Sheriff Wall watched Barbara walk outside, leaving the reception behind.

Ordinarily he wouldn’t have followed her, but if anyone was going to make contact with her, they would do it at some event like this—a wedding—where they’d blend in. Strangers stood out in Dry Creek, but tonight any number could walk around, and no one would pay attention as long as they had a cup filled with punch.

Of course, the sheriff wasn’t worried about Barbara seeking her ex-husband’s criminal partners. He’d talked with her enough to know she wasn’t likely to turn to crime. But that didn’t mean her ex-husband’s partners wouldn’t try to get to him through her. Yeah, the sheriff told himself, he’d better go talk to her—just to make sure everything was okay….

JANET TRONSTAD

grew up on a small farm in central Montana. One of her favorite things to do was to visit her grandfather’s bookshelves, where he had a large collection of Zane Grey novels. She’s always loved a good story. Today, Janet lives in Pasadena, California, where she is a full-time writer.

At Home in Dry Creek
Janet Tronstad

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.

—Psalms 127:1

This book is dedicated to all of the

Mrs. Hargroves of the world who teach

Sunday school, befriend their neighbors

and do good to others.

Dear Reader,

I wish for all of you many days of pouring coffee and sharing fellowship at your church. Our lives are meant to be lived in community and, as often as not, that means taking time to serve each other.

I thoroughly enjoy writing about the church in Dry Creek, primarily because it is a focal point of the community. It is the place where troubles and joys are shared with the whole town.

I’d like to give a nod of thanks to people like Mrs. Hargrove who help such local communities run. I’ve known many women—and men—like her in the churches I have attended. You’ll usually find such people in the kitchens or in the Sunday school rooms or serving communion on certain Sundays. Without them, our shared communities wouldn’t be nearly as rich as they are.

Sincerely,

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

It wasn’t against the law for her to catch the bridal bouquet, Barbara Strong told herself as she cupped her hands to catch the flowers that had been thrown so expertly at her. Besides, if the bride didn’t care that the bouquet went to someone who wouldn’t fulfill the prediction of being the next to marry, what did Sheriff Wall care?

The sheriff was standing across the room from Barbara and scowling at her as if she’d just lifted the silverware. There was enough music and chatter all around that Barbara doubted anyone else noticed the sheriff’s frown—especially not now that everyone was looking at her.

Great, she thought, as she forced herself to smile. The whole town of Dry Creek, Montana; all two hundred people, had seen her catch Lizette’s bridal bouquet, and now they had one more story to tell each other about her.

For months, Barbara had thought that the interest people here showed in her and her two young children had been because their arrival was the only thing that had happened in this small town for a long time. The days had been cold and people hadn’t been able to make the trip into Billings very often. Some days there had been so much snow on the roads no one went anywhere. Added to that, everyone had complained that the television reception had been worse than usual for some reason this past winter.

People had been bored.

Barbara had understood why they would be looking for something new to entertain them. But she and her children had been here almost five months now. In television terms, they were last year’s reruns. Nobody should be watching them with such keen interest, especially not the sheriff.

The chatter increased as people came up to Barbara and congratulated her. It was dark outside, but inside the large community center, strings of tiny white lights glowed along the rustic wood walls. A circle of people stayed around Barbara after the initial flurry of congratulations had died down.

There was a full minute of awkward silence as everyone seemed to stare at their shoes or boots and wait for something. Now that they had her surrounded, Barbara realized, they didn’t quite know what to do with her.

Charley, a white-haired man, was the first one to clear his throat.

“I don’t expect you’ve had a chance to meet my nephew. He lives in Billings,” Charley said as he stepped closer to Barbara and lowered his voice. Charley was one of the first people Barbara had met when she’d arrived in Dry Creek last fall. “I don’t mind saying he’s a fine man. Single and he loves kids. Works as a mechanic in a shop, too, so he could provide for a family—even now he might be able to fix you up with a car so you’d have one. Sort of a courting present, you know—like flowers. He’s good with cars.”

Charley and some other old men spent their days around the woodstove in the hardware store and they seemed to know more than most people about what was going on in this small town. Barbara respected Charley. He had been a rancher all his life and still had a tan line on his forehead that marked where the brim of a straw hat would normally sit. He knew about hard work. He was also one of the leaders of this community. His roots went deep here. That was one reason why Barbara wasn’t as annoyed as she could have been with his matchmaking.

“You know I can’t accept a—” Barbara started to say. She’d begin with the obvious protests and work her way up to all the reasons she wasn’t ever going to get married again.

“Oh, it’d be his pleasure, don’t worry about that. He’d love to help out a pretty young woman like yourself.”

Charley smiled at her. Barbara thought he looked relieved to have his piece said.

Jacob, one of the other old men who regularly sat by the woodstove, shook his head in disgust. Jacob was the one who had invited Lizette, who had just married Barbara’s cousin Judd, to come to Dry Creek and open up her dance studio.

“She’s young all right!” Jacob protested. “I don’t know what you’re thinking. That nephew of yours has to be fifty if he’s a day. If no one cares about age, I could court her myself. And I’ll be seventy-six this July.” Jacob’s voice rose higher with each word he said and his gray beard quivered with indignation. “Come to think on it, maybe I will do just that—if you can’t come up with someone better than your nephew! Besides, what’s wrong with that son of yours? He’s sitting out there on that ranch of his not more than five miles from here. He could use a wife—and he’s young enough.” Jacob looked around the room. “Where is he anyway? I don’t see him here.”

“He doesn’t come to weddings,” Linda, the young woman who owned the café, said softly as she stepped closer to Barbara’s side. “Besides, Charley’s son is already in love with someone else. We need to find Barbara a man who’s going to be hers exclusively. That’s the only way it can really work.”

Barbara was surprised to smell jasmine perfume on Linda. In the five months she had known the café owner, the young woman had seemed to go out of her way to avoid perfume and skirts and anything that would hint that she was an attractive woman. Usually, she just wore a big white chef’s apron over her blue jeans and T-shirt.

Linda had spoken of some unrequited love in her life one morning when she and Barbara had sat at a table in the café and shared a pot of tea. Barbara wondered if Linda was thinking of that love now, whoever he was. If she was, it had brought a wistful, fragile look to her eyes.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not—” Barbara tried again. She looked at the faces around her. She liked all of these people. She didn’t want to disappoint them. She just wished they could have asked her for something she could give. “Of course, I appreciate it. But you don’t need to—”

“Don’t you worry none about finding a man who will be yours altogether. My nephew will be faithful,” Charley interrupted staunchly. He’d found his second wind, Barbara thought in dismay. “He may be old, but he’s a fine man. Committed.”

“Well, I’m committed, too, if that’s all you need,” Jacob replied.

“Should be committed is more like it, you old coot,” Charley said. “No one here is talking about you.”

Barbara saw the vein grow more pronounced on Charley’s neck.

“No one needs to be committed,” Barbara said as she held up her hands in surrender. A petal or two fell off the bouquet as she lifted it. She made sure she smiled when she talked. She supposed she should be touched that people were worried about finding her a new husband. “It’s all been a mistake. I didn’t mean to catch the bouquet; it was just reflexes. The thing was coming at me and I just grabbed it so it wouldn’t hit me. It doesn’t mean anything. I’m not looking for a husband.”

She didn’t add that now that she’d had a moment to think about it, she wished she’d had enough sense to duck when she’d first seen the bridal bouquet heading her way. Failing that, she should have let it hit her square on. She wasn’t sure if she’d live long enough for the story of how she’d caught Lizette’s bouquet to fade from the minds of everyone around here.

That was because every story about her lasted longer than it should. That was what had finally made Barbara realize something was wrong.

Barbara had been okay with all of the interest at first. She’d moved around enough to know how it was when a new person moved into a small town. The heightened-interest stage came first, but usually it didn’t last long, and once it was over, someone would ask the newcomer to serve coffee at a PTA meeting or head up a fund-raiser for the school, and that was an official sign that the person was no longer an outsider but a member of the community.

Barbara was prepared for this cycle. She wasn’t sure how many times the person needed to pour coffee before they really belonged to the community, but she figured it was probably somewhere around a thousand cups of coffee poured at various functions.

It was the after-coffee place that Barbara wanted to reach—the place where she was a comfortable part of everything just as these people standing around her now were part of it all.

She’d begun to wonder if she’d ever reach that place.

There was a moment of silence as the conversation stopped swirling around Barbara. There was still noise elsewhere in the community center, but the circle around Barbara had grown quiet.

“I suppose we can’t blame you for not looking for another husband—you probably still have feelings for the one you have,” Charley finally said quietly.

“Of course she has feelings,” Linda agreed and then sighed. “Sometimes that’s just the way of it. No matter what you do, the feelings stay with you.”

“They say even geese mate for life,” Jacob added with a grunt. “Doesn’t matter what kind of a bird they end up with, they stay hooked to that one. Reckon it’s the same with her and him.”

Barbara shook her head. Finally, they were at the heart of why the people of Dry Creek were so fascinated with her. If it had only been she and her children who had moved to town, the others wouldn’t have been interested for so long. No, the interest was mostly because of him.

Her ex-husband was sitting in the jail in Billings awaiting trial for robbing several gas stations. It was obvious that the people of Dry Creek were watching to see what happened with her and Neal before they welcomed her into the fold and asked her to do something as simple as pour coffee for them at some function. Barbara wasn’t sure what people expected to learn about her by waiting, but she had a sinking feeling that at least some of them were wondering if she was going to play Bonnie to her ex-husband’s Clyde.

Barbara didn’t know how to explain to everyone that Neal no longer held any part of her heart or her life. He didn’t have the faithfulness of a tomcat, let alone a goose. She wouldn’t follow him anywhere…and certainly not into a life of crime. If she had learned anything from Neal, it was that crime ruined lives. She’d never be Bonnie to anyone’s Clyde.

She hesitated long enough that a whisper came from somewhere behind her. Barbara knew she wasn’t supposed to hear it.

“Poor thing. She’s so brave,” the woman’s voice said, low and filled with pity. “And him sitting there in jail—he’s not worth it.”

“Hush, now,” another woman hissed. “He must be worth something if she married him.”

Barbara knew she wasn’t the only one who heard the whispers because there was a sudden chorus of throat clearings and foot shuffles. She hoped no one expected her to answer the whispers. Barbara wasn’t upset that people wondered about her and her ex-husband—she just didn’t know what to say. She wanted these people to truly welcome her into their community, and she doubted anything she said about Neal would make that happen. If they didn’t trust her to be an honest citizen, they wouldn’t trust her any more because she said she would be one.

From the first day Barbara had driven into Dry Creek, she had wanted to belong here. She’d been frantic with worry that day because she was trying to locate her second cousin, Judd Bowman, so she could beg him to take care of her children while she drove to Denver to check out an abused woman’s shelter that might take them. Bobby was six at the time, Amanda was five. Now, they were both a year older.

Even in her distress, Barbara had noticed that the town offered its residents the opportunity to put down roots. It had clotheslines that were actually being used and old men who sat around a potbellied stove in the hardware store and talked. It was obvious that people really knew each other here. When Barbara’s husband was finally arrested and she was released from the hospital where his beating had put her, she was glad she could come back to a place like Dry Creek.

But becoming rooted here wasn’t as easy as she had thought it would be. She and her children had been here since November, and she hadn’t poured a single cup of coffee. Even now, although she was a bridesmaid at this wedding for Judd and Lizette, no one had allowed Barbara to do more than walk up the aisle.

People still treated her like a visitor, and she didn’t know what to do to change it. At this rate, she wouldn’t be accepted into this town until she was lying in the cemetery behind that little church. Even then, they’d probably put a fence around her grave and Visitor on her tombstone so that people would know to tiptoe around her in search of the people who belonged in Dry Creek.

“Well, it’s a beautiful bouquet anyway, with all that baby’s breath and green stuff,” Linda declared as the others nodded and started to slip away. “And those rosebuds are perfect. You could even take some of them out of the bouquet and press them between the pages of a thick book. They’d look real nice tucked in a big family Bible.”

Barbara didn’t want to admit that she didn’t own a Bible, family or otherwise. She’d moved around so much in the past few years that she didn’t even have a cookbook, and she was more likely to use that than a Bible—which was saying something, because most of the hotel rooms where she and Neal had lived hadn’t had kitchens and a person didn’t need a cookbook to figure out how to heat up a can of soup in a beat-up old coffeemaker.

But a lot of people in Dry Creek valued the Bible and Barbara wanted them to think she belonged here.

“Thanks, that’s a good idea,” she replied to Linda and smiled a little vaguely. “Maybe I’ll do that.”

Before long, everyone had left her side. The bad part about the crowd around her thinning was that Barbara could see the sheriff again. He hadn’t moved when all of the people had surrounded her, he’d just waited for them to leave. She wondered what his problem was. If his frown was any indication, Sheriff Carl Wall would be the last one to accept a cup of coffee from her even if she did manage to pour a cup.

Chapter Two

Sheriff Carl Wall knew he couldn’t arrest someone just for their own good, but he was sure tempted. He was standing here watching Barbara Strong, and she had just gotten the attention of every single ranch hand at the wedding reception. Not much escaped the eyes of those mangy fellows, and they had all noticed that she’d caught the bridal bouquet.

Until today, the sheriff had been able to warn everyone off Barbara, saying she was still in shock over what had happened with her ex-husband. After all, it wasn’t every day a woman woke up and found out she was married to a thief. The older people in town had agreed with him, and everyone had decided to give Barbara at least a year to catch her breath. No one was going to put any extra strain on her for at least that long. No requests for volunteer help. No urgent need for favors.

The sheriff trusted the older people in town to keep their word.

He didn’t trust the ranch hands. One of the older women, Mrs. Hargrove, had added her voice to the sheriff’s when he’d talked to the men about giving Barbara a year of peace. Many of the ranch hands had had Mrs. Hargrove as a Sunday-school teacher in their younger days, and they didn’t want to cross the older woman, even though it had been many years since they’d sat in her class.

The sheriff made it clear that he felt it would disturb Barbara’s peace if she had to brush off countless pleas for dates. The ranch hands had reluctantly agreed that Barbara might need a little time to heal before she had to start figuring out which man among them to marry next. They’d said a year sounded about right—unless, of course, the woman herself seemed unwilling to wait that long.

The sheriff had thought he was doing good to buy her a year. He’d agreed to the terms.

But now Barbara had just destroyed all his efforts when she’d caught the bridal bouquet. She should have just stood up on a chair and announced her intention to start looking for a new husband. She’d probably get a dozen proposals before the night was over.

The sheriff shook his head. He was tempted to tell the ranch hands that the woman they were ogling was being watched by the FBI. That would slow them down. Not that it was strictly true. The FBI wasn’t watching her; they’d asked him to do that for them.

It seemed Barbara’s ex-husband, Neal Strong, might not have been content with robbing gas stations. The FBI suspected he might also have joined forces with two other men to rob some bank down in Wyoming. One of the other suspects, Harlow Smith, was in jail in Billings along with Neal, but the third man was unidentified and still free.

The FBI didn’t have any real evidence that Neal was in on the bank robbery, but even though the robbers had covered their faces with ski masks, his body had a strong resemblance to a drawing one of the bank tellers had made of the men. The FBI figured that if Neal was in on it, he would give himself away by trying to do something with the $150,000 in cash that was missing. At the very least, they figured he’d lead them to part of the money through his ex-wife.

So far, the sheriff had watched Barbara closely but noticed nothing. He knew how much she earned at her job at the bakery, and she was barely spending that. She sure wasn’t spending any extra stolen money. The only thing she had purchased besides groceries was the school supplies she’d bought for her children. He knew because Barbara didn’t have a car and Mrs. Hargrove gave her a ride to Miles City to buy groceries. It all checked out.

The sheriff frowned again. The most suspicious thing Barbara had done was what she was doing now. She’d taken that bridal bouquet and was using it as a fan. It wasn’t hot inside here, but Barbara’s cheeks were all pink and flushed like—

The sheriff followed the direction of Barbara’s eyes. He should have known. She was looking directly at Pete Denning. Or Pete was looking at her. The sheriff wasn’t sure who had started looking first.

Pete was the worst of the lot when it came to the ranch hands. He flirted. He broke hearts. He would dance with a cactus if that was the only thing he could find to put his arms around. Rumor had it that Pete had been claiming he was ready to get married these days, now that his good friend Judd was tying the knot. The sheriff had known Pete for years. He figured the ready-to-marry line was just Pete’s latest pick-up bait.

But Barbara wouldn’t know that. Women just couldn’t resist a no-good ladies’ man who said he was ready to settle down.

Pete had obviously decided to forget about the year of grace for Barbara. He had probably already said his line to her now that he was standing closer to the woman. That must be why she was fanning herself so hard the rose petals were beginning to fall off that bouquet she held. She probably wanted Pete to know she was listening to his talk about his new-found desire to settle down.

Of course she was listening, the sheriff told himself. Pete was the kind of guy women liked. That was the worst of it. Even when Pete had played a huge mouse in that Nutcracker ballet last Christmas, women had swarmed around him afterward like he was the hero of the piece instead of the villain. Women just naturally thought Pete was exciting.

The sheriff felt himself fade into the background a little bit. He’d long ago made his peace with the fact that women found him dull. They knew he was trustworthy, of course. Women always voted for him for sheriff. But women didn’t look at him the way they looked at Pete.

The sheriff knew he didn’t understand women. He’d never had much reason to understand them. He couldn’t remember his mother. He had grown up in an endless cycle of institutions and foster homes. He’d always been more of a number than a name.

There had never been much demand in adoption circles for a stocky, plain boy who was average in just about everything, so he’d stayed in the state system.

Still, the sheriff was content. He had his job and he was a good sheriff. He understood doing his duty much more than he understood things like being part of a family. Married couples baffled him. Young children made him nervous. But it was okay. He’d found a place for himself in life and it was a fine place.

He’d even made himself a home of sorts on a piece of land outside Dry Creek a couple of years ago. The twenty-acre plot he’d bought had a few trees on it and a creek that ran across the upper northwest corner. The creek wasn’t much more than mud in the fall, but in the spring, like now, it ran full and sweet.

The sheriff had bought a used trailer and set it on a foundation close enough to one tree so he’d have shade in the summer. Then he’d built a wooden porch that reached out a good ten feet from the main part of the trailer. The trailer was two bedrooms and, with the porch, felt like a house. Last spring, he’d put a white picket fence around the trailer to keep the deer away from the corn he had planted next to the porch.

Yes, the sheriff thought to himself, he was doing fine.

It’s just that he didn’t believe in pretending to be something he wasn’t. And he wasn’t a family man. He could count on one hand the times he had sat down to eat with a group of people when he was growing up and felt like he was eating with a family.

Still, he’d come to peace with who he was. He’d learned some lessons the hard way, but he was a decent, strong man. He might have limitations, but he knew what they were. He wasn’t a touchy-feely emotional kind of a man like most women wanted. But that was okay. He knew the importance of duty and he knew how to keep the people in his care safe.

Someday, the sheriff hoped, he’d meet a woman who would appreciate the solid nature of his personality. Of course, she’d probably be a bit dull and colorless herself. He’d figured that out long ago. Whoever she was, she wouldn’t be anything like Barbara Strong.

Just look at the woman. She stood there waving that pink-rose bouquet around and looking like a Valentine greeting card doing it. Her dark hair was all curly around her head, and her brown eyes flashed. Her skin was all flushed, and she had a dimple. And it wasn’t just her looks that made her seem so feminine—it was the graceful way she fluttered her hands when she talked.

The sheriff could watch her hands talk for hours. He’d noticed long ago that she’d taken off her wedding rings, both the gold band and the diamond engagement ring that went with it. He knew that some women started wearing lots of other rings when they took off their wedding ring, like they were uncomfortable with having the ring gone. But not Barbara. Her fingers stayed bare and her hands moved even more freely with no ring at all.

The sheriff frowned a bit more deeply. Maybe Barbara just didn’t have any other rings to wear. That didn’t seem right either. A woman like her deserved the best of everything.

She certainly deserved better than to have her heart broken by Pete.

The sheriff sighed. It wasn’t always easy looking out for other people. Not that he gave this kind of special attention to everyone who moved to Dry Creek. It was just that he’d started feeling responsible for Barbara when he’d tracked her down to that Colorado hospital after her ex-husband beat her up last fall. He’d sat by her hospital bed for the simple reason that she’d taken one look at him and asked him to stay.

Of course, she might not have been in her right mind when she’d asked him to stay. She’d been drugged with enough pain medication to confuse anyone. For all he knew, she thought he was Elvis or the hospital chaplain or some long-lost purple rabbit from her childhood. But, he’d stayed with her anyway.

When people were drugged, as Barbara had been in the hospital, they tended to mutter to themselves about all kinds of things. While he sat by her bed, the sheriff had heard enough of what was in Barbara Strong’s heart to know she dreamed of romance and poetry and knights on white horses. His hopes had sunk with each fanciful dream she shared. She was the kind of woman who would take one look at him and know he didn’t have a clue about any of those things she was dreaming about.

The sheriff hoped the day never came when Barbara looked at him too closely. He knew it hadn’t come while she was in the hospital, because on the last day of her hospital stay, she’d kissed him. On the cheek like a thank-you kiss. It had been because of the drugs still in her system, he was sure of that. But he’d kissed her back anyway, and not on the cheek. His had been no thank-you kiss, and he hadn’t had the excuse of being on any kind of medication.

Barbara had been surprised.

The sheriff had been stunned. He had no excuse for his behavior. He knew he wasn’t the kind of man that Barbara dreamed about. He had nothing to offer a woman like Barbara. He didn’t even talk about the things women liked to hear. He’d watched Pete flirt with women and realized he didn’t have a clue how to go about something like that.

No, he’d always known Barbara would want someone better than him long-term. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t protect her until she got back on her feet. He meant for her to have her year of peace. He needed it and she needed it, too. She certainly didn’t need someone like Pete tormenting her.

The sheriff started moving.

“You got the registration updated on that old pickup of yours?” Sheriff Wall asked as he finished walking over to Pete. When he started asking the question of Pete, the sheriff was standing beside the other man. By the time the question was ended, the sheriff was standing in front of Pete, half-blocking the view the ranch hand had of Barbara.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the sheriff turned and nodded his head toward Barbara. She did look pretty, but he couldn’t be distracted. She smelled nice, too. “This will just take a minute.”

“That’s all right.” Barbara smiled at the sheriff. “I need to check on the children anyway.”

The sheriff nodded again as Barbara stepped away.

“What’d you do that for?” Pete complained when Barbara was out of earshot. “Now she’s going to think I live outside the law like that no-good man she used to be married to! I sent off for the official registration. I told you that when old Charley sold it to me. I’ve got the temporary permit in my pickup.”

By the time Pete had finished explaining himself, both men were standing side-by-side, watching Barbara walk through the crowd of people. Barbara wasn’t tall, but she walked tall with her shoulders thrown back and her step confident. She made quite the picture in the lavender bridesmaid’s dress she was wearing. The dress had a full shiny skirt that swished and swayed when she walked. If people would only stop talking, the sheriff knew he’d be able to hear the dress.

There, the sheriff thought in satisfaction. A fair number of people had stopped talking. It was almost quiet.

It took a minute for Sheriff Wall to realize what all that silence meant, and he looked around. He didn’t have to look far to see a dozen other single men also watching Barbara as she walked across the room to the refreshment table. He scowled at those other men.

“I was just getting ready to ask her out,” Pete complained softly.

“That’s what I figured,” the sheriff said as he gave the ranch hand a friendly pat on the back and turned to walk away.

“Hey, don’t you want to see the temporary permit?” Pete called after him.

“Naw, that’s fine.” The sheriff thought maybe he should get himself a cup of punch from the refreshment table. Just to let the other men know he was keeping an eye on things.

Chapter Three

“Congratulations!” Mrs. Hargrove said as Barbara stopped in front of the refreshment table. Mrs. Hargrove had a long cake knife in one hand and a streak of lemon filling on the white apron she wore over her green gingham dress. The older woman had her gray hair pulled back into a black velvet bun catcher and she wore a pearl necklace.

“Thanks.” Barbara thought the older woman looked a little tired despite her finery. She knew Mrs. Hargrove had seen her catch the bouquet, but she didn’t want the older woman to have any unrealistic expectations. “Lizette is the one who needs the congratulations though—she’s the bride—she was just having some fun throwing her bouquet. She knows I’m not interested in getting married again.”

“Oh, you can’t give up hope, dear,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she sliced another piece of cake and put it on the last clear plastic plate from what had apparently been a stack in front of her. “You’re only twenty-nine years old—that’s much too young to give up hope.”

“Age has nothing to do with it,” Barbara said as she caught sight of her children and noted they still seemed to be having a good time playing with the other children. “Marriage just isn’t for me.”

Not that she was against marriage in general, Barbara thought. She was here celebrating a wedding, after all. And she believed that some people had good marriages. She’d seen couples right here in Dry Creek who seemed very happy. But somehow Barbara doubted that kind of marriage was going to happen for her.

“Not all men turn out to be thieves,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she cut another piece of cake and lifted it in the air. Mrs. Hargrove was cutting into the spare overflow sheet cake that Lizette had made because she wanted everyone to have all the cake they wanted. Most people had already eaten a piece of the tiered cake. Mrs. Hargrove looked around to see if there was a plate for the cake she now held on the silver server.

“They don’t all turn out to be faithful either.” Barbara knew this was at the core of why she didn’t believe she would ever have a happy marriage. A happy marriage required a lot of trust, and Barbara had none left. She didn’t think she’d ever trust another man with something as important as her heart. But that was okay. A woman could live a fine life without a husband.

Barbara could see there were no plates left for the cake Mrs. Hargrove held. She looked down and saw an open box peeking out from under the white tablecloth. “Here, let me get some more plates for you.”

Barbara bent down.

“Oh, no, I’ll be fine,” Mrs. Hargrove glanced around until she saw the sheriff. “Carl, come here and get these plates so Barbara doesn’t have to.”

“They’re not heavy,” Barbara said as her fingers closed around a stack of plastic plates. She knelt down. Unfortunately, the sheriff’s fingers closed around the same stack of plates. He didn’t look as though he intended to let go.

“Really, I can get them. It’s not like they’re gold-rimmed china or anything,” Barbara protested. Her voice sounded muffled because her head was half-covered by the white tablecloth as she knelt, but she’d thought she made her point.

Apparently she was wrong.

The sheriff knelt down, too and put his head under the tablecloth to look at the plates. He still kept his grip on the stack of plates. “Everything doesn’t need to be fancy. Sometimes the plain old ordinary things are best.”

“I know. That’s what I’m saying,” Barbara continued. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. “The plates are plastic. Not fine china. They’re not worth anything.”

No one would steal them, she added to herself silently. You don’t need to worry about me taking them.

She wondered if people would talk later about her and the sheriff snapping at each other under the cake table at Judd and Lizette’s wedding reception. She hoped not. The one person she had thought would be her friend when she moved to Dry Creek was the sheriff, but it hadn’t worked out that way.

She never did know all that she had said to him when he sat beside her hospital bed in Colorado. She knew she was out of it for some of the time. But the rest of the time, she thought they were becoming friends. She’d loved listening to him talk. He’d told her story after story about Dry Creek, some of them from the days when the cattle first came to the area and some as recent as last spring when he’d picked chokecherries for Mrs. Hargrove so she could make jelly to enter in some contest at the state fair.

Barbara had thought at the time that not many men would pick berries so an old woman could win a prize with her jelly. That’s when she’d kissed him. It had been impulsive. Sort of a tribute to what a nice man he was. Then he’d kissed her back—really kissed her.

The sheriff was the one who had driven Barbara back to Dry Creek when the hospital said she could go home. She had no home and no car left, since Neal, not content with putting her in the hospital, had taken a sledgehammer to her parked car. Her children had been staying with Judd so she’d been grateful for the ride.

Barbara had no choice but to accept the sheriff’s offer of a ride. And she’d decided at the time that it was just as well. She needed to gently explain to him that, as much as she had enjoyed his kiss, she was never going to marry again and she didn’t want to lead him on to expect a certain kind of relationship when all she could offer him was friendship.

Barbara had her words all picked out and she had decided, with a man’s pride being what it was, that it was best to let the sheriff bring up the subject of the kiss.

She had worried for nothing. The sheriff never mentioned the kiss. Once they were back in Dry Creek, he’d become all official and formal around her. He acted like she was a stranger—an unkissed stranger at that.

At first, she’d thought maybe he had a girlfriend and he’d been worried that she might misinterpret the kiss, but she’d soon learned there was no girlfriend. No, he must have just been concerned she would read too much into that kiss for the simple reason that it didn’t mean anything to him.

Well, he hadn’t needed to worry. She knew the kiss didn’t mean anything. She didn’t want it to mean anything. Still, she thought he could have at least brought the subject up. No kiss was all that meaningless. She had gotten the message back then and she got it now.

“You’re a guest here,” the sheriff finally said as he gave another tug at the stack of plates.

Barbara let him have the plates as she moved her head back so she could stand up. “No more than everyone else is a guest.”

Mrs. Hargrove smiled at Barbara when she stood. “That’s better—you wouldn’t want to get frosting on that pretty dress of yours.”

Barbara nodded in defeat. A person couldn’t force acceptance. She wondered if she’d ever really find a home here. Before she could belong, they needed to trust her at least a little. It was disheartening that they wouldn’t even let her touch the plastic plates. She could forget about something as advanced as pouring coffee.

She felt like one of those birds in a gilded cage. It wasn’t just that no one let her do anything for the community. She was an outsider in the most basic of ways. No one burdened her with their troubles, even though they all knew hers.

On a day like today, Barbara would have liked a friend to talk to about the wedding, but friendship went both ways. She wouldn’t ask a stranger to care about how hard today was for her when no one shared their troubles with her.

She was lonely.

Barbara had known she’d have to listen to Judd and Lizette recite their wedding vows today. She’d been prepared for it to be hard, but she hadn’t expected it to be as hard as it was. She hadn’t been able to listen to those vows without counting all the times her ex-husband had broken his. Talking to a friend would have made that hurt easier to bear.

“Not all men are like your ex-husband,” Mrs. Hargrove said adamantly as she lifted another piece of cake and set it on the plate the sheriff was holding out to her. She then turned her attention back to Barbara. “Carl here’s a good boy.”

Barbara almost laughed at the startled look on the sheriff’s face. She wasn’t sure if being called a “boy” was the surprise or if he was shocked anyone would think of him as a husband prospect for a woman whose ex-husband was a criminal.

Barbara wondered if that was why the sheriff had never brought up the subject of the kiss. He was probably dismayed he’d kissed the ex-wife of a thief.

Mrs. Hargrove seemed oblivious to the sheriff’s reaction as she kept talking to Barbara. “Just give yourself a year or so and you’ll meet someone nice.”

Barbara shook her head. There weren’t enough years in eternity for that. “I have the kids to think about instead.”

She looked over at her children, but she didn’t walk away from the refreshment table. She’d give herself a minute to pull her thoughts together. She didn’t want the children to sense her unhappiness.

The wedding was bringing it all back to her. It had taken her years to end her marriage to Neal, despite the fact that he had started cheating on her almost from the beginning. When she had tried to talk to him about it, he’d become abusive and accused her of being boring and not open to having any fun.

She’d remembered thinking at the time that it was hard to have fun when they never had the rent money and never stayed in one place long enough to make a home. No, she’d given up on fun. What she hadn’t given up on was having a father for her children and a faithful husband for herself. She had kept trying to make Neal into that man, but she’d failed miserably.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard from your ex-husband?” the sheriff asked Barbara as he passed a plate of cake to someone on his left.

“I’ve got nothing to say to him.”

The sheriff shrugged. “Ever wonder if he has something to say to you?”

So she was right, Barbara decided. It really was her ex-husband that was making the people of Dry Creek hold back on accepting her. Well, there was nothing she could do about it. She’d already divorced the man. That should tell people what she thought of him.

“I should go check on my children.” Barbara walked over to where the children were playing a game of hide-the-spoon. She’d initially counted on having her children by her side during the wedding reception today, but when they’d asked to play with some of the other children, she couldn’t refuse them. Just because she was uncomfortable at weddings, she didn’t want them to miss out on a good time.

Barbara waved at Amanda and Bobby. They both grinned up at her and waved back, but they didn’t stop what they were doing.

There was a chair by where the children were playing and Barbara sat down.

What she needed to do was lighten up, she told herself. After all, if she weren’t here for a wedding, she would have enjoyed being in the community center again.

The community center was really an old barn that had been donated to the people of Dry Creek. Tonight, it shone with polish. Mrs. Hargrove had organized this reception and, in Barbara’s opinion, she’d done a wonderful job. Barbara had offered to help, but everyone had said she should just take it easy. Tables had been scattered across the wooden plank floor, and they were all draped with white tablecloths.

The air smelled like a mixture of coffee and crushed rose petals. There was a hint of lemon too, but Barbara couldn’t decide where that aroma was coming from. Maybe it was from the filling in what remained of that five-tiered cake.

The weathered high rafters made the barn look vaguely like a cathedral, especially with the iridescent white streamers that a couple of high-school boys had strung from them. The night outside was dark, so there was no light coming from the open windows, but rows of small twinkle lights circled the inside walls of the barn. A late-March breeze coming in the windows made the streamers sway a little. Yes, it was all very dignified and very bridal.

The wedding ceremony had taken place earlier in the town’s small church, and then people had walked over to the barn for the reception. Lizette and Judd were still shaking hands with people.

Barbara realized she might never have a real home with the people of Dry Creek, but she had no question that she had a family with Judd. When she had tracked Judd down, she was desperate for help. She didn’t even know Judd back then, but she had no other family and she’d never lived anywhere long enough to make real friends.

The separation from Neal hadn’t been going well. After she’d finally found the courage to leave him, she suspected he would try to find her, and hurt her and she didn’t want the children to be with her if that happened. Barbara needed someone to care for the children while she made the trip to find them a shelter.

Barbara knew it was not love that had made Neal angry when she’d told him she was going to divorce him. No, he might not want her to divorce him, but he didn’t love her. Neal hadn’t just cheated on her once or twice. He’d made it a habit. Barbara hadn’t known about the robberies he’d been involved in until later, but she had faced the fact that something in Neal had changed dramatically over the years.

Barbara was only twenty-nine years old, but the day she’d left Neal she’d felt like an old woman. It was as if she’d lived an eternity, and nothing had turned out the way she had hoped it would.

It was odd that it wasn’t until she finally found the courage to leave Neal that she found the closest thing to a family that she’d ever had. Judd had invited Barbara and her children to stay with him indefinitely.

Barbara figured it was his new-found religion that made Judd so eager to help them, but she didn’t think it was a good thing for him to do. Family did have limits. And life wasn’t lived in a church. She hadn’t had much experience with God, but she had wondered sometimes if God even knew what went on in the world. He certainly had never paid any attention to what went on in her world.

No, Judd and his new wife wouldn’t find life as simple as they thought it would be. Marriage never was. Barbara knew all of the things that could go wrong with a marriage and she didn’t want to be responsible for any of them happening to Judd.

That’s why, now that he was getting married, Barbara had moved off Judd’s ranch and into the small town of Dry Creek. Lizette had offered the room at the back of her dance studio as a temporary home for Barbara and the children until they found something more permanent. There weren’t any houses for rent in Dry Creek right now, so Barbara knew she’d have to wait. Not that there would be any houses for rent soon.

The only house that wasn’t occupied was the old Gossett house, and Mr. Gossett was in prison. Mrs. Hargrove wrote to him regularly, and in her last letter she’d asked him if he’d be willing to rent the house. He wrote back saying he was thinking of giving the house to his nephew, but he’d find out if his nephew was interested in renting it out to her.

Even if the Gossett house did become available, it would take a lot of repairs before anyone could live in it.

In the meantime, the room in the back of Lizette’s dance studio had become the resting place for Barbara and her children. The room wasn’t large, but it was bigger than most of the hotel rooms where they’d lived for periods of time over the past few years. Lizette had lived in the back room of her studio before she got married, and there was a kitchen and a bathroom attached to it. It would be fine.

There wasn’t much furniture in the studio’s back room and Barbara had vowed that, now that she and the children weren’t moving so much, she would replace that old folding table with a solid kitchen table, the kind of table children needed for family meals and homework.

They might not have a home yet, but they’d have a table. It was a start.

And, for now, the back room was convenient for Barbara since she was temporarily working in the fledgling bakery that Lizette had started in the front part of the building. Barbara knew she’d eventually need to get a job that was more solid, but she was grateful for the bakery job. It was helping her gain some job experience and it was early-morning work so she was done by the time the school bus came through Dry Creek to drop the children off after school.

Barbara ordinarily kept a close eye on her children, but she was checking them even more frequently of late. She’d had these funny feelings the past few days that someone was watching her and the children through the storefront windows. Whenever she looked up, however, she didn’t see anyone on the street outside the window, so she was probably being foolish.

Besides, even if someone was looking in the window, it didn’t mean anything was wrong. People looked in storefront windows all the time, she reminded herself.

Maybe it was just hard for her to get used to their new home, Barbara told herself. It had bigger windows than most places she had stayed. She wasn’t used to so much openness.

At least Lizette had hung good, thick curtains on the windows in the back room. There was no chance anyone could look through those windows when Barbara and the children were sleeping.

Barbara shook herself. Now, why was she worrying about this when she was here to celebrate a wedding? Dry Creek wasn’t the kind of place where people went around looking into the private windows of other people. They might be very interested in her and the children, but no one would actually spy on them.

There must just be a draft in that old bakery building and a tingle of cold air must blow through now and again and hit her on the back of the neck, she decided. That must be what that tingling sensation was all about.

Or, she thought to herself, maybe the tingling had just been her nerves reminding her of the upcoming wedding. She’d certainly had reason enough to dread the event.

But now that the wedding was over, the nervousness would stop and that would be it. She could get on with earning the acceptance of the people of Dry Creek.

It was too bad that she couldn’t begin with the sheriff. Of all of the people there, he suddenly looked like he would be the hardest to win over.

Chapter Four

The wedding reception was still going strong. Laughter and chatter filled the old barn. Barbara watched the sheriff while she sat in a folding chair beside where the children were playing.

The sheriff seemed to be intercepting anyone who was walking toward Barbara. One would think she had a big C for “criminal” branded on her forehead. The sheriff took one man by the arm and pointed him in a different direction. He whispered something in the ear of another. She couldn’t imagine why he cared if the ranch hands talked to her. They certainly didn’t have anything she could steal.

Well, no matter what his reasons were for keeping people away from her, today was supposed to be a happy day and Barbara was determined to keep looking happy even if she had to change her view to do so.

Since no one was going to talk to her inside the building with the sheriff blocking the way, Barbara decided to go outside. Barbara looked down at the bridal bouquet she still held. Was it just her, or did the flowers look a little wilted?

Sheriff Wall watched Barbara walk back over to Mrs. Hargrove and say something before heading toward the barn door and going outside. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t need to follow Barbara everywhere, but if anyone was going to make contact with her, they would do it at some event like this. Strangers stood out in Dry Creek on an ordinary day, but tonight a dozen strangers could wander around and no one would pay much attention to them as long as they held a plastic cup filled with Mrs. Hargrove’s special raspberry punch.

Of course, he wasn’t worried about Barbara seeking to contact her ex-husband’s criminal partners. The sheriff had talked with her enough in the hospital and then later in Dry Creek to know she wasn’t likely to turn to crime. She’d seen first-hand what crime did to a person, and she knew it wasn’t good.

But that didn’t mean Barbara might not unwittingly receive a message from her ex-husband and not realize what it meant. She’d said she hadn’t heard from him, but she might be hoping for some message anyway. After all, the two of them had been married for a long time and had children together. They probably still had business to settle between them.

Yeah, the sheriff told himself, he’d better go outside and stand in the dark with her just to be on hand if anyone came up to her with a message. It could be something as simple as “look in the tool chest for the key to the safety deposit box” or “dig up grandma’s favorite rosebush and see what you find.”

The sheriff wished again that he had some of Pete’s charm with women. At least Pete could go out and stand there without looking like a fool with nothing to say.

Barbara took a deep breath the minute she stepped outside. She looked around and was relieved no one else was close by. It did look as though someone was sitting in one of the pickups parked by the barn, but that was the only sign of life. Most of the cars were over by the church. The moon was out, but it was still dark enough that she couldn’t see much beyond the vehicles.

Whoever was in the pickup seemed to be taking a nap, so Barbara felt alone enough to relax.

After living through a cold winter here, she knew she’d never get tired of Montana spring nights. They were such a relief after the snow. It was a warm March, and the sounds from inside the barn were muted enough that she could almost hear the sounds of the outside. Now that spring was here, there was no snow to muffle the night sounds. She heard the sound of a coyote off in the distance. And a dog barking closer to town.

Someone had lined up some folding chairs along the side of the barn, and Barbara stepped over to them and sat down. She set the bouquet down on the chair next to her and slid her shoes halfway off her feet. She wasn’t used to wearing high heels any more and they pinched. Barbara leaned back in the chair. Now she almost felt good enough to smile for real.

She heard the sound of a pickup door being opened. Apparently, the man was finished with his nap.

Right then, the door to the barn opened and light spilled out into the darkness.

“Trouble?” Barbara asked when she looked up and saw the sheriff. She’d given it some thought and had almost decided that the reason the sheriff had been frowning so much was because he had official business somewhere. Maybe his mood had nothing to do with her. Maybe she’d just grown so distrustful of men that she saw betrayal and censure everywhere she looked.

Yes, that must be it, Barbara told herself in relief. Someone must be in trouble and the sheriff was passing the word along to others who could help. The sheriff seemed always to be working. Even though he was wearing a regular black suit and not his uniform tonight, he was probably still on duty. She supposed a lot of his social evenings were interrupted like this.

“Trouble? No,” the sheriff said as he let the door close behind him. He stood still for a moment. “Unless you’ve seen something?”

Barbara refused to be disappointed that the sheriff wasn’t worried about someone else. “Me? What would I see?”

“Oh, you never know when someone sees something out of the ordinary.” The sheriff walked over to the folding chairs where Barbara sat and stretched out on the chair closest to the barn door. It was six chairs away from Barbara.

“No, nothing out of the ordinary here.”

Maybe the sheriff was just worried from habit, Barbara decided. She was glad she had nothing to worry him further. She had noticed that whoever was getting out of the pickup had changed his mind and settled back into the seat. But there was nothing unusual about one of the men around here deciding to take a bit longer with his nap. A lot of them worked hard and were tired. The only thing that was unusual lately was that strange tingling sensation she’d had at the back of her neck. “Has anybody thought of getting a big streetlight around here?”

“A streetlight? We only have the one street.”

“I know, but it’s a very dark street—especially at night.”

“People like it that way. If they get a streetlight, they worry they won’t be able to see the stars.”

“It could be a small light.”

The sheriff shrugged. “The county is voting next month on all the business. Bring it up at the town hall meeting we have. See what people think.”

“Me? Would I go to the meeting?”

“I don’t see why not. This is where you live, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but—” Barbara had never voted in a local election before. She’d never been in one place long enough to qualify for anything like that. She’d gotten a library card once, but that was all.

“There’ll be a vote for sheriff coming up,” he added. “If you’re interested in voting, that is.”

Barbara was relieved. Whatever was troubling the sheriff, he must not suspect her of anything. He was asking her for something that implied she was almost one of the citizens of Dry Creek. “Well, you can count on my vote—I mean, if I don’t need to own property or anything.”

“Nope. No property. Just show up at the barn here and vote.”

Was it really that simple? It wasn’t pouring coffee, but voting had to count for something. Maybe becoming part of life in Dry Creek was possible after all. Barbara felt a rush of enthusiasm at the thought. “I suppose you have a campaign team already lined up?”

She knew the sheriff was reliable and did a good job. He’d saved a life or two and he’d even tracked her down last fall. She’d heard enough talk around to know he was well thought of in Dry Creek.

“Campaign?” the sheriff looked startled.

“Yeah, you know, your campaign to get peoples’ votes. I’m just wondering if you have anyone working on the campaign. I could help pass out flyers or something if you need someone else to help. Just let me know who to talk to about it.”

There, Barbara thought. It was the perfect place to start. A flyer was worth less than even a plastic plate, so no one needed to trust her with anything. Unless, of course, the sheriff thought she wasn’t good enough to hand out his flyers. Maybe since she’d been married to a criminal, he was afraid that she would taint his campaign.

Barbara held herself still. “That is, if you want me to work with you?”

The sheriff felt his collar get tight and he swallowed. He should have worn his uniform instead of this suit. He’d never given any thought to a campaign. People around Dry Creek didn’t need a campaign to know to vote for him for sheriff. For one thing, there was no one running against him. But Barbara didn’t know that, and if she was working on a campaign with him, she’d have to spend time with him. That would keep her away from guys like Pete.

It would also be easier for him and the FBI to keep an eye on her. Now that he thought about it, it was almost his duty to spend as much time as possible with Barbara Strong.

The sheriff took a deep breath. “Sure. We could get together for dinner tomorrow night at the café and work out a campaign strategy.” His voice sounded a little strained, but he hoped Barbara wouldn’t notice. He seldom asked a woman out on a date. Not that this was a date. At least, he didn’t think it was. “I’d buy, of course.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t let you buy—”

“No, it would be official campaign business.”

Barbara pinked up for a moment and then she nodded. “Well, then, yes—I’ll ask Mrs. Hargrove to sit with the children while I step over to the café. But she might not be able to since it’s Saturday night and she needs to get ready to teach Sunday school the next morning.”

The sheriff couldn’t help but notice how pleased Barbara looked. He could hardly keep his mind on Mrs. Hargrove. He sure wondered if this was going to be a date. But in any case, Barbara was right. They needed someone to watch the children.

“I’ll talk to Mrs. Hargrove,” the sheriff said.

“That’s right—I forgot you know her pretty well. She said you fixed her roof a couple of weeks ago.”

“Just a few shingles. Nothing much,” the sheriff said. He didn’t want to derail the conversation by talking about Mrs. Hargrove’s chores. He knew there had to be a chore on her list that was worth a night’s babysitting even if it was a Saturday night. “Linda has a great steak special going on Saturday nights.”

“She might agree to let us put some of your flyers in the café, too,” Barbara said.

The sheriff swallowed. “We sort of need to make a flyer before we can pass it out.”

Barbara brightened even more at that. “You mean no one’s done a flyer yet? Would it be okay if I worked on that, too? We’ll need a slogan. Something catchy. Something that sets you apart from your competition.”

The sheriff felt his mouth go dry. He couldn’t not tell her. Not when her face was getting so excited. “About my competition…so far I don’t have any.”

The sheriff closed his eyes.

“Well, surely someone will run against you,” Barbara said. She frowned a little. “They probably just haven’t put in their name yet.”

The sheriff sat up straighter. She was right. Someone could decide to run against him. It wasn’t likely, but it could happen. Maybe there’d even be a write-in campaign. One or two people usually wrote in a name on the ballot instead of voting for him. The name was usually Daffy Duck or Santa Claus, but legally it was a vote for another candidate. That had to mean something. He moved a couple of chairs closer to Barbara without even thinking about it. “It’s a good thing we’re going to do a campaign then.”

Barbara smiled. “It’s always good to get out the vote. It helps the whole community. We need to think of things that would rhyme with Sheriff Wall.”

“There’s all,” the sheriff said, noticing that Barbara had picked up the bouquet she’d caught and was holding it in her lap. He slipped over onto the chair next to her.

“And a button, we’ll need a button,” she said. “Something in blue. People trust blue. Or maybe red. Red is power.”

The sheriff nodded. He didn’t care if Barbara decided to dress him up in a clown suit and have him pass out suckers in front of the café. She was sitting next to him and talking and her hands were going a mile a minute.

Saturday night was definitely going to be a date if the sheriff had anything to say about it. He smiled his best smile. “I appreciate anything you can do—for the campaign, that is.”

“I’m handling the bakery while Lizette and Judd are gone on their honeymoon, but I can think about the slogan while I work.” Barbara held up the rose bouquet as though she was seeing it for the first time. “And, another good thing about this campaign is that it will help people forget I caught this thing.”

The sheriff couldn’t ask what the first good thing was. He had a bad enough feeling in his stomach about the second good thing. “Why is that?”

“Everyone talks during a political campaign. There’ll be issues and answers. People will forget I caught the bouquet and that I’m supposed to be the next one to marry. People think Lizette knows I’m hoping to get married again and that’s why she tossed me this bouquet. But I’ve told Lizette it’s just the opposite. I’m never going to get married again.”

“Oh.”

Barbara stood up. “I’m going to be a good citizen though.”

“You can be a good citizen and married at the same time.” The sheriff thought he should point that out.

It was too late. Barbara was already opening the door to go back inside the barn.

Barbara looked around when she stepped back inside. She felt better than she had since she’d come to Dry Creek. This was the perfect solution to her problem. If she campaigned for the sheriff, people would surely see that she took a firm stand in favor of law and order.

Granted, it wasn’t like being asked to do a fundraiser for the school or anything that involved money, but it was a start. The next thing she knew, she’d be asked to join the Parent-Teacher Association. Then maybe they’d ask her to pour coffee for the town at some event.

She was so excited. She really was going to make a home for herself and the children here in Dry Creek. And, maybe while she campaigned for the sheriff, she’d mention to people that the town needed a streetlight. That showed even more civic spirit. Eventually, she’d have a normal life with a house of her own.

And, just so she’d know the real house was coming, she’d work on getting herself that kitchen table for her and the children. It was time she learned to cook something besides sandwiches, and time they started having Sunday dinners at their own table. Fried chicken would be good. Or maybe a pot roast. Having Sunday dinners together was something Dry Creek families did, just like they hung their sheets on the clotheslines in the summer to dry.

Barbara had noticed a clothesline behind Mr. Gossett’s old house. It had fallen down, of course, just like most of the things around the house. The good thing about the Gossett house, though, was that it had a picket fence around it. The boards weren’t white any longer and they weren’t all standing straight, but a coat of paint and a few well-placed nails would change that. She didn’t know what she’d do if Mr. Gossett wrote and said his nephew wanted the house so he couldn’t rent it out.

No, that wasn’t true. She did know what she’d do. She’d just keep looking. She was going to make a home here or, at least have the satisfaction of knowing she’d done everything possible to make it happen.

Chapter Five

Meanwhile, in the pickup truck parked in the night shadows outside the barn, Floyd Spencer had been watching Barbara and the sheriff and muttering to himself. His timing had been lousy ever since he’d robbed that bank with Neal and Harlow.

It’d been his first robbery and he’d since decided that he just didn’t have the stomach for crime. Everything had turned out badly. His two partners were behind bars and they were likely to turn informant on him next week if he couldn’t get a message to them and let them know that he needed more time to get their money into those off-shore accounts.

He had buried his own money in his backyard so deep that even his dog couldn’t find it. He was too nervous to move it inside under his bed. He didn’t know when he’d ever have the courage to dig it up.

But it was the other men’s money he had to worry about first.

Floyd had been watching Neal’s wife off and on over the past two weeks to see if she ever went to the prison to see Neal. If she did, Floyd would try to get her to take a message to her ex-husband about the additional time he needed to open those off-shore accounts. The message couldn’t be anything obvious, of course, or the people at the jail would stop it from getting to Neal.

Floyd couldn’t spend too much time watching the ex-wife, however, because he didn’t dare call in sick to his job at the bank. He hadn’t planned on the whole thing taking so much time.

It had all sounded so simple when Harlow had planned it. But, these days, Floyd couldn’t even take a long lunch at the bank. It hadn’t been his bank that had been robbed; Floyd wasn’t that stupid. But it had been the bank in a nearby town, and the jittery nerves had spilled over to his bank. He hadn’t thought about that happening.

Everyone was watching everyone these days, and Floyd sure didn’t want to make anyone suspicious enough to remember that he’d called in sick on the day the other bank had been robbed. He had thought it would be easy to do everything Harlow had asked. But it wasn’t as easy as Floyd had thought it would be to transfer money into those accounts without anyone knowing about it. He’d found the instructions to make the transfer, but he didn’t see how it could be done secretly. Harlow and Neal had each set the accounts up in partnership with another person so, even in jail, they said they would be alerted when the money was in the accounts.

Floyd didn’t know how all of that was to happen. He was a bank cashier, not a thief—well, until now, that is. All he knew was that Harlow was clever enough to do whatever he said he was going to do and Neal followed the other man’s directions. Harlow had been the one who’d talked Floyd into helping them rob the bank. He would never forgive Harlow for that. Robbing that bank had been the worst mistake of Floyd’s life.

But there was nothing to do about it now except to go forward and try to find some time alone with Neal’s wife. If she wouldn’t help him, Floyd thought he’d take a day off work and try to impersonate a clergyman going to visit Neal. It was a long shot, but who else would care about Neal except someone who was paid to care, like a minister?

Floyd didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t take time off work. Maybe he should leave some money for Barbara Stone at the bakery just in case he needed to go to his back-up plan.

Floyd vowed that if he got out of this mess, he’d never break any laws ever again. He wouldn’t even cross the street against the light. He’d come to the conclusion that his nerves just weren’t good enough for a life of crime. He couldn’t sleep. He’d barely eaten since he’d helped rob that bank. Once he got the money into those offshore accounts, he planned to go to a hypnotist and try to get the memory of what he’d done wiped out of his mind.

Chapter Six

Barbara’s alarm clock went off at five o’clock in the morning and she groaned as she reached over to turn it off. It was dark and her children were still asleep. Fortunately, it wasn’t cold inside the room she now called home. Not that it was warm either. She sat up on her cot and pulled a blanket around her shoulders.

Her alarm clock gave off a green hazy light so Barbara could see the two lumps in the bed next to her cot. Both Amanda and Bobby were curled in on themselves as they slept. They’d been tired enough last night that they would sleep another few hours.

Barbara yawned as she remembered last night.

The wedding reception had become more enjoyable after she had asked to work on the sheriff’s re-election campaign and she’d spent more time talking with Mrs. Hargrove about local politics. Mrs. Hargrove had gotten so involved in the conversation, she hadn’t seemed to notice that Barbara was helping clean up the refreshment table.

The two of them had cleared off the cake crumbs and picked up empty punch cups while they talked. Barbara had learned enough about local politics to know that she probably didn’t need to campaign for the sheriff to win the election.

Of course, Mrs. Hargrove encouraged her to work on the sheriff’s campaign anyway.

“Campaigning is more like fun than work, isn’t it?” Mrs. Hargrove had anxiously asked her for the second time as she looked over to where the sheriff stood.

Barbara had nodded.

“Well, then I guess it’s okay—it’s a great way for you to meet people. Besides, it never hurts to remind people to vote,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she turned her attention back to the table and scraped some white frosting off the cake knife before wrapping the knife in a wet paper towel.

“I’d enjoy it,” Barbara said. “Really I would. I want to do something for the community.”

Mrs. Hargrove nodded. “We’ve become a little lazy around here when it comes to voting for the sheriff. And it’s an important job—we can’t have just anyone as our sheriff. I’ve known Carl Wall since he was a teenager, and he’s a good man.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.