скачать книгу бесплатно
And she wasn’t content to limit her new sentimental thoughts of love to herself and her new husband. Oh, no—she had started to speak of marriage with a missionary zeal that made Reno nervous. He had seen the speculation in her eyes several days before she came right out and asked him if he’d like her to set him up.
Set him up! Reno still couldn’t believe it. He and Nicki had had a pact. Neither one of them was going to get married, at least not for love. Of course, they’d made that vow when they were ten and twelve, a good four years after their mother had left their father and they’d heard every day since about the damage love could do from their father’s own bitter lips.
Besides, even if Reno decided to take leave of his senses and look for a wife, he didn’t need his sister doing the looking for him. There were plenty of women who wanted to date him. Granted, he wasn’t exactly in touch with any of them at the moment, but that was only because he was busy feeding the new calves and, well—things.
“I’m getting around to it.” Reno had set his glass of water down on the kitchen counter when Nicki asked her question. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m doing fine.”
“Really, you’ve met someone you want to date?”
Reno scowled. She didn’t need to sound so surprised. “Well, no, but I will—”
“When you have time,” Nicki finished for him, and shook her head. “I know as well as you do that there’s never any extra time when you’re ranching—you have to make time for what’s important.”
“Getting the alfalfa planted is important.”
“With mud like this, you can’t even plow. That’s why Garrett and I decided to go to Denver. There’s nothing to do right now.”
“I can change the plugs on the tractor.”
“Or you could do something fun for a change, like maybe go down to Los Angeles and pay a visit to Chrissy Hamilton.”
Reno was struck dumb. Chrissy was the cousin of Nicki’s new husband, Garrett Hamilton. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you’ve been, well, morose since Chrissy visited here last fall. That’s not like you.”
Morose? Ever since Nicki had married her trucker husband, she’d started learning a new word every day. Reno didn’t like to discourage anyone who wanted to learn. Still…“That’s not because of Chrissy.”
Well, Reno admitted to himself, it might be a little bit because of Chrissy, but it wasn’t in the way his sister thought.
Chrissy had come to Dry Creek last fall looking for Reno and Nicki’s mother. Before Chrissy moved back to Los Angeles, she had been a waitress in the Las Vegas casino where their mother worked. The two had become friends, and Reno could understand why.
If Chrissy was upsetting to him, it was only because she reminded him of his mother. Both women had that high-wattage, bright-color sway that went with a place like Las Vegas. They wore fancy sequin dresses with the same ease that women in Dry Creek wore their aprons.
It was clear that neither his mother nor Chrissy belonged in Dry Creek, and that’s why Chrissy had bothered him. Really the only reason she still bothered him, he told himself.
Nicki looked at him as if she didn’t believe him. “You’re not still afraid to get married, are you?”
“Huh?”
Nicki had the grace to blush. “I know we both said we would never get married, but we were kids. What did we know?”
“We knew what Dad told us.”
“Ah, well, he only saw one side of being married. If he’d known there were people out there like Garrett, who can really love someone, he wouldn’t have wanted us to stay single all our lives.”
Reno decided he shouldn’t argue with his sister on this one. “I suppose he might have been okay with you marrying.”
Nicki looked relieved. “And you, too.”
Reno doubted all of it. He had known his father. But he held his tongue.
“Anyway, here’s Chrissy’s address and phone number,” Nicki said as she pulled a piece of paper out of her jeans pocket and set it on the kitchen counter. “You could at least call and talk to her—or write her a letter or something.”
With that, Nicki turned and walked away.
She might as well have left a stick of live dynamite on the kitchen counter.
Reno just stared at the paper.
He didn’t tell his sister that he didn’t need to call Chrissy or write her a letter to find out if the two of them were destined for some kind of wedded bliss. For even a little bit of bliss to happen, the woman would have to like him, and it appeared the very thought of dating him made Chrissy Hamilton want to cry.
Even someone as lovestruck as his sister would have to agree that was not a good sign. Fortunately, no one knew about him and Chrissy.
When Chrissy had been at the ranch last fall, he’d decided to invite her to eat dinner at the café in Dry Creek with him. He hadn’t thought it was any big deal. He’d spent the afternoon convincing himself that just because her green-gray eyes made him want to take up painting storm clouds, that was no reason to think he was interested in anything but getting to know someone who could tell him more about his mother.
He’d even stopped himself from wondering about Chrissy’s lips once he decided they looked as soft as they did because of some sort of Las Vegas beauty trick.
No, he’d put all that aside. Dinner was just a logical thing. Hamburgers and fries for two hungry people at the café in Dry Creek. Maybe spaghetti and garlic bread, if they had it. He’d started out by saying there was no reason to go to any trouble and change clothes and they both had to eat, so would she like to come with him to eat at the—
That’s as far as he’d got before she’d given him a stricken look and started to cry. He hadn’t known what to do but take her in his arms and let her sob against his last clean shirt. After the first burst of tears had ended, she’d pulled back and looked embarrassed. Her cheeks had been pink, and her eyes had dared him to ask about her tears.
Before he could say anything, she’d thanked him for the invitation in a businesslike voice and added she was sorry she couldn’t date him. She was also sorry about the shirt, she said, and added that a little bleach should take the mascara out.
By then he couldn’t say he hadn’t been asking her out on a date, so he’d just thanked her for the laundry tip. He hadn’t added that he was surprised. He’d never figured someone like Chrissy would know anything about laundry.
Fortunately, no one knew about any of this, and Reno wasn’t about to tell anyone. He picked up the slip of paper from the kitchen counter, intending to crumple it up and throw it away. He should be glad Chrissy wasn’t interested in him.
Reno was cautious when it came to women. Even if he hadn’t had his father to remind him of how fickle women could be, his mother had taught him that some women just weren’t meant to live on a ranch.
Life on the Redfern Ranch could never compete with the excitement of a big city. Ranch life was plain, good living, and that was all Reno wanted, but he knew there was no theater, no fine dining, no museums, no upscale shopping.
A Vegas cocktail waitress like Chrissy would never stay in a place like Dry Creek any more than his mother had. Oh, Chrissy might think it was quaint and amusing enough for a week or so, but in the long term she’d leave. Dry Creek would never be enough for her.
Yes, throwing away that piece of paper his sister had left on the counter was the only sensible thing to do. Reno said those words to himself, but for some strange reason he didn’t listen. Instead, he folded the piece of paper into a small square and put it in his shirt pocket.
He told himself he’d throw it away tomorrow. When tomorrow came, he told himself it wouldn’t hurt to wait until the next day.
That was two weeks ago Monday, and he no longer even bothered to lie to himself. Every day when he changed his shirt, he moved that piece of paper to the new pocket.
Reno shook his head. This past Saturday he’d actually looked at a map to see which freeways he’d need to take if he drove down to Los Angeles. He’d gone so far as to remind himself he’d never seen the Pacific Ocean and had a good reason to drive down to Los Angeles, quite apart from seeing Chrissy. A man ought to see the ocean some time in his life.
Reno scraped his feet on the porch of the hardware store. At least no one in Dry Creek knew about that slip of paper in his pocket or the foolish thoughts going around in his head. He wouldn’t have had any peace if they did. Sometimes it felt as if he had a dozen grandparents, each one of them anxious for him to date someone so they could plan a wedding and then begin the more serious business of knitting baby booties.
Reno didn’t know why the seniors in Dry Creek were so set on babies. But all he heard these days were wistful remarks that, given all the marriages in Dry Creek lately, it sure was a shame there weren’t any babies.
No, he didn’t want the people of Dry Creek to know he was even thinking of visiting Chrissy. They’d start putting their hopes on him, and he’d only let them down.
Chapter Two
Reno opened the door. The hardware store was silent, and for a brief second the light was such that Reno thought no one was inside. Then he saw all his neighbors, and they saw him. It was a toss-up as to who was more startled.
“It’s that clay mud,” Reno finally said as he stepped inside. They were looking at him as if he were covered with tar or something toxic. “I guess I look a little odd.”
“You look just fine,” Mrs. Hargrove declared stoutly as she smoothed down the skirt of her checked gingham dress. Mrs. Hargrove had to be eighty years old, and she’d worn the same set of gingham dresses since the late 1950s. She had one in every color of the rainbow. A good dress, she told folks, never wore out as long as you took care of it. Over the dress she wore a black wool sweater that had been stretched out by too many washes. She had rubber boots on her feet and a paperback mystery stuffed into the pocket of her sweater.
Reno stopped and stood still. If Mrs. Hargrove had to defend him that strongly, he must look worse than he thought. She’d been his Sunday-school teacher years ago, and she was loyal to her students. He’d been in the first grade when he’d realized that she fussed with her hair or her dress on the few occasions she was nervous. She’d done it when Randy McCall asked where Eve got her babies from, and she was doing it now.
Mrs. Hargrove reached up and patted her gray hair to make sure her bun was secure. She could have saved herself the effort. Mrs. Hargrove’s hair wouldn’t dare misbehave, any more than the first-grade boys would have years ago.
“If someone will just hand me my mail, I’ll step back to the porch,” Reno offered as he looked down. He must have left giant tracks on the clean floor or something, but the floor was already muddy, and not with his footprints. “I’ll have to remember this one for April Fools’ Day. I don’t think Lester got this much of a reaction when he dressed up like Elvis and went to the café for breakfast. Who would have thought he was that much of a clown?”
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.”
