Wyoming Wildflowers: The Beginning by Patricia McLinn Page A

package of the suburbs. A year-round and lifelong commitment.
    Like marriage.
    “Oh, look at the size of those.” She pointed rather wildly at animals in a parallel aisle.
    He looked around. “European stock. Most American cattle, like the Herefords, Angus you’re probably familiar with, give good meat production. If we can breed bigger European seedstock in while keeping meat quality, we’ll have the best of both.”
    “Seedstock?”
    “That’s what I came to see. Animals available for breeding into our herd. It’s fine to research the lines, but watching the animals move, getting an idea of temperament, that’s important, too.”
    “You’re a trailblazer in this, aren’t you?”
    He lifted a shoulder. “I’m doing some.”
    “What does your mom think? And your father?”
    “Dad can tell a bull from a heifer without help, but the law is what he cares about. Mom? She’d have us going full-bore. In fact, she did that with a small subherd. Trouble is, the meat’s not as good as we want for Slash-C brand. I’m taking it cautious with the main herd. Being real careful what lines we breed in.”
    She understood the gist, while glimpsing the complexities and variables behind his explanation. Like theater, there was another universe backstage. “You should do it,” she said.
    “What?”
    “Come back to the big show in January.”
    He shook his head. “Not this year. Maybe never.”
    “But, Ed, all these people have said it would be a great opportunity for you.”
    Each one had urged him to bring some of his livestock. She’d also heard the show included rodeo events, a horse show, singing, dances, and parties. She ignored twinges at images of him singing, dancing, and partying without her. It wasn’t like she expected him never to sing, dance, party . . . or love . . . after this week.
    “It’s hard on everyone when I’m gone, even in winter. It leaves Mom and a couple of hands who were old when she was born.” He shook his head again.
    Yet he’d stayed on. For her.
    ****
    After an early dinner at a place one of Ed’s friends recommended — she had never seen steaks that big — they returned to the hotel.
    The transformation of its lobby shoved aside her rising nerves.
    Christmas had arrived at staid Rockton Hotel.
    Sort of.
    A tree stood in the lobby, with smaller tree-like decorations spotted around, including at either end of the front desk, squeezing the clerks.
    “It’s pink,” Ed said, in apparent disbelief. “Pink and fuzzy.”
    Pink, fuzzy, and sporting aqua balls and an encircling magenta streamer.
    “I think it’s supposed to look like it’s been flocked,” she said. “Unless — Oh, God, I hope they didn’t do that to a real tree. It’s got to be a fake tree. It’s got to be . . . ”
    They stood side by side in front of it, staring. He took her hand in his, and she leaned her shoulder against his arm.
    “So your tree won’t look like this?” he asked.
    “I won’t have one this year. Not unless my parents can find one when I have a break in January. You?”
    “Won’t look anything like this. Live tree, decorations mixed from several generations, and what my sister and I made as kids.”
    She smiled at the thought of his parents bringing out his creations each year.
    “Everybody together, piling into the car for the tree lot, looking for the right one,” she said. “Balsam for that wonderful scent.”
    He caught on right away. “All together, yeah, but on horseback, finding a fir from the mountains. Smells like outdoors.”
    “Multicolored lights. Not the tiny ones.”
    “Right.”
    “Tinsel,” she said.
    “Garland.”
    “No flocking,” they said in unison, and laughed.
    “Star on top,” she said.
    “Angel. Looks a lot like you, actually.”
    She looked into his eyes, and felt that spotlight sensation of their first meeting multiplied a hundred times. . . . Except now she realized it was also the feeling from the opening night party of a line connecting