Читать книгу Sleigh Bells for Dry Creek - Janet Tronstad - Страница 8

Wade breathed deep as he stood outside looking at Amy’s red pickup. The paint had faded over the years, but the vehicle had been polished, and its silver chrome shone. The storm clouds had lifted, and the morning sun was finally here in all its Montana glory. Thankfully, the street was still quiet, and he took another determined breath. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. Seeing Amy again had him off balance.

He hadn’t felt so tongue-tied and awkward since he left Dry Creek. During his rodeo years, he’d gained a reputation for being able to hold his own with women. He hadn’t dated much, but he’d had enough women say they were willing to go out with him that he knew he was doing something right. Being back here brought up his old insecurities, though, and made him feel like he was seventeen again.

He heard Amy and his mother walk out of the café, but he didn’t turn around. Instead, he kept walking back to his pickup. It was then that he noticed there was a bumper sticker on the front of Amy’s vehicle in addition to the one in the back. She must really plan to vote for that man.

“I didn’t know you were so friendly with old man Garrett.” He turned as he spoke. That made easy chitchat. It wasn’t difficult to find something a woman was interested in and ask her about it. There was no reason for him to feel awkward.

Amy had her arm around his mother, but she stopped to look up at him.

“Don’t worry. He might be running for office, but he’s not going to talk to the reporters, either.” Amy lifted an eyebrow in what looked like annoyance.

Okay, so she’d been a little offended, Wade thought. He didn’t blame her.

“It’s not that.” He nodded his head toward the bumper sticker. Maybe he needed a lighter approach. “I just wondered how the old man was doing.”

“It’s Shawn,” Amy said, her lips pinching together.

Wade looked at her in astonishment. “Our Shawn?”

The years rolled away. He forgot about being easygoing as his mouth hung open.

“He’s not our Shawn,” Amy snapped. “He’s just someone who wants to run for public office and—”

“Shawn Garrett?” Wade repeated. “The guy couldn’t even get elected to the student council in high school. And I think he cheated in history. And math. Of course, he had to if he was going to pass anything. But the state legislature!”

The color was high on Amy’s face, but it still took a moment for Wade to connect all of the dots. His heart sank. “You didn’t get married to him or anything, did you?”

His eyes looked for her ring hand, but she had it around his mother’s waist as they stood there. He should have checked for a ring earlier when they were inside. He’d forgotten that nine years had passed. She was likely married to someone; he was a fool to think otherwise. But Shawn?

“It’s none of your business if I did,” Amy said as she stepped away from his mother, stomped to her pickup and yanked the door open.

Amy was six inches shorter than Wade, yet somehow she managed to look down her nose at him as she stood by that open door like she was defending her pickup from him. “I’ll come over to your house after I’ve stopped to let my aunt know where I am.”

He shouldn’t be grinning, but he was. There was no ring on her finger.

“You do that.” Wade watched her swing herself up into the vehicle. She had always been graceful, and her shoulders moved smoothly with her arms as she settled herself behind the wheel.

He should have turned to go to his own pickup then, but he just stood there with his mother, both of them looking at that old, red Ford and Amy inside it. He didn’t know what his mother was thinking, but he was having a hard time catching his breath. He just realized a ring wasn’t a requirement anymore. Not all women were as tied to those gold bands as his mother was to hers. He didn’t like thinking of Amy married to anyone. But wouldn’t she have admitted the fact if she was married to Shawn?

“She’s still as nice as ever,” his mother said, glancing up at him with that look he was coming to recognize.

Oh, no. She thought God was talking to her again.

Wade could only grunt. “It’s not a sign, Mother. Seeing Amy like this.”

“Oh, of course not, dear.” She sounded innocent enough, even though he knew she wasn’t being straight with him. She thought it was a sign, all right.

He needed to stop her matchmaking. “Amy’s probably married to someone, even if it’s not Shawn.”

His mother grinned just like she had years ago when she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “She should be married. She’s cute enough any man would be a fool not to marry her if he had a chance to make it happen—good-tempered, too.”

He kept his mouth shut. There wasn’t much he could add to that, anyway. His mother was right. Amy always had been sweet to everyone. He turned to walk away, and then he heard a grinding sound. He stopped and looked back. Amy was staring down at the wheel of her pickup or, more likely, the ignition. When the starter ground again, he began walking to her door. She had the window rolled down by the time he got close.

“It’s not starting,” she said.

“I see that.”

By then, his mother had come over to the window, too.

“It’s okay,” his mother said. “You can ride back with us. Wade will come into town later and fix whatever’s wrong with it. He’s always been good at things like that.”

Amy looked at him with indecision on her face.

“No need to spend money for someone else to fix it,” he agreed. That old pickup of hers might be shined up nice on the outside, but he guessed the inside was held together with paper clips and baling wire. “I mean, money doesn’t grow on trees around here.”

Real smooth, he thought to himself as he tried to smile. Remind her that she’s broke. What woman doesn’t like that?

She frowned. “I can afford to pay you to repair it. Maybe not until after Christmas, but—”

“That’s not what I meant. We’re neighbors. Of course, I’ll fix it. No charge.”

“I’ll pay. I’ve been saving some money to go back east for a visit, so I can use some of that.”

“I see.” He could hear that his voice sounded pinched and tinny. He cleared his throat, hoping to make it come out more normal, but then realized he had nothing to say. The tone of her voice made him think there was more to her words than she was saying. He wished he knew why she was going back east. Of course, he couldn’t just ask, but he did remember that she had no relatives except the ones she lived with in Dry Creek, so if she was visiting back east, that probably meant she had a boyfriend somewhere. Maybe even someone she’d met on the internet.

“Be sure you meet in public places,” he said. “But not bars. Maybe a coffee shop. Or church. Church is good.”

She looked at him like he was deranged.

“I mean, on your trip back east,” he explained. “Be careful of strangers.”

“I’m always careful,” she said, her words clipped.

“That’s part of the problem. I haven’t met a stranger in a long time.”

“Well, that’s good then.” He hoped.

She didn’t say anything to that so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Well, fortunately, I can probably fix what’s wrong with your pickup. Most men could, so if there’s someone—” He waited for her to fill in a name of a husband or boyfriend, but she didn’t. “I’ll just need to order a part for it.”

She didn’t protest, so he figured it was settled.

In less time than he would have thought possible, Amy was sitting beside him in his pickup. His mother had said her hip would be sore if she couldn’t stretch her legs on the passenger side, so Amy had no choice but to slide in beside him.

He’d take what he could get when it came to being close to her. He was just glad he didn’t have any crumpled chip wrappers on the floorboards and that his heater worked. A mile or two down the road, he managed to check Amy’s neck to see if she had a ring hanging around it on a chain. The girls used to do that in high school. But she didn’t have a necklace of any kind.

“Excuse me,” he mumbled automatically. His elbow kept rubbing against her arm when he shifted gears. With the condition of the roads, he had already made his excuses more often than he liked. Added to that, he thought he caught the faint scent of spearmint. He would have asked her if she still chewed the gum, but she wasn’t looking like she felt real friendly toward him. She probably thought he’d already asked too many questions.

His mother was doing fine with the conversation, anyway, going on about how she wanted to decorate their old house for Christmas and needed to buy some ornaments, since they didn’t have any.

Wade felt Amy’s every move, but she clearly wasn’t as bothered as he was by the contact. He had never known a scratchy, wool jacket could be so tempting, though, especially after he noticed there wasn’t even a tan line where she used to wear a ring. That meant she must not be divorced or anything like that, either.

“Sorry again,” he repeated. This time, she was the one moving her arm, and she was doing it more than anyone needed to in his opinion. Not that he minded the contact; it’s just that he could do without the memories that were coming back.

Feeling her elbow graze his arm reminded him of the freckles on the back of her hand. When she was twelve, she’d worn a bandage over them one whole summer because she was afraid they were going to spread to the rest of her body. He’d secretly hoped they would, but he hadn’t said that to her because she had been so stricken by the thought.

He stole a glance at her now. Since she’d climbed in the pickup, she’d pulled the collar of that gray work coat closer and closer around her neck. But he didn’t see any freckles anywhere. Just the smooth, creamy skin along the side of her face.

“I was just pointing out the new fence along the Garrett place to your mother.” Amy turned and frowned at him.

He nodded, wondering if she could still read him like she used to be able to. Her expression certainly indicated she disapproved of something.

“I thought you would both be interested since you mentioned Shawn,” she added a little primly.

Wade grunted. The sun was completely up by now, and there were no shadows to hide the expression on anyone’s face, so he kept his eyes straight ahead. “I don’t care about Shawn one way or the other. I was just surprised. That’s all.”

He’d figured out by now that Shawn’s name was coming up in the conversation more than would be normal if he didn’t mean something to Amy. Why else would she point out those white-and-red cardboard signs nailed to that new fence begging folks to vote for the guy?

“Guess I’ll have to register to vote,” Wade added, trying his best to be pleasant about it. Men saw their childhood sweethearts get married to other men every day. Young love didn’t last for most people.

Maybe he’d even come back to cast his ballot for Shawn, if he could. Voting wasn’t the sort of thing a man who lived in hotels had to worry about. Of course, it was a whole lot of months before any election. One thing he’d have to say for Shawn—the man was smart enough to know he’d need an early start to collect enough votes to win.

It didn’t take many fence posts for Wade to remember everything he knew about the Garrett ranch. His father had complained bitterly about the fifteen hundred head of purebred Angus cattle old man Garrett ran on his place. And he had only one son to help him—a sickly boy who came in last every time the kids raced at school. The Stone family had worked to manage eighty head of scrub cattle in their best years, but, as often as not, Wade’s father would get drunk and let the cattle into the wrong pasture or decide they needed to head down the road somewhere, so he’d open a fence gate.

Wade and his brothers, all of them sturdy boys, had a hard time fixing all their father did wrong, and yet the man made them feel that Shawn Garrett was worth more as a son than the three of them added together. It was Tyler or Jake who had decided to call Shawn “that puny boy,” but they’d all been jealous of him.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a civil servant,” Amy said a bit later, eyeing him like she didn’t trust his response.

Wade nodded. He supposed he’d get used to being polite even when he felt like ripping the man’s heart out. “Of course not. Lincoln. Washington. All those guys.”

“Well, maybe that’s not quite Shawn,” Amy admitted wearily.

She didn’t seem to have anything more to say, and for once, she was keeping her arms quietly at her side.

“Oh—” his mother said suddenly from her place by the passenger window. “I forgot to get the eggs!”

Wade slowed his pickup to a stop. They were twelve miles outside of town by now. It wouldn’t take long to drive back, but the quiet of the dawn was over. People would be up and around. He trusted Linda at the café not to say anything about them, and the ranch hands probably didn’t know who they were. But if other people saw him and his mother, they would start talking.

And then the rumors would start to grow. He wasn’t sure either one of them was ready for that.

“We have eggs,” Amy said. “Stop at our place, and I’ll run in and get you a few.”

“Oh, would you?” his mother said, her face lighting up again. “They’re for Wade’s sausage-and-egg scramble.”

“I told you I don’t need breakfast,” he said.

Amy finally turned to him, her eyes blazing. “Of course you need breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day. Your mother is doing her best for you. Which you would know if it ever occurred to you to make her breakfast for a change.”

Wade felt his world tilt on its axis. He and Amy had been a little testy with each other back in the café, and maybe she could sense he wasn’t happy about her and Shawn, but the Amy he had known never really scolded anyone—not like this. She was sweet and forgiving and much too good for anyone. She might look faint when he kissed her and swing her elbows all around in the pickup, but she would never criticize him or contradict him—at least not like this. She’d been a good church girl. She prayed. She sang in the choir. She never said anything bad about anyone. Now that he thought about it, he should have seen that she had changed when she made such a big deal about refusing to work for him.

“And not just a cold-cereal breakfast either,” Amy continued, gesturing with her hands. The collar of her jacket had fallen away, and he saw the pulse in her throat. “I mean a real breakfast. You probably don’t even know how to cook eggs or oatmeal or anything like that.”

He tried to keep his tone mild. “I usually eat fortified cereal. Comes from a box. With raisins and cranberries and nuts—almonds. It has all the vitamins a body needs.”

Amy gave a small sound of disgust, whether at him or the cereal, he wasn’t sure.

“Well,” she continued, looking down at her hands like she was already regretting her outburst. “If your mother wants to make some kind of a scramble for you, I aim to see she has the eggs to do it.”

“Fine.” Wade gave up. “Fine. I was just trying to save her the bother.”

“Maybe I should make crepes instead,” his mother said, turning to Amy with a sympathetic twinkle in her eyes. “I heard from Mrs. Hargrove a few years ago that you had sent away for a correspondence course in French cooking. Maybe you could help me learn how to make them. I’ve always thought they were so elegant.”

“I’d love to,” Amy said, looking back up and beaming at his mother with the old enthusiasm she used to direct toward him. “They were the first thing we learned to make.”

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” his mother said complacently. “Wade here likes French food.”

“I do?” As near as he could remember, he wasn’t much on foreign food of any kind. Beef and potatoes were more his style.

“Of course you do,” his mother said as she gave him a look that said he better not contradict her. “You don’t want her to cook for Shawn. Didn’t you set a bag of that French coffee on the shelf in the enclosed porch this morning? Where I have the coffeepot rigged up?”

His mother had certainly learned to be a lot more direct while she’d been in prison. He wasn’t sure he was ready for it. “That’s French-roasted. I don’t think it qualifies as French food. Besides, I would have gotten the plain-roasted if I’d been able to find it when I stopped in Miles City.”

“You don’t need to worry,” Amy said, giving him a look that said he better not give anything his mother was saying another thought. “I’m teaching her—that’s all. There will be no cooking from me. Not for you or Shawn, either one.”

Wade heard her words, but something still wasn’t right. She was wound up tight. Many years might have passed, and she might be annoyed with him, but he could still read her feelings.

He looked over at her. “Why are you so touchy about Shawn Garrett anyway? What’d he do to you?”

Amy turned to look at him, and her eyes spit more fire than he wanted to see. “He asked me to marry him. That’s what the fool did. And he told my aunt about it, and now she thinks I should, too.”

With that, she burst into tears. Wade didn’t worry anymore about trying to appear smooth. He parked the pickup on the side of the road, reached over and drew her to him. He felt like some befuddled knight of old, ready to slay the dragon, if he could only see it. This was his Amy in tears. He’d expected her to marry someone, but he thought the man would be the prince of some small country or maybe an opera singer at the Metropolitan. He never considered it might be puny boy, Shawn Garrett.

He looked up to see a satisfied smile on his mother’s face. He shook his head at her, hoping she wouldn’t say anything. She nodded like she understood, and it was silent in the cab, except for the soft hiccups coming from Amy’s rosebud mouth.

Amy was appalled with her tears. She never cried, but when she did, the hiccups always followed. Fortunately, everyone knew where the Mitchell ranch was, so she didn’t need to tell Wade how to get there. He still had his arm loosely around her as he used one hand to drive up the short dirt road to her grandfather’s house. Wade’s arm was distracting enough; she didn’t need to risk further tears or hiccups by trying to explain anything to him.

“It wasn’t a real proposal.” That much finally burst out of her as they got close enough to the house so that Wade could park. She took a deep breath and looked around, trying to focus. She was glad it was winter so no one could see that the weeds needed cutting back around the lilac bushes. Or that the barn needed a new foundation.

“It’s all right.” Wade patted her shoulder as he pulled the key out of the ignition.

Even Gracie put a gentle hand on her knee. “Don’t worry.”

Amy looked back and forth between the concerned faces of Wade and his mother. “I’m fine. Really. Shawn just meant it as a joke. About his campaign. Shawn isn’t—I mean, that’s not it—”

“A man should never joke about a proposal,” Gracie said, her lips firm.

“No, with Shawn, it’s okay,” Amy said. “Really.”

They were all silent a minute, and then Wade opened the driver’s door and started to slide out. He looked at Amy like he was wondering why she hadn’t moved to follow him.

“I’ll go out your mother’s door,” she said, in case that was his problem.

“Oh, there’s no need for me to go inside, dear,” Gracie said with a slight smile that puzzled Amy until she heard the rest of what the woman had to say. “I’ll just sit here. You and Wade go ahead. You young people need some time alone. We old people just get in the way.”

“You’re not old! And—” Amy protested, but Gracie handed her the metal bowl for the eggs.

“You can come this way,” Wade added as he finished getting out of the pickup.

Once he was on the ground, he even held a hand out to help her move past the gear shift. Then, when she was ready to step down, he held his arms up and lifted her down as though she were an invalid. Or a china doll.

“We don’t need any time alone,” she said when her feet were on the ground. “Don’t worry about your mother. She’s just—”

She glanced up in time to see his lips tighten. He moved back, pulling her sideways with him so that they were no longer in the space left by the open door.

Instead, her back rested on the frame of the pickup. His mother couldn’t see them.

“Is that Spearmint gum I smell?” he asked with a little bit of a smile curving his lips as he kept looking at her. He held out his hand for the bowl, and she gave it to him. He set it back inside the pickup.

The day was warmer than it had been, but she could still see her breath with each word. And the wind was blowing. “I don’t know why I cried.”

“Shawn has me to answer to if he doesn’t treat you right.” Wade brushed some strands of loose hair away from her cheeks and then left his hands there to cup her face. “He might joke around some, but he should know better than to upset you.”

“Yes, well …” Amy murmured. No man had ever upset her as much as Wade, but she couldn’t find the words to say so. Not when he was looking at her like he was ready to do battle on her behalf.

“It’s not Shawn’s fault. I’m sure he’ll make a fine husband. He just needs to settle down,” she said, trying to be fair to the other man.

That only made Wade press his lips closer together. His eyes grew tawny and one of his thumbs moved to caress her jaw, making her shiver where he touched her.

She thought for a moment that he was going to kiss her, and her heart almost stopped from the wonder of it—or maybe the terror of it, she wasn’t sure. She’d never recovered from their one kiss all those years ago.

Then his eyes changed. His hands dropped down to his sides, and he stepped back.

“We better go get those eggs.” He reached back into the pickup to get the bowl.

She could only nod. Her heart started back up again, and she took a deep breath.

The wind seemed colder than it was before. She started to walk toward her family’s house. Wade followed behind her.

When they were almost to the front steps, her grandfather opened the door. He usually sat in his recliner by the television all day, but he must have looked out the window as they drove up. She wished he’d combed his hair, but white tufts stuck out from his balding head. The black suspenders he wore held his jeans in place, and he’d obviously forgotten again where his clean shirts were. He was wearing a thin undershirt that she recognized from the rag bag she kept under the kitchen sink. He held something behind his leg, and she assumed it was the steel cane he sometimes used.

“Is that the Stone boy with you?” He scowled as she and Wade started to climb the steps.

“Yes,” she murmured, a little surprised. Her grandfather didn’t recognize many neighbors anymore. Or, if he did, he confused their names with people on the television shows he watched.

Then her grandfather moved quicker than he had in years and pulled the old BB gun out from behind him. He pointed it at Wade. “I don’t want any of you Stone men messing around my girls. Not anymore. No siree. You’re trouble, you are, and I won’t stand for it. I saw you out there by the pickup.”

Her grandfather wobbled, and the gun moved back and forth until it was pointed at her. Wade moved quickly, standing in front of her, alarmingly close to the gun.

“I mean no harm,” Wade said cautiously. “Just bringing Amy home.”

She gasped as she tried to move around Wade, but he gripped her arm preventing her.

“‘We’re just here to get some eggs,” she said.

She was pretty sure that gun wasn’t loaded, but she didn’t want to take any chances. “Set the gun down, Grandpa. What television show do you have on anyway?”

Maybe this time, he had gotten the names right and the story wrong.

“There’s nothing worth watching this early in the morning,” her grandfather complained, but he lowered the gun, and the fire went out of him.

Amy felt Wade’s grip lessen on her arm. She didn’t know how she was ever going to explain what had just happened. She remembered how proud her grandfather used to be. He’d be mortified if the neighbors knew how confused he was these days.

“Are you ever going to fix me breakfast?” her grandfather complained, sounding even more peevish than usual. “I’m hungry.”

“I’ll get you something to eat just as soon as I get some eggs for Gracie,” Amy said, trying to soothe the old man. He was seldom up in time to join her and her aunt for breakfast.

With that, her grandfather turned and stepped back inside, leaving the door to the house open.

“It isn’t always like this,” Amy whispered as she walked with Wade into the place where she’d been raised. He’d been inside her house before, but not many times. Usually, she was the one who escaped over to the Stone place. Aunt Tilly was very particular about spotless floors, and she and Wade had always had mud or dried grass on their shoes after they had tramped through the coulee that ran along the south border of their two ranches.