  "Why should I?"

  "He's your dog."

  Cal snorted.

  "He is," she insisted. "And I'm afraid I'm getting dog hair on your sweatshirt."

  "It'll come off."

  He'd meant the hair on his sweatshirt that she'd put on over her blouse, but the color rising up her neck brought another, and more appealing, interpretation to mind.

  "When I was a kid," she said in a hurry, "we had an Irish setter named Murphy. I used to love to brush him. And I used to wish on every star and at any wishing well I came across that my hair would turn the same color as his."

  "You didn't like the color of your hair?"

  She grimaced. "Being called Carrot Top? There might be more blonde jokes, but being a redhead definitely has more nicknames. Besides, the slightest thing anyone said to me turned into a blush. Even now—" She bit that off, with her teeth clamping down on her bottom lip. "No, I didn't like it when I was a kid. The only thing that helped was that having three brothers – two older and one younger – meant if anybody picked on me I had a champion. Unless, of course, it was one of them picking on me."

  She grinned, inviting him to share her amusement. He was half tempted, even though he knew nothing about the code of siblings.

  "You know how it is with brothers and sisters," she added.

  "Only by observation," he heard himself saying.

  "Ah, you're an only child."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It explains a lot."

  "Like?" He heard the undercurrent of menace in his own voice. He'd intended it, yet her grin widened a moment before her mouth dropped to a straight line.

  "Like your solitariness."

  "I don't mind solitude."

  "Guess that's a good thing in this line of business." Her gaze shifted to the corner of the room that held his book-cases, then came back to him. "And other pursuits."

  "Doesn't sound like you would have had much solitude." He could have stopped the conversation cold. He'd honed the skill to a knife's edge these past years. Only reason he could think of that he'd passed up the option was that getting her talking passed the time.

  She talked about her brothers and sister, her mother and father, her childhood neighborhood teeming with children, and the scrapes and excitements they got into.

  He listened, feeling a warmth inside him that couldn't be explained away as the physical reaction to imbibing hot chocolate. And while he listened, another part of his attention debated whether he'd rather kiss her when she was grinning or when her mouth went straight and she got that intent, solemn expression.

  * * *

  No wraith in the night, holding up a candle, with a hand cupped to protect its flame, appeared tonight.

  His disappointment was a sure sign of danger – as if he needed more signs.

  He wanted her. That was a danger in itself. Letting himself think about wanting her and how close she was upped the ante, as well as his body temperature.

  Hell, he'd even been disappointed when he took a shower before bed to find none of her things hanging in the bathroom.

  And there was another danger sign. She'd started him thinking about the past, and he'd told her too much about himself.

  When had he started blabbing about Aunt Eva and her mysteries? About being an only child.

  On the estate where he'd been raised, there'd been few other children. He remembered playing with one boy, they'd been four or five at the time. But then Scott had disappeared from his life. Much later he found out his father, upon discovering that his son was spending time with a gardener's son, fired the father. Subsequent hires had no resident children who might try to mingle with the son and heir of the household.

  Give the old bastard his due. He was consistent. The last time Cal had been in his father's office, the week before he'd left for g
ood, his father had called him in and dressed him down for playing softball on a team with some of his subordinates. Cal hadn't taken the lecture silently.

  So, let me get this straight: it's okay to screw employees, but not to play softball with them. That's screw in the sexual sense. I know you approve of screwing them and everyone else in the other sense.

  You and your smug superiority. You're useless. I'd hoped to have a son who would follow in my footsteps.

  I try to avoid stepping in—

  Christina – his father's wife – had come sailing in then, fresh from some luncheon, and he'd made his escape. The next week he'd made his escape for good, starting the journey that had brought him here to the Flying W.

  For good. Was that true? Would it turn out that way? Or would the information he'd unearthed at the library mean an end to his time here?

  Cal turned on his side, staring at the fire, burning low but steadily, exactly the way he'd planned it.

  Too bad he couldn't make the thoughts keeping him from sleep cooperate as well. The thoughts about how his past might be butting into his future. And thoughts about the woman in the next room.

  * * *

  Taylor opened the bedroom doors the next morning, expecting Sin to come bounding over to her as he had the previous day. Instead, he obviously had more important things on his mind.

  Cal was bending over to place something in the licked-clean dog dish. Neither dog nor man seemed aware of her.

  "Stay," he said to Sin.

  The puppy quivered but kept his bony butt in contact with the floor.

  "Okay."

  Sin popped up like a jack-in-the-box and stuck his nose in the dish. But instead of eating what was there, he spun around and trotted to where Cal had sat on a kitchen chair, and stared pointedly from Cal's closed hand to his face and back.

  Cal laughed.

  Tears rushed so fast and so hard to Taylor's eyes that she had to blink like someone coming out of a dark hole into sunlight to keep them at bay. Because that was exactly what Cal reminded her of in the moment of seeing him laugh. A man coming out of a dark place where he never let himself be free enough to laugh.

  And the sound was so genuine, warm and deep, she had to clasp her top teeth over her bottom lip to keep from laughing with him.