The Husband School Read online

  And she could take care of herself. Mostly. After all, she had a place to live and a job. Her roommate wasn’t so bad. She didn’t have boyfriends and she didn’t smoke or drink or zone out on pot. She wasn’t like Shelly’s own mother at all.

  The pink thing was a little weird, but Loralee looked good in that color. Shelly thought someone who’d had five husbands would be surrounded by men all the time, but so far Loralee settled for pouring coffee and chatting with her old customers. She remembered everyone’s names. And so far she hadn’t been to the Dahl for a beer. She was definitely more like a grandmother and a mom. Once you got to know her, she was just a loud person who liked pink and made people smile.

  “Shelly? Are you okay?”

  Shelly blinked and realized Meg was bending over her. “Sorry. I was thinking.”

  Meg sure looked worried. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said.

  “It was worth a shot,” she said, echoing Hip’s one-sentence summary of the trip. It had been really weird at times. Hip had seemed nervous and his younger cousin had kept checking his cell phone as if he wanted to be anywhere else. They’d walked past barns and corrals and horse trailers, sat in the stands, strolled past the food trailers and watched the people. She didn’t think Hip liked crowds. “Hip and Theo were really nice.”

  “Theo’s still around? He used to drive kids to the prom in one of his old Cadillacs, remember?” Loralee laughed. “There were a couple of years when the high school seniors thought it was cool to get all dressed up and eat here, at the café. I’d set up tables with fancy tablecloths and candles. I don’t think Hip did that, though. He was an oldest child, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. He had younger sisters. Maybe that’s who you’re thinking about.”

  “We had pot-roast sundaes for supper,” Shelly said. “And root beer. Hip didn’t even drink a beer the whole time.”

  “I could use one of those now.” Loralee scanned the room again. “The pot roast, not the beer. Where’d you find the beds? And these fancy dressers?”

  “They’re on loan,” was all Meg said, but Shelly could tell by the expression on Loralee’s face that she knew that explanation was a lie and poor Meg had walked into a trap.

  “On loan from the Triple M,” Loralee supplied. “Because I’ve heard that not only is Owen MacGregor on the location committee and the entertainment committee, he’s also on the renovation committee. I suppose this whole thing was his idea?”

  “Uh, no. He was reluctant at first.” Meg smoothed the blue-and-yellow quilt across the queen-size mattress. “Can you believe they even had dust ruffles? Janet ironed all of them. And the shams, too.”

  “You could have told me he’d come back here,” Loralee said. She eyed Shelly. “You, too, missy. You could have said something.”

  Shelly played innocent and widened her eyes. “About what? Mr. MacGregor? Is he the guy with the old black Jeep? Does he have a beard?”

  “Nice try,” the older woman muttered, but she looked at her daughter when she said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. That ring a bell?”

  Meg blushed and went back to fussing with the quilt.

  “He’s avoiding me, I suppose.” She stood and smoothed her coral sweater over her hips. “Which means he’s smarter than he used to be.”

  “Let it go,” her daughter said, sounding tired. “You can’t hold a grudge forever.”

  “No?” Loralee motioned to Shelly. “Let’s go eat, girlfriend. I’ll tell you all about grudges and then we’ll watch The Amazing Race.”

  Shelly, knowing Meg would be happy for the break, followed Loralee out the door. She’d rather listen to the woman’s chatter than worry about what she’d do if she couldn’t find her baby’s father.

  Yesterday she’d been filled with hope. She’d seen so many jeans-clad young men in black Stetsons and worn leather boots, but none had come close to looking like Sonny. He wasn’t tall, but he was wiry and muscled. Lean and strong. With a confident swagger and a sweet smile, he naturally caught the attention of women.

  She’d tried so hard to look pretty. She’d straightened her hair into silky smooth sheets. She’d borrowed Loralee’s red boots with the blue butterfly pattern and a red-and-pink-patterned blouse that flowed over her growing belly. She still wore a belt to hold up her unzipped jeans, but the blouse went all the way down past her hips and covered the gap. Her favorite gold hoop earrings and pink lip gloss made her look trendy and cool. Loralee advised her not to use any makeup because she’d spoil the “ripe peach” effect.

  It had all been for nothing. She was trying so hard to do the right things for her baby, but so far she couldn’t do the one thing that was the most important: find his daddy.

  * * *

  “NO TO AN official welcoming committee. While most of you will be at the grooming session tonight, I’ll be waiting for Tracy and her group to arrive, which should be between seven and eight. Meg and I will get them settled in. As far as tonight goes, yes to Marie Swallow’s pizza being served during class tonight. I’ll pick up the tab for that. Yes to cookies, as long as they’re homemade. Gluten-free or not, doesn’t matter.” Jerry read silently for a moment while the members of the town council—minus Les—enjoyed their lunch.

  Meg and Lucia were at the far end of the long table, but Meg had eaten earlier so she only had a cup of coffee in front of her. She’d expected to see Owen earlier on his way home from visiting his mother in Great Falls, but he hadn’t stopped for breakfast. He probably had a lot to do at the ranch to get ready, she told herself, but she was disappointed. He wouldn’t be at the grooming class tonight and he’d be busy playing tour guide for the rest of the week.

  Shelly, who looked distracted, managed the few stragglers at the counter by herself. It was after two o’clock, so the small lunch rush was long past. Loralee was down the street at the Hair Lair for highlights and a mani-pedi.

  “Yes to horseback riding Thursday morning. We’ll take a picnic lunch. Tomorrow morning we’ll scout locations and they’ll get a sense of the town. Tomorrow afternoon at three there will be a tea and a brief history of the area given by the historical committee.”

  “Where is that again?” Meg checked her notes.

  “At the community center. If the weather holds, we’ll walk through the cemetery and point out the more historic grave sites.”

  Meg and Lucia exchanged horrified looks. Lucia raised her hand.

  “What about shopping?”

  “They’ll have Friday afternoon and part of Saturday,” Jerry assured her. “Tracy is bringing two technical advisors and her assistant, all women.” He grinned at the men around the table. “We’ll have ample opportunities to practice making a good impression. Make sure you dress with a little Western flair, remember?”

  “I’ve definitely worked with the guys on flair,” Lucia assured him.

  “Great. Meg, are you all set with the menus?”

  She held up a large notebook. “Al and I have come up with daily specials I think they’ll like. We’re having elk roast Thursday night and venison tacos Saturday, before the party. I’m going all out on soups and stews during the day, along with artisan breads and Lucia’s pies. Tomorrow Marie is catering an Italian dinner at your house. What’s happening on Friday night? Have I missed something?”

  “I’m leaving that open for now,” he said. “We have the high school football game in Lewistown—go Wildcats—Friday night. We can grab something at Chili Dawgs or even have drinks at the Dahl later that night, after the game. Aurora usually has live music on Friday nights, doesn’t she?”

  “Sometimes.”

  He looked around the table. “Any questions?”

  Pete raised his hand. “How do we get to meet them? Before Friday night and before the thing on Saturday?”

  “Good question. I was
about to get to that.” Jerry flipped to another page in his notebook. “Shelly and/or Loralee will send out a group text to every bachelor on our list when our guests are in the café. That will give you time to get over here and have coffee or whatever, as if you didn’t know they were here.”

  “Genius,” someone exclaimed.

  Meg tried not to laugh. She didn’t dare look across the table at Lucia.

  Jerry continued. “Aurora will do the same at the Dahl, as will Joey Peckham at the Gas ’N’ Go gift shop. I want our visitors to see a lot of men. A lot of men,” he repeated, though Meg was certain everyone got the message.

  “Even if they’re the same men over and over again?” Meg couldn’t help asking.

  “Damn right. We want to look like a town bursting at the seams with bachelors.”

  “Speaking of bachelors,” Lucia said, looking past Meg. “I see two heartthrobs right now.”

  Les stopped to talk to Shelly, but Owen made a beeline toward Meg and pulled out a chair at the end of the table. He smiled and sat down. “What’d I miss?”

  “Do you know about the text list?”

  “Oh, yeah. But I live too far out of town to participate.”

  “I had another idea,” Jerry announced, only this time he looked nervous instead of organized and bossy. “What do you think of asking all noncrucial available ladies between the ages of twenty-three and thirty-five to avoid downtown for the next four days?”

  “Noncrucial?” Lucia looked at Meg. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “I’m working on ‘avoid downtown’ and ‘available.’”

  Owen raised his hand. “You want the TV people to think we don’t have any single women here at all? What do you expect them to do, stay in their homes with the blinds shut?”

  “Well.” Jerry hesitated, because clearly that was exactly what he’d had in mind. “It was just an idea.”

  “Patsy is standing by to do last-minute haircuts,” Meg told him. “Iris plays drums in the band on Saturday. I don’t know about the others, but no one misses the Halloween party. Ever.”

  The mayor held up both hands in a gesture of surrender while his town council members stared at him as if he’d suggested they run naked down Main Street.

  “He’s gone completely crazy,” Meg whispered. She turned to Owen and Lucia. “Maybe we all have. Maybe this whole idea is insane.”

  “Of course it is,” Owen replied. He leaned closer to whisper, “Will you please go out with me tonight? We could have dinner in Lewistown—”

  “Company’s coming,” she reminded him. “I’m on duty.”

  “After this is over,” he said, “could we do something normal together?”

  “Like what?”

  He gave it some thought. “I’m not sure. But if we work at it, we might end up doing something traditional and boring.”

  “Wow, you sure know how to seduce a girl, don’t you?”

  “We could invite your mother over for Sunday dinner.”

  “Aw.” Lucia sighed. “That’s just like being married.”

  “I don’t think,” Meg said, ignoring her friend, “you should put anything to do with my mother in the ‘traditional and boring’ category.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “SHE’S THE SKINNIEST person I’ve ever seen.”

  Meg didn’t disagree. She and Shelly stared at the four women who stood talking to Jerry by the front door of the restaurant. Tracy, the birdlike blonde with a spiked pixie cut, was obviously the one in charge. Dressed in tight black leggings, a form-fitting black turtleneck top and high-heeled patent leather boots, she was the only one of the women who held the mayor’s attention as she spoke. The other three looked hungry, tired and bored, but at least two were wearing the right kind of clothes—jeans and vests—to look as if they’d fit right in with the locals. The third, at least a foot taller than the other three, with jumbled red hair down to her waist, was built like an Olympic volleyball champion. Meg guessed she was the camera operator.

  “He doesn’t have a chance with Tracy,” Meg muttered. “Poor guy.”

  “I thought I was thin.” Shelly absently stroked her round belly. “Wait until Marie Swallow sees her. She’ll want to feed her meatballs and lasagna and garlic bread three times a day. The others look okay, though. Maybe a little cranky.”

  Jerry proudly guided the visitors over to Meg, who met them halfway across the room. One lone customer sat nursing his last cup of coffee at the counter and the Fergusons occupied the corner booth, where they were finishing dessert. Meg planned to greet her guests and show them to their cabins after the introductions were made.

  She’d guessed correctly. The little blonde was Tracy, the producer.

  “Do you serve quinoa, Meg? And fresh, raw vegetables? Please don’t tell me that everything is fried.” Tracy liked giving orders, it seemed. “Aside from the menu, I love the authenticity of your little café.”

  “We aim to please,” Meg said drily. Lin, a shy young woman with sleek black hair straight to her chin, was Tracy’s assistant. Amy, a dead ringer for Taylor Swift, was in charge of casting the show. The tall redhead with the impressive shoulders introduced herself as, “Cane, the woman behind the camera,” and asked where all of the cowboys were hiding.

  “They’re in class tonight,” Shelly explained.

  “Class?” Tracy looked at Jerry, whose guilty expression would have had a busload of lawyers going after him. “The cowboys go to school?”

  “Not exactly,” he stalled.

  “Our bachelors wanted to look their best when they met you,” Meg explained. “That’s all.”

  “They’re getting makeovers,” Shelly added, thinking she was being helpful. “It’s grooming night.”

  “Get your equipment,” Tracy cried, waving her hand at Cane. “Hurry! We don’t want to miss this!”

  Jerry managed to block the door before Cane opened it. “Wouldn’t you rather have something to eat? And see your rooms? Tracy, hon, let me show you your cabin. You wanted Montana atmosphere? Well, you’ve—”

  “What I want,” she told him, “is Montana men. And if your Montana men are all in one place, right now, then that’s where I want to go. You can drive us.” She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she stood on tiptoe, kissed Jerry on the mouth and gestured to her crew to follow her out of the restaurant.

  “Sorry,” Meg mouthed.

  “It’s okay.” He paused by the door. “You’re coming, too, aren’t you? I could use the, uh, support.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Meg assured him before he scurried away.

  “Me, either.” Shelly hurried over to the window and flipped the sign to closed. “I want to see Les get a haircut and I want to see if they’ll really shave off their beards. Lucia said some of them were even going to wear their new shirts, just in case the TV crew showed up.”

  “What I want,” Meg said, imitating Tracy, “is Montana men. And if Montana men are at the center, then that’s where I want to go.”

  Shelly giggled. “You already have Owen.”

  “I’m not sure he’s staying in town.

  “But what I want,” Meg whined again, watching John Ferguson help Janet to her feet, “is Montana pizza.”

  “Me, too,” Shelly said. “’Cuz I don’t ever want to be skinny again.”

  What she wanted, Meg thought, envying the Fergusons, was a marriage and a love just like that.

  * * *

  “ANYONE BUT HIM,” Loralee said, having finally and inevitably noticed Owen’s presence next to her daughter.

  “Mom,” Meg said, keeping her voice low. Tracy and her minions would surely pounce on any morsel of drama and her mother was anything but discreet. Case or Cane or whatever her name was had spent the past hour wa
lking around the community center’s meeting room with her camera on her shoulder. She’d filmed interviews with freshly shaved members of the council, she’d filmed Patsy’s demonstration of how to use gel and she’d eaten quite a lot of pizza.

  Meg thought Pete Lyons had better pick his tongue off the floor and stop panting. Reminded her of Owen’s dog.

  “Anyone else,” Loralee repeated, waving her hand toward the crowd of bachelors. “Just pick one of them. Because he will break your heart. He will stomp it into little pieces and then drive over it in his fancy truck, and if that’s not enough he’ll shovel cow manure on top of the whole mess that was your heart and he’ll ride off into the sunset. Laughing all the way, of course, just like last time.”

  “You’ve gotten real descriptive in your old age,” Owen drawled, having stepped to Meg’s side. “Have you been taking writing classes in Arizona or just watching a lot of television?”

  Meg’s mother narrowed her eyes. “All she wanted was for you to give her time. She wanted to go to school.”

  “Mom, not here,” Meg hissed.

  “You are a bit over-the-top,” Tracy said, eyeing Loralee as if she were a particularly interesting animal at the zoo. “But dramatic in a country-western, redneck way. Has anyone ever told you that you look like Dolly Parton?”

  “Sweetie, I may have a figure like hers, but I can’t sing a note. Runs in the family. Ask Meg, she’s the same way.”

  “Loralee’s talents run in a different direction,” Owen drawled, managing to hold his temper. “She’s very good at getting—”

  “Married,” Meg interjected. “Good at getting married.”

  Owen took a deep breath. “I was wrong, Loralee, but what’s between me and Meg is nobody’s business.”

  Loralee didn’t look convinced, and turned to her daughter. “Meg?”

  Tracy sniffed and looked Meg up and down with obvious disapproval. “Are the women in town getting makeovers, too?”

  “Unlike the women of today,” Loralee retorted, giving Tracy a disapproving glance, “I didn’t sleep with every man who bought me dinner. I married them. M-a-r-r-i-e-d.”