Wyoming True - Diana Palmer Page 0,60

two injured. They’re staying with Ren Colter for the time being.”

“Injured?” Tanner asked worriedly.

“My ex-husband wants money,” Ida said quietly. “He has ways of trying to extract it from me that will get him arrested if we can prove it. And don’t worry. I’ll make sure he knows that I’m not living at the ranch anymore. Your animals and your family will be safe. It’s only me that he’s after.”

The Lowells exchanged glances. They had a pretty good idea of how Ida’s hip had been injured, but they didn’t mention it.

“I’d love to start Friday,” Tanner said, “if you’ll bear with me while I get back on my feet.”

Jake grinned. “No problem there. You’ll want to take your furniture, so we’ll need to move Ida’s out.”

“We can put most of it in storage, but I want my piano,” she told Jake.

“You play?” Mrs. Lowell asked gently.

Ida smiled. “Oh, yes. My first husband had me taught. He played so beautifully. He was a kind man.” She glanced at Jake shyly. “He plays, too.”

His eyebrows arched. “And how do you know that?” he wanted to know.

“Maude.”

He made a face.

“Why don’t you have a piano?” she persisted.

“I did have one.” His face closed up, but he didn’t say another word, changing the subject to the issue of Tanner’s duties.

* * *

LATER, WHEN THEY were alone, she started to ask him about the piano.

“I was taking lessons, when I was fifteen,” he told her, his eyes glittery with memory. “My father said it was a sissy thing for a boy to do. I told him I was no sissy and that Mama said I could learn to play if I wanted to. So he went out to the barn, got his sledgehammer, came back inside and smashed the piano to bits. It had been my mother’s grandmother’s piano. She cried for days afterward, and I felt such guilt.”

“It was your father’s fault, not yours,” she said gently. “And I know your mother never blamed you.” She hesitated. “You don’t mind if I bring my piano with me?”

He was withdrawn for a few seconds. Then his face cleared. “Certainly not. You play beautifully. I’ll enjoy listening.”

She smiled. “Okay. Thanks.”

He sat down in the living room with her. “You do understand that I’m going to be on the road a lot?” he asked, because it needed to be made clear at the outset. “I do business all over the world, and I have holdings in Australia that I share with Rogan Michaels. I won’t expect you to travel with me.”

She would have volunteered to go, but something in his expression stopped the words in her mouth.

“I’ll have things to keep me busy here,” she replied and was rewarded by a quickly hidden relief in his hard features.

“Sculpting?” he asked after a minute and smiled.

She nodded. “Which reminds me, I have to have my clay and tools.” She sighed. “I have twenty-five-pound bags of special clay.” She put a hand on her hip. “And a ton of potted plants that have to come also, including a banana tree and a lemon tree and...”

“Well, well,” he drawled and chuckled. He got up. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

She followed him slowly down the long hall toward the back of the house. He opened the door, and there was a room, enclosed by glass, a huge room with lit trays that held scores of orchids of all different colors, along with dwarf fruit trees, flowering shrubs, hanging baskets of ferns and philodendrons, even a Norfolk Island pine and a huge bird-of-paradise plant.

“Oh, my goodness,” she stammered, lost for words.

“I like plants,” he said, hands in his pockets as he surveyed the enormous room.

She laughed. “So do I. Mine are mostly flowering plants, but I love orchids and bonsai trees...” She broke off as she spotted a table behind some ferns. Her breath caught. Pots and pots of bonsai trees of all sorts, from jade plants to cypress to miniature weeping willow trees.

“This must have taken you years!” she exclaimed.

“It did. Maude keeps it when I’m out of town. The orchids need a lot of care. They’re misted every day and watered every other day. They don’t like wet feet, so you have to be careful how much water you give them. And they need fertilizer periodically.”

“I’ve always loved orchids. I’ve never been able to grow one, not even a phalaenopsis, and they’re supposed to be foolproof.”

“They need sun-spectrum light,” he said easily. “Thus, the vertical trays with