Page 45 of Wyoming True

She grinned.

THEYWALKEDALONGthe beach, hand in hand. It was invigorating, the sound of the ocean, the whip of the wind, the foaming churn of the surf dancing in and out of the beach.

“Oh, look, a shell!” she exclaimed and pulled away from him long enough to pick it up.

“It’s just a seashell, not a treasure,” he teased.

She turned it over. It was a simple shell, but perfect, with the softest pink inside and gray perfection outside. “I’ll keep it as a souvenir,” she said.

“I can get you something from one of the shops...” he began.

She looked up, surprised. “No,” she said. “That’s not...well, it’s not really a souvenir, is it? I mean, things in shops come from everywhere.” She turned the shell over in her hands. “This came from here, from this beach.” She made a face and lifted soft blue eyes to his. “I’m not putting it well.”

“Yes, you are,” he replied. He looked at her hands. They were bare. No diamonds, no jewelry of any sort. She was worth millions, from what he’d heard, but she didn’t wear her wealth. Not even a small part of it. “Don’t you like jewelry?” he asked abruptly.

Her thin eyebrows arched. “Excuse me?”

“You aren’t wearing rings or bracelets.”

She studied his face quietly. “I don’t like rings and bracelets,” she said. “They get in my way when I’m working clay.”

His own eyebrows arched. “Clay?”

“I like to sculpt. It’s a hobby I started when I was in high school, before my mother died. She used to throw pots, but I like making busts.” She laughed. “It’s great exercise for my hands.”

He shook his head. He’d never met such a complex person. “Physics and sculpting.” His silver eyes twinkled. “Starships and canoes,” he murmured absently.

“Freeman Dyson,” she retorted immediately.

He burst out laughing. “Yes. Dyson. It was a great book. He was quite famous for his theory.”

“The Dyson Spheres,” she agreed. “I wonder if our civilization will ever advance to the point that we might actually employ them?”

“Between the two of us, I seriously doubt it. There have been some massive, civilization-ending events in the past. They weren’t even discovered until late in the last century. When they noticed a layer of iridium that went all the way around the planet, and deduced that it was from a collision between the earth and—”

“An asteroid,” she finished for him.

He grinned. “Exactly. Luis Alvarez proposed the theory in the early 1980s, noting that a layer of iridium marked the Cretaceous-Tertiary or K-T boundary. Since iridium is a very rare element on this planet, but fairly common in asteroids, Alvarez proposed the asteroid theory.” He stared at her with admiration. “You’re constantly surprising me.”

“I have geek issues,” she returned with a little laugh.

“Geek issues.” He sighed. He caught her hand back in his and they walked some more. “Do you know what true geekdom is?” he asked lightly.

“No. Do tell.”

“It’s when you look at your weather apps to see if it’s raining, instead of opening the curtains and looking out the window.”

She burst out laughing. So did he.

“Do you do that?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Once in a while.”

“Me, too.”

“I live on apps that cover weather, space, volcanoes, earthquakes, that sort of geeky stuff, when I’m not up to my neck in business matters.”

“I have five earthquake apps, two volcano ones and about six weather apps,” she confessed.

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