Dry Creek Daddy

by Janet Tronstad

  From the bits and pieces she’d told him long ago, the foster homes and institutions where she’d lived before moving to Dry Creek had seen more than their share of petty thefts. She had not managed to keep much that was her own in those days. After she came to the Stellings, she guarded her possessions carefully. She believed she needed to fight to keep what she had.

  She never mentioned it to him, but he saw that she treated the people in her life the same way. If she warmed to a person, she’d stand up for them against everyone else. People were not replaceable in her mind.

  No wonder she was still talking to her father, Mark thought. If he didn’t count Jeremy, Mr. Stelling was the only family she had. She wouldn’t give him up unless she absolutely had to.

  Mark opened the café door for Hannah and followed her down the steps.

  He opened the door of his pickup and held her elbow so she could make the long step up to the floorboard. Long ago, his mother had taught him to be a country gentleman when escorting a girl anywhere in a truck. She said the young lady would appreciate it. Hannah didn’t appear to think much of it, though. In fact, she scowled at him as though he should know better.

  He was so dumbfounded that he just stood there a moment. She had never objected to his help. Not even when they’d been fishing and she’d gotten that long wood sliver in the palm of her hand and he had to pull it out with his teeth.

  She couldn’t have changed that much. Not unless something really bad had happened. It didn’t take more than a second for him to realize he had been that bad thing. His coma had left her pregnant and alone.

  He figured now wasn’t a good time to apologize for letting her down, though. So he walked around the pickup, opened the door and settled himself behind the steering wheel.

  In minutes, they were outside town and on their way to Miles City. He couldn’t help but notice Hannah was looking down at the rose lying in the middle of the seat between them. She was frowning at that, too.

  “Girlfriend?” she asked.

  “Huh?” He was surprised, but managed to keep the pickup on the road. “No. It’s for you. For your first day back home.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I thought maybe—”

  She stopped and looked out the window.

  “What?”

  “You were gone so long that I thought maybe you had a girlfriend now. That’s all.”

  “I wasn’t gone,” Mark protested. “I was stuck in a coma.”

  “Of course, but—” Hannah started, but did not finish.

  “I know I was still gone,” Mark answered. He would agree to that.

  Mark knew he should say something more, but he didn’t want to give her a glib excuse. There was a time when he’d have been able to string together a convincing argument for his actions without even thinking about it. The bullet that hit his head had reduced his vocabulary to rubble, though. No words came to his mind and then it was too late.

  “Nice day,” he finally said.

  “How can you say that?” she responded incredulously. “It’s going to rain.”

  “I didn’t mean the weather,” Mark said. He wasn’t sure what he had meant, so he kept quiet. It was going to be a long drive into Miles City.

  * * *

  “This is it?” Hannah knew it was the hospital. That much was obvious. But she needed to say something. She’d been frozen in silence on the trip here, and now they were parked in the building’s lot, just sitting there.

  “They’re planning to remodel the place,” Mark said as he reached for his door handle.

  Hannah turned to unlatch hers, too, and opened the door before Mark felt he had to come around and do it for her. She knew he was just trying to be nice to her, but she didn’t want him to be polite. She remembered how, as a child, she’d felt like an outsider in Dry Creek, believing the town’s friendliness was only for those who had been born there. But once Mark started coming around to take her fishing, she was content. She hadn’t cared any longer if she didn’t belong. One friend was more than she’d ever thought she’d have in life and she liked him.

  But then Mark kissed her. Both sixteen at the time, they were standing in the far field checking to see if there were any chokecherries yet on the wild bushes that grew along the fence. The kiss had been an impulse on his part. She was sure of that. He seemed as shocked as she had been. But while he seemed to take it in stride, she felt like she’d fallen off a cliff. Something inside her shattered. After that, she dreamed of a future with him that she’d never given any thought to before that kiss. Suddenly he wasn’t just her friend; he had become as important to her as the air she breathed. She’d never felt like that with anyone or anything before. No one had ever made her feel as safe.

  And then—no sooner than she’d become adjusted to her new hopes—he was gone. Almost dead, everyone said. She hadn’t allowed herself to get that close to any man since.

  She’d been writing back and forth to Mrs. Hargrove over the years, and the good woman had encouraged her to trust someone, especially God, with her life. A few months ago, Hannah had decided to do that. But relying on God and trusting Mark were two different things. God did not go into a coma when she needed him most. No, she could not face that cliff again. Not with Jeremy being so very sick. She was all her baby had and she could not worry about anyone else, not even herself.

  A long hallway ran along the edge of the building, and Hannah saw that the waiting room was crowded. A line had formed in front of the receptionist’s counter.

  She and Mark hurried over and joined the people standing there.

  “It’ll be okay,” Mark murmured as they started to move forward slowly.

  Hannah ignored his words. That was the way it started. A woman would believe some nonsense from the man in her life. And foolishness it was—no one could know if things were going to be okay or not. Mark should realize that. He couldn’t guarantee anything.

  Just then the couple in front of them finished their business and stepped out of line.

  “I’m here about Elias Stelling,” Hannah announced to a dark-haired woman behind the receptionist desk. “He was in a car accident out on the freeway about—” Hannah glanced up at Mark. “Would you say forty-five minutes ago?”

  Mark nodded.

  “Is either of you a relative?” The woman looked up from the paperwork on her desk.

  “Well, I’m—” Hannah stumbled and paused.

  She had run away from the Stelling place when her pregnancy started to become obvious. Her adoptive mother had died of cancer years before and her father still moved around the house like a disinterested stranger, glaring at Hannah if he noticed her at all. She had curled up in a protective ball when Mark went into his coma. She felt like she was in the emptiness with him, waiting to die. But there was the baby inside her, calling her to live.

  After the first wave of grief passed, she knew she had to make some decisions. She was brittle and could break at any time. She refused to stay around someone who was supposed to care about her but didn’t. Leaving the Stelling house was a stubborn decision based on hurt, but she knew it was right for her. She was better off in a home for unwed mothers, where she had no expectations of kindness as she did living with her adoptive father. Besides, she knew how to make it in an institution. No one could disappoint her. She never had gotten the hang of being part of a family.

  She was taking too long to answer the clerk’s question and the woman was looking at her with suspicion. Hannah straightened her shoulders. The hospital wasn’t asking about the strength of her tie to the man she called Father. All they wanted was her legal status.

  She nodded to emphasize her point. “I’m his daughter. His only family.”

  Neither one of them had anyone else. Strange as it was, that feeble truth had pulled her back to Dry Creek.

  The woman still eyed her skeptically and asked for
identification. Hannah pulled out her wallet and flipped it open. “Here’s my driver’s license.”

  The clerk seemed friendlier after she’d checked Hannah’s name on the license. “We have to be careful who we talk to. The privacy laws, you know.”

  The woman looked down on her desk and pulled a clipboard from the pile in front of her. “The two of you can have a seat in the waiting room. Someone will call your name shortly and then escort you back to your father.”

  Hannah nodded. “Thank you.”

  Most of the seats in the waiting room were taken. Hannah noticed several mothers with toddlers and was thankful that Jeremy was not here. She was determined to keep him out of hospitals as much as possible. Planning to lead into telling him why, she’d asked if he might want to spend a night in a hospital sometime. The very thought seemed to terrify him. Since then, she hadn’t come up with a good way to tell her son that he would most likely need to do just that because he was very sick.

  “How’s this?” Mark asked as he gestured to the two empty chairs in the corner.

  Hannah nodded and they walked over to them. She’d have to tell everyone about Jeremy’s leukemia diagnosis at some point, but she didn’t want to do that until she had at least unpacked their clothes and gotten them settled.

  She wondered how Mark could know who she was thinking about, but he seemed to because they had no sooner sat down in the chairs than he asked, “Which of these kids is closest to Jeremy’s size?”

  Mark seemed a little shy about asking.

  She looked up and smiled. The first thing she’d noticed about him when he came into the café earlier was that he was wearing one of his rodeo champion belt buckles. The lights overhead made the buckle sparkle here and there where it hit the brass and silver parts. Mark prided himself on winning those prize buckles and had several. Today, though, he looked like the boy she’d met when they were both ten years old. He had a hank of hair that was unruly. It had always been that way. The rich brown strands curled slightly everywhere on his head, except behind his left ear. Tufts of hair just stuck out, defiant of any comb. Hannah had noticed last year that Jeremy had an identical spot developing on his head.

  “The boy holding the orange ball is about Jeremy’s size,” she said quietly.

  As Mark studied the child, she looked at him. Apart from the hair problem, he had a stubborn chin. It took the edge off his handsomeness. He had some fine lines on his face now that had not been there before. She wondered if they were from pain. Everyone she had talked to said he would never come out of that coma. When he started to get better, she had called the hospital. The doctors said they needed to be careful about his visitors and only his sister could see him. It had been the amazing story of the week on local news when he moved his finger for the first time, though. She’d wept happy tears for days. It wasn’t until later that she realized everything would not just slip back into place. It could not.

  “My sister says Jeremy loves horses,” Mark said. “Maybe you can bring him over to our ranch and he can ride a pony in a few days.”

  She’d heard the Nelson horse ranch was prospering now that Mark, his sister, Allie, and his new brother-in-law, Clay West, were all working together. Mark’s father was there, too, but he was semiretired.

  “Jeremy would love that,” Hannah said before she realized it could not happen. She didn’t know exactly what his treatments would be, but she figured that, when they were over, Jeremy would be too frail to risk breaking any bones. Even if everything worked, the doctor said Jeremy might be in a wheelchair indefinitely. “It’s probably best to wait a while, though.”

  Mark started to say something, but just then a door opened and a nurse called out, “Miss Stelling.”

  Hannah looked up. “This way please,” the woman said. Hannah stood and Mark was right beside her.

  The lights were bright and a series of doors led off the hallway. Muffled voices seemed to come from everywhere.

  The woman motioned for them to stop beside a closed door, and Hannah glanced up to Mark. His face was pale. Those pain wrinkles seemed more pronounced. She reached out and took his hand. They had both lost loved ones in this hospital. His mother. Her adoptive mother. Mark squeezed her hand and didn’t let it go. “We’ll get him well again.”

  Hannah couldn’t find her voice to answer, but she already knew she did not agree with his glib response. The coma had protected Mark from the struggles she’d had in the last years. She gently withdrew her hand from his. Mark couldn’t help that coma, but she believed he’d already decided to move away before he got shot that night. He was going away to college. Her son didn’t need to become attached to someone who would eventually leave him.

  The woman stepped into the room and then came out.

  “You can go in,” she said. “The nurse inside will help you.”

  “Thank you,” Hannah whispered.

  Light green walls reflected the strong florescent lights. A grunt came from the elevated bed in the middle of the room.

  “What took you so long?” a man’s querulous voice accused her from where he lay. Blankets partially hid his face, but she knew him.

  Hannah stopped in midstride. Her father had barely greeted her when she drove in last night, saying little beyond directing her to set herself up in the small house near the barn. That’s where the farmhands had stayed when there were any. It was drafty and dusty. It hadn’t been used in years. Her father had no reason to expect to see her standing here now.

  “You can’t talk to Hannah that way,” Mark said before Hannah could answer. “You didn’t call and tell her what happened. She didn’t need to come to the hospital at all.”

  “It’s okay,” Hannah whispered. She was embarrassed at the gulf between her and her father. But she hadn’t moved back under any illusion that he’d give her a warm welcome.

  She’d come because she had no other home. And the part-time job in the café gave her time off so she could take Jeremy to his doctor’s appointments. She’d still be able to work enough hours to buy groceries and, if necessary, pay rent. She reminded herself she needed to find out exactly what her father wanted in payment for use of that run-down house. She prayed it wouldn’t be much; she didn’t know what the copays would be on Jeremy’s treatment yet—or even if their insurance would cover it at all. She’d find out on Wednesday when she took him to meet the physician who’d be treating him.

  “No need to be touchy,” her father said, glaring at Mark. “I—”

  “We need to decide what to do,” Hannah interrupted matter-of-factly as she stepped closer to her father’s bed. She didn’t have time in her life for this kind of drama. The nurse, on the other side of her father, was setting a glass of water on his table.

  Hannah continued, “First off, you were in an accident.”

  “I know what happened,” her father snapped. “My brain works just fine—” He looked over at Mark and glared. “Not like some I could mention.”

  “That remark is not necessary.” Hannah was appalled at what he’d said. Her father never had approved of her spending time with Mark, but he’d usually avoided outright rudeness. “You should be grateful Mark drove me here.”

  She did not know what her father had against the Nelson family, but she wasn’t going to let him make a scene. She stepped even closer to the hospital bed, thinking her father might lower his voice if she did so. The door was still open and she did not want the whole floor to hear him.

  He just grimaced at her. “I don’t need anyone hovering over me.”

  “Yes, you do,” the nurse informed him briskly. “The doctor means it when he says you need to be watched for at least twenty-four hours. You’ve got a concussion and cracked ribs.”

  “I can’t worry about any of that,” he protested indignantly. “I have to get my wheat harvested. It’s going to rain and I’ll lose the whole crop if I don’t get i
t in. Then how will I pay my taxes?”

  “The doctor knows his medicine,” the nurse said with even greater emphasis. “He won’t release you if you’re going to bounce around on farm equipment and do your head more harm.”

  “A rancher can’t just ignore his crops,” her father said. “He’ll end up broke.”

  “The doctor thinks your health is more important than your crops.”

  “It’s my livelihood,” her father persisted.

  “And this is your life,” the nurse countered.

  The room was silent for a minute while her father tried to stare down the nurse. He didn’t succeed.

  “I’ll do the harvesting,” Hannah finally said. “At least today and tomorrow.”

  She’d need to be free on Wednesday to take Jeremy to his initial consultation with the new doctor. But she could run the combine tomorrow. She’d helped her father with the farmwork the summer her mother had been so ill. He hadn’t cared about the crops then. He’d sat in the back bedroom by her mother’s side for days.

  “You?” her father demanded incredulously. “You can’t run that combine by yourself! Besides, you’d lose that job of yours at the café, and then what would you do? I can’t be supporting you and that sick boy of yours all winter long.”

  The silence went even deeper. In the phone call she’d made last week, Hannah hadn’t told her father about the leukemia; she had only said Jeremy was sick. Apparently that had been enough to put him off, though.

  “I won’t lose my job,” Hannah said, praying it was true. “Maybe I can start in the fields before it’s light in the morning—”

  Mark interrupted, “Jeremy’s sick?”

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” Hannah said.

  “Of course the boy’s sick,” her father muttered flatly. “What do you expect?”

  It took Hannah a minute to realize what her father meant. “What are you saying? That it’s my fault Jeremy’s sick? Because I wasn’t married?”

  She knew how the old man thought. He didn’t answer.