A Rich Man for Dry Creek / a Hero for Dry Creek

by Janet Tronstad

  Misty lowered her head and blew air out her nose.

  “Yeah, I don’t, either.” Garrett ran his hand over Misty’s neck and gave her a pat. “It shouldn’t be all that hard—I should just walk up and say, ‘Will you marry me?’”

  Misty nudged at his hand.

  “Yeah, you’re right—that’s too direct. A woman probably wants something more.”

  Misty nudged his hand again.

  “Yeah, you want something sweet, don’t you? I suppose that’s what a woman wants, too. Something sentimental.” Garrett thought a moment. “I was never very good at that kind of thing.”

  Garrett heard someone open the barn door.

  Chrissy stepped into the barn and slammed the door shut. “Men.”

  Garrett perked up. Chrissy would know more than a horse did about marriage proposals. “Troubles?”

  Chrissy folded her arms and grunted.

  “Well, I guess no one has proposed today yet, huh?”

  Chrissy looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  “I mean, I was thinking about when Jared proposed to you. Did he do something special? Something that you remember?” Garrett noticed his cousin was wearing a plaid shirt that looked like it belonged to Reno, too. How many flannel shirts did the man have?

  Chrissy scowled at him. “Look, you don’t have to find out anything more about me and Jared for Mom. I’m not getting married to Jared. She can relax.”

  “Well, good. I mean, not good that you’re upset, but good that you’re—Well, anyway, I’m not asking the question about how he gave you the engagement ring for your mom. I’m asking for, you know, general reference.”

  Garrett knew now why he didn’t lie. He wasn’t any good at it.

  “He put it in a box and gave it to me.”

  “But did he say anything? Did he get down on his knees or anything?” Garrett would have to remember the knee thing. He might be able to do that.

  “He said, ‘Here it is,’ and turned the television on.”

  “Oh.” Garrett didn’t think that would work so well. “But he’d probably said something romantic earlier?”

  “He asked if I wanted to order in pizza.”

  “Well, I see. Thanks.” Garrett supposed there was no point in studying the technique of a man who had obviously lost his fiancée anyway.

  “The man’s a jerk who deserves to be buried up to his neck in an anthill. Nonpoisonous, of course. Reno says the revenge thing can only be something nonlethal.”

  Chrissy turned as the barn door opened again. Reno stepped inside.

  Reno and Chrissy just looked at each other. Garrett cleared his throat then he gave a final pat to Misty’s forehead. “I’ll be taking another sawhorse to the bunkhouse.”

  No one seemed to care.

  Nicki had opened all of the windows by the time Garrett brought in the sawhorse, and she was dusting the shelves along the side of the bunkhouse.

  “Got anything sweet for Misty?” Garrett set the sawhorse down.

  “I thought we’d save her sugar for this afternoon. The Curtis twins like to ride her and she always expects a treat for that. Can’t say that I blame her—they want her to be a dragon. Besides, if the twins ride her, all the other kids will want a turn, too.”

  “Sounds like she’s going to be busy.”

  “We’re all going to be busy.” Nicki stopped dusting for a moment. “I saw you check out your truck. I hope it’s okay. I mean, the gears and all.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s just that if there was a problem with anything we’d be happy to help you get it fixed. Between the two of us, Reno and I have fixed almost every kind of engine there is.”

  Nicki knew it was a long shot that there was trouble with Garrett’s truck, but she was hoping he’d have a reason to stay for a few more days, and any kind of mechanical trouble would be enough reason for that.

  “No, Big Blue’s fine.” Garrett leaned against the sawhorse. “But what about your truck—do you need any help with it?”

  Garrett didn’t suppose help with a truck qualified as a romantic gesture, but it was a start.

  Nicki shook her head. “We can’t even order parts for the truck anymore. We’ll have to buy something else when we can.”

  “Oh. Well, if you need anything hauled in the meantime, let me know. I could even haul cattle for you if I got the right trailer to attach to Big Blue.”

  “There’s no more cattle sales this year.”

  Garrett started to walk back to the door. “Well, I’ll go get the rest of those sawhorses. And then I’ll start on the plywood tops.”

  The plywood boards had been cut to serve as tabletops to go with the sawhorse bases twenty-some years ago but they were still sturdy. Nicki’s father had wrapped a tarp around them when he stored them in the barn so they weren’t even that dusty.

  “But we must have had tablecloths when we used those tables before,” Nicki said to her mother. Nicki and Garrett had gone into the kitchen to talk to Lillian. “Even I remember white tablecloths.”

  Lillian shook her head. “Those were sheets. I’d gotten ten extra flat sheets to use.”

  Nicki groaned. “I wondered why there were so many flat sheets—I gave them away to the church rummage sale years ago. You should have said something when you left.”

  “About the sheets?”

  Nicki nodded stubbornly. “You should have told me things like that that I would need to know. I wasn’t prepared.”

  “I know,” Lillian said softly as she reached out to put her hand on Nicki’s shoulder. “And I’m sorry.”

  Nicki turned away without looking at her mother. “Well, we can’t just eat off the plywood. We’ll just have to think of something else. I think we have four or five sheets. Of course, they’re all different colors and sizes.”

  Lillian withdrew her hand.

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be sheets,” Garrett offered cautiously after a moment of silence. “I have lots of maps in Big Blue. We could use them for table covers.”

  “But they’re your maps. You’ll need them.”

  “I have too many maps,” Garrett said and realized it was true. “Besides, most of the places I go these days are clearly marked on the freeways.”

  When had his life become so predictable? Garrett wondered. There was no more adventure in driving from Las Vegas to Chicago than there was in driving from Atlanta to St. Louis. It was all just following a path of freeways. If a robot could reach the gas pedal, he could drive Big Blue.

  The maps were the perfect table covering, Nicki concluded in satisfaction when she stood up and admired the ten tables. She’d just finished taping the last of the maps to the plywood tabletops and they looked good. All of the lines and the tiny blocks of color here and there in the maps made the bunkhouse look happy.

  Nicki looked more closely at the map on the table closest to her.

  “What’s this?” Someone had drawn lines with a red pen.

  Garrett came over to look and started to chuckle. “Oh, that was a hurricane from a couple of years ago. I had to reroute myself all over the place.”

  “And this?” Nicki pointed to something written in green.

  “Oh, that was my sunshine route. I was determined to work my way down to Florida for Christmas that year. I decided I wanted to see an alligator. Had to take loads to five states to do it, but I made it. Pulled into Florida Christmas Eve and met an alligator on Christmas Day.”

  Nicki looked at the other maps on the tables. The maps were taped together and wrapped around the edges of the table. She walked from table to table. All of the maps had lines drawn on them. “We can’t use your maps. They’ll get all dirty.”

  “That’s fine.” Garrett looked up from the folding chair he was fixing.

  “You don’t understand—I don’t mean just a little dirty, I mean gravy-and-cranberry-sauce-spilled-on-them dirty. They’ll be ruined.”

  Garrett shrugged. “Then we’ll throw them away.”r />
  “But you can’t—these maps tell all about your trips.”

  “I can get new maps and add new trips.” Garrett snapped the chair into place and stood. “You know how it is—new horizons and all.”

  “I wish I did know how that is,” Nicki said. Her voice was glum. She had such a tight hold on the past, she couldn’t even see the future. She’d even been a little superstitious about going too far outside of Dry Creek. It was as though she thought that if she went someplace else, she couldn’t come back. “The furthest I’ve been is Billings.”

  “Well, you could—” Garrett stopped himself. Was he going to say, come with me? He cleared his throat. “If you’re interested in traveling, I could give you a list of good places to see.”

  “I’ve never seen an alligator.” Nicki thought a moment. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed. “Or a crocodile. Or a whale.”

  “You’ll want to start on one of the coasts then.”

  Nicki nodded. Maybe she needed to buy an encyclopedia of sea animals. Just in case she ever got a chance to see one.

  Someone stomped his boots lightly on the porch outside the bunkhouse door. Then Reno opened the door.

  “She—” Reno jerked his head toward the house “—wants to know if you’re all set out here. They called from the café and asked if it was time for the turkeys to be brought out.”

  Garrett snapped the last chair into place. “We’re set for eighty people.”

  Nicki looked around. She’d lit a couple of pine candles and the air in the bunkhouse now had a light holiday scent. The windows sparkled. The wood floor shone. The chairs were neatly lined up around each of the ten tables. “We’re ready.”

  “And we’re using paper plates?” Reno stepped over to Nicki and asked quietly. “She’s okay with that?”

  Reno didn’t need to say who “she” was.

  “I don’t think she knows we have her china packed away,” Nicki said. She had shoved the boxes even farther back into the walk-in closet that hung off the side of the bunkhouse. “I thought she’d ask, but she hasn’t. She always used to say a lady needed her china.”

  Garrett was of the opinion that all a lady needed was a pair of emerald eyes, but he doubted Nicki wanted to hear that so he shuffled two of the chairs. “We got the extra-thick paper plates.”

  Reno nodded. “Works for me. I was just wondering.”

  “I’m surprised she never came back for the china.” Nicki avoided looking in the direction of the closet. “Dad said she bought that china with the egg money, one piece at a time. It took her five years to get all of the pieces.”

  “Well, people’s taste changes, I guess.” Reno shrugged.

  “I guess,” Nicki agreed, but she wasn’t really sure. Her mother’s taste had been for pretty things back then and, as far as Nicki could tell, it was pretty things that her mother still wanted. Even this Thanksgiving dinner. It was some sort of pretty fairy tale all wrapped up in neighborhood cheer. Her mother couldn’t just make a quiet apology and drive away like a normal person. No, she had to make a production of the whole thing with tears and hugs and cranberry sauce.

  “She’s not giving any speeches, is she?” The thought suddenly struck Nicki. “I mean the food is the whole thing, isn’t it? She’s not planning to apologize for stealing the money and leaving and everything again, is she?”

  “She apologized for leaving?” Reno frowned.

  “Well…” Nicki thought for a moment. “She sort of implied an apology. Then she made it sound all mysterious and said it involved someone else—she as good as said she did it because Dad was a heavy drinker back then. Dad wasn’t a drinker.”

  “He was around the time when Mom left.”

  “How do you know that? You were only four years old.”

  Reno shrugged. “He drank some here and there for years. But it used to be worse. After Mom left, he cut back.”

  “Well, see—then it was because of her. When she left, he cut back.”

  “He cut back because of us. Without Mom, there was no one but him to take care of us.”

  She nodded. She wondered what their life would have been like if her mother had been willing to stick with her father in spite of his drinking. She supposed a drinking husband did not fit in with her mother’s picture of a perfect life and so she just left.

  Nicki looked down. She had a film of gray dust over her jeans. “Now that the room is ready, I guess we should all get ready, too.”

  Nicki wondered if she and Reno could ever be ready for this dinner their mother wanted.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “More yams?” Mrs. Hargrove leaned across the table and offered the dish to Nicki. “They’re good for you.”

  Mrs. Hargrove had pronounced every item on the table as good for a person, even the butter in the turkey molds that Jacob had carved and the rolls that had been left too long in the oven and gotten hard and crusty.

  “I’m stuffed,” Nicki said.

  “How about you?” Mrs. Hargrove offered the yams to Garrett who sat at Nicki’s right.

  “I’ve already had two helpings of yams.” Garrett wondered why he’d avoided holiday dinners for so long. He kind of liked the friendly chaos of passing dishes and dodging elbows. He even tolerated Lester who sat to the left of Nicki, but who had the good sense to keep his mind on the food. “But thanks. I believe they were the best I’ve ever eaten.”

  Mrs. Hargrove beamed. “I put a little pineapple in them this year. It was a new recipe in Woman’s World.”

  “I don’t suppose you have the magazine with you?” Garrett had wondered how he could get his hands on a couple of issues. They were the experts at this male/female stuff and they should have an idea or two about how a man could propose after dinner with eighty other people around. At the very least, they should have a strategy for making sure Lester wasn’t around when Garrett asked the big question.

  Mrs. Hargrove looked over her shoulder. “I think Elmer took it to show to someone. But I don’t see him. Unless he’s over at table five.”

  The people at table number five all had their heads down studying something.

  “There it is!” a boy whom Garrett didn’t recognize said as he pointed. “That’s got to be Boston.” The boy looked up from the table and called over to Garrett. “Mister, have you been to Boston in that truck of yours?”

  Garrett nodded. “I left the truck as close in as I could get at some delivery station and took a bus down to the Commons. I saw a boy skateboarding there about your size.”

  “The maps were a brilliant idea,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “Everybody’s been looking up cities and talking about traveling. Seems like everybody has a special place they want to see.”

  Nicki was proud of Garrett. He’d answered everyone’s questions about places he’d been and not made anyone feel foolish for asking anything, not even when Elmer had confused Rhode Island with Washington, D. C., on the map and asked if Garrett had shaken hands with the president there.

  “Where would you go, Nicki?” Mrs. Hargrove set the half-eaten dish of yams down. “You haven’t said yet.”

  “She wants to see a whale,” Garrett answered for her. “I figure we should just drive over to Seattle and down the coast until we find one.”

  “Why would she want to see a whale?” Lester asked from Nicki’s right. “There are plenty of animals to see on the ranch.”

  “I’m thinking of buying a book,” Nicki added. “That way I can see pictures of all kinds of animals.”

  Garrett was wearing his tuxedo and Nicki had decided to wear a green pants suit that she kept for special occasions. She’d even put on some of the makeup Glory had lent her.

  “A picture of a whale doesn’t begin to do it justice,” Garrett argued. He was glad he’d dropped the hint about taking Nicki down the coast. He figured he’d given everyone notice that way. But neither of the women even batted an eye over his statement and Lester just kept on eating. “I could drive you to see a whale in a
day or two.”

  Lester did put down his fork at that.

  “How nice.” Mrs. Hargrove smiled politely.

  Nicki didn’t even bother to smile. “You’re right. Maybe a video would be better than a picture.”

  “Are we going to have pie pretty soon?” Lester asked.

  Garrett realized no one, not even Lester, thought he was serious about taking Nicki to see a whale. Either that or, he thought with dismay, they knew Nicki so well they were confident she would never go. If that was the case, his proposal was doomed.

  Nicki wished Lester would forget about food for just one meal. How was her heart supposed to be happy at the prospect of a future with him when he seemed to care more about a piece of pie than he did about her? It wasn’t that she was expecting love from Lester, she assured herself. Her feelings on that hadn’t changed. She wanted a sound business relationship with him if he ever did propose. But she’d never expected to be less interesting to him than a piece of pie.

  “I think there’s going to be a little bit of a program before we have the pie,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “It’ll give everyone’s meal time to settle.”

  “Oh,” Lester said. “Then I think I’ll have some more of the yams.”

  “I didn’t know about a program.” Nicki tried to keep the panic out of her voice.

  “Well, ‘program’ is probably too formal of a word for it. The pastor was just going to say a few words—”

  “Oh.” Nicki relaxed.

  “And then I think your mother was going to say something,” Mrs. Hargrove continued.

  “Oh.” Nicki looked around to see how she could leave the bunkhouse. While all of the tables fit just fine when all of the chairs were pushed under the tables, when the chairs were pulled out and people were sitting in them, it was a different story. But she thought she could squeeze through to an outside aisle if she asked Mr. Jenkins to pull his chair over closer to Jacob’s and lifted one of the Curtis twins up while she passed behind his chair.