Page 8 of Wyoming True

She just smiled sadly. “My first husband was very religious,” she said. “We went to church every Sunday, when we first married. He kept lists of members of the congregation who were poor, who had bills they couldn’t pay. He made anonymous gifts to so many people who never knew who their benefactor was. He was the kindest man I’ve ever known.”

“He was gay,” he began.

“Yes,” she replied. “That isn’t a choice, you know,” she said and glanced at him. “People don’t wake up one morning and decide to be gay. It’s something about the way their brains are wired. Cort Grier is married to Willow Shane, the author,” she added, surprising him. She must have heard that he’d dated Willow, whose real name was Mina Michaels.

“I know her,” he said.

“She told a mutual friend that writers don’t think like normal people do. Their brains are connected differently. They see the world in ways that most people don’t, and it affects the way they write. It got me to thinking,” she continued. “Maybe our brains are constructed in such a way that it predisposes us to certain professions, certain personal ways of life.” She laughed. “I used to think that everybody had thought patterns like mine. When I think, I picture things in vivid color. I see people and things in my mind. But I learned that not everybody does.”

He glanced at her. He’d never considered that.

“Engineers think in terms of diagrams. Mathematicians think in terms of mathematical equations. Some people see abstract images. The point is,” she said, “that when we think, it’s an individual way of interpreting data.” She smiled shyly. “It really fascinates me.”

He cocked his head. “Did you go to college?”

She nodded.

“What was your major?”

She flushed and averted her eyes.

Now he was really curious. “What?” he persisted.

She swallowed. “Physics.”

He almost ran the car off the road. “Excuse me?”

“I absolutely revered Albert Einstein,” she said. “I loved math. I was very good at it. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study, but I wasn’t really interested in the arts. I spoke to a faculty adviser, and he put me in a schedule that included higher math and chemistry and physics. I made straight As. My husband encouraged me,” she added. “My first husband, that is. He was very educated. He inherited his wealth, but he graduated from Yale with an honors degree in business. He encouraged me to go to MIT. I came home for the summers and on holidays.” She sighed. “Now that I look back, it was probably more to keep me from seeing too closely into his privacy than to educate me. But I felt obliged to make good grades, to justify the expense.”

“And you’re living in Catelow, Wyoming, instead of teaching at MIT.”

She laughed softly. “Well, I can’t really relate to most people. I had this incredible degree but I didn’t really want to go into theoretical physics or quantum mechanics, so it’s sort of occupying a drawer in my bedroom.” She shrugged. “I love art and opera and I can write with either hand, so I guess I’m a conundrum.”

What she was would fill a book. He was intrigued. “Art and opera,” he mused.

“In between, I think about a unified field theorem,” she murmured dryly.

He actually laughed.

“You have a degree in business, haven’t you?” she asked.

He nodded. It was fairly well-known locally. “That, and I minored in finance. I wanted to know how to manage what I had. Too many businessmen go under because they trust the wrong people to manage their holdings.”

“I have Edward Jones for my first husband’s investments,” she said. “And a team of super lawyers in Denver who keep up with the properties.”

“How long were you married, the first time?”

“Five years,” she said. She smiled. “They were good years. Charles Merridan was a kind, gentle man, and he loved to help other people. He taught me about art. And opera.”

He pulled into the parking lot at the strip mall where Catelow’s pharmacy was located. “What did your second husband teach you?” he asked idly.

“How to duck.”

He parked the car and turned to her, scowling at the sudden paleness of her pretty face. His eyes narrowed. “Would he have anything to do with that broken bone you’re taking high-powered meds for?” he asked abruptly.

She cleared her throat. “Proprietary information, Mr. McGuire,” she said, but managed a smile. “I won’t be long,” she added as she unfastened her seat belt.

He was out of the car and around it before she retrieved her purse from the floorboard, holding the door open for her.

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