Читать книгу At Home in Dry Creek - Janet Tronstad - Страница 10

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.