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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.