Figured. She found the phone book and dialed a pizza joint two blocks away that said they’d deliver.
Dawson, Dodson, Donaldson… Zoey leafed through the phone book and let her eye stray down the columns. Donnelly. Hmm. Five Donnellys. The schools were probably populated with all kinds of cute little Donnellys.
Fielding, Furtz—wasn’t that the shoemaker who’d been so kind to her father? She’d definitely go see him the next day.
Hanson, Hoare—she recalled how the poor Hoare girls had been teased—Hopewell, Hoskins, Jenkins, Jones, Jonker. That was Elizabeth’s mother and dad.
Probably a whole lot of the kids she’d gone to school with had stayed in Stoney Creek. Maybe, with Elizabeth and Mary Ellen in tow, she’d visit some of them while she was here.
As soon as the stores were open the next morning—cold, bright and crystal clear, with the snow-capped Coast Mountains majestic in the west—she’d headed for Mr. Furtz’s Saddlery and Shoes. It was exactly as she’d remembered it. Various pieces of dusty leather paraphernalia adorned the street-front window, along with some fancy-stitched cowboy boots, children’s sandals, a few samples of out-of-style high-heeled shoes, leather dog leads and harnesses and several trade publications—she made out Canada Shoe and Boot and Leather Forever—fanned artfully near the window to entice the passerby, their covers pale and sun-bleached.
She pushed open the door with the old-fashioned jangling bell.
“Joey Phillips! My goodness.” Mr. Furtz had actually remembered her before she’d had to introduce herself. Zoey felt a warm rush of gratitude. Until then no one she’d seen in town had recognized her. Mr. Furtz pronounced his js with a y sound, in the German way, so even the name she’d discarded didn’t sound too bad. Yo-ey. “My, my, such a beauty, too,” he went on, eyes twinkling. “All you Phillips girls were lovely girls, just like your mother. How is your father, my dear?”
“Just fine. Dad’s got a new job, with a municipality in Saskatchewan. Rosetown.”
The old man nodded his head vigorously, making the few hairs he’d wound across the top of his mostly bald pate bounce dangerously. “Oh, yah, yah! Good for him. He’s a good man, your father. A very fine man.”
Zoey felt her eyes water slightly. Most people had regarded her father as a hopeless loser. Mr. Furtz was still smiling broadly when Zoey heard the bell jangle again.
“Oh!” The harness-maker looked up toward the door. “Ah, there you are!”
Zoey turned. A tall, dark-haired man, obviously a cowboy of some sort from his dress—worn Wranglers, a broad-brimmed hat, chambray shirt, sheepskin vest, scuffed boots on his feet—had entered the store.
“You mind, my dear?” Mr. Furtz whispered loudly. “A customer—?”
“Please! Go right ahead,” Zoey said, stepping back as the customer approached the counter. He seemed vaguely familiar but she was quite sure she’d never met him. One cowboy looked pretty much like another, in her view, and Stoney Creek was full of them. “No hurry. I’m staying in town for several weeks,” she said into empty air.
Both men were bent over a piece of equipment on the counter. A little embarrassed, Zoey moved away to inspect the articles on display. Purses, more shoes, Birkenstocks, a whole rack of boots of various kinds. She could feel the stranger’s gaze on her back. Her cheeks burned. She turned quickly toward the counter, but he was absorbed in examining whatever piece of horse equipment the shoemaker had repaired for him. She must have imagined it.
“Nice job, Raoul. Very nice work. Hell of a note getting it caught in the binder like that and tore up. I figured I’d have to throw it away.”
Raoul?
“Never! Something’s made of leather, it can be fixed. No problem. That man-made stuff, vinyl, plastic, now that’s another story. I—”
“How much?” The stranger reached in his back pocket and removed several bills from his wallet. He tossed them onto the counter. “That do?”
“Oh, yah. Maybe too much,” the shoemaker said doubtfully. “It was an easy job.”
“For you, maybe. Take it.” The stranger laughed and Zoey felt the sound echo along her ribs. She glanced at him again. He was attractive, in a rough-hewn, serious way. Not knock-down handsome at all. But attractive, nonetheless.
“Yah, yah! Good joke. Ha, ha.” The shoemaker rang up the transaction on his old-fashioned cash register. “‘Easy for me,’ yah!”
He handed the customer a receipt and the man slung the bridle onto his right shoulder, giving her a curious glance as he turned away. There was no mistaking it, he had looked at her—this time.
That made her feel a bit better somehow. That he’d noticed her at all.
Of course, any stranger in Stoney Creek would stand out to a local. Even on a busy weekend like this, with the town full of hunters and basketball players.
“I’ve known you all these years, Mr. Furtz, and I never knew your name was Raoul,” she said, smiling, when the customer had gone. “Was your mother Spanish or Italian?”
“Oh, no! Austrian, from the Tyrol, like my dad.” Mr. Furtz’s blue eyes twinkled. “But she was a romantic woman, my mama. You know what I mean? Very, very romantic!”
POOR MR. FURTZ! Zoey thought now, looking around at the crowded arena. She wondered if he was here. The entire town and surrounding district of Stoney Creek seemed to have put in an appearance at the volunteer firefighters’ dance, which was being held at the curling arena, with sheets of plywood laid out over the ice. She had no idea what his story was. As far as she knew, he’d never married. No wife, no children. But Zoey was sure she knew exactly what he meant when he’d said his mother was romantic and she suspected that Mr. Furtz was a romantic at heart, too.
She wasn’t particularly romantic herself. She’d always viewed herself as sensible and clearheaded. A smart woman who knew what she wanted and knew how to get it. A risk-taker, but sensible. Impulsive? Sometimes. Adventurous? Always. Romantic? No, that was for teenagers and sentimental old women.
There was a five-dollar “donation” to get into the dance, and a band was tuning up on the makeshift stage when they arrived. She needn’t have worried about how she was dressed. Her slim charcoal slacks with the matching jacket and the ivory silk short-sleeved sweater under it were businesslike, yes, but she preferred businesslike to the elaborate confections of skirts and crinolines some women wore. Others had on plain jeans and cowboy boots and, among the younger set, bare tummies and low-rider pants were in evidence, complete with tattoos and body piercings.
Arthur led the way and found a table near the bandstand.
“Drinks?” he mouthed, over the noise, and then disappeared to the refreshment concession. All proceeds—drinks, donations at the door, silent auction items ranged on tables around the rink—went to the local Boys and Girls Club, which was in the process, Elizabeth had told her, of raising funds for a building of its own.
Zoey spotted a dark-haired woman on the other side of the room smiling and madly waving so she waved back.
“Who’s that, Lizzie?” she muttered, leaning across Becky. “Over there in the pink shirt?”
“That’s Sherry Porter, used to be Rempel—you know her! She was one of the cheerleaders for the basketball team. We never made the squad.” Elizabeth laughed and waved, too. Zoey felt pleased that someone had remembered her. The shoemaker yesterday and now this Sherry Porter, who, she was sorry to say, she could barely recall.
The lights dimmed and the crowd immediately quieted. Zoey noticed Arthur on his way back