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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.
And then two minutes ago, one of the other waitresses had told Chrissy that Pete wanted to see her in his office.
Don’t think it’s bad news, Chrissy told herself as she knocked on the door outside the office. Just because she’d been caught in the rush of layoffs at other restaurants lately, it was no reason to panic. There had to be a dozen reasons that Pete might want to talk to her. Maybe the fry cook had told him it had been her idea to offer a shaker of salt substitute on the table along with the regular salt and pepper.
“Come in.”
Pete was probably grateful that she was concerned about his customers’ health, Chrissy told herself as she took a deep breath.
“Please sit,” Pete said as he looked up from some papers. Pete had been a semipro football player before he bought the diner thirty years ago and, even with the gray hairs on his balding head, Chrissy thought he still looked as if he would be more comfortable on a football field than behind a desk.
“You wanted to see me?” Chrissy sat down on the folding chair opposite Pete’s desk.
Pete nodded and then swallowed. He opened his mouth and then closed it again.
“Is it about the salt substitute?” Chrissy asked. She couldn’t stand the silence. Please, let it be the salt substitute. “I haven’t heard any customers complain. Except for Mr. Jenkins. But he thought it was sugar and put it in his tea.”
“Oh, yes, the salt substitute.” Pete looked relieved. “It’s never too early to pay attention to good health. I should have thought of offering a salt substitute years ago. Someone mentioned it to the dietitian at the retirement home down the street, and she recommended us to some of the residents who’d never been here before.”
“So business is good.” Chrissy was starting to feel better.
“It’s never been better. That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, I—”
Chrissy’s cell phone chose this moment to ring. She told herself to ignore it. But she’d gotten the phone only so that Mrs. Velarde could call her. Mrs. Velarde lived across the street from Chrissy’s mother and was baby-sitting little Justin temporarily. Chrissy was having as much trouble keeping baby-sitters as she was keeping jobs. She knew the call was about Justin.
“Excuse me,” Chrissy said finally as she reached around to unclip the phone from her belt. “I need to get this.”
She turned her shoulder slightly and said a low hello into the cell phone.
“There’s a man,” Mrs. Velarde almost shrieked into the cell phone. “You told me to watch out for a man prowling around, and he’s here!”
“Jared’s there?” Chrissy was shocked. When she had warned Mrs. Velarde to watch out for Jared, she had never expected him to make the drive down from Las Vegas to see Justin. The bond that had held her and Jared together in high school was no longer even a thread.
Jared had learned that money could buy friends since he’d gotten access to his trust fund, and he no longer needed Chrissy. With his new friends, his life had unraveled even further in the months since Chrissy had left him. He’d told her he was glad she was gone, because now he could date women who really knew how to party.
