A Husband in Wyoming Read online

  Cool air greeted her as she stepped over the threshold. “Air-conditioning?”

  “Wood stays more stable at a constant temperature.”

  The scent hit her all at once, a combination of varnish and glue and trees that cleared her sinuses. “It must make you drunk to spend time in here. That’s a powerful room deodorizer.”

  He grinned. “I guess that’s why the hours go by so fast when I’m working. I’m always a little high.”

  “So this used to be a regular barn?” The space was huge, open from wall to wall and clear to the ceiling, except for the supporting posts. A staircase in the corner led up to a railed loft stretching halfway across, where she could see a bed and a couple of chairs. “You sleep here, too?”

  Dylan shrugged. “I remodeled over the years after we moved out here—with help from my brothers, of course. It’s convenient not to walk out into a snowstorm in the middle of the night when I’m falling asleep.” Then he hunched his shoulders again, and grimaced. “You know, I really would like to take a shower. Why don’t you look around the place while I do that? Then we can talk some before dinner.”

  “Great.” Jess watched him jog up the steps, then turned to survey the workshop around her. Tables of various sizes, most hand-built of unfinished boards, filled the space. Dylan’s work area appeared to occupy the center of the room, where hand tools lay neatly arranged by size and use—saws, chisels, screwdrivers and other arcane devices she’d didn’t recognize. Several surfaces held pieces of wood, also organized by size, from the smallest chips to branches four feet long. Some tables held sticks and limbs that had been sanded, stained and finished to a smooth shine. They were beautiful elements, but not the kind of material Dylan Marshall had utilized in his popular, critically approved sculptures.

  What had he been up to?

  For an answer, she moved to the tables lining the walls of the barn, which held figures of varying sizes—from a slender, twelve-inch form to a massive piece at least four feet square.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, in shock. “What in the world has he done?”

  She recognized the animal she was staring at as a buffalo, about two feet long and not quite as tall. A collection of sticks and branches had been fitted together to create the figure, each curve and hollow of the body being defined by a curve or hollow in the wood. Every piece had been separately finished and polished to a deep sheen, allowing all the natural variations in color and grain to contribute to the texture of the image as a whole.

  “Amazing.”

  She moved to the next sculpture, a fish twisting up out of a river. The scales of the fish’s skin, the lines of the body and the base of splashing water had all been created with the same technique, fitting hundreds of tiny sticks together to produce a unified whole.

  Jess ran a finger along the fish’s spine. “Incredible detail.”

  On the next table there was a stalking wolf, almost half life-size, and a rabbit stretched out at a run, both executed with enormous visual talent and technical precision. Walking around the room, she appreciated the many hours Dylan had poured into these sculptures. That bear she’d seen in the living room at the house had been an early prediction of this full-blown talent. No doubt there would be many buyers for these beautiful works of art.

  But... She covered her eyes with her shaking fingers.

  The response of the art world Dylan had once conquered would be scathing. Cruel. Because of who he’d been and what he’d done, when the critics evaluated these pieces, they would laugh. Then attack.

  And her article, the one Trevor Galleries had sponsored as a comeback announcement, would be the call to arms.

  Jess dropped her hands to her sides and shook her head. “Artistic suicide.”

  Why would Patricia Trevor, the owner of the gallery, choose this kind of work to exhibit? Her showrooms were known for presenting avant-garde, cutting-edge art. Surely Dylan was aware of that. Why would he expose himself to ridicule this way?

  From the loft above, she heard the shower cut off. He would be coming down soon, wanting to get her reaction to his pieces. Expecting her to appreciate his output of the past two years.

  She needed some time to frame a response. Panicked, Jess ducked under the loft and headed for the shadows along the rear wall of the barn. One of the tables she passed held small clay figures, probably models he’d made as he planned the larger wooden pieces. The entire surface of another table was stacked high with books—anatomy manuals, collections of wildlife photographs, volumes on working with wood, finishes and stains.

  The table in the corner under the stairs was illuminated by a large hanging light and covered with sheets of paper. These were his sketches, Jess realized as she came closer, three-dimensional drawings of animals in different poses, from different angles. Some of the studies she recognized from the sculptures she’d already viewed, but not all. He clearly had ideas for more work.

  Footsteps sounded on the floor above her. “Be down in a couple of minutes,” Dylan called. “Just making myself presentable.”

  “No problem,” Jess said loudly. “Take your time.” She’d inadvertently glanced up as she spoke, but as she brought her gaze down again, a picture on the wall behind the drawing table caught her attention. She hadn’t noticed any other hanging art in the studio, so this one must be important.

  The drawing was deceptively simple—a woman with a baby in her lap. Looking from behind the woman, over her shoulder, the viewer could see the very young child with its feet tucked against the mother’s belly, its head resting on her knees and its tiny hands curled around her two middle fingers.

  It’s a boy, Jess decided. Something about the baby’s face convinced her of that fact. The delicate lines and shadings were so persuasive, so filled with emotion, she felt as if she was indeed standing in that room, visiting with mother and child. She could almost hear the woman’s voice, singing a nonsense song, and her son’s infant gurgle in response.

  Suddenly, Dylan spoke from right behind her. “What in the world are you doing back here?”

  * * *

  JESS GRANGER WHIRLED to face him, her mouth and eyes wide with surprise. “I didn’t hear you come down.”

  He hadn’t expected her to get this far into the studio. No one but him came into this space. “I can be sneaky. There’s nothing important here in the dark under the stairs.”

  “Except for this wonderful sketch.” She nodded toward the frame on the wall. “Is it yours?”

  “No.” Dylan pulled together a bunch of the papers spread over his drawing table and started to straighten them. He shouldn’t be such a slob, especially with nosy reporters showing up to investigate.

  She wouldn’t let the subject drop. “It’s not signed. Did you know the artist? Have they done other work?”

  How was he going to get out of this? “We’re here to talk about sculpture, right?”

  “Right, but—” She gasped and then leaned over to pick up one of the papers on the table. “What’s this?”

  He saw the sketch and swore silently. “Not much. Just an...idea I was playing with.”

  When he reached for the sheet, she held it away from him. “This is your brother. Wyatt, right?”

  “At least you recognize him.” He wasn’t sure how to get the drawing away from her, short of wrestling her to the floor.

  And now she was in full journalist mode. “Are you working on this as a sculpture?”

  “Just considering it.”

  “You haven’t started. Why not?”

  “What did you think of the stuff that’s done?” Dylan said desperately. “Isn’t that what you’re here to write about?”

  “It is.” She blew out a breath and put the sketch on the table. “But you won’t want to talk about that, either.” Stepping around him, she went toward the main part of the studio. Dylan followed, as prepared as he could be for what lay head.

  “These are fantastic sculptures,” she said, walking along the line of display tables
to survey the various pieces. “Lovely representations of the wildlife you obviously value.”

  “But?”

  “But, Dylan, this is nothing like the abstract work you were doing in college and afterward—the cerebral, confrontational pieces that got you noticed. You know as well as I do, the art that gets talked about isn’t a reproduction of reality. Nobody on the international art scene will be interested in a statue of a buffalo.”

  Truth, with a vengeance. He shrugged. “That’s not my problem. This is what I came home to do. I won’t apologize for it.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to. The question is, what am I doing here? Any article I write about your new style is going to bring down catastrophe on your head.” She paused for a moment. “And mine, for that matter. My editor will not appreciate a neat-and-tidy piece about a wildlife artist. It’s just not what Renown readers expect.”

  “I can understand that.” He stroked a hand over the head of a fox on the table near him. “So cancel the article.” That would mean she had no reason to stay, of course. He didn’t acknowledge the sense of loss that realization stirred inside him.

  But Jess was shaking her head. “Magazine issues are planned long in advance. I’ve got a certain amount of space in this issue. I have to write an article. And after my last assignment...well, I need to turn in good copy.”

  “What happened?”

  She gave a dismissive wave. “I showed up to interview the next country music legend and found him having an alcohol-fueled meltdown. Smashing guitars, punching walls, throwing furniture. I waited two days for him to sober up. But then all he wanted to do was get me into bed. My editor was not happy. I need to revive my career with this piece.”

  “No pressure there.” Now he felt responsible to help her keep her job.

  “Exactly. Anyway, Trevor Galleries paid for ad space because we were doing an article on you. It’s a complicated relationship, advertising and content.” She continued walking, examining his work.

  “No,” she said, finally, “you won’t be coming back to the contemporary art scene. Not with these sculptures. I’m going to have to find some way to slant this, make it work for my editor. I’ll have to find another hook.” She stared at him with a worried frown. “Any ideas?”

  From being the subject—victim—he’d become a coconspirator. “All I can do is talk about what I know.” He couldn’t believe he was giving her a reason to stay, offering to expose himself like this. “Try to explain the changes I’ve made, the reasons I focus on wildlife now.” Not everything, of course. Some secrets weren’t meant to be revealed. Ever.

  She didn’t seem to be convinced. “That might work. The ‘soul of an artist’ kind of thing. But you have to be honest and open with me. I can’t turn in a bunch of clichés. Not if I plan to keep my job.”

  “Got it.” He would be spilling his guts so Jess Granger could remain employed. That was not at all what he’d planned to do with this interview. There would have to be some kind of payback. “But I want something in exchange.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “The same access. To you.”

  Her hazel gaze went wary. “You’re not writing an article.”

  “If I have to drop my defenses, you should, too.”

  “I don’t have any defenses.”

  “Right. No problems at all with the foster care issue.” Her cheeks flushed. He stared at her until she looked away. “Deal?”

  A long silence stretched between them. “Okay. Deal.” She pulled in a deep breath. “So tell me something I can use. Something about your abstract work. What were you thinking when you created those pieces?”

  Dylan propped his hip on the corner of the table under the fox and drew a deep breath of his own. “Okay. My second semester in college, I took a sculpture class with Mark Thibault. You know him?”

  “Sure. He’s a well-respected critic in contemporary art. He introduced you to the scene. ‘The biggest talent I’ve come across’ was the quote, I believe.”

  “Yeah, well. Mark exaggerates. Anyway, he challenged me to explore abstraction. No figures, no representative stuff. If I submitted that kind of project, he promised to fail me for the semester.”

  “You cared about grades? Artists are usually rebels in that respect.”

  He chuckled. “I had three older brothers who were paying, in one way or another, for that class. I owed them good grades. So I worked my butt off for Mark, but he was never satisfied. He kept criticizing, rejecting, pushing me harder and harder. The deadline was approaching for the final project, and I still didn’t have a passing grade.”

  Her hands went into her back pockets. “What happened?”

  Dylan gazed up at the ceiling he and his brothers had insulated and paneled with finished boards. “I was sitting in the dorm with some friends, drinking beer out of cans. As guys do, we’d squash the cans when we emptied them and pile them on the table.” He cleared his throat. “In my intoxicated state, I started studying the cans, the shapes of them after they’d been deformed. I chose three that seemed interesting and worked on sketches, playing with their relationships to each other. When I sobered up, I figured out how to make forms using rusted oil drums and a hammer, filled them with concrete and then ripped parts of the drums off.”

  Jess was grinning. “And Mark loved it.”

  “Oh, yeah. I did, too—it was great to work on a larger scale, to physically manipulate such harsh materials. I felt like I’d opened a door and found a wild new world.”

  “Did Mark learn the source of your inspiration?”

  “After that sculpture won a blue ribbon, I confessed. He just said, ‘Whatever works, son. Whatever works for you.’”

  She gave another of those rich, deep laughs of hers. “And an art prodigy is born.”

  “There you go.” He glanced at the window and saw with surprise how long the shadows from the trees had grown. “We’re going to miss dinner if we don’t head for the house.”

  “Dinner sounds terrific.” She brought her hands out of her pockets, relaxing the pose that distracted him. “Something about all this fresh air makes me hungrier than usual.”

  “Wyoming affects people that way.” He opened the door for her to walk through. “But afterward,” he warned her as they walked up the hill, “it will be your turn to bare your soul.”

  * * *

  WHEN SHE AND DYLAN entered the house, Jess saw all the Marshall brothers in the same room for the first time. Four handsome cowboys, cleaned up and smiling at her, was enough to set her heart to pounding.

  She fanned her hot face with her hand. “Taken together, you guys are a little overwhelming.” Dylan looked especially fine, something she’d been trying to ignore ever since he’d surprised her in the studio.

  Cheeks flushed, every one of the brothers hooked his thumbs in his front pockets and gazed down at the floor. Jess chuckled. “There’s definitely a family resemblance.”

  An expression of horror crossed Dylan’s face. “Say it ain’t so!”

  Garrett snorted. “You should be so lucky.”

  “Caroline’s supervising cleanup in the bunkhouse,” Ford said, ignoring his brothers. “She’ll be over when the kids are done.”

  A voice spoke up behind Jess. “Dinner’s ready. You all should come sit down.”

  Hearing the unexpected voice, she pivoted to find a blonde woman standing in the doorway to the dining room. A curly-headed little girl peeked around her hip.

  “Susannah and Amber Bradley are staying with us for a while,” Dylan explained as they moved toward their seats. “And Susannah’s making sure we’re all going to have to buy a larger size in jeans.”

  Jess couldn’t believe the table full of food, all for an ordinary evening meal. A steaming bowl of stew occupied the center of the feast, surrounded by dishes of mashed potatoes, rolls, green beans and a tossed salad. “I can see why. I’m sure it’s all delicious.”

  Before she could pull out her chair, Dylan had done
it for her. Garrett did the same for Susannah, after she’d gotten the little girl settled in a booster seat. Opening doors, pulling out chairs—compared with everyday manners in New York, all this chivalry would take some getting used to.

  A sense of unreality stayed with Jess as she ate. When had she last sat at a family table? For Thanksgiving or Christmas, maybe, at the last foster home she’d lived in. Not in the middle of the week, though. And that foster mother hadn’t been very skilled in the kitchen.

  “I was right. This food is amazing,” she said, taking another helping of stew. “It’s a lucky thing I’ll only be here a few days.” She met Susannah’s gaze across the table. “You’re a wonderful cook. Or maybe I should say chef.”

  Susannah laughed. “Cook, definitely.” Her crisp accent hinted at an East Coast upbringing. She wore her fair hair in a knot at the crown of her head, with wisps escaping to frame her face—a beautiful woman in a household of handsome single men. The possibilities for romance were certainly plentiful, but she must already be married.

  “Does your husband work on the Circle M?” Jess asked, following that train of thought.

  Susannah winced. An uncomfortable silence fell over the room, till Dylan stirred in his chair. “Susannah’s husband is...trouble. She and her kids are here to stay safe.”

  She felt her cheeks heat up. “I’m so sorry. Being nosy is a job qualification. But I didn’t mean to touch on a sore subject.”

  “Of course not.” The other woman had recovered her control. “You couldn’t possibly have known. Don’t worry about it.” She glanced around the table. “Can I get anyone more to drink? Do we need more food?”

  Groans answered her and for a few minutes they all concentrated on their meals, which Jess figured was a polite way to allow her to save face. She was quite sure she’d never met a family so mannerly.

  But then, the families she’d grown up with weren’t always the most respectable members of society. Some of them had tried. Some...had not.