An Angel for Dry Creek

by Janet Tronstad

  “I could talk to the deputy if you’ve got somewhere else to be on Christmas,” Matthew said. His stomach muscles tensed. She’d want to be with her husband on Christmas if she had one. “He can’t hold you here.”

  “I’d thought about spending Christmas with my mother.”

  Matthew’s stomach knotted. The mother could be a husband as easily as he stood here. “In Seattle?”

  Glory nodded.

  “You won’t have a white Christmas there,” Matthew offered. It was none of his business if she had another life that had nothing to do with Dry Creek, but he couldn’t stop himself. “The twins would love to have you stay.”

  Glory stopped her head from nodding. She’d love to spend Christmas with the twins as much as they wanted her to spend it with them. But she had more wisdom than the twins. She knew that sometimes a day’s happiness came with a price tag attached. If she stayed for Christmas, she’d regret it later when she had to leave. And leave she would. Because as much as she might dream about a life with someone like Matthew, she wasn’t the woman for him.

  No one could accuse the churches in Spokane of being quiet. It was prayer meeting night, and the Bullet sat first on the outside steps of one church and then another. He heard it all. John 3:16. “Amazing Grace.” The Lord’s Prayer. He’d felt a little self-conscious just sitting outside, but he did anyway. He wasn’t fit to go inside, and he knew it. Besides, he needed to be at the door before anyone came out so he could be sure to see the woman if she left.

  His plan earned him a few curious looks, but he congratulated himself on doing fine until he reached a church on the east side.

  “Give me a hand,” the old man asked as he started to climb the stairs.

  The Bullet looked around, but everyone else was already inside the church. There was no one to help the man but him.

  Chapter Five

  Matthew was true to his word, Glory thought. Dinner her second night not only didn’t float in milk, it didn’t come from a cardboard box, either. He made a salmon loaf, baked potatoes and green beans. There were fresh chives for the baked potatoes and mushrooms in the green beans. Betty Crocker couldn’t have done better.

  “I could help,” Glory said for the tenth time since Matthew had shooed her out of the kitchen. She listened to pans rattle as she sat on the sofa and Matthew did dishes. Glory tried to remember if she’d ever had a man make her dinner before—and then insist on doing the dishes even though he was on crutches. Not that Matthew had made the dinner especially for her, she reminded herself. The twins had needed dinner, too.

  “Please, let me help. I’m not used to being waited on.” She started to get up from the sofa.

  Matthew grunted from the kitchen. “Stay put. Do you good to take it easy.”

  Two pairs of twin arms reached up to pull her back to the sofa.

  “Don’t angels have daddies to cook for them?” Joey asked quietly as she settled back down. He pressed so close to her she could feel his worry. “I told my daddy he needed to make angel food cake. Maybe then you’d stay.”

  Glory smoothed back the hair on Joey’s forehead. “You don’t need to feed me angel cake.”

  “We had to give our fish some fish food. That’s all they ate,” Josh added solemnly as though she hadn’t spoken. He was on her other side. “They ate and ate, but they died anyway.”

  “Do fish go to heaven when they die?” Joey looked up at her quizzically.

  “No, silly,” Josh answered for her. “There’s no water in heaven. Only clouds. Isn’t that right?” He looked to Glory for reinforcement and then added scornfully, “Besides, fish can’t be angels. They can’t fly.”

  “You know, we should learn about angels,” Glory said decisively. She remembered her father always took this tactic when she was a child. Everything led to a lesson. Once the twins learned about real angels, maybe they’d let her be human. The truth did set people free, even if those people were only five years old. “Let me go get a Bible.”

  “We got one.” Josh ran to a shelf and pulled down an old black Bible. The gold lettering on the front said “Family Bible,” and the back of the leather cover looked as if it had been scorched. Josh carried the Bible to her as if it was a basket of precious jewels. Glory put her fingers to the burned mark around the edge just to be sure. So, she thought, smiling, something had been snatched from that fire after all. There was hope for Matthew yet.

  “Are you going to tell us about an angel?” Joey asked, his voice low and excited.

  Glory flipped through the Bible. She knew just the angel for the boys. “Not only an angel, but some big cats, too.”

  Glory saw their eyes grow big.

  “The king made a rule…” Glory said, beginning to paraphrase chapter six of Daniel. She knew the story well. She didn’t need to read it from the Bible that lay on her lap.

  The twins listened to the king’s dilemma and the story of his evil advisors.

  “Finally the king had no choice. He’d been tricked. He needed to put Daniel in a den with big cats called lions.”

  “Mrs. Hargrove told us about the lions,” Joey whispered as he moved closer to Glory. “They eat people.”

  Josh shivered and snuggled closer to her other side. “I want a dog. No cats.”

  “These are special cats.” Glory put an arm around each boy. They both shifted closer. “Not like the cats you know. Much, much bigger than the cats around here.”

  “A trillion times bigger?” Josh asked. He was clearly relishing the story.

  “Almost. And there’s no need to be afraid. There aren’t any lions around here.”

  The twins looked momentarily disappointed and then Josh said. “But there’s cats. Mr. Gossett next door has cats. They’ll get you.”

  “Cats might scratch you, but they won’t eat you.”

  “But they’re Mr. Gossett’s cats,” Josh said as though that explained everything. “He doesn’t eat. He drinks his meals. Mrs. Hargrove says.”

  “Maybe his cats don’t eat, either.” Joey took up the thought excitedly. “Maybe they lick you instead. Like an ice cream cone. Maybe that’s how they eat. Lick, lick, lick—then you’re gone. I’ve seen them lick people.” He shivered. “I don’t want them to lick me.”

  “You can’t get licked away.” Glory had forgotten how much young boys liked to flirt with danger. “Or get drunk away. Or bitten away. You’re completely safe with cats.”

  Glory showed the twins the picture in the Bible. The reds and blues of the scene had faded, but the lions looked scary. And the angel still looked majestic with his flowing white robes and golden hair.

  “That’s an angel,” Joey said in awe as he traced the picture. “With real wings.”

  Glory felt a pair of little hands reach up and lightly touch her shoulder blades as though checking.

  “No wings,” she assured them.

  Matthew turned the light off in the kitchen and leaned against the doorway leading to the living room. He’d built a fire earlier, and the light made Glory and his sons look golden. Their heads were bent together over a book, two little blond heads with a bronze one in the middle. He had heard the excited whispers as he washed the dishes in the kitchen. He felt a swell of contentment fill him. He’d do more than wash a few dishes to give his sons time with a woman like Glory.

  Then the shadows shifted, and Matthew saw what the three were reading. He tensed. The Bible. He’d bought that Bible when the twins were born. Susie had used it to record the twins’ births—their weight, height and first gestures. They’d planned to be a family around that Bible. He and Susie had read from it for family devotions when the twins were in their strollers. They’d planned to record their anniversaries in the book and the births of more babies.

  “It’s time for bed,” Matthew said abruptly. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised the twins had found the Bible. It wasn’t hidden. He just hadn’t expected to deal with their claim on it so soon.

  “Aah,” Josh groaned. “We
were just at the good part.”

  “We can finish it tomorrow night,” Glory said as she hugged each of the boys and then took her arm away so they could scoot off the sofa.

  “Can we get a den?” Josh turned to Matthew. “Ricky’s family has a den.”

  “Different kind of den.” Glory tried to pluck the thought from him before he got going in that direction. “This kind of den is a cave. It’s made from rock. All dark inside.”

  “Oh.” Josh seemed to be thinking.

  Matthew smiled. He didn’t tell Glory, but he already knew a den would be made from blankets tomorrow. Josh loved acting. “Get washed up and I’ll tuck you in.” The boys ran out of the room.

  “You can’t!” Alarms went off in Glory’s stomach. All thoughts of cats and dens vanished. Tuck them in! Tucking in meant Matthew upstairs in the twins’ room! Matthew wasn’t supposed to be able to climb stairs. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to see the cocoon she’d built in his bed last night. She’d wrapped blankets around herself snugly, but she’d lined up one of his pillows to lie beside her in the night. She’d told the twins the pillow was her teddy bear, but a grown man would…well, he might see it differently.

  “Figure of speech,” Matthew said as he watched Glory’s face. The gold from the fire and the blush fanning out over her face made her look like rare porcelain. “I meant I’d give them a kiss good-night. Down here, of course.”

  “Of course.” Glory smoothed down her skirt. “I should go up, too.”

  “It’s only seven-thirty,” Matthew protested as he lowered himself onto the sofa and propped his crutches against the wall. His shoulders ached and the palms of his hands burned where he leaned on the crossbar of the crutch. He should be thinking of sleep himself, but he was wide-awake. It occurred to him that his twins weren’t the only ones who missed having some quiet time with a woman. “Sit with me for a while and talk.”

  Glory hesitated. The sofa that had seemed so large when she and the twins were sitting on it seemed to have shrunk now that Matthew was on the other end. She didn’t want to be skittish and scoot over to the edge of the sofa, but she wasn’t sure it felt safe to be within reaching distance of Matthew. Not that she expected him to reach for her, she told herself. Be reasonable. He only wants some light conversation after a day’s work.

  Matthew watched the reluctance streak across her face, and he remembered Elmer’s words about her being an undercover agent. He wondered if she was remembering a husband or boyfriend who laid claim to her real life. He sure wished he knew if she was undercover.

  “We don’t usually have salmon, not even canned—not this close to the Big Sheep Mountains,” he began. His mouth was dry. He wasn’t used to entrapping a federal agent. “These mountains are cattle country through and through. Folks here pride themselves on beefsteaks, even now with all the…” He deliberately let his voice trail off to see if she’d pick up the scent like a federal agent would.

  “Yes, the rustling.” Glory latched on to the topic with relief. Nothing could be more impersonal than beefsteaks, she thought to herself with satisfaction. “How long has that been going on? Tell me everything you know.”

  Matthew’s heart sank. She’d taken the bait with gusto. Maybe she was an agent, after all. Why else would a woman from out of town care about the rustling? “Cattle have been missing for the past year, I suppose. Probably started last winter. They free range most of the cattle around here in the winter, and so they don’t do a complete count until the snow thaws and it comes close to calving time.”

  “Surely they don’t leave those cows out all winter?” Glory asked in alarm.

  Matthew smiled. That narrowed the field some. Unless she was a very good actress, she didn’t work for the Department of Agriculture. “They have windbreaks set up, sometimes sheds, and the cows grow a thick coat. If it’s real cold they can always wander down to the fences and someone will let them into the barn area. And they drop bales of hay to them, by pickup mostly. In bad winters they’ve dropped hay from small planes or helicopters.”

  “Well, maybe there’s no rustling at all,” Glory offered. She was having a hard time concentrating now that Matthew had started rubbing his shoulder. The crutches must be giving him trouble. His hands were what were giving her trouble. They were large and muscled, lightly haired and lightly tanned. “Maybe the cows are still out there.”

  “That’s why it’s so hard to know for sure when it all started,” Matthew admitted. His hands found the knot in his shoulder and he sighed as he rubbed it. “A few cows here and there—who knows? Maybe they’re holed up in a gully somewhere. But the Big Sheep Mountain Ranch has had their hands riding all over the range—covered it with a fine-tooth comb and didn’t find the cattle or any carcasses. There needs to be one or the other. Even the buzzards can’t carry off a whole cow.”

  “Sounds just like the Old West,” Glory said. She’d never given too much thought to the life of a cow. Or a buzzard. Or a cowboy. “Is it the Big Sheep Mountain Ranch that’s thinking of becoming a dude ranch?”

  Matthew winced. His fingers had hit a nerve on his shoulder. “They don’t call it dude ranch around here. I think the politically correct term is guest ranch. Doesn’t offend the ‘guests’ as much. And, yes, it is the Big Sheep. If they follow through. They’ve had some tourism consultant down from Helena. It appears the scenery around the Big Sheep Mountains is as valuable as the cows. Maybe more so when you throw in the fact that we’ve got the Tongue River and the Yellowstone River close by and we’re not far from Medicine Rock State Park. Some say we’re the not-so-bad part of the Badlands, too.”

  “Well, at least the town will survive, then.” Glory bit her lip. She shouldn’t say anything, but Matthew was going to be even more sore after he finished trying to massage his one shoulder. His angle was all wrong.

  “There’s survival and there’s survival. Some folks think the dudes will change the town so much we might as well lie down and die in the first place. Go with dignity. Elmer keeps going on about how he doesn’t want to have to look the part of a rancher when he’s face-to-face with some fancy lawyer who’s only coming here for two weeks to pretend he does something real with his life. Says the old ghosts of all those cow-hands that used to ride for the XIT Ranch in its glory will rise up and protest if we sell out like that.”

  “What do the women think?” Glory shifted on the sofa. Now Matthew was both massaging at the wrong angle and twisting his shoulder the wrong way, too. He’d throw his back out if he wasn’t careful.

  Matthew chuckled. “Mrs. Hargrove is all set to evangelize the dudes.”

  Glory couldn’t stand it any longer. “Here. Let me massage that for you. You’re going to end up back in the clinic.”

  Glory stood behind the sofa and put her hands on Matthew’s shoulder. She’d kneaded the shoulders of a fair number of tired cops in her day down at the station. This shouldn’t be any different. It shouldn’t matter that firelight instead of fluorescent light streamed into the room or that her heart beat a little too fast when she touched one particular man’s shoulders.

  Matthew sighed. Maybe Glory was an angel, after all. Her touch certainly put him in mind of heaven.

  “Well, Mrs. Hargrove might do some good that way.” Glory refocused on the conversation. She needed to concentrate. “With her evangelistic zeal.”

  “I don’t know about that. You know as well as I do they’ll only see her as ‘local scenery.’ A person has a right to be taken more seriously than that. I’d rather folks openly disagreed with her rather than see her as scenery.”

  “What was it Paul said? ‘I am all things to all men whereby I might win some.”’ Glory located the knot on Matthew’s neck and rubbed it gently.

  “He didn’t mention anything about being scenery.”

  Glory felt the knot on Matthew’s neck tighten beneath her fingers. He was even more tense now than when she’d started.

  Glory had a flash of insight. “Was that what it was like for
you?”

  “Huh?” Matthew looked up at her too quickly.

  “Being a minister,” Glory said softly, and stopped massaging him. “Was that what it seemed like when you were a minister?”

  Matthew took a deep breath and exhaled. How did she know? “Only at the end.”

  “After Susie died?”

  Matthew nodded. “I was standing up there in front of the congregation and I felt so empty inside. Like I was only the picture of a minister standing in a pulpit. Like none of it was real.”

  “Grief will do that to you.”

  Matthew shook his head. He’d thought about this every day since he’d made the decision to walk away from that pulpit. “A real minister would have been able to cope. Oh, maybe not easily, but somehow. If I’m not able to be a minister in the bad times, what kind of a minister am I in the good times?”

  “A human minister,” Glory reassured him emphatically. She saw the defeat on his face. And the sorrow.

  The sound of little feet padding swiftly down the steps distracted them both.

  “I’m first,” claimed Josh as he flung himself into his father’s arms.

  There goes one good massage wasted, Glory thought wryly. Pain didn’t stop Matthew. He opened his arms wide enough to gather both boys to him. No matter what Matthew thought about his role as a minister, it was clear that his role as a father came naturally to him. Love between Matthew and his sons was a given. It was the bedrock of the twins’ lives.

  “Kiss?” Josh had left his father’s arms and now stood before Glory.

  Glory smiled. “Of course.” She leaned down and hugged Josh. Then she gave him an exaggerated kiss, the kind she’d loved as a child. She “smacked” Josh so hard on the cheek that he started to giggle. Then she offered her own cheek. “Now me.”

  Josh puckered up and put his lips on her cheek for a big smack.

  “Now Joey.” Glory saw Joey was hanging back shyly. When she opened her arms to him he smiled and ran up to her. She repeated the ritual with him.