Dry Creek Daddy

by Janet Tronstad

  “I’ve got a bit saved from my Social Security checks,” his father said. “Not much, but it’s yours.”

  Mark was touched. “That will all help. If Mr. Gaines can see his way to lending me twenty thousand dollars, I think we could piece it all together.”

  “Well,” his father said, “the man has always seemed to like you.”

  “But is that enough?” Allie asked.

  “I’ll wear one of my rodeo belt buckles to remind him that I’m a winner,” Mark said. Then he stilled the voice inside that said he had been a winner, but he wasn’t currently one. That part needed to change. He must be a hero for Hannah’s sake and for Jeremy’s sake and, Mark admitted, for his own self-respect. He just didn’t know how to do it.

  “Letting him see one of those belt buckles on you might work,” his father said cautiously. “A man like him knows what they represent.”

  “It has to work,” Mark agreed.

  Just then the door opened and the wrangler, Randy, stepped inside.

  “Eating without me?” Randy said. His voice was jovial until he looked around more closely. “What’s wrong? I was only teasing. I already had breakfast.”

  “It’s Jeremy,” Allie said, almost crying. Randy knew the boy from his visits to the ranch. “He needs an operation to save his leg and we don’t have the money for it.”

  “Well, money shouldn’t stop anybody,” the ranch hand declared indignantly.

  “I’m afraid in this case it does,” Mark said. “It’s a new procedure and the insurance won’t cover it because it’s not routine. And we need thirty thousand dollars.”

  Randy whistled. “That’s not cheap.”

  “No,” Mark said.

  They were all silent for a while.

  “It’ll be on the prayer chain later today,” Mark added. “Maybe with everyone praying, we’ll make it.”

  No one looked confident of that, so he reminded them, “Look what prayer did for me. Everyone said there was no hope for me when I was in that coma and the church here just kept praying.”

  Just recalling Mark’s recovery made them all brighten up and nod. They started to eat again and, before long, breakfast was over and Mark was ready to go into Dry Creek. He wanted to talk to Mrs. Hargrove. She had organized the prayers for him. He’d ask her to pray for his meeting with Mr. Gaines.

  “Here.” Allie handed Mark a bunch of papers. “Some mail for you.”

  Mark took the letters and flyers almost without thinking. He was hoping Mrs. Hargrove would have some encouraging words and suggestions for him about how to get people to pray effectively. He was out the door when he noticed that the sheet of paper on top of the pile was a call for contestants in a rodeo coming up soon in northern Montana. This Saturday afternoon, in fact.

  Mark felt a burst of excitement before he realized a rodeo did him no good. It was, however, exactly the kind of thing he had turned to when he needed money before his coma. He’s sign up to ride in one of the events and come back a hero with enough of what he needed to solve the problems of the day. He’d done that once when the pep band needed new uniforms. He’d always remember walking down the length of the gym that morning with the band playing and everyone in the athletic department cheering as he waved the prize check in the air.

  Those days were gone. The doctors said he would likely die if he ever fell from a horse again. He couldn’t resist reading down the list of competitions, though, wondering if there wasn’t some event that would be safe enough. There was nothing. Even the clown work was dangerous.

  Mark put the stack of mail on the floorboard of his pickup and went to the tack room. He wouldn’t get much applause, but he could still be a hero with his handyman tools. He was determined to find another lock and key combination. This morning as Mr. Stelling ranted about being awoken, Mark had learned that the main house on their ranch didn’t have a working key, either. If he was going to keep Hannah and Jeremy safe, he might as well keep the old man secure, too. That’s what a family did. Mark was surprised at how happy the thought made him. He wondered when Hannah was going to tell Jeremy who his father was. It seemed a boy facing trouble would want to know he had someone else on his side.

  * * *

  Hannah was tired the next morning. She slept in a little while and didn’t get out of bed until half past six o’clock. That meant she didn’t have time to fix Jeremy the kind of egg breakfast she felt he needed. She looked over in the bed and saw he was curled into a ball, still sleeping. He’d refused to go to bed without his handful of comic books, and one of them was still clenched in his fist. She wondered if she should tell him he had to leave the superhero comics on the floor beside the bed when he was going to sleep. She gave a sigh just thinking about it. She didn’t have the heart to refuse him anything. Not with things the way they were.

  “Sweetie,” she whispered as she lightly shook Jeremy’s shoulder. “Time to get up.”

  She got no response so she shook again. Just when she was getting worried, Jeremy groaned and rolled over.

  “Stay here?” he asked, his voice slurred with sleep. He hadn’t even opened his eyes.

  “You can’t,” Hannah whispered back. “Mommy needs to go to work today and you can’t stay alone.”

  “Callie’s here,” her son said as though that solved the problem. The furry calico cat was stretching on the floor on Jeremy’s side of the bed.

  “You know a cat isn’t a good babysitter,” Hannah said, a smile in her voice. She knew how fond her son was of that cat. “But I’ll tell Mrs. Hargrove that you want to nap for a while even though it’s morning.”

  The older woman would understand. Hannah had stopped by Mrs. Hargrove’s house last night and told her everything. She wouldn’t be surprised Jeremy would want to rest more.

  “Okay,” her son said wearily as he sat up in bed.

  Hannah’s heart broke a little. He tried his very best to be good. He didn’t deserve the troubles he was facing. Several times when they were getting ready for bed last night, she had started to talk to Jeremy about any fears or concerns he had about the illness. He wouldn’t even look at her; instead, he kept mouthing the words he could read in those comic books of his. She finally decided the conversation could wait until later today when they were both rested.

  Hannah took a quick shower first and then dressed herself and Jeremy. She’d given him a bath last night in the hope it would relax him. This morning all he had to do was use a washcloth on his face and brush his teeth.

  For herself, Hannah was grateful for the informal outfit the waitresses wore at the café. She had another pair of clean jeans and a second red T-shirt. She wrapped a rubber band around her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. She was strapping Jeremy into his car seat when she noticed his hair hadn’t been brushed.

  “Here we go,” she said as she spread her fingers and swiped at his hair. It looked pretty good except for the cowlick behind his ear. Of course, that sometimes didn’t get tamed even with a vigorous brushing from a real comb.

  She ended by dropping a kiss on his forehead and hurrying around to get behind the wheel. She saw her father walking out of his house when she went by but she didn’t take time to stop and chat. She planned to invite Mrs. Hargrove to bring herself and Jeremy over to the café for breakfast, but she needed to hurry to be on time for work.

  The next hour was a whirlwind. The strange thing was that the faster Hannah poured coffee and brought out platters of food from the kitchen, the calmer she felt about life. Ever since she had arranged with Mrs. Hargrove last night to put a request on the prayer chain about Jeremy’s illness and the treatment he needed, her mind had been churning, trying to find a source for the money they required.

  The breakfast rush was slowing down when Mrs. Hargrove brought Jeremy to the door. A couple of local ranch hands, Randy from the Nelson ranch among them, were the only ones left.
They were sitting at a table in the middle of the room, drinking a last cup of coffee. She’d already removed their plates and refreshed their beverages. Lois was clearing the dishes from an empty table and she looked up, along with Hannah, when Mrs. Hargrove and Jeremy walked in.

  Lois stopped what she was doing and watched Jeremy climb into a chair at the closest table to the door. He had his usual fistful of comic books in one hand and he carefully spread them out in front of him.

  “He’s such a brave boy,” she whispered to Hannah, who had told her coworker about the leukemia before they started their shifts.

  Lois looked ready to cry, but Hannah figured her son wouldn’t like to have people weeping over him.

  “That’s because he’s a cowboy,” Hannah said loud enough for the boy to hear. She could see from where she stood that he had his Davy Crockett comic on top of his pile.

  Jeremy beamed at her words and picked up a fork, standing it upright in his fist.

  The ranch hands heard her statement, too, and turned to look at the boy, kind expressions on their faces.

  “We’ve got a horse out at your Grandpa Nelson’s ranch just waiting for a youngster like you to take a ride,” Randy said, his good cheer filling the room.

  Hannah knew that Randy had been at the Nelson ranch a few times when Jeremy had visited. She nodded to the wrangler in thanks.

  “You’ll want to eat up and get strong,” one of the other men said in a hearty voice. “Drink some juice with breakfast.”

  “I can’t get strong,” Jeremy replied, his voice full of regret and sadness. “I have to go to the doctor.”

  Everyone was silent.

  “I don’t like doctors,” Jeremy said with finality. “They put you to sleep and you don’t wake up.”

  Except for Randy, the other men were all looking at Hannah with bewildered expressions on their faces. She didn’t know what to say. No one had said anything like that yesterday.

  She stepped closer to her son and squatted down until she was level with his eyes. “Everyone just wants to help you. But you don’t have to worry about not waking up. You get up every morning and then you have breakfast.”

  Jeremy gave an uncertain nod, but Lois had taken a more direct answer to his feelings.

  “How about some grape juice?” she said to Jeremy as she handed the boy one of the cups the café used for coffee.

  “That’s a cup for a big guy,” Jeremy said, excited, as he reached for the thick white mug. He stopped short of curling his fingers around the handle. “Is it okay, Mommy?”

  Hannah nodded, blinking her own tears back.

  While Jeremy blissfully took a big gulp of his juice, Hannah noticed he had a purple mustache above his lip, but she didn’t say anything. Lois brought a cup of coffee for Mrs. Hargrove, too.

  Hannah stepped over and then bent down to give the older woman a hug. “Thank you for bringing Jeremy over.” She straightened. “Did he manage to sleep any more after I dropped him off?”

  Mrs. Hargrove nodded. “He slept for about an hour.”

  “I’ll bring you both something to eat,” Hannah said as she pulled out her order pad. “I know Jeremy likes a scrambled egg and toast.” She looked at Mrs. Hargrove. “How about you?”

  “Some toast would go well with my coffee,” the older woman answered. “And maybe some of the strawberry preserves they have here. I can tell they are home-canned.”

  “A woman north of here makes a dozen pints each summer for the café,” Hannah said as she put her order pad back into the pocket of her apron. “We buy extra strawberries for the chiffon pies, too.”

  As she turned to take the order into the kitchen, Hannah noticed that the three ranch hands had their heads together and were whispering fiercely. Lois had been there seconds ago, filling their coffee cups, and Hannah expected the other waitress was giving them the gist of the prayer request that was going to be public this morning. Or maybe Randy had already heard the facts from Mark. In any event, Mrs. Hargrove said she was going to start the telephone chain as soon as possible after Hannah dropped Jeremy off so the message was likely already reaching some people.

  Hannah had to pass the trio on her way to the kitchen and she decided it was good practice for her to appear nonchalant. People were going to be talking. She had a pot of coffee in her hand and she would look natural here if nothing else.

  Just then she heard the sounds of a pickup stopping in front of the café. She recognized the purr of that engine and had to stop herself from waltzing by the small mirror near the kitchen and being sure her hair didn’t look squashed in the hairnet she wore.

  At least she had time to catch her balance before Mark opened the door and greeted everyone.

  “Can I get you anything?” Hannah asked as Mark walked over to the table where Jeremy and Mrs. Hargrove were situated.

  “Come sit with us,” Mark suggested as he pulled out one of the chairs for himself and then reached for another.

  The morning light did not fill the inside of the café like it did some days. Instead, there were shadows everywhere. Mark’s eyes went from hazel to black depending on the angle of his face as he sat down and looked at her. He wore a slight smile and it drew her to him.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a cup of coffee,” Hannah said as she walked closer to the table.

  “That, too,” Mark answered, his smile deepening. He was happy.

  Suddenly she understood. “You’ve thought of some way to get that money, haven’t you?”

  She sat in the chair Mark had pulled out for her.

  “I have hopes, but nothing concrete,” Mark whispered as he scooted his chair closer to her.

  Hannah didn’t even bother to tamp down her relief. If Mark had an idea, it would work. “What is it?”

  Mark didn’t answer and Hannah noticed out the corner of her eye that Jeremy was squirming in his chair. Mrs. Hargrove was watching them all serenely.

  “Let me guess,” Jeremy finally called out.

  Hannah turned to her son in astonishment. The boy’s cheeks were pink with excitement. He was waving his thin arms as fast as he could and he was looking back and forth from Hannah to Mark like he couldn’t wait to see who would answer first.

  “Go ahead and guess,” Mark said as he looked down at Jeremy.

  Hannah’s breath caught, taken back by the shining affection she saw on Mark’s face as he studied her son—well, their son, she thought. She had not expected this. She knew Mark wanted Jeremy to know he was his father. But she figured Mark was concerned about the legality of things. He’d always been orderly. And he would want to cheer at sporting events and brag about his son. She didn’t begrudge him any of that. But she hadn’t expected Mark to love Jeremy as much as it looked like he did.

  She suddenly realized she needed to tell Jeremy who Mark was and she needed to do it soon. It wasn’t fair to either of them to keep putting it off. Maybe after Jeremy finished his guessing, she would find a way to tell him.

  Of course, she reminded herself as she studied Jeremy, he might not be too quick about guessing. She could see by the shine in his eyes that Jeremy liked having the whole café turned to him.

  “The money will come from—” Jeremy paused for effect. Then he reached down and grabbed a comic. “Davy Crockett! King of the wild frontier!”

  Mark grinned and winked at Hannah. “I’ll have to track the mountain man down and ask him for help. He might have dug up some gold on one of his adventures.”

  Jeremy giggled with joy.

  “Or maybe the masked man can get it from the bank robbers,” Jeremy said as he held another comic up.

  “Hmm,” Mark pretended to consider Jeremy’s suggestions. “I could try that, too.”

  Hannah sat there enthralled. She’d never expected Jeremy to be as captivated by anyone as he was with Mark. And then, to make
the feeling sweeter, Mark reached over and took her hand so she was included in the warmth of the moment, too.

  “It’s fine to tell him,” Hannah said as she leaned over closer to Mark. “Any time.”

  Mark nodded, the smile on his face deepening. “I’d like that.”

  Mrs. Hargrove sat forward with a smile on her face. Hannah figured the older woman knew a special moment was coming up.

  Jeremy held up the final comic book. “This guy can fly. He can go up to the top of mountains and bring back some money.”

  Hannah enjoyed watching the imagination in her son.

  “But can he bring back kisses?” Mark asked the boy as he leaned over and kissed the top of Jeremy’s head.

  Her son started to giggle and pointed at her. “Do Mommy, too.”

  “I—” Hannah tried to think of a coherent protest.

  But Mark was too fast. He swooped over and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Oh.” Hannah was both relieved and very disappointed.

  Before she could say anything more, though, Mark moved slightly and cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “Shall we give him something to remember?” he whispered.

  She could feel the blush crawl up her neck, but she couldn’t seem to speak. Mark must have been encouraged by her lack of protest because the next thing she knew he kissed her, the way he used to do. His lips were gentle and he touched her cheek in a way that made her long for more. She knew she should pull away, but she seemed unable to do so.

  Everyone was silent as she stared at Mark. She remembered how his eyes changed colors with his emotions. How his jaw flexed as he debated something. The warmth of his breath made her knees weak. If she hadn’t been sitting down, she would have slid right to the floor.

  “Now do Grandma,” Jeremy commanded and Hannah realized where she was. That was the name Jeremy called Mrs. Hargrove. It seemed to suit them both.

  “Now you’re being silly,” the older woman protested.