Barbara didn’t want to admit that she didn’t own a Bible, family or otherwise. She’d moved around so much in the past few years that she didn’t even have a cookbook, and she was more likely to use that than a Bible—which was saying something, because most of the hotel rooms where she and Neal had lived hadn’t had kitchens and a person didn’t need a cookbook to figure out how to heat up a can of soup in a beat-up old coffeemaker.
But a lot of people in Dry Creek valued the Bible and Barbara wanted them to think she belonged here.
“Thanks, that’s a good idea,” she replied to Linda and smiled a little vaguely. “Maybe I’ll do that.”
Before long, everyone had left her side. The bad part about the crowd around her thinning was that Barbara could see the sheriff again. He hadn’t moved when all of the people had surrounded her, he’d just waited for them to leave. She wondered what his problem was. If his frown was any indication, Sheriff Carl Wall would be the last one to accept a cup of coffee from her even if she did manage to pour a cup.
Chapter Two
Sheriff Carl Wall knew he couldn’t arrest someone just for their own good, but he was sure tempted. He was standing here watching Barbara Strong, and she had just gotten the attention of every single ranch hand at the wedding reception. Not much escaped the eyes of those mangy fellows, and they had all noticed that she’d caught the bridal bouquet.
Until today, the sheriff had been able to warn everyone off Barbara, saying she was still in shock over what had happened with her ex-husband. After all, it wasn’t every day a woman woke up and found out she was married to a thief. The older people in town had agreed with him, and everyone had decided to give Barbara at least a year to catch her breath. No one was going to put any extra strain on her for at least that long. No requests for volunteer help. No urgent need for favors.
The sheriff trusted the older people in town to keep their word.
He didn’t trust the ranch hands. One of the older women, Mrs. Hargrove, had added her voice to the sheriff’s when he’d talked to the men about giving Barbara a year of peace. Many of the ranch hands had had Mrs. Hargrove as a Sunday-school teacher in their younger days, and they didn’t want to cross the older woman, even though it had been many years since they’d sat in her class.
The sheriff made it clear that he felt it would disturb Barbara’s peace if she had to brush off countless pleas for dates. The ranch hands had reluctantly agreed that Barbara might need a little time to heal before she had to start figuring out which man among them to marry next. They’d said a year sounded about right—unless, of course, the woman herself seemed unwilling to wait that long.
The sheriff had thought he was doing good to buy her a year. He’d agreed to the terms.
But now Barbara had just destroyed all his efforts when she’d caught the bridal bouquet. She should have just stood up on a chair and announced her intention to start looking for a new husband. She’d probably get a dozen proposals before the night was over.
The sheriff shook his head. He was tempted to tell the ranch hands that the woman they were ogling was being watched by the FBI. That would slow them down. Not that it was strictly true. The FBI wasn’t watching her; they’d asked him to do that for them.
It seemed Barbara’s ex-husband, Neal Strong, might not have been content with robbing gas stations. The FBI suspected he might also have joined forces with two other men to rob some bank down in Wyoming. One of the other suspects, Harlow Smith, was in jail in Billings along with Neal, but the third man was unidentified and still free.
The FBI didn’t have any real evidence that Neal was in on the bank robbery, but even though the robbers had covered their faces with ski masks, his body had a strong resemblance to a drawing one of the bank tellers had made of the men. The FBI figured that if Neal was in on it, he would give himself away by trying to do something with the $150,000 in cash that was missing. At the very least, they figured he’d lead them to part of the money through his ex-wife.
So far, the sheriff had watched Barbara closely but noticed nothing. He knew how much she earned at her job at the bakery, and she was barely spending that. She sure wasn’t spending any extra stolen money. The only thing she had purchased besides groceries was the school supplies she’d bought for her children. He knew because Barbara didn’t have a car and Mrs. Hargrove gave her a ride to Miles City to buy groceries. It all checked out.
The sheriff frowned again. The most suspicious thing Barbara had done was what she was doing now. She’d taken that bridal bouquet and was using it as a fan. It wasn’t hot inside here, but Barbara’s cheeks were all pink and flushed like—
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 ready-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 Nutcracker 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 background a little bit. He’d long ago made his peace with the fact that women found him dull. They knew he was trustworthy, 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 northwest 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 pretending to be something he wasn’t.