A Rich Man for Dry Creek / a Hero for Dry Creek (16 page)

The reporter had already been invited into the living room and he stood with his back to the kitchen door Jenny was swinging open. For some reason, her mother was showing him the family pictures on the wall.

Even in the gray half-light of the room, Jenny still had to blink. The reporter's back showed off the plaidest plaid suit she had ever seen. Blue stripes met with shades of red and green. And the tip of the shirt that showed above the suit collar promised even more plaid.

“We aren't doing interv—” Jenny continued her speech until the reporter turned around.

She stopped midsentence. She stopped midstride.

She was losing her mind.

“Robert?” She managed to croak out the name as she stood and stared.

“I told you I was coming,” he said softly. “And you can call me Bob.”

“Bob?”

Yes, she was definitely losing her mind.

“You told me Bobs wore plaid. I know it's a bit extreme. I thought you could use a laugh.”

What she could use was a straitjacket.

“It's very clever.” Jenny tried to pull herself together and smiled. “Really, very clever. Really.”

Someday she'd laugh about it…maybe. Her sister would laugh soon enough, that's for sure.

“Bob's going to stay for some tea,” Jenny's mother announced as though it was the most normal thing in the world. “I was just showing him the family pictures on our wall.”

Jenny groaned inside. She knew what was coming.

“He thought your kindergarten picture was so cute,” her mother boasted.

“That picture should be burned,” Jenny said. Her hair had stood straight up. Big clumps of dark hair that no brush or curler could tame.

“Definitely cute.” Robert smiled. His blue eyes crinkled just like Santa Claus's. Jenny swore to it. He looked harmless and congenial one minute and the next minute he turned into the playboy that he was. “You're still cute, for that matter.”

“Thank you.” Jenny smoothed down the linen dress she wore. “My hair does much better now.”

“I don't know. I kind of like it when it's doing its own thing. It has a sense of freedom about it.”

Jenny couldn't believe Robert—or Bob or whoever the man was—had come to her mother's door so they could discuss Jenny's hair. Of course not, she thought. He was a busy man. He must have another purpose. Ahhh, yes.

“You don't need to worry about any of my pictures appearing next to yours in any paper in the world,” Jenny said as she walked over to the picture wall. “My mother would never let a reporter take one of these pictures off the wall. Would you, Mother?”

“Of course not.” Jenny's mother sounded offended that the question was even asked.

Robert looked bewildered.

“I know you bought up all the pictures of us dancing in Dry Creek,” Jenny explained. “I understand why you did it. I really do. But I don't think anyone will come here looking for another picture of me.”

“You know about the pictures?” Robert sounded cautious.

Jenny nodded. “I know you were afraid a tabloid would pick one up and print it after Mr. Gossett…well, after he said those things—and so you bought the pictures from the kids.”

“I bought the pictures the night they were taken.”

Sometimes the earth turns slowly. Sometimes it spins like a top.

Jenny blinked. That couldn't be right. “But there weren't any reporters around that night.”

“No,” Robert quietly agreed.

“No one had said anything about us.”

“No.”

“Then why would you want the pictures?”

Robert glanced at her a little shyly. “Someday I thought we'd have a picture wall of our own.”

Jenny's mother cleared her throat as she started toward the kitchen. “I think I'll go see about that tea now.”

“But picture walls are for—” Jenny began.

“Families, I know. But I'm not pressuring you. I know we haven't known each other very long. I'm willing to wait.”

Jenny tried to make sense of what she was hearing. “Wait for what?”

Robert smiled. “I'm just willing to wait, that's all. To let you adjust to the idea of me. I'm not the easiest person in the world to know.”

Jenny didn't know what to say.

That didn't bother Robert. He continued. “I thought we'd start with a date. Maybe you'd go to a movie with me?”

Jenny could only nod.

Jenny couldn't understand it all. “Are you still working to get off that list? Is that what you're doing?”

“Oh, it's too late for that. All I could do was to get them to knock me down to second place.”

“So you're going to be one of the bachelors no matter what?” Jenny was trying to make sense of what she was hearing.

Robert nodded. “I could marry twins right now and it wouldn't bounce me off the list. I'm stuck with it.”

If it wasn't the list, what was it? Jenny wondered. “So you're just trying out being Bob again—is that it?”

Robert shrugged. “Bob does sound friendly. But I can answer to either name. It's not a big deal.”

“Of course it's a big deal,” Jenny protested. “It's your name. I need to know what to call you.”

“I was hoping you might call me dear—when you're comfortable with it, of course. But only when you're ready. The first step is a date.”

Robert took a step closer. “And a kiss. That'd be a good place to start, too.”

Jenny looked up as Robert bent down. They met and the world tilted just a little bit. The air grew warmer. The room grew darker.

“I hear bells,” Robert murmured.

Jenny listened to the hissing and whispered, “Tea-kettle.”

“No.” Robert smiled softly. “I think it's bells. It'll always be bells with you and me.”

B
ob was right, Jenny thought six months later. The first step was the date. She'd fallen a little in love with him over buttered popcorn in the movie house. She'd fallen hopelessly in love the next day when he showed her the album he'd used to mount their kissing pictures.

Except for the one picture they sent to Jenny's sister, the other pictures from Dry Creek were all proudly mounted in the plastic sheets of Bob's family album—even the ones that were missing a head or two.

Jenny and Bob both went back to Dry Creek to continue cooking for the teenagers and to begin regular meetings with the pastor. They laughed together, they talked, and they built a pyramid of empty pudding cups for her sister's first assignment in her new job writing for a health magazine.

No one was surprised when Bob and Jenny set a wedding date of September 1.

The Dry Creek church polished the pews for the day even though no outside reporters were allowed. The Billings paper was allowed to run a small paragraph in their Newly Married section written by their local reporter. It primarily talked about the bride's gown.

Even though no outside reporters were allowed at the ceremony in the Dry Creek church, there was no lack of people taking pictures.

When the minister gave the signal for Bob to kiss his bride, fifty disposable cameras flashed almost in unison.

“Now I know why love is blind,” Bob whispered to Jenny as he nuzzled her lip. “It's all the flashes.”

“Kiss her again,” one of the teenagers with a camera yelled. “I've got plenty—”

“What does he mean by that?” Jenny leaned into her husband.

“I got them special cameras—fifty shots apiece.”

“That means—”

“That's right—they're set for fifty kisses tonight.”

“Hmmm,” Jenny said as her husband's lips met hers again. “Fifty's a nice number.”

 

Dedicated to the princess in our family,

Aurora Borealis MacDonald,
currently four years old.

May all her dreams come true.

N
icki Redfern didn't believe in fairy tales. Instead of glass slippers she wore cowboy boots—and not the highly polished ones rodeo riders wore. No, her boots were sturdy, working boots meant for riding horses and chasing cattle.

Her feet sweat in those boots.

Still, recently, in the early-morning hours while she was lying in her twin-size bed—as the pink sun rose over the Big Sheep Mountains and shone through her small second-story window—her dreams turned to fanciful things such as waltzing with princes and blushing with love.

In the full light of day, of course, Nicki stopped those kind of daydreams. No good would come of them.

A woman like her had no time for Prince Charming or ballroom dancing. She was a farm woman with calluses on her hands and responsibilities on her shoulders. Unless Prince Charming knew how to pitch hay bales, she had no use for him.

When her father died last year, Nicki and her brother, Reno, had inherited equal shares of the Redfern Ranch. The ranch was four thousand acres of prime grassland, starting at the bottom of the Big Sheep Mountains and spreading south to the gully that each year guided the spring run-off into the Yellowstone River just east of the small town of Dry Creek, Montana.

The ranch had been in the Redfern family since 1890 and Nicki was fiercely proud of its history. But it took every ounce of energy from both her and Reno just to keep it going. The price of cattle dropped each year and the dry spell hitting Montana didn't seem like it would end anytime soon.

Nicki needed a hired hand, not some fairy-tale prince.

Besides, Nicki had a weary suspicion that those fluffy dreams were meant for her mother—they had just arrived over twenty years too late. When her mother had left, she'd taken the family honor and eight hundred dollars from the church building fund with her.

Nicki shook her head. There was no point in remembering the woman who had deserted them. No one got everything they wanted in life, and Nicki had learned to be content with what she had—a father, a brother and some of the best ranch land in Montana.

When her father tried to show her some newspaper clippings her mother had sent once, Nicki refused to read them. One look at the accompanying picture of her mother dressed as a Vegas dancer was all Nicki needed to see.

Nicki was half-asleep as she limped down the stairway in her old chenille bathrobe to start the coffee. She was alone in the house this morning. Reno had left yesterday with a truckload of steers. The final cattle sale in Billings fell the day before Thanksgiving each year, and the Redferns always saved their best stock for this sale because the cattle were at their heaviest by then and the buyers more inclined to pay higher prices.

Her brother hadn't wanted to leave her alone. Reno never liked going to Billings and the tumble Nicki had taken yesterday only gave him another reason to fret about leaving the ranch. Nicki had to assure him repeatedly that she was all right. Her horse, Misty, had stumbled into a gopher hole, tossing Nicki to the ground. Nicki was so relieved that Misty hadn't broken any legs that she didn't pay much attention to the bruise coloring her own thigh. Nicki's leg was sore and she couldn't walk far if the old cattle truck Reno was driving had trouble. She'd only slow Reno down if there were problems, and they both knew it.

Nicki yawned as she limped into the kitchen. She headed for the chipped enamel sink and put the nearby coffeepot under the cold water faucet. The sink in the kitchen was right under the window that looked out of the front of the old ranch house. She'd looked out that window thousands of times in her twenty-nine years of life. She always saw the same thing—the old oak tree that had the rope swing dangling from its branches and the mountains in the distance.

It was still more night than day outside. Nicki looked out the window wondering if it would be light enough to see the rope on the tree. The swirl of snowflakes made it especially dark outside. She could only see outlines and pinpricks of white snowflakes. Actually, it was the snowflakes that made her look twice.

She blinked and then closed her eyes before blinking again.

Whoa—the man didn't disappear like she'd thought he would.

He was right there, standing like a figure in a darkened snow globe. The man was looking at the house and leaning against the side of a long, white limousine—a limousine so unexpected and shiny, it could as well be a pumpkin carriage sprinkled in fairy dust.

And the man! She only saw the outline of the man, but he looked…well, wonderful. Magical. A white scarf was wrapped around his neck and dangled down over a black jacket that looked suspiciously like a tuxedo. Nicki's eyes followed the man's long legs all the way to the ground and then back up again because there was Hunter, Reno's half-wild dog, standing politely at the man's side.

Nicki had to blink. Oh, my word! Nicki woke completely.

Prince Charming! She was looking at Prince Charming. And he was apparently there with a limousine to take her away to the royal ball.

The cold water ran over the sides of the pot and chilled Nicki's hand. She slowly set the pot down in the sink and turned the water off.

She kept staring. The man didn't fade.

She told herself it was time to sit down before she lost it all together. Limousines didn't appear in the driveway of the ranch. Neither did Prince Charming. As for Hunter, the dog would never calmly stand beside a stranger.

Nicki was hallucinating. Her mind had somehow reached into her dream and pulled out the image that had been filling her nights. That much was obvious. She couldn't remember hitting her head when she'd catapulted off Misty yesterday, but she must have done so. What else could explain this?

Nicki stumbled over to a chair.

She needed to stay calm. She'd close her eyes for a bit and wait for it to grow lighter outside. She didn't want to wake Dr. Norris this early. She'd be fine. She'd sit a minute before she tried making coffee again.

And, in the meantime, she'd try to pray. Her father had stopped going to church when Nicki's mother left, but he had still insisted on driving Nicki to services in Dry Creek. So every Sunday Nicki sat in the same pew her family had occupied before her mother left. She sang all the hymns and joined in all the congregational prayers.

But, in private, Nicki never prayed. If she thought about talking to God, no words came. Even now, instead of talking to God, she stared at the bare lightbulb hanging from the kitchen ceiling and started to talk to it.
Oh, my, I think I could use some help here…It's not possible—I know it's not. But I'm seeing Prince Charming standing outside my window! Do you think I'm crazy?

 

Garrett Hamilton liked the cold of the morning as the snow settled in damp patches on his face. The weather was bracing. And at least when he was standing outside the limousine he didn't feel so much as if he were in the middle of a bad prom date. Nobody but an aging Vegas dancer would insist he wear a tuxedo uniform to fill in for her sick chauffeur, especially when he was doing her a favor.

Well, technically he was doing the favor for his cousin, Chrissy. Or was it his aunt Rose who was responsible for him being here?

“Yeah, it had to be Aunt Rose,” Garrett said to the dog who stood silently and watched him. He'd been talking to the dog for a good hour now, and he'd swear the animal understood. “Aunt Rose got me into this one.”

Garrett had resisted Aunt Rose's worries about her daughter, Chrissy, for weeks now. But that last conversation had gotten to him. She'd said Chrissy had asked him to come.

Garrett snorted. The dog whimpered in agreement and Garrett nodded. “Yeah—I should have known better.”

Chrissy hadn't asked him to come, especially since she knew Aunt Rose wanted him to find out more about what was going on with Chrissy and her boyfriend. “Can't say I blame her. Don't know what Aunt Rose was thinking. Shoot, I don't know what I was thinking.”

Garrett looked down at the dog.

When Garrett had cut the engine on the limousine and let it coast into the driveway of the ranch late last night, the dog had been there. When Garrett opened the window, the dog moved out of the black shadow under the tree and growled low and deep in his throat. Garrett knew the dog wouldn't give much further warning if Garrett were foolish enough to just open the door and step out of the limousine.

It was too dark for the dog to see whether or not Garrett was looking at him directly, but Garrett knew the dog could sense any fear and would use that as a trigger to attack. Even as the dog growled, Garrett admired the animal. The dog had a torn ear and a scar along its left flank. “You've had a hard time, haven't you, Old Boy?”

Garrett knew that the way to settle a wild animal's nerves was to give him time to get used to you. So he took his old leather coat, the one that he sometimes wore for sixteen hours at a stretch when he was on a long haul, and gently threw it out the window for the dog to sniff. After the dog scratched at the coat and rolled it around in the snow, the dog seemed resigned to Garrett's scent. Not happy, but at least not growling anymore.

“That's a good dog.” Garrett knew how the dog felt. Sometimes, even if you got used to something, you still might not like it much.

That's how Garrett felt about this mission his aunt had sent him on. Aunt Rose meant well, but if she hadn't been able to convince Chrissy not to marry her high school sweetheart, Garrett wasn't likely to, either. Besides, Garrett would rather have a tooth pulled than see Chrissy cry. This gave Chrissy a tactical advantage that she used shamelessly.

Garrett was the last person who should give marriage advice anyway. He knew he wasn't a family man.

Garrett was even more of a mutt than the dog beside him. Garrett's mother had died when he was five. After that, alcohol had been all the family his father needed. Garrett had raised himself and, while he had no complaints, he knew less about being a family man than the dog beside him did.

Which was all right.

“I've got my life and it's a good one.” Garrett was a legend among truckers. He'd set a record from New York to San Diego that hadn't been broken yet. “A man can't ask for more than that.” Garrett loved all that asphalt rolling under his wheels. There were plenty of strangers along the highways and not one of them gave Garrett any grief.

Giving him grief had become Aunt Rose's job. The odd thing was Garrett hadn't even known his aunt Rose until his father died and she showed up at the hospital. She'd told him then that she wanted to adopt him and have him come to live with her and Chrissy, but the thought of being part of any real family had scared Garrett spitless. He told Aunt Rose he'd do fine on his own, and he had.

Garrett wouldn't admit it, but he had grown fond of Aunt Rose over the years. They had made their compromises. She no longer expected him to spend any holidays with her and Chrissy. But they had their own tradition. Every September after Labor Day Garrett came to spend a few days with Aunt Rose and Chrissy. He'd clean out the rain gutters and do any heavy chores they needed. Plus, no matter where he was, he made it a point to pull off the road on Saturday at three in the afternoon and make sure his cell phone was on. That's when Aunt Rose would call.

Aunt Rose didn't ask much more of him than that and so, when she'd asked him to talk to Chrissy, he'd known she was desperate. What could he say but yes?

He should have had his head examined.

Chrissy had flatly refused to talk to Garrett when he pulled into Las Vegas. All she needed, she said, was a favor. Garrett had agreed to help her before he even knew what she was going to ask.

“Bad habit of mine,” Garrett mentioned to the dog before glancing back at the limousine just to be sure the woman his cousin had asked him to drive to Montana was still sleeping on the long back seat. Chrissy had met Lillian at the casino where they both worked—Chrissy as a waitress and Lillian as an entertainer. “I thought she was going to ask me to move some furniture in the back of my truck or something. I could move a whole city block in the back of Big Blue.”

Garrett had already told the dog about Big Blue. Garrett's fourteen-wheel big rig was now parked near the casino where Chrissy worked. The dark blue cab had Hamilton Trucking stenciled in white lettering on the door. It wasn't the fanciest rig on the highways and it certainly wasn't the newest, but Garrett knew Big Blue and he had confidence in her.

Garrett looked back at the ranch house. Surely someone would be up soon. He thought he'd seen some movement at that window, but then he'd looked closer and decided he'd imagined it.

He felt a stirring of sympathy for the poor man who lived inside. The man had no idea what a surprise this morning would bring. Garrett's passenger had asked him to go to the door and prepare the man for her arrival.

From the few remarks the older woman had made and the engagement ring she'd asked him to return, Garrett figured Mr. Redfern had wanted to marry the woman at one point in time and didn't know she was coming to visit.

A visit like this could give an old man a heart attack.

Failing that, it could give Garrett one.