Wife Wanted in Dry Creek (9 page)

They were both silent for a few minutes.

“We have a lot of good scenery around here,” Conrad finally said, which was as close as he’d ever come to trying to convince a woman to stay. “The mountains and the plains—you don’t get better than that for photos. Even those gullies can be striking. It all changes with the season, too, so there’s lots of variety. And we’ve got good light all the time. It’s big sky country, you know.”

Katrina nodded. “The sunrise is certainly beautiful here.”

Conrad decided it was time to stop telling her how wonderful Dry Creek was. He wasn’t ready to suffer the disappointment when she left. And she would leave. He didn’t dare hope for anything else. And he couldn’t feel sorry for himself, not when he had his uncle and his friends. He had a good life. His days might not be filled with joy, but they weren’t shattered with pain, either. He would have to be content with that.

T
he sunrise was in its full glory by the time Conrad drove them back into town. Bright pink clouds edged the eastern sky and turned the wet asphalt in front of the car a rosy color. There were no lights in any house windows yet, but a few of the dogs were starting to stir. Katrina thought she heard a rooster crowing from behind one of the houses as Conrad parked on the street by his house. She couldn’t blame the rooster for greeting a morning like this with such enthusiasm.

Katrina wondered if the town had changed so much in the day she’d been here or if the change was inside her. Everything looked charming now as opposed to yesterday when she’d thought it had seemed rundown.

“I’d invite you into my house,” Conrad said as he opened his car door. “But I have a construction zone going on inside.” He gave her a quick grin. “I wouldn’t want to scare you away. It’ll look good eventually, but—”

“I don’t scare easy. And I love those before and after photos. I could shoot a couple for you, if you’d like.”

“That’d be great,” he said as he slid out the door.

Katrina opened her door, too, and walked partially around the car to meet him.

“I need to get my camera from Leanne’s car,” Katrina said, knowing the gas station was just down the road from here.

He nodded. “I’ve got the keys with me.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out Leanne’s car key and another key chain that must hold his gas station keys.

He put the keys back in his pocket and put his arm around her shoulders as they started to walk.

“It’s still dark enough that you might fall,” was all he said by way of explanation.

Katrina wondered if he knew the fall she might take had nothing to do with her feet even though she was wearing her battered high heels. It was her heart that was already cracked and in danger of shattering completely.

“When Leanne gets here, I can at least get my tennis shoes out of the trunk of my car.”

It was best that she keep herself distracted. She wished she could pretend, just for a little while, that things would work out between her and Conrad, but nothing but sadness would come from letting her imagination go in that direction. She was a realist. If God didn’t save her parents, there was no guarantee He’d spare her from cancer. She couldn’t ask Conrad to
suffer with her. He’d been so devastated by his mother’s death. How would he handle her illness?

She took a step that put a little distance between them. He had to move his arm anyway because they were at the office door of his gas station and he needed to get the key out.

“When should we be ready for the photo shoot?” she asked as they stood there.

She needed to keep moving through this day and stop thinking about what might have been or could be if nothing else happened to stop it.

“Everyone’s supposed to be there just after dawn,” Conrad said as he slipped the key into the lock. “I’d say another fifteen minutes. Tracy made all the arrangements and she called Pete and told him to be early.”

Katrina smiled. “She probably has him running laps around that sign now just to make him suffer.”

Conrad turned the key in the lock and gave the door a push. The inside of the station was dark until Conrad flipped a light switch. Then he led the way into his office.

“We should call and leave a message for the sheriff to let him know that Leanne called you,” Conrad said as he walked over to his desk and opened a drawer. “I have his office number here. No need to call the phone he keeps by his bed in case of emergencies. There’s nothing he can do until later this morning anyway.”

Conrad pulled a small notebook out of the top drawer and flipped a couple of pages. “Here it is. Do you want to call?”

“Sure, although there’s not much I can tell him
except that Leanne’s heading this way and is trying to stay away from Walker.” Katrina dialed the number Conrad had pointed to on the page. “But I’d like him to hear it from me first.”

“He’ll want to call back and talk to you anyway,” Conrad said. “He knows you’re staying with my aunt and uncle so he’ll call before church. Either that or talk to you there. He and his wife, Barbara, usually help with one of the Sunday school classes.”

Katrina left her message on the sheriff’s voice mail and hung up. “Now that Leanne called, I must be in the clear as far as the law is concerned,” she said.

“That’s right,” Conrad said as he pulled the keys for Leanne’s car out of his pocket and started walking to door leading to the garage.

“You’ll have to jiggle that key in the trunk,” Katrina said as she followed him. “It took me five minutes to get it open yesterday. You press it hard to the left and then back right sort of easy.”

“I’m a master with keys,”

Conrad opened the door leading to the garage for Katrina. “Even Houdini couldn’t break in here. You have to unlock the main door with this hidden button.” He pushed something on top of the doorjamb and the large door began to move. “That way no one can just break a window and come in and back out a car I’m working on. I don’t keep any money here at night, but I sleep better knowing I’ve protected my customers’ property the best I can.”

Katrina nodded as he pushed the button again and
the door came back down. They walked over to the car sitting in the middle of the garage. Conrad slipped the key into the trunk slot of Leanne’s car and two seconds later there was a slight pop and he pulled the trunk open and bowed. “Voila. The master at work.”

“I’m impressed,” Katrina said with a smile. “But the real trick is to find the right bag. I have my camera in a black bag with a reflective strip sewn on the back. It shines yellow.”

“There have to be half a dozen black bags in here,” he said.

Katrina smiled. “There’re not all mine, but most of them are. I use one for my film. Another for my batteries and lenses. And, of course, one for my main camera. Oh, another for my backup camera. Usually I travel with a developing kit but that’s still in the Lexus. I think it’s that one.” She pointed at a bag.

“I’ve got it,” Conrad said as he held the right bag up.

“That’s it. Thanks. I’ll wait until we get to your house before I open it, though. I wouldn’t want to lose anything in here and have to come back for it later.”

They went back through the office and out that door again. Conrad turned the lock and put the station key, along with Leanne’s key, back in his pocket.

“I should make some coffee when we’re at my place,” he said as they walked down the street. “That might keep Pete happier.”

“Unless I’m a poor judge of the way things are, Tracy will have made some for him,” Katrina said.

Conrad had given her his arm automatically when
they started their walk down here and she’d accepted it without comment. Sometimes people just did things for those they cared about without even seeming to be aware of it. Like Tracy making coffee for Pete. Not that, Katrina reminded herself, she and Conrad were—well, they weren’t like Tracy and Pete.

Katrina noticed there was a nice, golden cast to the morning. “It’s going to be a good day for pictures.”

She needed to keep herself focused. Until she knew just how sick she was, she needed to keep lots of space between her and Conrad. Together, they stepped up on his porch.

Conrad self-consciously wiped his feet on the burlap sack he kept by the front door of his house. He always made sure his shoes weren’t muddy when he went inside even though it might seem unnecessary to most people. “The floors are still plywood. I ripped them up because I had to rebuild some of the supports.”

Ever since he bought this old house, Conrad had treated it with respect. He didn’t want to wait until he had the expensive flooring to live the way he planned to in this place. When he first saw the rundown house, he knew it had once been a happy home and could be again, someday. He liked knowing he was making that kind of difference.

Katrina wiped the soles of her high heels as he opened the door.

Conrad almost breathed a sigh of relief. Not everyone saw the house the way he did. The sunlight
was being kind to him. The living room had large paned windows on three sides. The sills on the old windows had partially rotted from moisture over the years and he’d considered replacing them with the modern single pane ones with the hard plastic casings, but then he’d found a restoration catalogue and ordered rebuilt windows. It gave the room the look of an English cottage, especially with the fireplace he had partially finished along the long left-hand side of the room. He’d found country rocks to use in the fireplace and a solid length of oak to use as a mantel.

“I’m going to put an oak wood floor in here,” he said. “And then have area rugs. I’ve painted everything white for now, but I might add some color when I finish up everything.”

“It’s the most peaceful room I’ve ever seen,” Katrina said.

Conrad smiled. She sounded sincere.

“I’m going to plant more trees outside, too.”

They walked a little farther. “I wanted slate floor in the kitchen, but I need to get the plumbing finished first. It’s an old house and it wasn’t set up for a dishwasher and an icemaker on the refrigerator.”

“You’ve already got the stove, though,” Katrina noted as she walked over to the double-oven appliance. “You even have a grill in it. I’ve seen these in the gourmet food magazines.”

“I don’t cook much,” Conrad said. “But I’m hoping this might inspire me to learn.”

Katrina took a few steps farther and stopped.
Conrad was following right behind her. He liked letting her discover his house at her own pace.

“This has got to be the family room,” she said. “All of those built-in shelves along one wall. You could put overstuffed chairs in front of the shelves, which would, of course, have family photos and books lined up on them. There’s so much light coming in it’s a great place to read.”

He nodded. “I thought I might add a drafting table, too. For when I want to—” He stopped. Linda would not approve, but he continued. “For when I want to draw the inside of engines. All kinds of engines. I like to do that sometimes.”

Conrad held his breath, but Katrina didn’t look dismayed or anything. The café owner must be wrong about women thinking that sounded boring.

“You’ll want to get a chair that’s the right height to go with the table,” was all she said. “I imagine you could spend hours working there.”

Conrad felt the breath ease out of him.

“I turned two of the bedrooms into a large one,” he said as they walked farther into the house. “I haven’t done much in the room yet, but I plan to have a sleeping area and then a sitting area in the alcove so people can talk together in the evenings if they want.”

Katrina looked around the room and then nodded her approval. “If you put hardwood floors in here it would be big enough for dancing. Even when you’ve got the furniture in place.”

Conrad hadn’t blushed since he was eleven years
old, but he felt the heat sweep up his face. The image of Katrina in her nightgown swirling around the room with him was more than he could calmly take.

He managed to clear his throat and said, “I am planning on wood floors.”

“Good,” was all she said to that.

He wondered if he imagined the satisfaction in her voice, but he didn’t have the nerve to ask her about it. What could he say anyway? If she wasn’t willing to date him, it stood to reason she was miles away from agreeing to anything more.

After they left the bedroom, Katrina got her camera out of the bag and set to taking photos of his house. The living room, the kitchen, the bedroom—she shot them all from slightly different angles.

Fortunately, she didn’t require much in the way of conversation from him.

When Katrina finished with her pictures, she put her camera back in the bag and he picked it up to carry for her just like his whole world wasn’t changing as they spent more time together.

He was beginning to believe God could be moving in his life. Maybe Katrina would come to church with him this morning. Maybe she would realize God loved her. Maybe the two of them could get to know each other better and eventually, well, go dancing in his bedroom as man and wife.

Conrad stopped himself. The very thought of getting married made him feel as if he was standing on the edge of a cliff. He wasn’t sure he had what it took to
love someone until death did them part. And it wasn’t just death. So many things could happen. He’d never realized the courage of ordinary men like his uncle.

Katrina carried the inside of Conrad’s house in her mind as they left. She planned to make double copies of those photographs so she’d have something to remember. She’d even managed to get Conrad in a couple of the shots. He hadn’t realized she was taking his picture along with the rooms of his house. She planned to hold on to these photos and bring them out whenever she started to miss him.

She promised herself she wouldn’t cry, but she would remember him all the same. It would be best for him if she stayed away until she knew whether her cancer was gone. But she would miss him all the same.

The light had turned a little whiter as they walked down the street. The golden glow had lessened some, but the overall quality of the light was better. The dampness was beginning to dry off of the asphalt and Katrina could walk better in her heels. She was relieved because she didn’t want to run around town barefoot.

As they neared the bent stop sign, a couple of old pickups pulled onto the gravel road that crossed the asphalt. High weeds lined the sides of both roads.

A young blonde woman stepped out of one of the vehicles and Katrina wished she had an electric fan. The woman must be Lucy and she had long blond hair that shone in the sunlight. If they could make it look as if the wind was blowing, Lucy and her hair would
make as striking a photo as any of the women Katrina had used from the modeling agency in Los Angeles.

Just then the doors to the other pickup opened and Tracy and Pete got out their respective doors.

“Oh, no,” Katrina said. She couldn’t hear what the two were saying, but they were clearly arguing.

“We better get over there,” Conrad said as he picked up their pace.