Back Story (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 6): Caught Dead In Wyoming, #6 by Patricia McLinn

Author:Patricia McLinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: traditional western mystery series, female sleuth, mystery romance humor series, cozy mystery dog, western murder mystery series, TV journalist mystery series, mystery novels best sellers
ISBN: 9781939215666
Publisher: Craig Place Books
Published: 2020-07-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Six

I had my hand on my SUV’s door handle when a familiar pickup came around the bend in the ranch road and pulled in next to me.

When the driver emerged, I said, “Hi, Tom.”

“Elizabeth. What are you doing here?” He looked at the window of the sunny room as he spoke.

I turned and saw a curtain moving … as if someone had just walked away from it.

“Had some questions I hoped Linda could answer.”

“Did she?”

“No. But she had something else. I’ll tell you all together tonight. What about you? What are you doing here?”

He glanced at the house again. “Stopping by to say hello.”

That was a lie.

Holy moly. I’d recognized Tom Burrell was telling a lie. It was like figuring out Mount Rushmore was telling a lie.

“Really? You just happened to stop by now?”

He huffed out a breath, then grinned. “No. Linda called as I dropped Tamantha off at tonight’s sleepover, asked me to come by. I swear, none of these kids are spending a single night at home during the Christmas break except for when they’re the host.”

Linda was matchmaking. But we weren’t talking about that. “When is it your turn to be host?”

“I got it over with during the fall break. Every darned girl she invited came. I’d been counting on no-shows keeping the volume down. Thought I’d go deaf.”

“Tamantha is an amazing kid. I’m just astonished her peers recognize it at that young an age.”

His smile started slow and grew even slower. It wasn’t until it was almost full width that he said, “Mostly, they don’t recognize it. Not completely. But their parents do. And they’re hoping it rubs off.”

“Speaking of schoolmates, what do you remember about Laura Roy?”

“I knew of her, I’d recognize her, but I didn’t know her. That’s why I didn’t mention it. Nothing to tell you. She was a year ahead and did different things.”

So his photo would have been in those next yearbooks I hadn’t had a chance to look at. “You weren’t in the theater crowd?”

He smiled slightly. “I did sports, then I got home as fast as I could for ranch work.”

“Your father insisted on that?”

“He mostly worked on the road construction company. The ranch needed more attention than he gave it.”

I heard an echo of Mike’s voice talking about his father and their family ranch.

Since I’d arrived in Sherman, I’d heard a fair amount about some members of the next generation not wanting to carry on family ranches but this was another aspect of it, with a younger generation working hard to hold on to them. That’s if you counted Tom or Mike — or me — as the younger generation.

Although, the idea of Tamantha giving up the Circle B didn’t fly.

“Is that why you’re running it now? Because he wasn’t that interested in it? Or because he reached retirement age?”

His smile flickered deeper, then disappeared. “There’s no retirement age in ranching. That might be why my father preferred the road construction company. He hit sixty-five and he wanted golf, sun, and never up before sun-up.

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