Page 82 of Head Room

“You asking if they were slaveholders?I don’t know.Mom’s sister researched some, but she died when I was teenager and I don’t recall much from when they talked about it.No idea where the research went.Mom might have it.”

He went silent a moment.

“Seems like my aunt said they had a small farm.Not wealthy, was my impression.Doesn’t answer if they had slaves or not, though.”

“Anything about him coming west with a family member?”

“Like nephews?”He opened his palms to the sky in ano ideagesture.

And I couldn’t say that it would matter if he had.Irene accurately following a piece of Burrell family history from generations ago would mean...what?

“I know that generation ranched an area north of the Oregon Trail, which is where most of the forts were.Took a couple generations to get up here.Happened after Cody — Buffalo Bill and the town — brought people in and irrigation opened up the low side.Cottonwood County was slower to it than Park County.”

He didn’t say it outright, but I suspected he was more interested in the later generations because they staked out the land that became the Circle B, the land that kept his heart pumping in so many ways.

It was a visceral difference between him and his father, who’d treated ranching as a side gig to the highway construction business he’d built.And then his father retired and left Wyoming.

I couldn’t imagine Tom ever doing either.I was fully prepared to spend my golden years with both of us in the same place and doing the same things we’d done in our pre-golden years.

Marry the man, marry the ranch.

That I knew.That I was prepared for.

Prepared for meeting his parents?Not so much.

“Why’re you so interested in Irene Jardos’ writings?”he asked.

“Connie and Mrs.P extolled the woman’s ability to assess people.If someone in her story translated to real people living now it might be a pointer to what happened with her husband...Yeah, I know.It sounds crazy.”

“Pretty thin.”

I breathed out shortly through my nose in agreement.“As thin as any of the other straws I’m grasping at.Maybe I keep reading because I don’t want to admit there’s nothing else to do.”

“Or it’s a good story.”

“Or it’s a good story,” I agreed.“Although at this point in the manuscript, it’s becoming more of a sketch than a full story.”

“Maybe you like that even better.Lets you fill in, instead of being told things right out.”

“Hah.A different kind of mystery novel, huh?Not a novel about a mystery, but a novel that is a mystery.”

“You follow the clues and make the story your own,” she said.“On the other hand, you can’t say there’s nothing else to do to try to find out more.You’re going to try to talk to the guys, see what they might know about the sergeant.Let’s go.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

As Tom drove,I told him about Tamantha’s concern over bride or groomfrazzleand our peripatetic wedding plans.

He approved of my handling of the issue.

I didn’t mention my thoughts aboutfrazzlein the context of meeting his parents.

Instead, I asked, “What were you doing before I got here?”

“Cleaning up.”

“You don’t mean vacuuming, dusting, washing the floor, do you.”

He chuckled.I do love that sound.“Nope.Cleaning up brush that’d grown closer to the barn than I like.Not a big job, and figured I’d hear you if you came before I finished.But got it clear-cut and cleaned up before you got here.”