Sugar Plums for Dry Creek & At Home in Dry Creek

by Janet Tronstad

  The sheriff followed the direction of Barbara’s eyes. He should have known. She was looking directly at Pete Denning. Or Pete was looking at her. The sheriff wasn’t sure who had started looking first.

  Pete was the worst of the lot when it came to the ranch hands. He flirted. He broke hearts. He would dance with a cactus if that was the only thing he could find to put his arms around. Rumor had it that Pete had been claiming he was ready to get married these days, now that his good friend Judd was tying the knot. The sheriff had known Pete for years. He figured the read y-to-marry line was just Pete’s latest pick-up bait.

  But Barbara wouldn’t know that. Women just couldn’t resist a no-good ladies’ man who said he was ready to settle down.

  Pete had obviously decided to forget about the year of grace for Barbara. He had probably already said his line to her now that he was standing closer to the woman. That must be why she was fanning herself so hard the rose petals were beginning to fall off that bouquet she held. She probably wanted Pete to know she was listening to his talk about his new-found desire to settle down.

  Of course she was listening, the sheriff told himself. Pete was the kind of guy women liked. That was the worst of it. Even when Pete had played a huge mouse in that Nut cracker ballet last Christmas, women had swarmed around him afterward like he was the hero of the piece instead of the villain. Women just naturally thought Pete was exciting.

  The sheriff felt himself fade into the back ground a little bit. He’d long ago made his peace with the fact that women found him dull. They knew he was trust worthy, of course. Women always voted for him for sheriff. But women didn’t look at him the way they looked at Pete.

  The sheriff knew he didn’t understand women. He’d never had much reason to understand them. He couldn’t remember his mother. He had grown up in an endless cycle of institutions and foster homes. He’d always been more of a number than a name.

  There had never been much demand in adoption circles for a stocky, plain boy who was average in just about everything, so he’d stayed in the state system.

  Still, the sheriff was content. He had his job and he was a good sheriff. He understood doing his duty much more than he understood things like being part of a family. Married couples baffled him. Young children made him nervous. But it was okay. He’d found a place for himself in life and it was a fine place.

  He’d even made himself a home of sorts on a piece of land outside Dry Creek a couple of years ago. The twenty-acre plot he’d bought had a few trees on it and a creek that ran across the upper north west corner. The creek wasn’t much more than mud in the fall, but in the spring, like now, it ran full and sweet.

  The sheriff had bought a used trailer and set it on a foundation close enough to one tree so he’d have shade in the summer. Then he’d built a wooden porch that reached out a good ten feet from the main part of the trailer. The trailer was two bedrooms and, with the porch, felt like a house. Last spring, he’d put a white picket fence around the trailer to keep the deer away from the corn he had planted next to the porch.

  Yes, the sheriff thought to himself, he was doing fine.

  It’s just that he didn’t believe in pre tending to be something he wasn’t. And he wasn’t a family man. He could count on one hand the times he had sat down to eat with a group of people when he was growing up and felt like he was eating with a family.

  Still, he’d come to peace with who he was. He’d learned some lessons the hard way, but he was a decent, strong man. He might have limitations, but he knew what they were. He wasn’t a touch y-feely emotional kind of a man like most women wanted. But that was okay. He knew the importance of duty and he knew how to keep the people in his care safe.

  Someday, the sheriff hoped, he’d meet a woman who would appreciate the solid nature of his personality. Of course, she’d probably be a bit dull and color less herself. He’d figured that out long ago. Whoever she was, she wouldn’t be anything like Barbara Strong.

  Just look at the woman. She stood there waving that pink-rose bouquet around and looking like a Valentine greeting card doing it. Her dark hair was all curly around her head, and her brown eyes flashed. Her skin was all flushed, and she had a dimple. And it wasn’t just her looks that made her seem so feminine—it was the graceful way she fluttered her hands when she talked.

  The sheriff could watch her hands talk for hours. He’d noticed long ago that she’d taken off her wedding rings, both the gold band and the diamond engagement ring that went with it. He knew that some women started wearing lots of other rings when they took off their wedding ring, like they were un comfort able with having the ring gone. But not Barbara. Her fingers stayed bare and her hands moved even more freely with no ring at all.

  The sheriff frowned a bit more deeply. Maybe Barbara just didn’t have any other rings to wear. That didn’t seem right either. A woman like her deserved the best of everything.

  She certainly deserved better than to have her heart broken by Pete.

  The sheriff sighed. It wasn’t always easy looking out for other people. Not that he gave this kind of special attention to everyone who moved to Dry Creek. It was just that he’d started feeling responsible for Barbara when he’d tracked her down to that Colorado hospital after her ex-husband beat her up last fall. He’d sat by her hospital bed for the simple reason that she’d taken one look at him and asked him to stay.

  Of course, she might not have been in her right mind when she’d asked him to stay. She’d been drugged with enough pain medication to confuse anyone. For all he knew, she thought he was Elvis or the hospital chaplain or some long-lost purple rabbit from her child hood. But, he’d stayed with her anyway.

  When people were drugged, as Barbara had been in the hospital, they tended to mutter to them selves about all kinds of things. While he sat by her bed, the sheriff had heard enough of what was in Barbara Strong’s heart to know she dreamed of romance and poetry and knights on white horses. His hopes had sunk with each fanciful dream she shared. She was the kind of woman who would take one look at him and know he didn’t have a clue about any of those things she was dreaming about.

  The sheriff hoped the day never came when Barbara looked at him too closely. He knew it hadn’t come while she was in the hospital, because on the last day of her hospital stay, she’d kissed him. On the cheek like a thank-you kiss. It had been because of the drugs still in her system, he was sure of that. But he’d kissed her back anyway, and not on the cheek. His had been no thank-you kiss, and he hadn’t had the excuse of being on any kind of medication.

  Barbara had been surprised.

  The sheriff had been stunned. He had no excuse for his behavior. He knew he wasn’t the kind of man that Barbara dreamed about. He had nothing to offer a woman like Barbara. He didn’t even talk about the things women liked to hear. He’d watched Pete flirt with women and realized he didn’t have a clue how to go about something like that.

  No, he’d always known Barbara would want someone better than him long-term. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t protect her until she got back on her feet. He meant for her to have her year of peace. He needed it and she needed it, too. She certainly didn’t need someone like Pete tormenting her.

  The sheriff started moving.

  “You got the registration updated on that old pickup of yours?” Sheriff Wall asked as he finished walking over to Pete. When he started asking the question of Pete, the sheriff was standing beside the other man. By the time the question was ended, the sheriff was standing in front of Pete, half-blocking the view the ranch hand had of Barbara.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” the sheriff turned and nodded his head toward Barbara. She did look pretty, but he couldn’t be distracted. She smelled nice, too. “This will just take a minute.”

  “That’s all right.” Barbara smiled at the sheriff. “I need to check on the children anyway.”

  The sheriff nodded again as Barbara stepped away.

  “What’d you do that for?” Pete complain
ed when Barbara was out of earshot. “Now she’s going to think I live outside the law like that no-good man she used to be married to! I sent off for the official registration. I told you that when old Charley sold it to me. I’ve got the temporary permit in my pickup.”

  By the time Pete had finished explaining himself, both men were standing side-by-side, watching Barbara walk through the crowd of people. Barbara wasn’t tall, but she walked tall with her shoulders thrown back and her step confident. She made quite the picture in the lavender brides maid’s dress she was wearing. The dress had a full shiny skirt that swished and swayed when she walked. If people would only stop talking, the sheriff knew he’d be able to hear the dress.

  There, the sheriff thought in satisfaction. A fair number of people had stopped talking. It was almost quiet.

  It took a minute for Sheriff Wall to realize what all that silence meant, and he looked around. He didn’t have to look far to see a dozen other single men also watching Barbara as she walked across the room to the refreshment table. He scowled at those other men.

  “I was just getting ready to ask her out,” Pete complained softly.

  “That’s what I figured,” the sheriff said as he gave the ranch hand a friendly pat on the back and turned to walk away.

  “Hey, don’t you want to see the temporary permit?” Pete called after him.

  “Naw, that’s fine.” The sheriff thought maybe he should get himself a cup of punch from the refreshment table. Just to let the other men know he was keeping an eye on things.

  Chapter Three

  “Congratulations!” Mrs. Hargrove said as Barbara stopped in front of the refreshment table. Mrs. Hargrove had a long cake knife in one hand and a streak of lemon filling on the white apron she wore over her green gingham dress. The older woman had her gray hair pulled back into a black velvet bun catcher and she wore a pearl necklace.

  “Thanks.” Barbara thought the older woman looked a little tired despite her finery. She knew Mrs. Hargrove had seen her catch the bouquet, but she didn’t want the older woman to have any un re al is tic expectations. “Lizette is the one who needs the congratulations though—she’s the bride—she was just having some fun throwing her bouquet. She knows I’m not interested in getting married again.”

  “Oh, you can’t give up hope, dear,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she sliced another piece of cake and put it on the last clear plastic plate from what had apparently been a stack in front of her. “You’re only twenty-nine years old—that’s much too young to give up hope.”

  “Age has nothing to do with it,” Barbara said as she caught sight of her children and noted they still seemed to be having a good time playing with the other children. “Marriage just isn’t for me.”

  Not that she was against marriage in general, Barbara thought. She was here celebrating a wedding, after all. And she believed that some people had good marriages. She’d seen couples right here in Dry Creek who seemed very happy. But somehow Barbara doubted that kind of marriage was going to happen for her.

  “Not all men turn out to be thieves,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she cut another piece of cake and lifted it in the air. Mrs. Hargrove was cutting into the spare overflow sheet cake that Lizette had made because she wanted everyone to have all the cake they wanted. Most people had already eaten a piece of the tiered cake. Mrs. Hargrove looked around to see if there was a plate for the cake she now held on the silver server.

  “They don’t all turn out to be faithful either.” Barbara knew this was at the core of why she didn’t believe she would ever have a happy marriage. A happy marriage required a lot of trust, and Barbara had none left. She didn’t think she’d ever trust another man with something as important as her heart. But that was okay. A woman could live a fine life without a husband.

  Barbara could see there were no plates left for the cake Mrs. Hargrove held. She looked down and saw an open box peeking out from under the white tablecloth. “Here, let me get some more plates for you.”

  Barbara bent down.

  “Oh, no, I’ll be fine,” Mrs. Hargrove glanced around until she saw the sheriff. “Carl, come here and get these plates so Barbara doesn’t have to.”

  “They’re not heavy,” Barbara said as her fingers closed around a stack of plastic plates. She knelt down. Unfortunately, the sheriff’s fingers closed around the same stack of plates. He didn’t look as though he intended to let go.

  “Really, I can get them. It’s not like they’re gold-rimmed china or any thing,” Barbara pro tested. Her voice sounded muffled because her head was half-covered by the white table cloth as she knelt, but she’d thought she made her point.

  Apparently she was wrong.

  The sheriff knelt down, too and put his head under the tablecloth to look at the plates. He still kept his grip on the stack of plates. “Everything doesn’t need to be fancy. Some times the plain old ordinary things are best.”

  “I know. That’s what I’m saying,” Barbara continued. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. “The plates are plastic. Not fine china. They’re not worth any thing.”

  No one would steal them, she added to herself silently. You don’t need to worry about me taking them.

  She wondered if people would talk later about her and the sheriff snapping at each other under the cake table at Judd and Lizette’s wedding reception. She hoped not. The one person she had thought would be her friend when she moved to Dry Creek was the sheriff, but it hadn’t worked out that way.

  She never did know all that she had said to him when he sat beside her hospital bed in Colorado. She knew she was out of it for some of the time. But the rest of the time, she thought they were becoming friends. She’d loved listening to him talk. He’d told her story after story about Dry Creek, some of them from the days when the cattle first came to the area and some as recent as last spring when he’d picked chokecherries for Mrs. Hargrove so she could make jelly to enter in some contest at the state fair.

  Barbara had thought at the time that not many men would pick berries so an old woman could win a prize with her jelly. That’s when she’d kissed him. It had been impulsive. Sort of a tribute to what a nice man he was. Then he’d kissed her back—really kissed her.

  The sheriff was the one who had driven Barbara back to Dry Creek when the hospital said she could go home. She had no home and no car left, since Neal, not content with putting her in the hospital, had taken a sledge hammer to her parked car. Her children had been staying with Judd so she’d been grateful for the ride.

  Barbara had no choice but to accept the sheriff’s offer of a ride. And she’d decided at the time that it was just as well. She needed to gently explain to him that, as much as she had enjoyed his kiss, she was never going to marry again and she didn’t want to lead him on to expect a certain kind of relation ship when all she could offer him was friend ship.

  Barbara had her words all picked out and she had decided, with a man’s pride being what it was, that it was best to let the sheriff bring up the subject of the kiss.

  She had worried for nothing. The sheriff never mentioned the kiss. Once they were back in Dry Creek, he’d become all official and formal around her. He acted like she was a stranger—an unkissed stranger at that.

  At first, she’d thought maybe he had a girl friend and he’d been worried that she might misinterpret the kiss, but she’d soon learned there was no girl friend. No, he must have just been concerned she would read too much into that kiss for the simple reason that it didn’t mean anything to him.

  Well, he hadn’t needed to worry. She knew the kiss didn’t mean anything. She didn’t want it to mean anything. Still, she thought he could have at least brought the subject up. No kiss was all that meaning less. She had gotten the message back then and she got it now.

  “You’re a guest here,” the sheriff finally said as he gave another tug at the stack of plates.

  Barbara let him have the plates as she moved her head back so she could stand up. “No more than everyone el
se is a guest.”

  Mrs. Hargrove smiled at Barbara when she stood. “That’s better—you wouldn’t want to get frosting on that pretty dress of yours.”

  Barbara nodded in defeat. A person couldn’t force acceptance. She wondered if she’d ever really find a home here. Before she could belong, they needed to trust her at least a little. It was disheartening that they wouldn’t even let her touch the plastic plates. She could forget about something as advanced as pouring coffee.

  She felt like one of those birds in a gilded cage. It wasn’t just that no one let her do anything for the community. She was an outsider in the most basic of ways. No one burdened her with their troubles, even though they all knew hers.

  On a day like today, Barbara would have liked a friend to talk to about the wedding, but friend ship went both ways. She wouldn’t ask a stranger to care about how hard today was for her when no one shared their troubles with her.

  She was lonely.

  Barbara had known she’d have to listen to Judd and Lizette recite their wedding vows today. She’d been prepared for it to be hard, but she hadn’t expected it to be as hard as it was. She hadn’t been able to listen to those vows without counting all the times her ex-husband had broken his. Talking to a friend would have made that hurt easier to bear.

  Not all men are like your ex-husband,” Mrs. Hargrove said adamantly as she lifted another piece of cake and set it on the plate the sheriff was holding out to her. She then turned her attention back to Barbara. “Carl here’s a good boy.”

  Barbara almost laughed at the startled look on the sheriff’s face. She wasn’t sure if being called a “boy” was the surprise or if he was shocked anyone would think of him as a husband prospect for a woman whose ex-husband was a criminal.

  Barbara wondered if that was why the sheriff had never brought up the subject of the kiss. He was probably dismayed he’d kissed the ex-wife of a thief.