Page 45 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

In the KWMT newsroom, I gaped at the overhead TV monitor showing weatherman Warren Fisk calmly saying the words Snow . . . Maybe hail . . . up to three feet . . . Currently snowing.

In June.

Not even early June.

And my parents arrive tomorrow.

Coats. Halloween. The wedding didn’t matter, only the marriage.

Yet I felt reasoned sanity melting away. “This is my fault.”

Audrey picked up my mutter. She had good hearing.

“How is it your fault? You can change weather?”

“I worried about a grasshopper infestation ruining wedding events.”

“Grasshopper infestation? Have you seen one?” She cut a quick look toward the exterior doors, perhaps checking for the splat of insect bodies against the exterior glass and already mentally adjusting assignments to provide coverage.

“No. But they can happen around here. I have it on good authority.” My mother-in-law-to-be mentioned it a few months ago. Not to scare me. Almost positive about that. Plus, I looked it up. “White-whiskered grasshoppers, in particular can go after range grasses.”

“Okay.” She drew it out in disbelief. “But what does that have to do with snow?”

“I focused on the possibility of white-whiskered grasshoppers and that let the snow sneak in when I wasn’t thinking about it. And I should have been, since I have experienced what the weather can be like around here.”

Diana came from the back at that moment. “All set, Audrey. I’m taking off now.”

“Thanks for tweaking that package for the Ten. Could you do one more thing for me?” Like all good editors, she did not wait for a response. “Talk Elizabeth down. I think she’s having pre-wedding jitters and I don’t have time.”

“I am not having pre-wedding jitters. That’s ridiculous.”

Diana, as a good employee and good friend, took me by the elbow and steered me away from Audrey’s desk.

Although that also was toward the exterior doors Diana wanted to use. So she only got half credit.

“Jitters? You?”

“Weather,” Audrey called after us.

Diana raised her brows. “There’s no rain in the forecast for the weekend the last time I—.”

“Rain? There’s a blizzard — in June.”

“Next weekend?”

“No, now. Didn’t you see the weather?”

“Oh, that.”

“Oh, that?”

“It’s up in the pass, not here. Yeah, it’ll be chillier the next couple days and there might be rain, but it’ll be past before the wedding events.”

I groaned.

“Now what?” she demanded without sympathy.

“Wedding events — plural. The one thing we had to do, according to this wedding article was have all the events in one spot, and we failed completely.”

“Like you’d follow wedding articles. You couldn’t be confined to one venue, that’s all. You and Tom need variety. And your mom and Tamantha made sure you’ll have it.”

“Tamantha’s worried about frazzle’s effect on the bride and groom. She told me so.”

“And what did you say to her?”

I told her, though possibly with less conviction than I’d displayed with Tamantha.

“That made sense. Now, listen to yourself.”

I groaned. “Have I mentioned the wedding cake’s being made by a woman I’ve suspected wants to poison me? Multiple times.”

The sound she made was scoffing. Definitely scoffing. No mistaking it. “You know darn right well she won’t.”

“How can you be so sure? She’s never forgiven me for what happened with her daughter the year she was Rodeo Queen.”

“True—”

“Great. That’s the way to make me feel better.”

“She hasn’t forgiven you and probably never will. On the other hand, she’s not a maniac and she wouldn’t poison the wedding cake that so many other people will eat. Bad for business. Besides, her cakes are delicious.”

My mouth watered at the reminder. “Her brownies, too, that’s why we added the chocolate tiers— Wait a minute, are you saying her cakes being so delicious makes it worth the risk that she’d poison the wedding cake?

Because I’m not banking the lives of all my nearest and dearest on her not being a maniac. ”

She waved dismissively as she started away from me. “I thought you were too calm. Now, you’re indulging all the horrors at once. Besides, it’s Tom’s cake, too, and she’d never do that to him.”

“I am not liking that besides. You did not make me feel better,” I called after her.

She laughed.

She might have paid for that, but my phone rang and Tom’s name popped up on the screen.

* * * *

“Did you know there’s a blizzard starting?” I asked without saying hello.

“You mean the snow in the pass?”

“Snow and hail in June. For our wedding.”

“Over before our wedding. And it’s up in the pass.”

“That’s a route to Sherman—”

“We have any guests or family coming over the pass?”

I resented his common sense down to my bones. “Jean-Marie might want to come that way,” I said of his sister.

“Only if she’s taken leave of her senses or the earth swallowed a considerable amount of road.”

I wanted to dispute that, but couldn’t. Jean-Marie wasn’t going to lose her good sense under any circumstance.

I shifted topics. “Is that why you called?”

“Checking in. Tamantha’s got a cookout and swim party—”

“It’s too cold—”

“It’s Wyoming. And I have things to clear up before your parents arrive late afternoon tomorrow.”

“You’re going to be busy all day tomorrow?”

After a noticeable pause, he said, “Hope to be. You have anything on for the day?”

My pause lasted even longer. The words were right. The voice wasn’t bad.

The combination snapped my brain into gear.

“Are you keeping secrets from me that touch on whether Sergeant Jardos was the body found in his burnt-out cabin?” After another half beat of consideration and before he responded, I added, “Or secrets that touch on who the body might be?”

“Secrets? No.”

“Tom—”

“Hold up there. Secrets? No,” he repeated. “Things you might not know that you’d most likely want to know? Possibly.”

“Well, I’d most likely want to know everything I don’t know.”

He chuckled low in his throat in a way that made me wish we were not on the phone. “I do admire your honesty.”

“Thank you. Now tell me what’s involved with this situation that you think I’d like to know and don’t hold back.”

Another pause.

“Tom?”

“Not yet.”

“Tom—”

“As soon as I know.”

The problem with loving Thomas David Burrell is he’s trustworthy. Which means I have to trust him.

“Fine.”