A Baby for Dry Creek and A Dry Creek Christmas

Lester stood up from where he was kneeling beside the bottom bin of the nail rack. He was a short, wiry man who seldom spoke, and he cleared his throat before he started to talk. “I may be a clown sometimes, but at least I would financially support a baby if I had fathered one.”

“Huh?” Reno wondered if he had missed something. Lester was Reno’s closest neighbor, and he looked as if he’d screwed up all his courage to speak. “Since when do you have a baby?”

“Sometimes a man can have a baby and not even know it.”

At least six people in the room sucked in their breath.

“Hush, now,” Mrs. Hargrove finally managed to say. “It’s none of our business. Just because we’re all used to seeing everyone’s mail as it comes in, it’s no reason to meddle.”

Reno wondered what she was talking about. Everyone in Dry Creek meddled. It was one of their most endearing traits. It meant they cared.

“That letter was addressed to us,” Jacob said indignantly. “We weren’t reading anything but what was meant for us. We’re the ones who take turns passing out the mail in Dry Creek. We’re the postmaster.”

“Still,” Elmer muttered as he walked back to his chair by the stove, “it’s not our business. Of course, in my day a young man was raised to do the honorable thing and marry a woman he got with child.”

“Lester got someone pregnant?” Reno finally asked. The last he knew, Lester had been courting Nicki. That was before she married Garrett, of course, but still Reno didn’t like to think of Lester playing his sister false. “I thought you were planning on marrying Nicki.”

If Reno’s voice rose a little, he figured no one could blame him. A man was supposed to defend his sister’s honor, even if she was off being a trucker along with her new husband.

Lester took a step forward. “Not me, you fool. You’re the one with the baby.”

Lester could as well have said that Reno had a castle in Spain or a boot growing out of his head. “What?”

“Now, remember the letter didn’t say that Reno was the one,” Mrs. Hargrove cautioned. “For all we know, he didn’t even have those kinds of thoughts about Chrissy Hamilton. The Reno I know is a good boy.”

Reno choked. He wished he had a little more mud covering his face so no one could see his guilty flush. How did you tell your old Sunday-school teacher that you’d stopped being a boy a dozen years ago? He sure didn’t want to start telling Mrs. Hargrove about the jumble of thoughts he had about Chrissy Hamilton.

Even though he knew Chrissy wasn’t the one for him, he still found her attractive. Well, maybe more than attractive, if he was strictly honest about it. Something about Chrissy reminded him of the time as a boy he had been fascinated by a picture of cobras in some catalog that had come to the ranch.

Not that Reno was worried. He had been smart enough not to order a cobra from that catalog when he was nine years old and he was smart enough now to avoid Chrissy. Just because he was drawn to both of them in some mysterious, crazy way didn’t mean he had to do anything about it.

Besides, Mrs. Hargrove was right about one thing. It wasn’t anyone else’s business anyway.

“Chrissy is a fine-looking girl,” Elmer volunteered as he sat down in his chair by the stove. His voice was thoughtful. “Reno would have to be blind not to see that.”

“Well, that’s true,” Mrs. Hargrove conceded before she turned back to Reno. “But that doesn’t mean he’s the father of her baby.”

“Chrissy has a baby?” Reno felt the streak of mud start to dry and crack on his face. His voice had grown hoarse and he had to clear his throat. He felt a strange disappointment. “I suppose she’s married to that Jared fellow by now, then.”

Jacob frowned as he looked down at the letter in his hand. “Doesn’t sound like she’s married to anyone.”

Reno had known Jacob all his life. The man had taught him how to rope a calf. But Reno didn’t believe him on this one. Chrissy might have been mad at her boyfriend when she was in Dry Creek, but Jared had significant money, and a woman like Chrissy would weigh that in the scales before she called it off. Reno figured there was some misunderstanding. He held his hand out for the letter. “Let me see.”

Jacob handed him the letter.

There was silence for a minute before Mrs. Hargrove said, “You know, maybe one of us should write to Chrissy and invite her to come to Dry Creek with her baby.”

Reno snorted. He didn’t want to hurt Mrs. Hargrove’s feelings, but Chrissy would probably rather move to the moon than to Dry Creek. She likely thought it was the backside of nowhere, and she was right. Just because the people of Dry Creek liked the middle of nowhere didn’t mean Chrissy would. “We don’t have any shows or nightclubs or anything. Shoot, we don’t even have a proper post office.”

Reno returned to reading the letter.

“We have the café,” Jacob answered. “And the Christmas pageant every year.”

“Pastor Matthew’s sermons have been downright entertaining lately with some of his stories about the twins,” Mrs. Hargrove added. “I think he’s almost as funny as that guy on the television everyone talks about. Any new mother would enjoy that.”

“She could play with those calves of yours, too,” Jacob added. “They’re pretty cute—especially the ones you’re feeding with that fancy bucket of yours.”

Reno looked up from the letter. He had finished it. “Well, she should be happy. Sounds like she’s going to get a handsome payment.”

“Reno Redfern!” Mrs. Hargrove said. “I can’t believe you think that sweet girl would give her baby up to that lawyer!”

“Well, she wouldn’t be giving it to the lawyer. The baby would go to Mrs. Bard. How bad can living with your grandmother be?”

Reno couldn’t help but wish he’d had a grandmother who would have taken care of him when his mother left. “She probably bakes cookies and everything. The baby will be fine.”

Mrs. Hargrove drew herself up indignantly. “Don’t you know anything about a mother’s love?” Then she gasped and put her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

Reno forced himself to smile. “That’s okay.”

It wasn’t Mrs. Hargrove’s fault his mother had left him and Nicki when she left their father. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Not all women were good mothers.

“I should have insisted that father of yours bring you to town more often when your mother left,” Mrs. Hargrove muttered. “Just because the two of you looked fine, I shouldn’t have assumed your poor little hearts weren’t broken.”

“Nothing was broken,” Reno said. “Lots of people have it worse in life.”

Reno had made his peace with the fact that his mother had left when he was six. He’d had his father and he’d had Nicki. He’d done just fine.

“But still—”

“I’m sure Chrissy and her baby will be fine.” Reno wasn’t sure which topic he wanted to discuss less, his mother or Chrissy.

Mrs. Hargrove nodded. “Still, if they were to come here—”

“I’m sure she doesn’t want to move here,” Reno repeated.

“Well, still, there’s the baby to think about. It’s our Christian duty to at least invite Chrissy. Someone needs to write her a letter and ask. It’s the hospitable thing to do for someone in trouble and—and—I’m beginning to think that’s what God would want. He always said we should offer hospitality to the stranger who’s in trouble.”

Reno looked at his former Sunday-school teacher. She was eyeing him the way she had in the first grade when she wanted volunteers to answer a question. She wasn’t playing fair by bringing God into this, and she probably knew it.

“I think God was talking about feeding strangers when they show up in town and are hungry. So far every person who drives through Dry Creek seems to be pretty well fed. But if they’re not, I’ll leave word with Linda and Jazz at the café to give them something to eat and add it to my bill.”

Mrs. Hargrove frowned. “Hospitality is about more than food—God also told us to take in people who are in trouble.”

“Well, God usually brings them to your doorstep. Chrissy is thousands of miles away.”

“I didn’t think of that,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “We can’t just write a letter. How will she get here?”

“She’s not coming.” Reno ground his teeth and searched for a change of subject. “Lots of mud outside, isn’t there?”

No one answered him.

“You know, Reno has a point, though,” Jacob agreed. “Usually God would do something to give a person a clue. Even Reno can’t just go driving down there to bring her and the baby back here. He doesn’t have the poor girl’s address.”

Reno reached up to make sure the pocket on his shirt wasn’t on fire. Keeping quiet wasn’t exactly a lie, but he didn’t want to deceive anyone. “Well, even supposing I did have an address for her, people in Los Angeles move around all the time. How long would an address be good, anyway?”

Jacob frowned as he pointed to the letter Reno still held. “Come to think of it, I bet that attorney would have her current address. Sounds like he’s keeping a close eye on her.”

Mrs. Hargrove nodded. “It’s settled, then. Someone will have to go see if Chrissy wants to come here.”

“I’ll go,” Lester volunteered from where he stood counting nails to put into a brown paper bag.

Reno looked at Lester suspiciously. The man had an eagerness about him that Reno didn’t trust. “It’s a long way down to Los Angeles.”

Lester grinned. “Yeah, but it’s a long way back, too. If she says she’ll come back here, I figure it’ll give me time to court her.”

“What? She’s half your age,” Reno said. “You can’t date her.”

“She’s single.” Lester looked surprised. “I’m single. What’s your problem? She’s not that much younger than your sister, and you didn’t object to me dating Nicki. Besides, some women like older men.”

“No, Reno’s right,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “We can’t be sending some man down there who’s going to make her nervous. We need to send someone safe. Like Reno. He wouldn’t ask her out. Why, he’s almost family, now that I think of it.”

“Almost family—” Reno choked.

“She’s Garrett’s cousin,” Mrs. Hargrove explained patiently. “Garrett is married to your sister. That means Chrissy is almost your cousin.”

Almost cousins. Reno groaned. It wasn’t fair. Family was the cornerstone of the Redfern Ranch and it had been for generations. Mrs. Hargrove knew he’d never refuse to help someone who could claim to be family. If he did, he’d be breaking one of those family rules that the Redferns had held on to since the turn of the past century.

Reno gritted his teeth. Usually he was proud and grateful to be part of a family that had lived on the same land for so long. But sometimes, like today, the rules of the family were not ones he wanted to keep.

“And she’s got that poor little boy with only half of his rightful parents,” Mrs. Hargrove continued, as though she were just chatting.

This time Reno did groan aloud. He had a weakness for babies who didn’t have a full set of parents. This wasn’t a family rule; it was all his own.

“All right, I’ll go,” Reno said before his good sense kicked in.

“What about those calves of yours?” Lester asked. “With your sister and that new husband of hers gone, there won’t be anyone there to feed them.”

“Oh.” Reno had forgotten about the calves. Usually when a set of twin calves was born, one of the two was a runt that was visibly smaller and weaker than the other calf. The mother would often ignore the runt and feed only the stronger calf. The Redfern Ranch had a bumper crop of twins this year, and it took Reno four or five hours a day just to keep the runts fed.

Some ranchers figured the runts were too much trouble to keep alive and left them to live or die as nature saw fit. But Reno didn’t agree with nature on this one. He always brought the runts into the barn and fed them a special formula from a bucket he’d made that had an agricultural nipple so the calves could nurse easily.

Keeping those calves healthy was one of the most satisfying things he did as a rancher, and he’d long ago realized that he identified with the poor motherless things. He couldn’t leave them. They’d die without regular feeding.

“I can see to them,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “Do me good to get out on a farm again.”

“There’s no need. I can feed them,” Lester said reluctantly. “If I’m not the one that goes to get Chrissy, I can do that much. That’s what neighbors are for—especially when it’s too wet to plow. Besides, it’ll give Reno a chance to tell Chrissy what a good neighbor I’ve been.”

Reno forced his lips into a smile. “You’re the best.”

“Good.” Mrs. Hargrove nodded as if it was settled. “Then Reno can bring Chrissy back.”

“She might not want to come.” Reno felt he should remind everyone of that fact. He certainly didn’t intend to give Chrissy a sales pitch. He would make the offer to satisfy Mrs. Hargrove, but he didn’t expect Chrissy to actually agree to it. “Los Angeles is her home.”

“Oh, you’ll convince her.” Mrs. Hargrove smiled. “You could always get the other kids to do whatever you wanted.”

“That was in the first grade.”

Mrs. Hargrove nodded. “A boy never loses that kind of charm.”

Reno grunted. He felt about as charming as the mud on his feet.

Mrs. Hargrove’s smile wavered and she looked a little uncertain. “Well, at least you will be sincere. And tell her we have free sundaes at the café on Friday nights.”

Reno doubted there was a woman anywhere who would move across three states just to get a free sundae. He turned to leave the store. He’d go back to the ranch and show Lester where the milk buckets were. “I’ll be on my way in a couple of hours.”

“Good.” Mrs. Hargrove nodded and then cleared her throat. Her face went pink and she patted at her hair again. “You know, Reno, it’s none of my business if you and Chrissy—you know—if you’re the baby’s father. I just want you to know that even if you and Chrissy got off on the wrong foot, God can still make a good life for the two of you if you let Him.”

Reno pushed his cap down on his head. He didn’t need to look around to know that every man in the hardware store was staring at the floor. They were all used to talking about calves being born and cows artificially inseminated. They weren’t a delicate group. But none of them was comfortable talking about any of those activities with Mrs. Hargrove. He decided to spare everyone further speculation about his love life. “I’ll call when I get down to Los Angeles. My pickup should make it in three days.”

“Your pickup?” Mrs. Hargrove frowned. “You can’t take your pickup. You need a back seat with seat belts for the baby’s car seat. You’ll have to borrow my car.”

Mrs. Hargrove drove a 1971 Dodge compact the color of old mustard. It smelled of foot powder and wouldn’t go faster than fifty miles an hour. The junk dealer in Miles City had given up offering Mrs. Hargrove cash for the car and grumbled he’d have to charge her a tow fee when she finally came to her senses and gave up on the old thing. Still, the car never refused to start, not even in thirty-below weather, and that was more than some of the newer cars did.

“I could rent a car,” Reno said as his mind began to calculate the cost. Three days down and three days back. It was the price of the feed supplements he was giving those runt calves. Some years that would be fine. But this year money was tight.

“Don’t be foolish. My car’s sound as a tank. It’ll get you there and back.”

Reno frowned. If he had any lingering hopes that Chrissy would surprise him and want to move back to Dry Creek, Mrs. Hargrove’s car would remind him how unlikely those hopes were. A stylish woman like Chrissy wouldn’t go to her own funeral in Mrs. Hargrove’s car. She certainly wouldn’t pack up her belongings and ride across three states in it. “I’ll take it. Thanks.”

“Tell Chrissy she’s in my prayers,” Mrs. Hargrove said.

Reno nodded as he walked to the door. “I’ll do that—if I get a chance.”

He doubted he would be given a chance. Chrissy had not seemed drawn to the church when she was here last. He was pretty sure prayers would fall into the same category as mustard-colored cars when it came to women like Chrissy.

“I know she’s never gone to church much,” Mrs. Hargrove continued. “But now that she’s a mother she might want to—be sure and tell her there’s a good Sunday school program for the little one.”

Reno had a sudden vision of Chrissy sitting beside him in a Dry Creek church pew and it made his mouth dry up with the shock of it. He shook his head to clear his mind. He didn’t need something like that vision rattling around in his head.

The church in Dry Creek was a place of peace for him. After his mother visited the town last fall and Reno had started the process of forgiving her, he had been drawn to the church he’d last attended as a child.

Reno had never really stopped believing in God during those years when he didn’t go to church. He’d just stayed home to keep his father from drinking. For some reason, his father had insisted Nicki attend church, but he’d given Reno a choice. When he’d realized his father was drinking when he was alone at the ranch, Reno had found reasons to stay home on Sunday.

Until now he hadn’t thought about what it would feel like to sit in church with a wife beside him. Reno had a sudden empathy for the loneliness his father must have faced on those Sundays long ago after his wife left.

Reno cleared his throat. He was as bad as Mrs. Hargrove. He needed to keep reality in mind. “She might decide not to come.”

“Use your charm.”

Reno grunted as he opened the door and stepped back out into the cold air. Fortunately he didn’t need to worry about charm when it came to Chrissy. He wasn’t likely to be given the chance to talk to her long enough to be charming. All he hoped was that he had enough time to give the invitation from Mrs. Hargrove so that he could honestly tell everyone he’d asked the question. That’s all Mrs. Hargrove and God could expect.

Chapter Three

Chrissy looked out the big windows of Pete’s Diner to the busy street outside. Something was making her edgy today, and not even the steady pace of orders from Pete’s regulars could keep her mind focused. It must be because she’d seen that funny cap this morning. The man wearing the cap had told her he was from North Dakota. She smiled, because it was the same kind of cap that Reno wore in Dry Creek, Montana.

Whatever possessed her to remember that cap she didn’t know. She also didn’t know why the cap was so appealing. She’d always thought a Stetson on the head of a cowboy was the only kind of hat that would make a woman’s heart race; but that farmer’s cap that Reno had worn made her question all she knew about men’s headwear.

If someone had told her she’d fall for a man in a cap, she would have said they were crazy. Especially a forest-green cap that advertised a yellow tractor, of all things!

But the cap sat on Reno’s head, and that made all the difference. Reno had the chiseled bone structure of a Greek statue and the smooth grace of a man who was used to working outdoors. He wasn’t just tanned, he was bronzed. He didn’t need a cap to make him look good. He made the cap look good.

Chrissy caught her reflection in the small mirror the other waitresses kept by the kitchen door. She wished she could say the same for herself. These days she didn’t make anything look good. She wondered if Reno would even recognize her if he saw her again.

Reno had known her when she still glimmered with her carefully applied Vegas look. Back then, she’d worried about whether her nail polish matched the dress she was wearing that night. She had regular manicures and pedicures and facials. She worried about the bristles in the brush she used to apply just the right shade of blush to just the right area on her cheekbones.

She always looked as much like a fashion model as an ordinary woman could.

At Pete’s Diner, she’d stopped wearing blush. The heat from the kitchen gave her cheeks more than enough color. As for nail polish, she’d given up worrying about what color would even go with the fluorescent-orange uniforms Pete insisted his waitresses wear, and so she left her nails unpolished. Instead of a facial, she was lucky to get a good session of soap and water before Justin woke up.

Now she used lip balm instead of lipstick and kept her hair pulled back. In short, she was a fashion disaster and couldn’t muster up enough energy to even care much about the fact.

She’d actually debated dyeing her hair to match her natural color and letting it grow back brown just because it would be so much easier to take care of that way.

Funny how having a baby can change what is important, Chrissy thought as she picked up a salad order for table number eleven. She’d applied for the job at Pete’s because it was close to her mother’s house and she could use her breaks to walk home to nurse Justin. She hadn’t even cringed at the neon-orange uniforms. She’d have worn a chicken suit if it meant she’d be close to her baby.

Besides, she’d never liked the flash of Vegas all that much. Her whole time in Las Vegas had been spent trying to be the woman Jared wanted her to be. Not that Chrissy blamed Jared. She knew a man liked to have a glamorous woman on his arm, and she had been determined to please Jared. She’d never been a natural beauty, so she knew she had to work at looking good. She’d spent hours at cosmetic counters talking about the latest eye shadows and lip liners.

Now she didn’t have time to do what it took to be fashionable. It was enough if her slip didn’t show. The important people in her life—her baby and her mother—cared more about her smile than her makeup, anyway.

Chrissy’s mother had been more supportive throughout Chrissy’s pregnancy than Chrissy had dared to hope. Chrissy knew from the moment she knew she was pregnant that telling her mother about the baby would be harder than telling Jared.

Chrissy had been a problem to her mother since the day Chrissy was conceived. She was in the first grade when she first heard the word illegitimate. She couldn’t even pronounce the word, and she had no idea what it meant. When she asked her mother about it, her mother had told her it meant Chrissy was a special gift from God and that she shouldn’t worry about that word.

The next month her mother had decided they should move.

Until Chrissy was thirteen, she and her mother had moved almost every year. It was small town to small town to small town. In each town her mother talked about going to the church there, but they never did. Chrissy didn’t know how old she was when she sensed her mother was actually afraid of churches.

Finally her mother decided they’d move back to the Los Angeles area. Big cities, her mother told her, were more forgiving of unmarried mothers on welfare.

In Los Angeles her mother found the courage to go to a church she’d gone to many years ago, and she was happy. She repeatedly invited Chrissy to come to church with her.

Chrissy had refused. She’d finally figured out that her mother had been afraid of churches because of the way people had treated her when she was pregnant with Chrissy. Her mother might be ready to forgive church people, but Chrissy wasn’t.

The closest she’d been to a church recently was the time she’d walked up the steps of the church in Dry Creek looking for a place to sit while she waited for the café to open one morning.

Ah, Dry Creek.

Dry Creek had occupied her mind since she’d left there last fall. She supposed it was unfair to fantasize that the place was her real home, but she did nonetheless.

For some reason, Pete’s Diner had reminded her of Dry Creek. With its worn vinyl booths and fluorescent lights, it looked as solid as the café in Dry Creek. The diner sat squarely between two retirement homes and it had a loyal group of customers. Business here would never be bustling, but it was steady.

When she got the job, Chrissy felt she’d finally landed on her feet. Her mother could stop worrying about her. Chrissy didn’t need to ask to know the worries that were going through her mother’s mind. Her mother didn’t want her to be a welfare mother. She didn’t want Chrissy to have to accept the pity of others because she needed their charity. So the job at Pete’s was important. It showed she could take care of herself and Justin.