Dry Creek Daddy

by Janet Tronstad

  “Ah,” Mr. Gaines murmured. “Is this Hannah’s—?”

  The banker’s voice trailed off and Mark only nodded.

  Then he remembered the rodeo belt buckle he had brought. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the buckle before holding it out to the banker. A brass bull almost jumped off the metalwork. “I won this by riding that big Brahma bull for three minutes and forty-two seconds in that rodeo they have every year up by Havre. I just got a flyer about the one they’re getting ready for on Saturday afternoon. You going?”

  “I usually do,” the banker said.

  “Me, too,” Mark said and then held the buckle closer to the other man. “Thought you might like to have this. Sort of a souvenir of all the times you cheered me on.”

  “I did see some fine rides,” Mr. Gaines said with a smile. “You were really something. But you should keep that buckle. You won it.”

  “I wouldn’t mind parting with it if it meant a loan,” Mark said, surprised that it was true.

  Mr. Gaines stopped smiling and studied him. “How much do you need, son?”

  “Thirty thousand,” Mark said and he saw the other man frown slightly. “But I’d settle for twenty-five. I can maybe sell my pickup and borrow some from my family. Even twenty might do.”

  “That’s a bit steep for unsecured loans,” Mr. Gaines said. “Or do you have something for collateral?”

  Mark shook his head. “Not for that amount.”

  “Well,” Mr. Gaines said, “I can bring it to the board on Friday evening. You certainly are a well-known member of this community and we try to support our own when we can.”

  Mark let out the breath he’d been holding. “So, there’s a chance?”

  “A small one,” Mr. Gaines said as he stood. “We don’t generally make our calls until the Monday after the meeting, but I can call you Saturday morning before I head out to the rodeo and give you a heads-up. You can fill out the forms next week.”

  Mark nodded. He had a chance. “Call me at the café in Dry Creek. I’ll wait there for word.”

  Mark wanted to be close to Hannah when he heard about the loan.

  “I’ll do that,” the banker said.

  Mark put the buckle back in his pocket and shook hands again with Mr. Gaines. Then Mark tucked the cat under his arm and walked out of the banker’s office. Mark knew the teller and asked to use the phone to call Mrs. Hargrove. He was given permission and kept his remarks brief. Jeremy apparently had been napping and hadn’t noticed that Callie was even missing.

  The sun was so strong outside that, when Mark stepped outside the bank, it made him stop and squint. When he opened the door of his pickup, the air inside was hotter than he expected even though he’d parked in the shade of the building.

  Mark set the cat on the passenger seat and then climbed inside himself. It was time to go home. He’d no more had that thought when he realized he could no longer pinpoint exactly where his home was. He lived with his father on his family’s ranch, but his heart was with Hannah and Jeremy.

  This was a bitter realization because as far as Mark could see, he had one chance to win the affections of the woman and boy: he had to get his hands on the thirty thousand dollars for that procedure. If there was ever a need for him to be a hero, the time was now. The cat jumped from the seat to the floorboard of his pickup and landed on the stack of mail. The rodeo flyer was still at the top of the pile.

  “Don’t tear that,” Mark said softly as he reached down and pulled the sheet of paper away from the cat’s claws. He laid the flyer against the center of the steering wheel and smoothed it out before letting his eyes scan the listing of competitions one more time.

  “There’s got to be something I can do to get some prize money,” he muttered to himself as he studied the list carefully. He needed a backup plan in case he didn’t get the loan.

  * * *

  Twenty miles away, Hannah and Lois were sitting at the small table in the kitchen of the Dry Creek café, taking a break. It was two o’clock and they’d served the last of the lunch crowd. The dining area was empty and they would hear any customer who might enter. They each had a cup of tea in front of them. In addition, Lois had a long piece of paper and a pencil in her hand.

  “If we get all of the supplies tomorrow,” Lois said as she added to the list she had going, “we can bake the pies on Friday and have them ready for the sale on Saturday morning before the rodeo. People will be driving through. We might need to offer to keep them in the big refrigerator until they drive back through after the rodeo, but we can do that.”

  “You’re sure you’re willing to do all this work?” Hannah asked for the third time since they’d sat down for the planning. She still couldn’t believe anyone would go to so much effort to help her and Jeremy. Lois had known them for only a few days. Hannah couldn’t wait to tell Mark about the plan.

  “I won’t be doing it alone,” Lois said as she looked up with a smile.

  “I’m willing to do everything I can,” Hannah said fervently. “But I’ve never baked a pie before.”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” Lois said cheerfully. “You’ll do fine. And, you’ll see, there will be others coming to help, too. You’re a hometown girl and Dry Creek folks take care of their own.”

  “Oh,” Hannah said. Lois hadn’t lived here more than a year so she didn’t know about Hannah’s past. “I didn’t grow up here. I’ve always been an outsider.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lois said with a frown.

  “These kinds of things were always done for the kids who grew up here,” Hannah said. “Not for me. I was adopted.”

  Lois was silent and Hannah didn’t have the courage to look at the other woman to see what she was thinking.

  “It was fine, though,” Hannah added. “I was grateful for what I had at the Stellings’. At least, when my mom was alive.”

  “Sounds like it was a hard time,” Lois said sympathetically and Hannah looked up and nodded.

  Hannah didn’t want the other woman to give up on the pie bake sale she was planning, but Hannah felt she should know the score.

  “Well, Randy Collins said it would work,” Lois said. “And I think he knows what he’s talking about.”

  The idea to have a chiffon pie bake sale had come a few hours ago from the ranch hands who had been having breakfast in the café earlier. It had been Randy’s idea, but all three of them promised to spread the word of the sale around the countryside, especially after Lois estimated she and Hannah could bake two hundred pies. They’d do strawberry, lemon and lime.

  “There’s really not much to a chiffon pie,” Lois had assured Hannah when they’d agreed to everything. Breakfast was over and the day had been leaning toward lunch time. Hannah knew the ranch hands were going to need to work late to make up for the time they were taking, and she had appreciated it.

  “There’s enough to them to charge twenty-five dollars per pie,” Randy had said firmly at the time. “Don’t take a penny less.”

  “But we only charge ten dollars ordinarily,” Lois protested.

  At the time, Hannah couldn’t help but notice the slight flush on Lois’s face as she talked with the wrangler.

  “Most folks will want to give a little extra to the cause,” Randy had persisted. “We’re just helping them with that. Besides, those pies are worth more than ten dollars.”

  Lois beamed. “Really?”

  It must be the praise of her pies that had Lois looking ten years younger, Hannah had thought. After sitting with Lois in the kitchen for a half hour now, though, Hannah thought it was the goodness of the woman’s heart that had animated her face.

  Lois pulled the back of an order slip out of her apron pocket and laid it on the table.

  “Randy and the other two ranch hands gave me their order before they left,” Lois said. �
��They each bought four pies at twenty-five dollars apiece.”

  Lois grinned as she pulled the roll of bills out of her apron pocket. “Randy said my pies would sell for that much easy on the streets of New York. He said people would eat a slice while they drank those fancy coffees.”

  “Randy seems to know a lot about pies,” Hannah said with a smile.

  Lois laughed. “He might at that. He’s eaten a lot of them. And he reminded me that we do include a tin pie plate,” Lois added. “We don’t charge for that. It’s reusable, too.

  “Anyway, the three hundred dollars we got from Randy and his friends will help us order supplies,” Lois said.

  “That’s not going to buy enough supplies to make all those pies,” Hannah said.

  “I’m sure our boss, Linda, will let us use her supplies,” Lois said. “And I have enough in savings to pay for everything if she doesn’t.”

  “The first money from the pies will go to reimbursing whoever buys the supplies,” Hannah said.

  “We’ll talk about that after we sell those pies,” Lois said as she stood. “Someone’s coming.”

  It took Hannah another second, but then she heard the sound of an oncoming vehicle, too. While the person driving that vehicle might be going to the hardware store or the church, the odds were good that they would be stopping at the café.

  Hannah walked out to the front of the café as Mark walked into the place carrying a furry bundle.

  “You have Jeremy’s cat,” Hannah exclaimed in astonishment. “How’d you manage that? The beast never leaves his side.”

  Mark didn’t appear any more pleased to be carrying the cat than Callie looked to be carried. When they were inside and Mark had closed the door, he released his hold and the cat jumped to the floor.

  “I don’t think the cat should be here,” Hannah said. “In most cafés where I’ve worked, the health inspectors will grade a place down if they allow pets inside the main area.”

  “Callie’s already been in here,” Lois reminded everyone as she walked out from the kitchen. “We disinfect the floors every night anyway.”

  “I was just hoping to buy a can of tuna,” Mark said as he reached for the cat and lifted her up into his arms. “I’ll keep her from parading around.”

  “I’ll get a can,” Lois said as she started back toward the kitchen.

  “Tuna?” Hannah asked, feeling like she was missing some steps in this story. That cat barely tolerated strangers. Hannah wasn’t even allowed to hold her without enduring the threat of claws. “How did you end up with Callie?”

  “She wanted my sandwich,” Mark said as though that explained everything. “Until I pulled off the road on the way back and she saw that I mix pickles and onion with my tuna. Then she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. She probably wasn’t too impressed with the mayonnaise, either.”

  “Jeremy has some food for her over at Mrs. Hargrove’s,” Hannah said. She was beginning to understand. “But you don’t have to bribe the cat with tuna. She can’t coax Jeremy to accept you.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Mark said as Lois returned and gave him a small can that had the lid removed. “This is a cat that knows how to get her way.”

  With that, Mark turned and took Callie out of the café. Hannah stepped over to the window so she could see Mark sit on the café steps. He set the opened can of tuna on the ground and let Callie down. The cat didn’t even bother to turn and give him a thank-you glance. Instead, she went directly to the can and started to eat like she’d missed a week of meals.

  Hannah turned and saw that Lois had come to stand beside her.

  “That man is trying awful hard to get Jeremy’s attention,” Hannah said.

  Lois smiled. “It’s you he’s trying to impress.”

  Hannah shook her head. “How can I encourage any man unless Jeremy accepts him?”

  “Maybe Jeremy will follow your lead,” Lois said. “He’s not a difficult child to please, but he sure doesn’t want to go against you.”

  With that, the waitress walked away from the window and started back to the kitchen. Before she got to that doorway, though, she turned and said, “Just don’t let Mark get away if he’s the one you want in your heart.”

  Hannah didn’t answer. She didn’t dare rely on her heart. Emotions had not served her well in the past. She’d been so young when she loved Mark before.

  Dear Lord, she prayed. Give me wisdom in this.

  Then she heard Lois come back from the kitchen with a broom in her hand.

  “It’s been too long since we swept off the front steps,” Lois said as she held out the scruffy-looking thing to Hannah.

  “Okay,” Hannah said as she grabbed the broom and the excuse Lois gave her before heading for the door.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mark guarded the cat as she stood in front of him and ate her tuna. If he didn’t know she had been abandoned before Jeremy got her, he would worry that she would run away just to spite him. But a stray cat would stay until the tuna was gone.

  “I know you didn’t figure on a trip to Miles City when you went hunting that sandwich.” Mark felt a little sorry for the animal once he thought about her hard life.

  Then he heard the café door open behind him and looked up to see Hannah standing there with a tall, wicked-looking broom in her hand. The straws in the broom stuck out in all directions.

  “I didn’t know you liked cats,” Hannah said as she swept the broom across the weathered boards of the porch. Puffs of dust flew up, and she frowned as she looked down at the straw that had fallen from the broom.

  Mark decided that, since she was looking down, he could gaze at her all he wanted. The afternoon sun was shining on her hair, and even though it was pulled back into a ponytail, he could see the copper strands shimmer as she turned to talk to him. She was an exciting woman.

  “Or maybe I’m wrong,” she added.

  “Huh?” he said, startled out of his reverie.

  “The cat,” she reminded him. “You like her?”

  “The cat and I are learning to understand each other,” Mark said. “I didn’t exactly invite her to come along with me. She snuck into my cab. I don’t know how she feels about me, though.”

  “She wouldn’t have gone with you if she didn’t know Jeremy liked you,” Hannah said. “Cats sense those things and wild cats more than most. So she likes you well enough.”

  Mark thought about that a minute. “You think so? It’s not just the tuna?”

  Hannah nodded as she leaned the broom in a corner of the railing and sat down on the top step. “That cat was afraid of men for the longest time. She didn’t really settle in until she adopted Jeremy. Even then she didn’t like strangers, especially men.”

  “She may like me okay, but can I trust her?” Mark said thoughtfully.

  “Trust her for what?” Hannah said with an arch to her voice. “She’s a cat.”

  “I wonder whether or not she’ll cause a fuss when she sees Jeremy,” Mark clarified. “She can make him think I took her against her will. She can doom me in Jeremy’s eyes. He trusts her a lot more than he trusts me.”

  Mark didn’t want Hannah to see how worried he was, but he could hardly hide it.

  “I’ll vouch for you,” Hannah said, sounding impulsive as she leaned down and put her hand on his shoulder.

  Mark didn’t know if it was the comfort of her gesture or the words she said, but his world tilted on its axis. He’d been lost and now he was found. He had his bearings.

  “You’re saying you want me to be a father to Jeremy?” he asked just to be sure he wasn’t misunderstanding.

  Hannah nodded. “I don’t promise I won’t sometimes feel insecure. Jeremy is all I have. But I want the best for him and I think he’ll be fortunate to have you in his life as his father.”

  Mark w
anted to ask if she wanted him in her life, too, but he realized he was a coward. She might say no and that would jeopardize everything. She might even decide then that Jeremy didn’t need him, either.

  For the first time, Mark felt a kinship with Randy Collins. When so much rested on a yes or a no, it was hard to ask a woman for her answer. Doubt was easier to live with than rejection.

  Hannah was studying him intently, her hazel eyes searching for something on his face.

  “I would never hurt you,” Mark vowed. “You don’t need to worry about me trying to take Jeremy away from you.”

  Hannah nodded slowly.

  Mark swallowed and attempted a smile. “I might have to get myself a cape and learn how to fly to compete with his comic book heroes, but I promise to do my best to keep our son happy and safe.” He thought a moment. “And healthy. Especially that.”

  “I know you will,” Hannah assured him quietly.

  “But I won’t ask him to choose between the two of us,” Mark said.

  They sat together in silence for a bit. The sun was getting ready to take its long journey into the dark night. There had been no clouds at all today so the rain that everyone had expected had fallen elsewhere. No vehicles went by on the rough road. He could hear the sounds of distant hammering and wondered about the large old house on the outskirts of Dry Creek that was being converted into a bed-and-breakfast.

  “This is a good place for Jeremy to grow up,” Mark said.

  “I don’t want him to feel out of place,” Hannah said. “Since he wasn’t born here or anything.”

  Mark was surprised. “What do you mean, he wasn’t born here? Where was he born?”

  Hannah gave a tight smile. “It doesn’t matter, but I went to a place for unwed mothers up on the Hi-Line.”

  “Oh,” Mark said. For the first time, he began to picture what Hannah’s days had been like when she was pregnant. He’d always assumed she’d been here in Dry Creek where Mrs. Hargrove would look out for her and the community would have pressured Mr. Stelling to help her.