White Christmas in Dry Creek

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“I don’t see—”

He just held out his hand.

“Well, fine, then.” She gave him the scraper and he took her place at the windshield. She hadn’t expected him to do much with it, but he started in on the bottom corner of the windshield, scraping away until the cleared space grew larger.

“You might as well wait inside,” he finally said and opened the cab door for her with his left hand. “This is going to take a few minutes.”

Renee went inside and turned the heat on. She decided something was highly suspicious about this man. He’d done half of the windshield now, walked around the pickup to the other side and was still scraping so hard she thought both his shoulders must hurt. But he didn’t grimace or slow down. Or look irritated. In fact, she thought she heard him whistling, low and quiet. For some reason, that reminded her of the gangster who would never walk past a cat without petting it enough to make it purr. There was something unnatural about so much goodwill in a man like him, who’d seen so much violence.

Renee refused to watch his progress, so she looked out her side window. Last night’s blizzard had left a foot of snow on the ground and the tire tracks in the parking lot were deep. Fortunately, she already knew the county plow had cleared the freeway between Miles City and the Dry Creek exit, so they would be able to get through.

When Rusty finally opened the passenger door and pulled himself inside, his cheeks were red from the freezing air and a few snowflakes sparkled in his black hair. He bent down to set the scraper on the floor mat and then straightened up to rub his hand against his jeans. He might have just been warming it, but she suspected his actions meant he felt satisfied with what he’d done.

“Thank you,” Renee said and looked over at him with her best fake smile. He had brushed the snow off of the hood, too. “But I could see well enough out of the little patch I cleared. You really didn’t need to go to all that work.”

Rusty grunted. “I certainly did if I wanted to be sure I’d live to see another day. A soldier is only as good as his equipment. What if a vehicle suddenly decides to pass on your blind side?”

“Well—” She pursed her lips and put the pickup in gear, backing out of the parking space. “People shouldn’t be going that fast on these kinds of roads anyway.”

Renee didn’t regret the self-righteous tone in her voice. Who was he to lecture her on safety? She wasn’t the one riding around at night on a pregnant horse and getting shot at, for goodness’ sake.

She turned around in the clinic lot and drove to the parking exit. She looked both ways, just to show she was safety minded, and then eased the vehicle onto the main road.

“People don’t always do what you’d expect,” Rusty said and his voice had an element in it that hadn’t been there before. It wasn’t quite amusement, but it was something just as warm. “Sometimes people surprise you.”

He looked at her and that was when she knew he wasn’t speaking about the other drivers on the road. For the first time this morning, she felt nervous. He meant her.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked as she steered the pickup onto the freeway.

He shrugged. “Just that a man never knows.”

She didn’t look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her.

“If you’re talking about that invitation to stay at the ranch, it came from my boss. I was only following orders.” The windshield was going to need defrosting in addition to the scraping.

“It’s not the invitation,” Rusty said.

“Well, then?” No other vehicles were around her, so she turned to glance at him.

“You took my shirt off, didn’t you?” he finally said.

She turned her eyes back to the road ahead. She could feel the embarrassment crawl up her neck and warm her cheeks. She reached over and moved the heat knob to the defrost setting. She should have known the man was difficult after all that windshield business. No one scraped the full windshield.

“And you did it while I was unconscious,” the man added for emphasis, making it seem much worse than it was.

“It’s not what it sounds like,” Renee said as she turned onto the ramp leading to the freeway. “I was checking you for guns.”

“I don’t have a gun,” he said, taking the same tone she had over all the unnecessary scraping he had done.

“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” Renee looked over at him in exasperation. “You had a bullet in your shoulder. Only a fool doesn’t have a gun if they are going to be out there getting shot at.”

There was a little slickness to the asphalt. Renee was glad there wasn’t much traffic. Even that slow-moving pickup ahead of them wouldn’t be a problem.

Everything was quiet in the cab.

“I know you’re worried about weapons,” Rusty said then. “So I forgive you.”

She turned sharply to face him. “There’s nothing to forgive. The police dispatcher asked me to check. It was—ah—official.”

At that very moment, a burst of morning sun broke through the overcast sky above them and shone through the side window, bathing Rusty in all its glory. He’d managed to shave before leaving the hospital and he looked positively virtuous. She could hardly believe he was the same dangerous-looking man from last night. His black hair drooped softly over his forehead and the dark circles under his eyes had almost disappeared.

He turned to look at her and arched an eyebrow. “The police dispatcher asked you to take off my shirt?”

“I didn’t—” Renee stammered. She suddenly remembered she had opened up his shirt after she’d looked for a gun. And Betty hadn’t told her to unbutton anything. “I didn’t take it all of the way off.”

“That’s okay.” Rusty spread his fingers in a V, making the traditional peace gesture. “I already said I forgive you.”

“If you would just listen,” Renee said then, her temper giving her voice substance, “my only concern is that if you’re going to get shot, you should have a gun! You need to defend yourself. No reason to be target practice for someone. Or can’t you shoot a gun?”

Renee knew she was making no sense. She hadn’t wanted him to have a gun until she realized he was in danger.

“I can shoot,” he said grimly. The clouds returned and the sunlight around him fell away.

Renee should have known he’d be familiar with guns. He had been in the army, after all. Still, she’d been up half of the night thinking about what could have happened to him out there in the darkness with someone gunning for him. There were miles and miles of ranch land and only a few buildings in this part of Montana. He could have ridden around all night and not found a single inhabited house. If the man was going to take on a life of crime—and she suspected that was the case even though the sheriff hadn’t found any proof yet—he needed to approach it with some common sense.

“I guess you could always get one of those vests that the police wear,” she added when he didn’t say anything. “I don’t know where you buy them, but Sheriff Wall would know.”

Rusty turned and looked at her for some time. “You’re really worried about me, aren’t you?”

He sounded astonished.

“Just because I don’t want to see you dead doesn’t mean I care,” she snapped back at him in a not-so-nice way. Which made her feel bad.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been under a lot of strain lately.”

He held his hand up again with that ridiculous peace gesture. She wished he’d say something, but he just sat there.

Well, Renee told herself, this was turning into one uncomfortable drive.

She scrambled to find something else to talk about. “Did they feed you breakfast before they let you go?” His silence was making her feel rattled. She was only trying to show a little human compassion. He didn’t need to be so difficult.

The best way to treat this man, she decided, was to pretend he was nothing but another ranch hand. He was younger than most of the men Mr. Elkton had working for him these days and certainly better-looking, but he probably liked to eat as much as any of them. The truth was that some of the men could spend hours describing the perfect pancake. And then they’d start in on the different kinds of syrups they liked to have with their perfect pancakes.

“The nurse gave me a biscuit and some coffee,” Rusty said without enthusiasm. “Cream for the coffee.”

“Well, that’s not enough,” Renee protested congenially. In addition to talking about food, the ranch hands loved to complain about it. “You lost a lot of blood. They should have fried you some beef liver or something.”

“For breakfast?” he protested.

Renee nodded. “It’s got lots of iron. Beets do, too.”

“That doesn’t mean I want beets for breakfast.”

“Well, oatmeal, then—with raisins.”

By the time they finished talking about what kinds of food were appropriate for the breakfast of a man who had been wounded and half-frozen the night before, they were turning off the freeway and heading into Dry Creek.

There was more snow on the road now and Renee was glad all the Elkton pickups had four-wheel drive. She’d also chosen the one that had a back bench, so there was lots of room for Tessie’s booster seat. Her daughter didn’t officially need it anymore, but she’d only just turned five and she was small for her age.

“Don’t they ever change that sign instead of just repainting over the numbers?” Rusty scowled as he nodded his head toward the green metal sign that read Welcome to Dry Creek. “I think it said population one-oh-eight when I was here last. Now, eight years later, it’s population one-oh-two. The two looks funny.”

Renee loved that sign. In the spring, someone always planted gladiolus bulbs in the dirt beside it and the flowers bloomed in all kinds of colors for almost a month. It reminded Renee of English tea shops and elegant nurseries. Not that Dry Creek had either of those, but somehow, she told herself, they had the same spirit.

“Just because someone moves away is no reason to throw out a perfectly good sign,” Renee said as she took a firmer grip on the wheel and sat up straighter in the driver’s seat. “Don’t know why anyone would want to leave, but some do.”