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Chrissy grimaced. “I know. All they want to do to him is take him away from me.”
Chrissy turned at the sound of another car driving down their street much too fast. The car braked and her mother stepped out and started running toward the house. “Chrissy!”
“I’m over here, Mom,” Chrissy called from the car window.
Then she stepped out of the car and into her mother’s arms.
Reno watched Chrissy hug her mother. So Chrissy was coming back to Dry Creek with him. He wished it hadn’t taken a fire to make her decide. It sure hadn’t been his charm that had swayed her in the direction of Dry Creek. Still, he’d feel better knowing she and Justin would be where he could keep an eye on them. Strangers would be easy to spot in Dry Creek.
Reno remembered the interstate that ran past the Dry Creek exit and frowned. A car could pull into the town at night and no one would notice. Chrissy and Justin would be a lot safer at the Redfern Ranch than in Dry Creek. His dog, Hunter, would frighten off any trouble from the city. Maybe once he got Chrissy and Justin to Dry Creek he could mention the safety of the ranch.
Chapter Five
The smell of burned wood and rubber hung in the air as Chrissy put a box into the trunk of Mrs. Hargrove’s car. The car was parked in the Velarde driveway, and Chrissy’s mother was inside at the Velarde kitchen table. Most of what Chrissy owned had been burned in the fire, so Mrs. Velarde had given her a cardboard box to pack what was left. Quite a few of Justin’s things were all right, because they had been with him at the Velarde house.
The only other things that Chrissy still owned for herself were several sequin-dresses from her days as a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas. She’d given the dresses to Mrs. Velarde to keep for the Salvation Army truck when it came by for donations. Now she’d need to wear them sometimes, even if it was only when she had her orange waitress uniform in the washing machine.
The small box fit into the trunk beside the spare tire. It wasn’t much to start a life with, and Chrissy was glad Reno had sounded as if he felt she could find a job. If she had a job, she could buy some more clothes and a few toys for Justin.
Her mother had surprised Chrissy by urging her to move to Dry Creek.
“The Lord knows you’re used to moving. I’d feel better knowing the two of you are safe,” Chrissy’s mother said as she looked over at Reno and smiled slightly. “Besides, I’ll know you’re with family there, and that makes me feel better.”
Reno frowned. “We’re not really related. Just by marriage. We’re not cousins.”
Chrissy’s mother smiled more broadly. “Oh, I know that. I meant Garrett. He’ll be there, won’t he?”
“Oh, yeah, in a few days.”
Chrissy’s mother nodded. “Chrissy has always been fond of Garrett. Besides, I may be able to move up there, too, when I wrap things up here with the fire.”
Chrissy had told the fire captain about her suspicions, and he had written everything down, even Mrs. Bard’s full name and Jared’s phone number. The captain said the fire looked as if it had started on the outside wall by the garage. There was nothing electrical around, and although they wouldn’t know for sure until they did some testing, he thought the fire had been started with gasoline. Of course, he added, whoever set it was probably only intending to scare Chrissy and her mother and not actually burn the house down. If someone had been home, they would have smelled the smoke long before the house burned.
The streetlights made shadows on the asphalt, and Chrissy was glad Reno had agreed to leave tonight for Dry Creek. She got nervous every time a car drove down the street. Would that lawyer send someone to see if she was still there?
Once, a black sedan stopped at the end of the street, and she didn’t relax until she heard the music being turned up loud. It was some old sixties music that she hadn’t heard for a long time. She recognized some Beatles songs and a Carpenters song. Then she heard the Mrs. Robinson song. It was odd music for teenagers, but who else would turn the music up like that? The black sedan wasn’t a kid car, but it might belong to one of their fathers.
Chrissy shook her head. She wasn’t used to feeling spooked, and the more miles she put between herself and Los Angeles, the better she’d feel.
“You’ll call Pete’s and explain?” Chrissy reminded her mother. Ordinarily, Chrissy wouldn’t leave a job without giving notice, but she knew Pete would be relieved to have one less employee to worry about in the sale of the diner.
Chrissy’s mother nodded. “And you call when you get to Dry Creek. I’ll be staying with Mrs. Velarde for a few days.”
It was past midnight before Chrissy strapped Justin into his infant seat and crawled into the back seat herself. “Let me know if you want me to drive.”
“Maybe you can get some sleep.” Reno came around the side of the car with a blanket and handed it to her.
“I’m happy to help drive.” Chrissy hugged the blanket to her. It smelled of peppermint, and she couldn’t wait to snuggle into its warmth. “You haven’t had any sleep either.”
“I had a nap this afternoon with Justin.” Reno slid into the driver’s seat and checked the mirrors. He frowned a minute and then opened the car door again. Standing outside, he twisted the red ball off the antenna. “This car is odd enough, but with that red thing sticking up like that, a blind man could follow us to Dry Creek.”
Chrissy fell asleep before Reno got on Interstate 15. He noticed her stir at the first sound of Justin’s crying at dawn. There was desert on both sides of the car and a string of cars behind them on the single-lane highway.
“Do you want to stop in Vegas? We’re coming up on the city.” Reno looked back at Chrissy and held his breath. It had occurred to him somewhere around Barstow that Chrissy might want to stop in Vegas and stay there with Jared or at least visit him and show him their baby. Reno knew she’d said she wasn’t returning to Jared, but sometimes people didn’t know what they wanted until it was in front of them.
“If you don’t mind,” Chrissy said sleepily. “Any gas station will do. I should nurse Justin.”
Reno started to breathe again. “No problem.”
The casinos of Vegas stood straight ahead on the road like giant cartoon buildings. In the gathering dawn they looked almost eerie with their flashing lights. Reno pulled into the next gas station that he saw also had a pay phone.
He’d decided to call Mrs. Hargrove so she could post a sign in the café asking for someone to work as her housekeeper. As proud as Chrissy was, she wouldn’t accept a job that she thought was created just for her. A sign on the bulletin board in the café when she got there should convince her that Mrs. Hargrove’s job was legitimate. Chrissy wouldn’t need to know Reno was the one paying her salary.
Chrissy sat in the back seat of the car while Reno made his phone call. She was glad he’d decided he had some things to do so that she could nurse Justin in private. She loved these moments with Justin, even though being this close to Las Vegas made her nervous. When Justin was satisfied, she rearranged her blouse and looked around.
Chrissy rolled down the car window and glanced at the other cars in the gas station. Was it her imagination, or could she hear the same songs that she’d heard when she packed up earlier to leave with Reno? Yes, there it was—the faint sound of the Mrs. Robinson song.
She looked around more closely. None of the cars at the pumps looked familiar. Besides, the music was probably from a CD, and there could be millions of copies of the song. She looked over the cars at the pump again. She didn’t see a black sedan, and that’s what had been in her neighborhood.
Chrissy was glad when she saw Reno walking toward the car. He’d gone into the minimart and was carrying a white bag and two cartons.
“I got us some milk and donuts.” Reno slid the items through the open window and into Chrissy’s waiting hands.
“Thanks. What do I owe you?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I can pay.” Chrissy had about thirty dollars in her purse. Her mother was going to send the check from Pete that would cover the hours Chrissy had worked this week. “I might need to owe for the gas, but I can pay for the food as we go.”
“You don’t need to pay for the gas. I was coming this way anyway.”
Chrissy couldn’t think of any reason Reno would drive to Los Angeles. When she’d visited him on his ranch, he’d made a point of telling her that he never traveled.
“I don’t take charity,” Chrissy reminded him, reaching into her purse and pulling out two dollar bills. “Here.”
“I’m not that poor.” Reno frowned at her in the rearview mirror as he started the car. “I can pay for everything.”
If Chrissy had been looking around instead of arguing with Reno, she would have noticed that the music she’d heard had gotten a little louder, and that a black sedan pulled out from the other side of the minimart before backing up so it was no longer in view.
“We’ll split the cost of the gas,” Chrissy finally said. “I’ll pay you back when I get my check.”
Reno grunted in response as he drove the car out of the gas station area.
“You never did say what brought you to Los Angeles,” Chrissy said a few minutes later. Surely he hadn’t driven that far just to give her a ride back to Dry Creek. Of course not. He hadn’t even known she would want to move back there.
“I went to see the ocean.”
“Oh, and did you like it?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You mean you didn’t stop and see it?”
Reno shrugged. “I’m young. I’ve got lots of years to go see the ocean.”
“I wish I’d known that’s why you came. I could have stayed in Los Angeles another day if you wanted to go to the beach.”
“It’s all right.”
Chrissy shifted in the back seat. “It would have been fun to show you the ocean. We could have gone to the pier and ridden the old carousel.”
“I bet Justin will like that in a few years.”
Chrissy tried to ignore the picture forming in her mind of her and Reno and Justin going on a beach vacation. That was something that would never happen. He hadn’t even said that. She knew Reno was being kind. But by the time Justin was old enough to ride a carousel, Reno would have grown tired of befriending a single mother. That was another lesson she had learned from her mother’s past. The occasional man who had wanted to date her mother was usually not interested in being an instant father, and so he hadn’t lasted long as a friend to her mother, either.
Chrissy could tell the difference in the air as soon as they drove into Montana. Justin was sleeping, and the inside of the car was peaceful. They came into the state on Interstate 15 and turned off on Interstate 90 at Butte to head east.
The farming area smelled fertile with rain and wild grass. Clouds gathered ahead of them when they passed the downtown area of Miles City and began the last miles leading to Dry Creek.
Chrissy felt her whole body relax as she watched the space around her. Now, why had she never noticed how little space there was in Los Angeles? Everywhere you looked in L.A. something stopped you from seeing very far. But here in Montana nothing stopped a person’s gaze except for the Rocky Mountains to the northwest and the gentle slopes of the mountains to the east that she knew were called the Big Sheep Mountains.
“Are there any sheep?” Chrissy asked. “In the mountains.”
“Not for years since the cattle took over,” Reno replied as he made the turn off the interstate to go into Dry Creek.
Chrissy took a deep breath. She was really going back. She hoped Reno hadn’t exaggerated the welcome she would receive. She kept pushing her nervousness to the back of her mind, since it was too late to turn back anyway. “Are there a lot of cattle in Dry Creek?”
“More cattle than people.” He paused. “I hope that doesn’t bother you.”
“Bother me? Why would it bother me?”
“Some women might find Dry Creek lacking in excitement after life in the big city.”
“Oh, look—” Chrissy pointed to the curve in the road. The gravel road widened a little at that point. Instead of snowbanks there was wild grass on the edge of the road, but Chrissy recognized the place anyway. “That’s where we met.”
She blushed. That hadn’t come out right. “I mean the night when your truck broke down—”
“—and you gave me a ride.” Reno finished the sentence for her as he slowed to a stop. “I remember. That was some night.”
Chrissy remembered that night, too. If she hadn’t been so angry, she never would have decided to drive her cousin’s truck to Dry Creek, even though Garrett had left the keys with her and given her a couple of lessons on how to shift the gears on the sixteen-wheel truck. But the minute she’d discovered Jared with another woman—in the most “with someone” sense possible—she hadn’t been able to stay in Las Vegas.
Her instincts had told her to go to Dry Creek to find her cousin, and that was all she’d wanted to do. “When I was in trouble, I always looked for Garrett.”
“He’s a good man.”
Chrissy wondered if Reno even knew that it wasn’t Garrett who had eased her pain on that trip. Reno had given her all the sympathy she needed, until by the time she left Dry Creek last fall, she’d realized she didn’t need so much sympathy after all.
That night they met, she had managed to drive the truck fine on the interstate, but once Chrissy had turned off on the gravel road into Dry Creek, the truck started to cough. She’d never seen a night as dark as that cloudless, moonless one.
She’d been half spooked by the lights of a stalled truck ahead, but also half relieved. Maybe the other driver could tell her what to do about that coughing in the motor.
Chrissy had pulled the truck as far to the shoulder of the road as she could before she’d opened the door and climbed down from the cab. She’d left Vegas in such a hurry that she hadn’t changed her dress or grabbed a coat. She was still wearing the short glittery white dress that Jared had picked out as her wedding dress.
The night air had been cold enough that her arms were covered with goose bumps. Her hair, bleached a champagne blond to please Jared and curled to sweep away from her face, had lost any sense of fashion around Salt Lake City and become so wind-blown that it looked as if she’d taken a fan to it instead of a curling iron.
At first Chrissy had thought the other truck was deserted and her heart sank. Then she’d seen the long denim-clad legs lying on the ground under the truck’s engine. When the rest of Reno slowly crawled out from under the truck, she’d stopped in her tracks.
She had expected to meet a short, stocky farmer with thinning hair who would be shy and happy to help her. Instead, she’d seen a guy who should be plastered on every month of some hunk-of-the-year calendar, and her heart had sunk even further. Good-looking men, in her experience, really didn’t even try to be as helpful as plain-looking ones.
Bringing herself back to the present, Chrissy glanced up at Reno in the mirror. She had to admit that he was confusing for a good-looking guy. He didn’t act as if he was superior. And he had certainly been helpful to her. “I’m usually not as crazy as I was that night.”
“I thought you were an angel,” Reno said simply.
Chrissy glanced up again and saw Reno looking back at her. Since she was in the back seat to be close to Justin, she and Reno had carried on long conversations through the mirror for two days now. Chrissy kind of liked the flirtatious way it made her feel.
“It was dark out.”
Reno grinned. “And you sparkled with all that glitter on your dress. It was an honest mistake. I didn’t think to check for wings.”
“Not many angels pull up in a sixteen-wheeler truck.”
“They do when your own truck is dead and it’s cold enough outside to freeze your toes off.” Reno paused. “I never thought of it, but I owe you for the ride that night.”
“Of course you don’t owe me,” Chrissy said a little more sharply than she’d intended. Justin moved in his sleep and lifted his fist up to his mouth.
“You keep saying you owe me for this trip we’re taking right now. If you owe me for this ride, then I owe you for that ride.”
“It’s not the same,” Chrissy said softly.
“You might have saved my life. It was cold enough that night for a man to freeze to death. So I owe you for more than just the ride. I owe you for—preventive medical services.”
“You would have found a way to keep warm.”
Chrissy blushed. She suddenly remembered the way Reno had kept them warm that night. He’d wrapped blankets around them both individually and then wrapped himself and his blankets spoon fashion around her on the small bed in the back of the cab of her cousin’s truck. Chrissy couldn’t ever remember feeling so warm and safe.
“Well, I’m willing to call it even between us if you are,” Reno said. “I won’t pay you for that trip and you won’t pay me for this one.”
“I can’t pay you anyway until I get my check or find a job,” Chrissy pointed out as she reached over to rub Justin’s back. He was starting to wake up, and she liked him to know she was there. “So until then we can call it even.”
Reno grunted as he turned the car’s wheel to the right. “We’ll call it even—period. I don’t want you giving your wages to me.”
As Reno made the wide turn, Chrissy saw the small town of Dry Creek come into view in the distance. “We’re almost there.”
The sky was partially cloudy, but there was no wind. She could tell because someone had white sheets hanging on a clothesline and they did not move. The snow flurries that had covered Dry Creek most of the time she was here last were gone. In their place were broad stretches of mud. Someone had put wooden planks around so people could walk without stepping in the puddles. She noticed two extra-wide planks in front of Mrs. Hargrove’s house. No doubt someone had put them there so the older woman would be able to walk more easily.
The planks were an act of kindness that touched Chrissy. Dry Creek wasn’t a dressed-up town like Las Vegas, but the people here cared about each other. Chrissy wondered if they could care about her and Justin, as well.
She didn’t want the trip to end. She’d been comfortable thinking about going to Dry Creek, but she wasn’t so sure she was comfortable actually arriving here.
