Winsor, Linda

by Along Came Jones

  The knees of her slacks were soiled where she'd evidently been scrubbing the floor. It had never occurred to Shep to try to find clothes for his charge.

  "We'll pick up some clothes, too. For now, just rummage through my things and see what you can make do with."

  Shep wished his enthusiasm was a bit more genuine, but most of his assets were on paper. He was cash poor. Slapping on the Stetson and picking up the flashlight he'd left on the kitchen table earlier, he started outside. "Keep him down, now," he called back as the screen door slammed behind him.

  "I will... thanks."

  "No problem." Shep suppressed the nagging anxiety in his voice, but it wouldn't leave his mind. Not only was his pocket-book at risk, but his sanity as well. He felt like the rope in a tug-o'-war of conflicting emotions.

  He knew full well what he needed to do—what God expected him to do. But, God, I didn't destroy Your sanctuary the way Deanna Manetti is destroying mine.

  ***

  The church community hall was warm and inviting with its knotty pine paneled walls and Currier and Ives print curtains. The committee members gathered around a row of folding tables to discuss how to raise money for the church's maintenance fund. A cross breeze from the open windows carried the scent of freshly brewed coffee and the lilacs that had grown into a fragrant hedge on the side of the building. Dressed in a borrowed T-shirt and pair of jeans cinched at her waist with the belt from her linen-silk blend trousers, Deanna listened as ways to meet the need for the new roof were debated.

  "Even our biggest bazaar or church dinner won't raise the money we need," Maisy O'Donnall pointed out. "We still have a room full of crafts from the last one."

  The friendly waitress from the diner walked over with Shep and Deanna after they'd finished their meal—a pot roast special. Esther Lawson caught up with them before they reached the church at the end of Main Street. She'd left her sixteen-year-old granddaughter with Tyler, who complained about staying behind while his friends drove over to Taylorville, Buffalo Butte's larger, more urban neighbor.

  "I told young Tyler that if he didn't stay put, he wouldn't be going anywhere in the morning," Esther sniffed primly.

  It came as no surprise to Deanna that the lady was a former schoolteacher and had taught most of the townspeople under forty, including Shep while his dad was stationed overseas. Esther had a sweet, kindly face—definitely a looker in her day—but her ramrod straight posture hinted of a backbone of steel. Deanna had no doubt that Tyler was following her orders to the letter.

  When Shep had asked Maisy and Esther where the best place to buy ladies' clothing was, the two began clucking like mother hens over her. There was no need for Shep to take Deanna to Taylorville; plenty of nice things were in the church rummage sale boxes that would fill the order. Before the meeting started, Shep carried out a box of clothing just Deanna's size, some of the pieces with tags still on them.

  "Honey, the Lord knows what size we all wear," Maisy said, when Deanna marveled at her good fortune. "And Juanita Everett is always buying things a size too small, if you get my drift. Fills the church box and empties her husband's pocketbook, not that it's any of my business."

  "Now, Maisy, idle talk breeds mischief," Esther cautioned.

  Unruffled, Maisy laughed. "Shoot, Esther, that's all I ever do. I suppose that's why I'm so ornery."

  Deanna suddenly had two mothers, one a prim lady, the other an outrageous flirt, and both the answer to a prayer she hadn't even asked. Overwhelmed by the friendly support, she glanced out the window at the little white-steepled church across the parking lot. She knew now that she'd forgotten God's size, but He hadn't forgotten hers. If only she knew what He had in mind for her. He knew she was innocent.

  "What we need is exposure," the former schoolmistress declared, drawing Deanna back to the conversation at hand. "Maybe we could pack up and head over to the big Smart Mart in Taylorville and have a sale there."

  "The problem is, even if they'll let us set up at the store, we don't have enough people with enough time to staff a bake sale or craft table for as long at it would take to raise the money," Reverend John Lawrence said.

  The reverend sat next to Shep, who'd been chosen as the chairman of the maintenance committee. Maybe this time, she had found someone she could trust. Maybe their chance meeting wasn't chance after all. If God knew her dress size, He surely knew what she needed in a man. Of course, she'd thought C. R. heavensent at first.

  Lord, I'm so confused.

  "What if we did the job ourselves?" Shep asked during the lull of prospective ideas. He looked around the table. "Most of us have to be a bit handy with tools on our farms and ranches, and the labor is the costliest part of the bid."

  "If we don't have time to staff bake tables, where'll we get time to put on a new roof?" one of the younger men at the table challenged. He was the one who helped Shep load supplies at the Farm and Ranch General Deanna's first day in Buffalo Butte.

  "If folks used to raise a barn in a day, Seth, I imagine a group of us could slap on a new roof in one. Maybe your dad could get the building materials at cost for the church?"

  "I imagine we could work something out."

  "Some of my boys would be willing to put in a Saturday," a gentleman with thick straw-colored hair ventured. "I imagine we ranchers could show you farmers how it's done."

  Even if he and Deanna hadn't been introduced, she'd have recognized J. B. McCain, Ty's father. They had the same chiseled features and coloring, except that the senior McCain's hair was heavily peppered with white.

  "That so?" A tall red-cheeked man about the same age remarked from the opposite side of the table. Like most of the men here, he had a white line along the top of his brow engraved by the constant presence of a baseball cap. "I reckon my crew knows a thing or two your cow chasers haven't even thought of."

  "So why not have a contest?"

  It wasn't until all heads swung toward Deanna that she realized she'd voiced her question aloud. While a burglar might intimidate her, a conference table of entrepreneurs didn't faze her at all, unless she counted Shep. He looked as though she'd just started the range wars all over.

  Deanna threw up her hands. "It would be a good-natured challenge. It would garner more interest, get more people to come see your wares and watch the competition."

  "I know all the cowboys in the area would come, just to see us show the farmers how it's done," J. B. snorted.

  "So'd the farmhands," his adversary at the opposite end chimed in. "Just for the fun of watching you eat crow, J. B." He glanced at the minister. "What do you think, Reverend?"

  Reverend Lawrence smiled, accentuating lines carved by time and an enduring sense of humor. Pale blue eyes twinkling, he nodded at Deanna. "I think this young lady might have found a good way to get some of these fellas to finally come to church."

  Fifteen

  Sanctuary. Although Deanna hadn't exactly been to the church proper, which sat across a parking lot from the community hall, she felt the sanctuary offered by its congregation and readily accepted the minister's invitation to attend the Sunday worship. What was it Gram had said when as a child Deanna had asked if God lived in their church? "No, child, God lives in the people. Special as it is, the church is just a building. It's the people who bring God in."

  She wasn't sure if she'd stumbled across Hopewell and Buffalo Butte, or if God had recognized her voice after such a long silence, but she longed to believe the latter. No, she did believe it. The line from a hymn drifted through her mind in confirmation. All things were possible.

  Deanna looked through the windshield of Shep's Jeep at the long narrow strip of road ahead of her. A few days ago it was the road to nowhere. Now it felt like the road home... at least for a while. She shoved the temporal aspect of her circumstance to the back of her mind with a wistful smile.

  For every person she'd met to date, Deanna knew or had known someone just like them back home in her childhood Brooklyn neighborhood, good down-to-e
arth folks who lived their best and cared for others. They made her feel like one of them. Maisy and Esther had outfitted her in clothes. Esther even offered to take her to Taylorville to find new curtains for the kitchen after hearing about that fiasco, but Shep insisted on taking Deanna himself.

  "I thought that was the way of it, Shepard," Esther had said with a schoolmarm's smugness.

  Deanna cringed inwardly for her host. She knew their relationship was as platonic as platonic could get. Until her car was fixed and she was on her way, it was simply an economic necessity for them both. If anything sprang from that, it would be worthless, founded on a lie. She squirmed beneath the guilt that suddenly clouded her sense of security.

  "The wind too much for you?" Shep asked, startling her from the dark turn of her reverie.

  "No, it feels super." She chuckled. "In New York, you put down a window and get an unfiltered dose of diesel and gasoline fumes. Although I admit, I always found the smell of city traffic to be invigorating... you know, like there was enough fuel in it to give me extra miles to the breath. Hey," Deanna defended herself at the skeptical brow Shep cocked at her. "It was what I grew up with. It made me tick."

  "And what makes you tick now?"

  The question came out of nowhere, nailing Deanna to a proverbial threshold, one she wasn't sure she wanted—no, dared—to cross.

  Shep put on his blinker and turned at the weathered sign marking the long entrance to Hopewell. A turn signal in the middle of nowhere with no other vehicle in sight. This guy was so by-the-book it was incredible.

  "I think I've lost my ticker," she answered after a thoughtful silence. "Like I'm in some kind of rootin', tootin' Oz and I can't find my ruby slippers to get back home."

  A sting annoyed her eyes. She looked away pretending fascination with a grove of trees in the far pasture until she mastered the well of emotion that was more like an unruly sea lately—rising, sinking, churning, drowning. Lord, I am so pathetic. I don't even know myself. I only know I'm in over my head...

  "What in the world?"

  Shep's exclamation struck her like a cold splash, clearing away one wave of emotion for another. At the approach of the main street toward Shep's house, a shiny new motor home stood in the headlights of a beat-up pickup. Some men stood against the door of the RV, held at bay by someone or something. Surely not Smoky, she thought, her veins suddenly shot with an icy dread. That canine's incessant barking had no more than a dog biscuit's worth of backbone behind it.

  The three men by the motor home squinted as Shep's Jeep lights compounded the glare in their eyes. Deanna had never seen them before. The tallest had an athletic build with longish fair hair wrapped behind his ears. Another looked as though he'd been plucked from a computer keyboard—close-cropped hair, wire-rim glasses, rumpled cotton dress shirt loosely tucked into pleated trousers. It was the third man who seemed in charge. Clad in a well-fitted suit of nondistinct color, he ventured one step forward, hand raised in a cautious wave as Shep brought the Jeep to a halt in front of them.

  "Mr. Jones, are we glad to see you. I'm Jay Voorhees from the government geological survey team. We spoke the other day about our running some tests on the mineral contents of your property?"

  "I never heard of 'em," an obstinate voice declared from the blind side of the pickup. "Caught 'em snoopin' all around the place."

  Deanna listened, groping for a reason to assuage the heightened alarm gripping her chest. All she could think of were the men who were looking for her... or the police. Will I ever have another moment's peace?

  "I was just telling this gentleman we were looking for an electric hookup when he surprised us."

  "I reckon he did." Shep chuckled as he climbed out of the Jeep and started toward the disconcerted group. "Mr. Voorhees, this is my outfitting partner, Ticker Deerfield." Raising his voice, he called out to the man hidden by the pickup. "It's all right, Tick."

  Shep's simple assurance was enough to loosen the breath stuck in Deanna's chest. Her pulse even registered as he continued to explain. "I spoke to these folks a while back about the mineral rights Uncle Dan sold to the government. Knew they were coming, just didn't know when. Sorry I forgot to say anything about it."

  Deanna stayed put in the Jeep, no longer frozen with fear, but from the toll it had taken on her strength. Her legs felt as stable as the melted ice pack that had given way when Shep knelt on it and it had sent him sprawling across the bed during her first morning at Hopewell.

  "What brings you here anyway?" Shep asked his partner. "The roundup isn't over, is it?"

  "Naw," Tick answered sheepishly as he stepped into view from his hiding place. "I couldn't get no sleep with some of them young fellers yappin' and lollygaggin'. Figgered I'd catch a couple good hours of shut-eye and then roll 'em out before sunup to see the error of their ways."

  There was something about Tick's half-bearded grin in the headlights that further comforted Deanna. Funny how a few days ago, she'd been certain he was, at the least, an ax murderer. Now he looked like a guardian angel packing iron. Rifle lowered in one hand, Tick extended the other to Mr. Voorhees.

  "Sorry I gave you such a scare. 'Course you're wastin' your time, if you're lookin' for gold. This ain't no ghost town for nothin'."

  "There are other minerals aside from gold, Mr. Deerfield. That's what we're here to survey," Voorhees replied.

  Deanna leaned against the headrest of her seat and closed her eyes in thanksgiving for Shep, for Tick, even for Buffalo Butte. She didn't know how her problems would be resolved, but at least she was no longer alone. It was going to be all right.

  All things were possible.

  For the first time in a very long time—maybe back as far as when she'd stopped going to church to finish an urgent project or sleep in from working late the night before—she actually relaxed.

  ***

  Shep wondered if there would be anyone in Buffalo Butte who was not "in" on Deanna Manetti's case by the time it was resolved. He'd felt obliged to explain to Tick, who echoed Shep's instinctive reaction—she had to be a victim of circumstances and bad judgment.

  "Well, she come to the right place. You 'n' me both know what it is to be run hard by life and put up wet. Man nor beast don't git no closer to their Maker than up here in these parts. Reckon that's why the good Lord made these mountains and sent the little filly our way."

  Ticker didn't go to church proper unless he was roped into it, and he never talked much about faith. But he kept a worn Bible in his pack and studied it beneath a cathedral ceiling of sky, surrounded by untarnished creation. When Shep's partner did talk about his faith, the words stuck in Shep's mind, same as they did when the experienced older man spoke of his instincts.

  "If it was me," Tick went on, "I'd be leery 'o' that Voorhees fella. Wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't crooked as a dog's leg."

  While Shep didn't think Jay was crooked in a legal sense, he agreed the man's motives were skewed by his ambition. Had God sent Deanna to Hopewell, expecting Shep to offer her refuge and help?

  "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."

  The words from the book of Matthew and Tick haunted him later as he lay cramped and bound in more ways than one on the sofa. The workout shorts he'd donned for decency's sake twisted about his waist, tightening like a noose each time he turned over. The sofa itself just wasn't long enough to accommodate his frame. With little alternative, he stuck his feet out the side past the wooden armrests, hoping to avoid getting a crick in his neck.

  In the central hall Deanna stood by the washer digging through the boxes the church ladies had given her like a kid digging through cereal boxes for a hidden prize. She had an uncanny ability to roll with the punches she'd been dealt, but the bottom line was that Tick was right. She needed help and protection, the same as God had offered them in their time of need.

  That and what he now knew made it impossible for Shep to harbor a grudge for too long over her deceit. But merciful
days, she was just too cute for his comfort in his oversized jeans and shirt.

  His ex-fiancé wouldn't be caught dead in that getup. Nor would Ellen have fit in so well at the community hall meeting, much less paid enough attention to contribute anything. Deanna's idea had lit a fire under the committee to accept his. The last time Shep had mentioned doing a project themselves, the idea was shelved without much interest.

  Something as simple as adding some friendly competition between the farmers and ranchers kindled its appeal. But then, selling ideas was her game, he realized, diverting his gaze to the ceiling as though watching his engaging guest might become addictive.

  "Oh!"

  Deanna's breathless exclamation drew Shep's half-lidded attention to a purple silky something she held up in the overhead light. Separating it into two pieces, she held the shorter against her chest as though measuring for size. Shep had no doubt the nightgown that came just above the knees would fit. And the color would shade those voluminous blue eyes of hers toward violet.

  "Think you'll be much longer?" he asked, turning away from the light with an impatient jerk as though it bothered him. Shorts akimbo, he raised his hips and wrangled them aright with an indignant snatch, but staring at the sofa back didn't help erase the provocative image conjured in his mind. He could already picture her in the figure-skimming silk.

  "I'm sorry," she exclaimed, her delight with her new things infecting her voice. "I was so involved with these things—they are just lovely—"

  "Well, some of us have to work tomorrow."

  "Now wait one minute, buster. Like I didn't work today? Like—" Deanna broke off as though she'd been whipped into silence by guilt. "Sorry."

  He was being a jerk, but he couldn't help it. Something had put a burr under his saddle—or some such place. The light went out with the click of the switch. The soft padding of her bare feet faded as she retreated toward the bedroom.

  "I'm just going to take a quick shower," she called back to him. "Maisy said she'd washed all these things before boxing them for the church sale, so I don't see any need to wash them again, do you?"