The Husband School Read online

  “But I really want to stay in one of those cute little places by the restaurant,” Tracy insisted. “For the local flavor, Jer. For the atmosphere.”

  Jerry held the phone away from his ear and pressed the speaker symbol. Her whining made his headache worse. “My house has plenty of atmosphere,” he assured her. “It’s an old white Victorian monstrosity next to a park with a statue of the town founder’s cow.”

  “Tell me you’re joking about the cow.”

  “We also have an atmospheric bed-and-breakfast,” he said, attempting to distract her from the idea of staying in one of Meg Ripley’s hideous old cabins. He didn’t remember taking pictures of them, but he might have. And he’d assumed Meg would have months to renovate them. “You’ll love it. It used to be the town brothel.”

  “That’s nice, and we’ll use it on the fantasy dates perhaps, but you know I don’t care for B and Bs. I feel as if I’m a guest in someone’s home. The last one I stayed at had Madame Alexander dolls everywhere. I swore to myself, never again.”

  “You can be a guest in my home, sweetheart. It’ll be like old times.”

  “With my assistant and cameraman? Surely you’re joking again.”

  “I’m serious. I have four bedrooms. You’ll love it.” He heard ice cubes and the fizzing of liquid. Tracy was still addicted to pomegranate-mango seltzer water, he supposed. He’d have to get several cases of it before she arrived.

  “I like my own space. You know that. Tell me more about Halloween. It sounds festive, in the local bar and all. Will everyone in town be there?”

  “Of course. It’s always a good time. There’s a raffle every year to see who wins the right to decorate the grizzly bear.”

  “And the bear doesn’t mind?”

  Jerry had to stifle a laugh. “He’s dead. Stuffed. Not stuffed like a stuffed animal you’d buy a kid, but stuffed and mounted, like a trout.” Jerry wondered if he was about to have a stroke. Every blood vessel under his skull throbbed. He wanted her here, in his town. He wanted to show her what he was in the process of building. Tracy had a thing for powerful men.

  “You don’t have to be so patronizing,” the former love of his life sniffed.

  “I apologize.” He would never, ever repeat this conversation to anyone. He’d be dodging teddy bears for years. They liked their little jokes around here.

  “I accept your apology, of course, babe,” she said, her voice light and cheerful again. “And I’ll see you on the twenty-eighth. What is that? In two weeks?” Knowing Tracy, she was centered in her enormous bed with all of her work spread around her on a 100-percent-organic-cotton duvet, surrounded by 100-percent-organic pillows. It was the L.A. way.

  “Yes.” He sat very still on the sofa in his living room, where tall windows looked out over the lawn, an iron fence and the streetlights glowing on an empty street. Nothing ever happened on First Street, not even on a Saturday night, unless Hip drank too much and took a walk over to the park to sing to the marble cow.

  “And you’ll book us into three of those cabins?”

  “They’re not what you’re used to, babe. I really recommend—”

  “I thought we were going to be able to use them when we filmed! You said there would be a motel for the crew, didn’t you?”

  “I did,” he admitted. “I thought you might like something a little fancier for yourself, that’s all.”

  “Not this time,” she said. “It might be fun, like camping.”

  “Sure. Like camping.” He knew when he’d been ground into the dust. There was no sense in trying to change her mind. So they exchanged a bit of gossip, he answered questions about the weather, she exclaimed over the wonderful photos he’d texted and that was that.

  Now that he’d confirmed she was actually coming to Willing, he would take a couple of aspirin, make a few phone calls and figure out a way to make Tracy’s latest demands come true. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last time. She was high maintenance, as well as gorgeous, sexy, smart—okay, except maybe for her ignorance of Montana...and wild animals in general—ambitious and self-absorbed.

  In other words, the perfect woman for him.

  * * *

  OWEN DIDN’T REALLY think he needed advice about dating, but over his Sunday-morning coffee he read the various tips in the handouts he’d brought home from class Thursday night. Over the course of two hours, Meg had hit the stunned men with more advice and rules than they could comprehend. He’d heard the quiet groans, the swearing under their breath and an uneasy shifting of bodies in chairs. He suspected many of the guys wondered if this was going to be worth it.

  The frightening thing he’d realized that night was that he’d missed her. All these years, with school and work and building a life, and he hadn’t known he’d missed little Margaret Ripley. He had tucked his youthful memories away, under the category of Stupid Kid Decisions.

  Eloping at the age of twenty was definitely at the top of that list. And thank goodness no one except his parents and Meg’s mother had ever found out. Somehow his father had managed to keep it between the five of them.

  But he and Meg knew they had a history together. She might want to ignore that. Actually, she seemed to prefer it. He preferred ignoring it himself.

  But that didn’t change the fact that the two of them had to work together on this TV thing. Oh, he could put the ranch up for sale and get the heck out of the county, but the thought made him feel sick. He simply couldn’t walk away from the ranch again, not yet.

  He needed more time. He told himself he needed to clean up the place, sort through four generations of stuff. Even if he wasn’t going to live here again, he couldn’t walk away from his history.

  Clothes, blah, blah. Be clean. Look clean. Make sure your fly is zipped. Yada yada.

  Don’t talk about your ex.

  Fair enough, since he hadn’t dated anyone in seven months. He’d never been married. He’d had two long-term relationships that had gone on too long before he’d realized he was not going to make a real diamond-ring commitment.

  He’d wondered if there was something wrong with him that way. Each time he’d attempted to look into the future, there’d been no one he wanted by his side. Unlike his parents, in love until his father’s final, deadly heart attack, he’d never felt he needed a partner for life.

  Well, only that once. At the foolish age of twenty. And with enough testosterone coursing through his body to fertilize a small nation. Owen forced himself back to the present, where the answers to dating success were in front of him, neatly printed and spread on his grandfather’s Formica-topped kitchen table:

  A good-night kiss may be appropriate, but do not jam your tongue down her throat.

  Ask her questions about herself and then listen to her answers.

  Boo sauntered over and plopped down at his feet. The dog groaned and tipped onto his side, gave one thump of his tail and closed his eyes. Owen considered heading to town for a late breakfast, but reconsidered when he looked around the cluttered kitchen. Stacks of newspapers, piles of plastic containers, empty cartons, plastic bags full of plastic bags and enough old Tupperware to fill a museum. He wouldn’t toss anything he remembered his mother using or anything he recognized from when he was a kid. But junk was junk. If he was going to start somewhere, it may as well be here in the kitchen.

  He’d have to get the junk out of here and into the Dumpster behind the old calf shed before he tackled the summer kitchen, which thankfully didn’t look like an army of hoarders lived in it.

  “We’ve got a real mess on our hands,” he told the dog. Boo responded with a little snort but didn’t budge. Owen rubbed his foot along the dog’s spine. “I think it’s about time I did something about it, don’t you?”

  But instead of getting up from the table, he looked at Meg’s papers again.

 
He’d been rude to her last night.

  He hadn’t wanted to hear her apologizing for what happened between them. He hadn’t wanted to sit across from her when all he did want to do was take her out of the café and kiss her until neither one of them could breathe. And that was pretty damn frightening.

  All he had to do was look at her and he was back to being the lovesick college kid who’d thought he’d found true love.

  He hated feeling like that. Hated the stupidity of it.

  Hated remembering the consequences of falling in love with Meg Ripley. She’d cost him the ranch. She’d taken his youthful dreams and tossed them back in his face.

  Was it fair to hold a grudge? Well, sure. But it wasn’t necessary. He was a man of the world now. He could certainly manage to deal with old feelings while he cleaned up an old house.

  Besides, he felt sorry for her. She was still stuck in this town, after all of her dreams. He knew she’d gone to college. He’d heard she’d worked in five-star restaurants. But she’d landed back in Willing and was now involved with this dating school thing and trying to get her business going. If the town was in as bad a shape as Jerry said—and the figures he’d seen were grim—then Meg was fighting a losing battle. The woman had a lot going on. She probably needed help.

  She’d said she wanted to spruce up the old cabins, rent them to the TV crew. She’d sounded as if she had high hopes for making some extra money during what he imagined would be a typically lean winter.

  He could help with the dirty work, the heavy stuff, the hauling. He had time, a truck, a shed full of tools and a few handy skills when it came to fixing old things. Owen eased his chair away from the table so he wouldn’t disturb the sleeping dog and carried his empty coffee mug to the sink. He’d spend a couple of hours clearing out stuff around here, then he’d shower and head to town.

  Yeah, the sooner he got the ranch house squared away, the sooner he’d be free to return to his own life. There didn’t seem to be much to go back to. He could lease out the condo, do some traveling, decide which offer to take for the business and do some consulting. Just because he was in the same town as Meg didn’t mean he had to ignore her. He was a bigger man than that. They had a history. They could still be...friends.

  He told himself that was the plan, anyway.

  * * *

  “YOU ARE AMAZING.”

  It was a little strange that Meg was smiling at Jerry Thompson when she said it. Owen couldn’t stop himself from frowning. Had he missed something going on between the mayor and Meg? And what difference would it make?

  “I still can’t believe you organized this,” she cooed. “And so fast.”

  “We have to stick together,” the mayor grunted, struggling with an ancient television set. “All of us.”

  Owen had seen the closed sign on the restaurant door, had paid no attention to the trucks parked in the lot and only saw Meg, her arms loaded with blankets, stepping out of the middle cabin and tossing them in the bed of a red Ford F-150. He’d parked right beside it and hopped out to offer his services when the mayor had appeared.

  Since when was Jerry Thompson amazing?

  “Looks like you could use a hand with that,” Owen said. He plucked the television from Jerry’s grasp as if it were a loaf of bread. “Where do you want it?”

  Meg waved her arm toward the truck. “In there, thanks. It’s the last one. We’re cleaning out the cabins!”

  “I see that.” He eyed Jerry, who had a guilty look about him. Jerry gave him a quick nod of his head. Sure enough, the man was hiding something. And here Owen thought the guy had it bad for the California woman, the producer. Was he really trying to impress Meg? Good luck with that, buddy. “Can I help?”

  Meg looked adorably dirty and excited. “Did you come for lunch? Or did Jerry call you, too?”

  “Neither. I was on my way to Great Falls and—”

  “Hey, Meg?” Mike popped his head out of the cabin next door. “You want me to rip out the carpet and the linoleum? Or just the carpet?”

  Jerry answered for her. “All of it!”

  The mayor was amazing and he was in charge. Interesting. Was Jerry the next man in a long line of frustrated men who’d been refused by Meg?

  “They’re coming in two weeks,” Jerry explained to him. “They want to stay here.”

  They meant the Californians, obviously. Here meant at Meg’s.

  “The producer wants real Montana, small-town atmosphere,” Jerry added. “I couldn’t talk her out of it.”

  Owen studied the row of cabins. Meg lived in the one on the far end, closest to the café. Years ago she and her mother, along with her mother’s fourth—or was it fifth?—husband, had lived in the largest cabin, which was at the other end of the L. Pink curtains hung from the window, giving it a weirdly girly look.

  Boo stuck his head out of the open driver’s-side window and whined for attention, which Meg gave him. She patted his head and told him what a good dog he was before she looked up at Owen again.

  “I can’t believe they want to stay here,” she said. “I mean, the cabins aren’t even close to being habitable and—”

  “They’re not that bad,” Jerry said. “We’ll have them fixed up in no time.”

  Owen ignored the man, though he hoped Jerry was right. “Show me,” he said to Meg. “Maybe I can help.”

  “Really? You have the time?”

  “I do.” He’d allowed himself plenty of time to act like a hero, inspect the cabins, offer his wealth of knowledge and show her that he wasn’t the least bit interested in her.

  He told Boo to stay, turned his back on Jerry and followed Meg back into the cabin. They stepped into a pine-paneled room, empty except for an old dresser. A wide picture window on the same wall as the door faced the parking lot. Green paint peeled from its trim.

  “A queen-size bed goes there.” She pointed to the wall opposite the dresser. He followed her across dull blue shag carpet to a small kitchenette and a tiny bathroom in the back. Inside the bathroom, a metal shower stall, toilet and pedestal sink were crammed together.

  “The bathrooms are the challenge,” she said. “We’re going to put new tile on the floor and hope that helps.”

  “If you take out this closet,” he mused, examining the wall between the bathroom and the storage space. “You’d get more room for a bigger stall. Maybe even a small tub. We’d have to measure.”

  “That sounds awfully complicated.”

  “Not really.” Here was something he could do. One-handed, almost. With flair and confidence. “Just tell me what you want.”

  She looked at his mouth and blushed. “Why?”

  “You obviously need the manpower,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, but don’t you have—never mind,” she stammered. “I’m hoping for new toilets, shower stalls, carpet and tile. Jerry made a list.”

  “He’s an organized guy, I’ve noticed. Are you dating him?”

  Meg laughed. “Are you serious?”

  He shrugged. “He’s in the diner all the time.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t cook.”

  He reached out and touched a smear of dust on her left cheek. Her skin was as soft as his fingers remembered, smooth as satin and warm as summer grass. “Is he one of the men who proposed to you?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “You’ve broken more hearts than mine,” he pointed out.

  “I’m sure you’ve done your share, too,” she retorted, but the laughter had disappeared from her eyes and she moved away from him, just enough to avoid his touch. He dropped his hand.

  “You wrecked mine pretty bad,” Owen admitted, keeping his voice even.

  “That goes both ways.”

  His eyebrows rose. “It didn’t feel like it. When you’re twenty
years old and the woman you’re in love with changes her mind and doesn’t want to marry you...”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Isn’t that my line?” He looked through the open door to the parking lot, taking note of the trucks parked in front of the cabins. “You have plenty of admirers now.”

  “So that’s it. You wonder if I’m like my mother. She wasn’t promiscuous, you know, no matter what everyone in town thought. She picked men she felt sorry for, that she could fix.”

  “But you have to admit, eighteen proposals is a little, uh, unusual.”

  “Nineteen,” she reminded him again, as she had a week ago. “And I only said yes to one of them.”

  With that, she brushed past him and stalked out of the cabin.

  “Meg, wait—”

  She didn’t stop.

  “Meg.” He caught up with her in two long strides and grabbed her hand. Boo barked and whined from his seat in the truck, which caused Les to pop his head out of the cabin two doors down. Meanwhile, Jerry paced across the parking lot with his cell phone to his ear. Owen paid no attention to any of them. “Look, I didn’t mean—”

  “I have to go rip up carpet now.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “Don’t. I’m all set. Mike’s here. And Les.” She motioned toward the far cabin, but Les had disappeared. “He and Shelly are scraping paint off the trim. And Hank Dougherty is coming later to check the wiring. We’re in good shape.”

  “I could take some measurements,” he offered. “See if there’s room to expand the bathrooms.”

  “That’s probably a bigger job than any of us have time for,” she said, pulling her hand away from his. “But thanks anyway for offering.”

  She looked more hurt than angry, and the excitement over fixing up the cabins had faded. And all because he’d let his jealousy—and yes, he’d admit it was jealousy, pure and simple—get the best of him. He hesitated, wishing he could take back acting like a jerk.