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“It means nothing. I was joking when I said what I did. There’s no miracle answer to prayer going on here.”
“But—”
Conrad ignored his uncle. “The fact is, I’ve been thinking I should ask Tracy at the Quick Clip in Miles City out to dinner.”
“Really? Linda at the diner said you two might make a couple.”
Conrad nodded. He was glad to see someone else had some sense. “We’d be comfortable together.”
“Comfortable?” Uncle Charley exclaimed with a frown.
Katrina turned around and looked at them in puzzlement.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Conrad said to her and she went back to her window Then he turned to his uncle and said in a low voice, “Yes. Safe and comfortable.”
They were both silent for a minute.
“It’s my fault you’re willing to settle for that,” Uncle Charley said, his voice upset. “I should have paid more attention to you when your mother died. I didn’t know your father was so wrapped up in his grief he wasn’t even home most of the time.”
“We got by.”
“Yes, but—”
“I do okay,” Conrad said. He could hardly even talk about those days after his mother died. Some things were just better left unsaid. There was no undoing what happened anyway.
The older man nodded and started to walk away.
Conrad didn’t mean to upset his uncle. The man was only trying to help him out.
Just then it struck him. “Why, you don’t even know any young blondes to use in the picture of that sign. How are you going to find a model?”
His uncle winked at him. “I figure that’s your department.”
“My—” Conrad was speechless. How was he supposed to find a pretty blonde willing to pose by an old stop sign?
No one said anything for a moment.
“It could be she’s innocent,” his uncle finally added with a nod toward the window. “Just like she says. I’d hate to think we treated her unfairly in Dry Creek if she is. God wants us to do better than that.”
Conrad didn’t have a chance to answer because just then Katrina stepped back from the window. She was beaming.
“I think I saw it,” she said.
Conrad sighed. His uncle was right. He needed to see that she was given the benefit of the doubt. If for no other reason than that she was still his customer. He’d built his business on doing everything he could for his customers. Usually, that didn’t include standing beside them as they were arrested, of course, but he would do what he could. Besides, seeing her with her face lit up touched him somehow. No wonder he’d been willing to put a two-hundred-dollar muffler on her car and not charge her for it. The woman was a wonder. Well, either that or a very good actress. He wished he knew which it was.
Chapter Three
Katrina turned around and looked through the window into the garage. Fifteen more minutes had passed and the sheriff was still talking to the boys. She hadn’t noticed until now, but someone had turned on a radio and a big band tune was playing softly. She saw the radio sitting on a green file cabinet behind the desk. She hadn’t heard the soft static of a radio in years. It must have been Conrad’s uncle who thought of the music since he was standing over there looking pleased with himself.
She looked up at the older man’s lined face. “Thanks. Dance music always cheers me up.”
She tapped her hands against her leg in time to the music just to show him she was feeling better.
The old man’s face lit up. “I had a hunch you might be a dancer. Conrad dances, too, you know.”
Katrina heard a garbled sound over by the door. Conrad had his hands in his pockets and a look of panic on his face. She half expected him to open the door and rush outside to check the gas pumps, but he didn’t.
“In junior high,” he muttered to her instead and then gave a dark look to his uncle. “I don’t dance now.”
“It’s like riding a bicycle,” the old man said as he bobbed his head to the beat of the music. “It’ll come back to you.”
“I fell off my bicycle. Remember?”
“Well, at first, but you got the hang of it,” his uncle said and then paused. “Later.”
Katrina wondered if dance moves did come back. “I took some ballet in junior high.”
Conrad shot her a look of pure terror. “I could never do ballet.”
“Nonsense,” his uncle said. “You got back on that bike until you could ride it. And you suited up as a clown at the last rodeo. That takes more nerve than ballet.”
“I only did it because the real clown didn’t show and the riders needed someone to be in the ring with them in case they needed help.”
“So you’d risk your life to help an old cowboy,” his uncle said. “But when it comes to bringing a little pleasure into a beautiful woman’s heart, you fold.”
“Well, I suppose I could dance if someone’s life was on the line,” Conrad conceded.
“You never know what you can do until you have to,” Katrina agreed. She knew the two men were trying to keep her mind off her troubles and she appreciated it.
“I ran into a burning building once,” Conrad offered. “Never thought I’d be able to do that. It was more of a shed than anything, but—”
His face had more color now that they’d stopped talking about dancing.
“That was a fool thing to do,” his uncle scolded. “That old cat never did appreciate it. She scratched you up good. You could have gotten an infection.”
“Well, she’d gotten tangled up in some string and couldn’t get out. I couldn’t just let her die, now could I?”
“No, I suppose not,” his uncle agreed. “I’ve done reckless things, too. I can remember when I went skinny-dipping at the church picnic when we all used to meet at the Big Dry Creek. I was a young daredevil of seven and I thought I was far enough away. Almost didn’t get my clothes on before some ladies came down to see how high the water was in the creek. And there I stood dripping wet in my shirt and pants. Looked like a fool.”
No one said anything for a bit.
“I never thought I’d have the courage to face getting arrested,” Katrina finally added to the list. “But here I am.”
She looked around. Everything in the office was neatly squared off, the stack of invoices on the desktop. The white binders named with different motor companies. Even the way the file cabinets were arranged. The place was pleasantly warm, too, and she had one friend here. Conrad’s uncle seemed to believe she was innocent.
“That sheriff won’t arrest you,” the older man muttered. “He has to stand for reelection in this town. I guess he could hold you for a few days, though.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “He’s only doing his job,”
Then the door from the garage opened and the sheriff came into the office. “I’m sorry. That took longer than I thought it would.”
He didn’t close the door to the garage area.
“Are the boys okay?” she asked as she stepped over to try and see them. The lights were off in the garage and only the subdued sunlight that filtered through the windows made it possible to see. The boys were sitting inside the car again. She could see the tops of their little heads.
The sheriff nodded. “Yeah, they’re doing fine. That older one’s pretty sharp.”
Katrina had no choice but to turn back and look at the lawman even if she wasn’t ready. He had a stern look on his face and it made her think he was expecting the worst. Well, she was expecting something pretty awful, too. And it would be happening to her, not him.
She didn’t see Conrad take a few steps closer to her, but she heard him. She looked up and saw him standing next to her with the same resolve in his face as the lawman had on his. Only Conrad was directing his glare toward the sheriff instead of her.
She took a deep breath. Maybe she had two friends to stand beside her.
“It could be that the plates are stolen,” she said to the sheriff. She tried to keep her voice from pleading. “Maybe the car thieves took Leanne’s plates and put stolen ones on her car just to confuse things.”
“It could have happened that way,” Conrad said.
The sheriff raised his eyebrow in surprise and looked at Conrad for a second before bringing his eyes back to her. “Those boys said you promised them money if they’d come with you today. Did you cross any state lines?”
“No, and I was only going to give them quarters. One for each picture I took with them in it.”
She tried to smile at the sheriff.
He didn’t return the courtesy. “The oldest one seems to think he’ll have enough money to buy something called a Guzmoo or Gazmoo. Sounded like a military tank.”
“It’s a video game and I assure you he isn’t going to make that much.”
Katrina realized that might not make her look good, either, so she added, “I never told him he’d make enough for one of those things. He just got carried away. Besides, they’re my nephews. My sister’s boys.”
“The sister with the car?” the sheriff asked.
She nodded. “Leanne Britton. Well, Rain Tree now. She’s married to—”
“Walker Rain Tree,” the sheriff filled in with a nod. “He sent word through a friend that the car was stolen. Walker lives down on the Crowe reservation. I’ve seen him here and there. Used to work construction in Miles City. Big guy.”
Katrina had only met her brother-in-law once and that was before Leanne married him, but she didn’t want to bring that up right now. She couldn’t imagine why he’d report that Leanne’s car was stolen. Or why Leanne hadn’t stopped him.
“Jobs have been hard to find,” Katrina said. “My sister says he hasn’t worked much in the past year.”
“That’s got to be difficult,” the sheriff said, studying Katrina. “You got employment somewhere yourself?”
Conrad stepped so close she could feel his arm next to hers. “Having a job—not having a job. It’s not a crime.”
Katrina was glad to have Conrad beside her.
The sheriff looked at Conrad again, his eyes narrowing this time. “I thought you didn’t know this woman.”
“He doesn’t,” Katrina said. “He just worries about justice being done and—” She waved vaguely. “Things in general.”
The lawman grunted. “That’s Conrad, all right.”
Then the sheriff turned his attention back to her. “These boys, they don’t seem too sure about you. They say they just met you yesterday. Aunts usually know their nephews, at least by the time they’re six.”
She heard censure in his voice.
“Well, I’ve been busy. And, my sister and I have had our problems.” She looked at the sheriff. She didn’t want to say those problems involved Walker. Katrina had opposed the marriage and her sister hadn’t forgiven her. That didn’t have anything to do with the car anyway. “We really just need to call my sister and straighten this all out. Like I said, these probably aren’t even her license plates.”
“Since Walker is the one who had someone report the car as stolen, I need to clear it with him,” the sheriff said. “You’ve got the phone number?”
“Of course,” Katrina said. “It’s the house number. Neither one of them have cell phones. But my purse is in the car and the number is in there on an old receipt. I’ll get it for you.”
“I’d rather have someone else bring your purse out of the car,” the sheriff said. “If you don’t mind, that is?”
Katrina got the feeling it didn’t matter if she minded or not.
“I’ll get it,” Uncle Charley said as he walked over to the open door leading to the garage.
“There’s some sandwiches in the front seat,” Katrina called out to him as he walked through the doorway. “Those boys are probably hungry. Tell them I’ll bring them some juice in a minute or two.”
She hoped the sheriff noticed that she was trying to take care of her nephews.
“I’ll bring you your coffee back, too,” the older man said from inside the garage.
“Those boys will want a hot meal,” Conrad said quietly beside her. “When we finish here, I’ll take the three of you to the cafе for breakfast. My treat.”
Katrina felt her eyes grow damp again. Really, this man was being very nice.
Then Conrad said, “The sheriff can’t take you to jail until someone comes for the boys anyway. If he can’t reach the parents, he’d have to call Children’s Services in Billings.”
Well, that was an effective douse of cold water, Katrina thought, as she stepped away to look up at her betrayer. Instead of having his eyes aimed at her, though, Conrad had them focused on the sheriff.
It was clear from the twist to the sheriff’s mouth that he hadn’t given any thought to what would happen to the boys if he arrested Katrina. Of course, she knew Leanne would be over here in a few hours once they called her, but the sheriff didn’t.
He just stood there.
“I don’t think I’ve ever arrested someone who had kids with them,” the lawman finally said. “I wasn’t really planning to put her in jail right now anyway. At least not without checking out her story. We have to pay Miles City for room and board every time we give them a prisoner. It adds up.”
“Don’t worry, Leanne will vouch for me,” Katrina said and then stopped. It had already occurred to her that Leanne and Walker might be off somewhere together. Or maybe they’d had a fight and that’s why Walker said the car was stolen. Maybe Leanne was in the Lexus and Walker in his pickup. Either way, they might not get back to answer the phone until late tonight.
“The children seem to check out,” the sheriff conceded. “And I’m not keen to pay Children’s Services. Travel. Meals. And they always take their time. We’re over our budget as it is.”
Conrad pressed his point. “Then while you make your calls, you won’t object to me taking Katrina and the boys to the cafе for something to eat?”
The sheriff shrugged. “It’s your dime.”
“I can pay,” Katrina said.
“Don’t let her convince you to let her go free, either.” This command was given to Conrad. “That’d be a mistake.”
