Page 63 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

DAY SEVEN

FRIDAY

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

The remnants of the snow-rain system had passed. The sky was big, blue, and beautiful.

My wedding dress slid over my head and settled around me with barely a tug.

I’d swear this occurred at the precise minute designated on the spreadsheet.

In less than an hour, Tom and I would be legally and officially married after Wedding One.

The final primping done, I left the room set aside for brides to prepare at the Catholic church in Cody and went to a small courtyard between the church and rectory.

Tom had his back to me.

He wore a black suit and no cowboy hat, the most formal I’d seen him.

I walked close to him, then stopped.

“Tom.”

His head dropped forward.

I put my hand high on his back. As he turned toward me, my arm naturally went over his shoulder.

Another step from each of us and we’d be in each other’s arms.

But he stopped.

He had tears in his eyes.

“Tom?”

“It’s real.”

“It’s real. Unless you—?”

“Oh, no you don’t Elizabeth Margaret Danniher. No unless.”

We kissed. More than once.

Only after did he step back and look at me.

“You look—” He swallowed in a way that was better than any words. “That dress . . .”

I looked down at it. “I love it, too. I hope we didn’t wrinkle it too badly, since it also has to hold up for tomorrow’s full performance.”

“Not a wrinkle in sight.” Another swallow, then he cleared his throat, a sound I felt to my toes. “In fact, you clean up real nice.”

I chucked his shoulder with the heel of my hand. “You, too, Burrell.”

He looked at me, not with the smile I might have expected. “You’re chewing on Nance getting killed, aren’t you?”

“Sorry. I can’t turn it off. That and this cop with many names.”

“No apologizing. I know what I’m getting into.”

“Do you? Do you really? I’m a journalist. I’m nosy.

I want to find out things and share them with people who need to know.

It’s good for society. It’s good for Cottonwood County.

It’s good for Wyoming. It’s good for the country.

It’s good for the world. But it might not be good for you or our family. And I can’t turn it off.”

He maintained his level-eyed regard as if awaiting another spate of words.

No more word spates in the wings.

Finally, I said, “What?”

“Two things.”

“What?” I repeated, with less patience.

“You want more than that.”

“More than what?”

“Than finding out stuff and sharing it.”

I shook my head slightly. “That’s what journalism comes down to and—”

“It’s good for the world. Got it. Take that as granted. Know what struck me about you first time we met?”

His question stopped me cold. How had we never talked about this? Didn’t every couple recap what drew them together? How could we get married without going through that rite of passage?

. . . and why was I twisting myself up about this?

When we met there’d been no thought of a relationship — for either of us. We both had more elemental goals in mind, from the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs — staying alive.

“You told me you were struck by my stupidity at going up a strange mountain to confront — alone — a man accused of murder. You said to leave you alone and keep my nose out of it.”

The lines at the corners of his eyes fanned out in amusement. “And you did the opposite. I must have done something in a past life to draw Tamantha and you in this one.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll make sure you expiate those sins this go-round. But I don’t get what you’re hinting at, so spit it out.”

“The truth.”

I propped my hands on my hips and stared at him, requiring an explanation.

He complied. Not because of my posture or eye-torture, but because he’d intended to say this all along.

“You don’t just want to know things. You want to know the truth. There’s a difference. Came to realize it’s what drives you. It’s why you can’t let these investigations go. It’s what makes you so dangerous.”

“Dangerous,” I scoffed. “That’s why you didn’t want me around back then?

Because you thought I was out for the truth and — what?

You thought it was better for Tamantha to not have it?

Idiot,” I tossed in for free. Because his daughter far preferred hard-fact truth to the pat-her-on-her-head patronage of supposedly comforting lies.

“And my truth-seeking no longer interfered with your plans when more facts came out.”

“Came out.” He snorted. “Dragged out by their hair by you.”

I sighed. “Afraid that tactic didn’t work on this one.

Heard Bob Woodward say once that when you’re on a story like this — one where you grab onto something without truly knowing what it is and you keep following each small piece, wondering what the whole will turn out to be — you go home each night with a lump in your stomach.

“Because as much as you work the story and your sources, you don’t have — can’t have — the certainty that allows a good night’s sleep. Because you don’t know how it’s going to end.”

“That’s—” He paused until I looked into his dark eyes. “—one of the things I admire in you, Elizabeth Margaret Danniher. You keep fighting for the truth without knowing how it’s going to end, because, as much as you want the result, you know it can’t come without the fight.”

My mother appeared in the doorway. “It’s time, you two.”

“Wait,” I ordered Tom. “What’s the second thing?”

“You being a journalist wasn’t the reason you divorced Wes, not any more than me being a rancher was the reason I divorced Mona. They weren’t right for us. You and me, we’re right.” He leaned down and kissed me lightly. “See you soon.”

A few minutes later, when I started down the aisle toward him, we were both smiling widely.