Lester stood up from where he was kneeling beside the bottom bin of the nail rack. He was a short, wiry man who seldom spoke, and he cleared his throat before he started to talk. “I may be a clown sometimes, but at least I would financially support a baby if I had fathered one.”
“Huh?” Reno wondered if he had missed something. Lester was Reno’s closest neighbor, and he looked as if he’d screwed up all his courage to speak. “Since when do you have a baby?”
“Sometimes a man can have a baby and not even know it.”
At least six people in the room sucked in their breath.
“Hush, now,” Mrs. Hargrove finally managed to say. “It’s none of our business. Just because we’re all used to seeing everyone’s mail as it comes in, it’s no reason to meddle.”
Reno wondered what she was talking about. Everyone in Dry Creek meddled. It was one of their most endearing traits. It meant they cared.
“That letter was addressed to us,” Jacob said indignantly. “We weren’t reading anything but what was meant for us. We’re the ones who take turns passing out the mail in Dry Creek. We’re the postmaster.”
“Still,” Elmer muttered as he walked back to his chair by the stove, “it’s not our business. Of course, in my day a young man was raised to do the honorable thing and marry a woman he got with child.”
“Lester got someone pregnant?” Reno finally asked. The last he knew, Lester had been courting Nicki. That was before she married Garrett, of course, but still Reno didn’t like to think of Lester playing his sister false. “I thought you were planning on marrying Nicki.”
If Reno’s voice rose a little, he figured no one could blame him. A man was supposed to defend his sister’s honor, even if she was off being a trucker along with her new husband.
Lester took a step forward. “Not me, you fool. You’re the one with the baby.”
Lester could as well have said that Reno had a castle in Spain or a boot growing out of his head. “What?”
“Now, remember the letter didn’t say that Reno was the one,” Mrs. Hargrove cautioned. “For all we know, he didn’t even have those kinds of thoughts about Chrissy Hamilton. The Reno I know is a good boy.”
Reno choked. He wished he had a little more mud covering his face so no one could see his guilty flush. How did you tell your old Sunday-school teacher that you’d stopped being a boy a dozen years ago? He sure didn’t want to start telling Mrs. Hargrove about the jumble of thoughts he had about Chrissy Hamilton.
Even though he knew Chrissy wasn’t the one for him, he still found her attractive. Well, maybe more than attractive, if he was strictly honest about it. Something about Chrissy reminded him of the time as a boy he had been fascinated by a picture of cobras in some catalog that had come to the ranch.
Not that Reno was worried. He had been smart enough not to order a cobra from that catalog when he was nine years old and he was smart enough now to avoid Chrissy. Just because he was drawn to both of them in some mysterious, crazy way didn’t mean he had to do anything about it.
Besides, Mrs. Hargrove was right about one thing. It wasn’t anyone else’s business anyway.
“Chrissy is a fine-looking girl,” Elmer volunteered as he sat down in his chair by the stove. His voice was thoughtful. “Reno would have to be blind not to see that.”
“Well, that’s true,” Mrs. Hargrove conceded before she turned back to Reno. “But that doesn’t mean he’s the father of her baby.”
“Chrissy has a baby?” Reno felt the streak of mud start to dry and crack on his face. His voice had grown hoarse and he had to clear his throat. He felt a strange disappointment. “I suppose she’s married to that Jared fellow by now, then.”
Jacob frowned as he looked down at the letter in his hand. “Doesn’t sound like she’s married to anyone.”
Reno had known Jacob all his life. The man had taught him how to rope a calf. But Reno didn’t believe him on this one. Chrissy might have been mad at her boyfriend when she was in Dry Creek, but Jared had significant money, and a woman like Chrissy would weigh that in the scales before she called it off. Reno figured there was some misunderstanding. He held his hand out for the letter. “Let me see.”
Jacob handed him the letter.
There was silence for a minute before Mrs. Hargrove said, “You know, maybe one of us should write to Chrissy and invite her to come to Dry Creek with her baby.”
Reno snorted. He didn’t want to hurt Mrs. Hargrove’s feelings, but Chrissy would probably rather move to the moon than to Dry Creek. She likely thought it was the backside of nowhere, and she was right. Just because the people of Dry Creek liked the middle of nowhere didn’t mean Chrissy would. “We don’t have any shows or nightclubs or anything. Shoot, we don’t even have a proper post office.”
Reno returned to reading the letter.
“We have the café,” Jacob answered. “And the Christmas pageant every year.”
“Pastor Matthew’s sermons have been downright entertaining lately with some of his stories about the twins,” Mrs. Hargrove added. “I think he’s almost as funny as that guy on the television everyone talks about. Any new mother would enjoy that.”
“She could play with those calves of yours, too,” Jacob added. “They’re pretty cute—especially the ones you’re feeding with that fancy bucket of yours.”
Reno looked up from the letter. He had finished it. “Well, she should be happy. Sounds like she’s going to get a handsome payment.”
“Reno Redfern!” Mrs. Hargrove said. “I can’t believe you think that sweet girl would give her baby up to that lawyer!”
“Well, she wouldn’t be giving it to the lawyer. The baby would go to Mrs. Bard. How bad can living with your grandmother be?”
Reno couldn’t help but wish he’d had a grandmother who would have taken care of him when his mother left. “She probably bakes cookies and everything. The baby will be fine.”
Mrs. Hargrove drew herself up indignantly. “Don’t you know anything about a mother’s love?” Then she gasped and put her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
Reno forced himself to smile. “That’s okay.”
It wasn’t Mrs. Hargrove’s fault his mother had left him and Nicki when she left their father. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Not all women were good mothers.
“I should have insisted that father of yours bring you to town more often when your mother left,” Mrs. Hargrove muttered. “Just because the two of you looked fine, I shouldn’t have assumed your poor little hearts weren’t broken.”
“Nothing was broken,” Reno said. “Lots of people have it worse in life.”
Reno had made his peace with the fact that his mother had left when he was six. He’d had his father and he’d had Nicki. He’d done just fine.
“But still—”
“I’m sure Chrissy and her baby will be fine.” Reno wasn’t sure which topic he wanted to discuss less, his mother or Chrissy.
Mrs. Hargrove nodded. “Still, if they were to come here—”
“I’m sure she doesn’t want to move here,” Reno repeated.
“Well, still, there’s the