Kitabı oku: «A Rich Man For Dry Creek And A Hero For Dry Creek»

JANET TRONSTAD
A Rich Man for Dry Creek & A Hero for Dry Creek

Published by Steeple Hill Books™

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

A RICH MAN FOR DRY CREEK

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

A HERO FOR DRY CREEK

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

A RICH MAN FOR DRY CREEK

This book is dedicated with love to my nieces

Julie Miller

Sara Enger

Marcy Enger MacDonald

LaRae Tronstad

Starla Tronstad

Chapter One

“J ust because he’s rich doesn’t mean he’s crazy.” Jenny Black pressed the cell phone to one ear and stood on her tiptoes to look at another dusty shelf in the old pantry. Her sister should stop worrying about Robert Buckwalter’s sanity.

She should worry about Jenny’s instead.

Jenny was the one who was crazy.

What was she thinking? Trying to cater a black-tie dinner in a place like Dry Creek, Montana. Right now Jenny was in the pantry of the town’s small café and she was desperately looking for paprika.

Jenny had made a big mistake. She should never have promised hors d’oeuvres to go with the lobsters she was serving tonight.

The ranching community of Dry Creek, tucked up close to the Big Sheep Mountains in southern Montana, was absolutely delightful. But any sane chef would have insisted the menu be switched to chili dogs and corn chips the minute she discovered the only store in town sold ten kinds of cattle feed and not one single thing for a human to eat.

Jenny had not been able to buy any of her last-minute supplies.

She’d turned for help to the couple who ran the café but they were only set up to serve hamburgers, biscuits and spaghetti. They had sugar packets, squeeze bottles of honey and those plastic packets filled with ketchup. There was not one obvious hors d’oeuvre in sight.

She was doomed.

Jenny heard an impatient grunt on the other end of the phone.

“Sorry, but if you ask me, Mr. Buckwalter is so sane he’s almost comatose.” Jenny had tried earlier to make conversation with the man. No luck. “Stuffed-shirt kind of sane. Think Dad.”

“But Dad’s fifty years old!”

“Well, Robert Buckwalter acts like he’s a hundred.” Jenny still felt a twinge of pique. The whole world knew that her employer’s son, Robert Buckwalter, was a ladies’ man. He was supposed to flirt with all women.

Jenny had expected to dodge a compliment or two on the flight over. But the man had sat in the pilot’s seat next to her the whole flight and not said anything at all once he’d made sure she’d fastened her seat belt. For which, she told herself firmly, she should be grateful. And she should be fair to the man. “Of course he’s most helpful—especially when he’s got an apron around his waist.”

“He’s got an apron on!”

“Well, he’s helping me with the hors d’oeuvres. We’ve got a hundred people coming for dinner—Maine lobsters—and I’ve had to improvise with the hors d’oeuvres.”

Improvise was putting it lightly, Jenny thought. Try egg salad on toast—which wouldn’t be so bad if she could at least find something to sprinkle on top of it.

“Robert Buckwalter the Third is cooking for you—and he has an apron on!” Jenny’s sister couldn’t let go of that thought.

“Well, it’s only some carrot stubs. It’s not like he’s whipping up a soufflé or anything complicated.”

“But he doesn’t even grill. It says that in his bio. My word, do you know how much money the man has?”

The question was obviously rhetorical and Jenny didn’t answer.

She had enough to do pushing aside spice tins hoping for some paprika.

The Dry Creek café had been abandoned years ago and left empty until a couple of teenagers had reopened it this past December on the night of the town’s first annual Christmas pageant. The original owners must have decided some supplies weren’t worth hauling out of Dry Creek because stray cans and tins had been left behind to sit quietly, collecting dust, for all those years.

“A little kitchen work never hurt anyone,” Jenny said. You’d think she was exploiting children or something. The idle rich were not a protected species.

“You’re not bossing him around, are you? Please tell me you’re not bossing him around.”

“He volunteered!”

“Good, because he is Robert Buckwalter the Third.”

“Give me some credit. I know how it is with the rich.”

Jenny didn’t have to remind her sister that, when they were kids, it was the fancy cars of the rich people who had always come to the suburban area near them to drop off their unwanted pets.

Apparently her sister not only remembered the cars, she also remembered that Jenny had been the one to shake her fist at the drivers as they sped away. “Look, Jenny, it’s important that you’re nice—you know, give him a chance to like you.”

“Me? Why?”

“Well, maybe he’ll talk to you. Tell you things. I could use some help here. I think the only reason I got my job is because you are working for the Buckwalters and my boss thought you’d be able to tell me stuff for the paper. Like this list of one hundred bachelors we’re working on. Buckwalter’s at the top, so far, and I’m counting on you to tell me about him.”

Jenny sighed. “You shouldn’t have taken the job then. It’s not right. Besides, I don’t have anything to tell. I hardly know the man.”

“He answered your phone.”

“This isn’t my phone. It’s the Buckwalter business phone. It’s supposed to be for business calls only. I’m surprised the main office gave you the number.”

A dim lightbulb hung down from the ceiling and Jenny had to squint to see the top shelf where restaurant-size spice containers were shoved behind several cans of what must be lard even though the labels were so faded they were hard to identify.

“Well, I may have said something about business—”

“What business?”

“Well, this is a business question. Something’s wrong. I’ve been working it out. The man is either crazy or secretly married. He’s always been in the tabloids. I know—I almost crashed my computer doing a word search on him. Dozens of pieces. This party. That woman. The next party. The next woman. And then—bingo—it all stops. Our top sources couldn’t even get the man to return a phone call! And they’re his friends.”

“His friends spy on him?”

“Well, you know how it is with the rich. They all do that. But that’s not the point. The point is that no one’s seen him. There’s been nothing for the last five months.” Jenny’s sister paused and then continued. “I’m hoping you know why. My editor is getting nervous. We need to decide if we’re going to make Robert Buckwalter number one on our bachelor list. Do you know what that means to be number one? Men would kill for that spot. You can make a million just endorsing stuff—shaving cream, shoes, clothes. It’s a gold mine. But we certainly don’t want to give the title to Buckwalter if he’s wacko or married. We’d look like fools who didn’t even know what was going on in the world.” She sighed. “Do you really think he could be married?”

“I doubt it—surely, he’d tell his friends if he got married.”

“Not if she was unsuitable.”

Jenny paused. She remembered she wasn’t the only one to protest those rich cars when they were kids. Her sister was there, too. “You don’t need to worry. It’s not like he married a kitten who grew up to be too much trouble. Even the rich don’t treat their wives that way.” Well, usually not, she added silently. “Besides, I thought that anything goes with the rich these days—look at that blond singer. Underwear in public. Pierced tongues. There’s not much left to be unsuitable.”

“She could be poor.”

Jenny’s lips tightened. “If that bothers him, then he shouldn’t have married her in the first place.”

“Is he wearing a wedding ring?” her sister asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t you know? Goodness, Jenny, don’t you even look anymore? Talk about him being comatose. You’re turning positively ancient yourself.”

“I am not! Twenty-nine is young.”

“If you don’t look at the ring finger, believe me, you’re old.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure he didn’t have a ring. I remember giving him the knife, and I always check for rings—some people like to take them off so they don’t get wet.”

“You’re getting him wet! Robert Buckwalter the Third.”

“Even rich people need their vegetables washed.”

Her sister was silent for a minute before continuing. “Wait a minute. Are you sure this is Robert Buckwalter the Third? Maybe there’s been some kind of a mixup. A kidnapping or something. This just doesn’t sound right—vegetables and aprons. He doesn’t even know how to make coffee. It says that, right in his bio.”

Jenny smiled. “So far, he hasn’t made coffee, and his mother seems to believe it’s him.”

“Well, what does she say about him being gone all that time? Is she worried he’s married?”

“She hasn’t said a thing. And I don’t know why you think he’s married. Just because he kept to himself for a while, doesn’t necessarily mean he’s been to the altar. Maybe he’s just tired,” Jenny said as she spied the can of paprika and reached for it. “Five months isn’t so long to rest if he keeps a social schedule like the one you’ve talked about—it sounds grueling.”

“I never thought of that.” Her sister was horrified. “Maybe he’s worse than tired—maybe he’s sick.”

“Oh, I doubt he’s sick,” Jenny said as her hand wrapped around the can of paprika. She’d have to taste it to see if it was still good. “But I wouldn’t know for sure. I just work for him—well, really for his mother. I’m the chef—I’m in charge of parties like this one tonight. That’s it. It’s not like I know the man personally.”

“You must know something about him.”

“I know what he eats.” Jenny looked through the pantry door into the kitchen at the man in question. “Heavy into vegetables and meats—beef, lamb, duck—he likes them all.” That certainly didn’t sound like a man who was sick.

She suddenly remembered that she did know more about Robert Buckwalter than what he ate. But her sister wasn’t interested in the fact that some man had an odd aversion to her hairnet, which was a perfectly fine hairnet and required for food handling—even if it did make her look like a monk.

“There’s got to be more. Think. This is important.”

Jenny wiped the dust off the can of paprika. She’d been more mother than older sister to her three siblings and it seemed like one or the other of them always had something important that needed her help even though they were all over eighteen by now and should be adults.

She stood in the open doorway and studied the tall man that was causing her sister so much worry.

The light in the kitchen came from two bare bulbs hanging directly over the long counter that divided the square room. The kitchen walls were white. The sink and refrigerator were both forty years old and chipped. It was a humble kitchen.

Now that her sister mentioned it, Jenny wondered why the man had volunteered to help. She certainly hadn’t expected it of him. No one else had, either. Even his mother had looked up in pleased surprise when he’d demanded a knife and a bunch of carrots.

Jenny studied his profile, looking for answers.

At first glance, the man was the classic movie star ideal. The kind of actor that always wore the white hat. The aristocratic nose was perfectly balanced. The glossy black hair was combed stylishly in place. The cheekbones closely barbered. He looked like a luxury car ad. Definitely your playboy kind of a guy.

But as she looked closer, Jenny noticed some fraying. He had a bruise on the side of his forehead. It was faint, but it was there. His hair was nicely combed, but there was something off center and a little ragged about the cut. And his tan was uneven, like he might have been wearing a cap—not a designer cap with the bill turned to the back like a baseball player, but an old-fashioned cap like a farmer would wear.

My word, Jenny thought, my sister might be on to something.

Jenny didn’t think the man was sick—his cheeks looked too healthy—but Robert Buckwalter certainly had the neglected air of someone who was letting himself go to seed.

He might just be married at that.

That would certainly explain the plane trip over here. The man had insisted—not offered, but flat-out insisted—on personally flying Jenny and the lobsters from Seattle to Dry Creek in his fancy plane.

Jenny had been surprised he was going to Montana. He had just arrived at his mother’s house in Seattle from some trip that he wouldn’t explain. He looked tired and was limping. The housekeeper had his suite of rooms made up and ordered the customary orchids for his bedside table. Then the housekeeper put in the standing order for extra staff to handle the usual parties.

Robert Buckwalter hadn’t been home for twenty minutes before he canceled the orders. The housekeeper said he walked into his rooms and looked around as though he didn’t know where he was or why he was there.

Then he announced he was going to fly to Dry Creek to talk to his mother. He must have had something urgent to tell her—like maybe that he had a wife. Jenny wondered how the older woman would take the news of a strange daughter-in-law.

Mrs. Buckwalter was financing a winter camp for some teenagers from Seattle and the woman was staying in Dry Creek to be sure that all went well. It was a fine, giving gesture and Jenny respected the older woman for it.

But Jenny knew her sister wasn’t interested in Mrs. Buckwalter. There must be something useful about the man in question that she could share with her sister.

“Even if he’s not sick, I think he might have corns.”

“What?”

“You know—corns on his feet. And bad. I remember his mother commenting on some bill he’d run up for corn pads. Hundreds of dollars.”

Her sister grunted. “The man’s an Adonis. He can have a gazillion corns on his feet and who cares? No one’s looking at his feet. Have you even stopped your cooking long enough to look at the man?”

“Well, of course, I have.”

“And?”

“He’s neat, well dressed, clean—”

“Clean!”

“Well, he is—more than most.”

“I’ve got a news flash for you! He’s a whole lot more than clean. He’s hot. Drop-dead gorgeous. And if you haven’t noticed that I’m really worried about you. Might even talk to Mom about it. She always says you’re too picky—wait until she finds out you’re even picky with him. Robert Buckwalter—”

“I know.”

“—the Third.”

A timer went off in the kitchen.

“Look, I’ve got to go,” Jenny said in relief. “I’ve got egg puffs that need to come out of the oven.”

The café kitchen was noisy. A group of teenage girls, wearing prom dresses from the fifties, stood at a table in the corner laughing and folding pink paper napkins into the shape of swans. A dozen of the boys stood beside Robert Buckwalter, following his moves as they cut chunks of carrot into the closest thing they could get to a flower. The carrot nubs were more tulips than roses, but they had a charm all their own.

Jenny had forgotten the boys were from a Seattle street gang until she saw their ease with knives. Some of those boys could have done credible surgery on something larger and more alive than a hunk of carrot.

Jenny was thankful for people like Sylvia Bannister who ran a center for gang kids in Seattle, and for Garth Elkton who had welcomed the kids to his ranch for a winter camp program. Jenny had seen how peaceful the Big Sheep Mountains looked in the snow. Low mountains skirted by gentle foothills. This little ranching community was a perfect haven for gang kids.

Sylvia and Garth were giving those kids a second chance. Mrs. Buckwalter was funding the winter camp and providing the lobsters tonight, both as a thanks to the community of Dry Creek, especially to the minister who had recently gotten married, and as a reward to the teenagers from Seattle for putting down their knives and learning to dance.

Sylvia and Garth were the kind of people that deserved to be number one on some New York tabloid list, not some hotshot rich man like Robert Buckwalter who spent half his life in Europe attending art shows, Jenny told herself. He didn’t even organize the shows; he just sat there and gave away money.

Jenny felt a twinge of annoyance. An able-bodied man like Robert Buckwalter should be more useful in life. Giving away money hardly qualified as a job—not when he had so much of it. She doubted he even wrote the checks himself.

“I ruined one of the mushrooms,” a girl wailed from the sink. “Totally ruined it. The stem didn’t come out right and—”

“Not a problem. We just cut it up and put it with the stuffing.” Jenny walked to the refrigerator to get out the herbed bread mixture that went in the few mushroom caps they’d found in the café’s refrigerator bin. “Nothing goes to waste in a good kitchen. There’s always some other place for it. If nothing else, there’s soup. ‘Waste not, want not’ my mother always used to say. And remember, aprons everyone.”

The kids groaned.

Robert Buckwalter grunted. He wondered if he was crazy. He shouldn’t be annoyed with the ever-resourceful Jenny. He should be grateful to her. After all, he’d hired her because of her apparent good cheer and her complete indifference to him.

During her job interview, she’d asked no personal questions about him—no sly inquiries about how often he’d be present for dinner at his mother’s home in Seattle, or whether as the family chef, she’d be required to fly to the flat he must have in London or maybe the villa he had in Venice or the chalet he had in the Alps…and surely he must have at least one of those, didn’t he? Or maybe he just traveled around in the plane he had, the one especially designed with all the gadgets, the one she’d read about in the papers, the one they called the ultimate “rich man’s” toy?

The questions would come. They always did.

Except with Jenny.

But then, maybe she’d just been more clever than most.

“Finished with the phone?” Robert asked politely. He hadn’t been fooled for a minute by the woman who had called claiming she needed to speak to Jenny urgently about some pudding order. Pudding, my foot. The woman was no salesperson.

Why else would Jenny take the call and disappear into that hole of a pantry where no one could hear her conversation?

Not even bats would go into that pantry if they didn’t have to. Jenny had literally needed to pry the door open earlier with a crowbar. The wood was half-rotted and the wind blew in through the knotholes.

No, it wasn’t a place where anyone would go for a cozy phone conversation with a pudding salesperson.

Robert Buckwalter swore he could spot a reporter a mile off and he had a bad feeling about that call.

Maybe his time was up.

Robert knew how to keep a low profile with the press but he was off his game. He’d gone completely rustic. On the flight over here, he’d looked at all the extra knobs on his plane’s instrument panel and wondered what he’d ever need with all the unnecessary attachments he’d asked the manufacturer to add. He couldn’t even remember why he’d wanted a cup-size blender added on the passenger side.

He hardly knew himself anymore. It came from spending a whole five months as someone else.

Jenny carefully laid the phone back down on the counter where it had been when the last call arrived and then picked it up again to wipe off the dust that had followed her out of the pantry.

Robert watched her as he untied the apron strings from around himself and put the damp apron on the nearby counter. “Hope there was no problem.”

She looked up at him in alarm. “What?”

“About the pudding,” Robert elaborated grimly. She looked confused and guilty as sin. “I hope there was no problem with the order.”

“No, no, everything’s fine.” Jenny blushed.

Robert wondered what the tabloids were paying these days. “Good. I’m glad to hear that. Wouldn’t want anything to go wrong with…things.”

Jenny stiffened. “I run an efficient kitchen. Everything will be fine.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll admit we are a little behind schedule, but your mother assured me that people will be late arriving because of the cold weather. And everything’s set up in the barn. Tables, chairs—the works. The kids even decorated.”

Jenny hadn’t worried when she was in Seattle and Mrs. Buckwalter had called to ask her to come cater this event. The older woman had said the party was to be held in The Barn. She’d announced the fact with such flourish that Jenny assumed it was some bohemian restaurant with theme.

Jenny was startled when they drove into Dry Creek and she saw that The Barn really was a barn, complete with hayloft and straw. Then she looked around at the few buildings in town and realized there probably wasn’t an industrial oven in any one of them.

That’s when she first knew she was in trouble. Not that it would do to admit it to her employer’s son.

“We’ll have the platters ready just as soon as those puffs cool. And the water’s heating for the lobsters. A half hour and dinner will be served.”

Robert nodded as he picked up the cell phone she had laid back on the kitchen counter. He slipped it into his pocket. His phone had a redial feature built into it. Maybe he could call the reporter and stop the story.

Robert put on his wool overcoat and stepped outside. Snow covered patches on the ground and the frigid air made his breath catch. He’d been in cold weather before at ski resorts, but the cold in rural Montana bit harder.

The back door to the kitchen led to a dirt path that was lined with garbage cans. Fortunately, the temperature was so cold the garbage wasn’t rotting. Not that Robert minded the smells of garbage anymore.

Robert wondered if he’d ever be the same again. He hadn’t intended to spend five months as someone else. It had started as the adventure of a bored rich man. He knew that. There was something supremely arrogant about shedding his identity like it was last year’s fashion.

But he had done it and wasn’t the least bit sorry.

He’d flown down to the Tucson airport last October. From there he’d headed on foot toward a little town on the Arizona/New Mexico border. He’d left his suit with his plane in a locked area of the airport. He also left his black diamond watch and his laptop computer.

He walked away wearing an old pair of denim jeans and a flannel shirt. The only thing expensive about his clothes had been his tennis shoes. He had no car. No cell phone. A dozen twenty-dollar bills, but no credit cards.

He still remembered how good it felt.

That day he left behind Robert Buckwalter III and became simply Bob. He rolled the name around on his lips again. Bob. He liked the sound of it. It was friendly in a way Robert could never be.

Robert had intended to spend a week alone in the desert at some flea-bitten motel along the highway so that he could return to his parties with more enthusiasm. He certainly didn’t intend to be stuck as Bob. He was merely cleansing his palate, not giving up the rich life he enjoyed.

But that first day he discovered Bob was the kind of guy people talked to. Robert was amazed. He’d never realized until then that people didn’t talk to him; they mostly just told amusing stories and agreed with everything he said.

They were, he concluded in astonishment, handling him. How could he have not noticed?

He didn’t have friends, he realized. He had groupies.

An old man in a beat-up truck had given Robert a ride south out of Tucson and invited him to share supper. Supper had been spicy beans and warm rice with a toaster pastry for dessert. The plate he used had been an old pie tin and the glass had been a jelly jar. The fork he ate with had a tine missing.

But the whole meal had been given in kindness and it tasted very good. When it was finished, the old man offered him a job earning twenty-five dollars a day chopping wood for his winter’s supply.

Robert had been about to refuse. He had enough money in his pocket for meals and a cheap hotel. He didn’t need a charity job. But something in the man’s eyes tipped him off and instead he looked at the woodpile and saw it was empty except for a few scrub branches.

The old man couldn’t chop anymore. He needed help. Robert offered to chop some wood to repay the man for supper.

One meal led to the next and the woodpile grew. Robert’s days found a rhythm. He slept in a camper shell by one of the old sheds on the man’s property. The nights were a deep quiet and he slept more peacefully than he ever remembered.

Each morning he woke up to the disgruntled crowing of a red rooster he’d nicknamed Charlie. Charlie had no trouble making his opinions known; he had never learned to bow down to the opinions of the rich. He didn’t even respect the opinions of nature. He seemed to be particularly unhappy with the sun each morning.

Robert didn’t want to chop wood in the chill of the early morning—and especially not with Charlie strutting around. Robert had never seen anything as cranky as that red bird in the morning. You’d think the morning had come up as a personal insult to the rooster. At least Charlie took it that way.

So, instead of listening to Charlie, Robert would jog down the hard-packed dirt road for several miles. He aimed himself in the general direction of the mountains even though they were so far away he’d never get there by running. But he liked to look at them anyway.

His morning run took him past two run-down houses with an astonishing assortment of children spilling out of each. Toddlers. Teens. Boys. Girls. One morning some of the children started to follow him on his run. Before the end of the week, a dozen kids were trailing after him and he was carrying the smallest in a backpack he made from a blanket.

It took a full week for them all to tell him their names.

It was the second week before Robert noticed most of them were running in thin sandals and slippers.

Robert almost scolded them for not dressing right for running, when he realized they were wearing the only shoes they had. The next morning he brought some old newspaper with him and had the kids each make a drawing of their right foot for him.

Later that day he hitchhiked to the nearest post office and sent an overnight package to his secretary ordering fourteen pairs of designer tennis shoes just like his.

The shoes arrived on a Monday.

It was Thursday before Robert saw the children were all limping and he realized he had forgotten socks. How blind could he be? He’d realized then just how removed he’d always been from the needs of others.

He gave money, but it was other people on his staff who actually worried about the arrangements. He, himself, paid very little attention to the needs of others. His contribution was reduced to a dollar sign. It was a picture of himself that he didn’t particularly like.

Unfortunately, others still had a fascination with his wealth and the tabloids fed their interest.

Too bad he wasn’t still living in the camper shell with Charlie, Robert thought. Charlie might like being in the tabloids.

Robert had discovered he didn’t like being in tabloids. In fact, he could honestly say he hated it more than Charlie hated the morning.

Robert removed the phone from his pocket and pushed the redial button. He wondered how much it would cost to kill the story.

Not that it mattered. Whatever it was, he already knew he’d pay it.

Chapter Two

R obert Buckwalter didn’t ordinarily notice the stars in the sky. But, standing still, holding the cell phone in his right hand, he looked up and blinked. Montana had a blackness to the nights that calmed him. He’d spent too much time in cities with all their noise and lights.

All of the commotion stopped a man from thinking.

And he needed to think his way out of this situation. Money wasn’t enough this time.

Jenny’s sister had crumbled when she realized who was on the other end of the phone. Robert had not even needed to be stern. The young woman confessed why she’d called her sister and apologized for asking questions.

She was contrite. She was abashed.

She was useless.

Robert had groaned inside when he found out why the young woman had called. He had dreaded the bachelor list even before his five months in Arizona. What sane man wouldn’t?

The bachelor list winners might as well enroll in a circus freak show. No one left them an ounce of privacy. Or dignity. Last year he’d been number seventeen. Some tabloid had printed the sizes of all one hundred men’s underwear. Ten different women had actually sent him silk boxers with their names screened on them.

And the letters! He had over a hundred letters from strange women asking him to marry them.

Just imagine if he was in the number one spot. They might as well shoot him now before his mailman filed for workmen’s compensation because of the backache from delivering those letters—a fair number of which would come with a string-tied package. Somehow the packages with string on them always included baked goods. Chocolate-chip cookies. Plum bread. One enterprising woman had shipped a pot roast in a gallon-size zipper bag because some tabloid story had mentioned he liked beef.

And the underwear givers and the cookie bakers were not even the worst of the lot. The more aggressive called on the telephone and demanded to talk to him. They wouldn’t take no for an answer. They knew how to dodge every polite refusal. His secretary was likely to quit this time around.

Maybe he should hire Charlie to take those calls.

Robert, himself, wasn’t interested in a wife that came from a list.

It was old-fashioned, but Robert knew if he ever did marry it would be a real marriage. One that lasted a lifetime. Not one based on lists or money. Odd as it sounded, he’d realized in his five months away that he wanted a wife who would want a simple home with him. Without servants and expensive antiques. Someone who would want him to mow the lawn and take out the trash. Someone who would talk to him and not just quietly pretend to find whatever he was talking about fascinating enough for both of them.

A woman like that probably didn’t even read the tabloids. She certainly wouldn’t mail him a pot roast or a pair of boxers if she didn’t know him.

No, if Robert ever wanted to live a normal Bob-like life, he needed to start it now. He needed to get off the list.

The trouble was he didn’t trust the young woman he’d spoken with to simply tell her editors that Robert Buckwalter thanked them very much for thinking of him, but could they please think of someone else for their bachelor list.

Fortunately, Robert knew one thing and that was the celebrity world. He’d been forced to learn how it worked. He knew stories were killed every day and that lists could go up in smoke with the wrong move.

As Robert saw it, he had one chance to change things and that was to make himself very unpopular. He needed to do something that would alienate women everywhere. He’d asked the woman and she’d confessed that the list was to be released on February 29. Leap Year’s Day. Women’s choice. It was already February 20. He needed to act fast.

First, a victim must be found. He found that nothing set off women better than mistreatment of one of their own. And Jenny, the chef, must know about the action so she could tell her sister who would then tell her employers. That should get his name thrown off the list and into the trash.

Robert felt better already. All he had to do was be obnoxious. His feet were still sore, but he was sure he could be sufficiently unpleasant to raise some eyebrows.

Confident that his troubles would soon be over, Robert slipped the cell phone back into the pocket of his overcoat and started to whistle.

He was almost cheerful when he stepped back into the kitchen. It wouldn’t be too hard. Before long his reputation would be back where it belonged—in tatters.

All he needed to do was find a woman to persecute.

Robert stepped into the kitchen to find it empty of everything except steam. He walked over to the stove and looked into one of the big lobster pots. It was empty, as well.

Good, he thought to himself in satisfaction, the party was starting. An audience would be helpful for what he needed to do.

The dining room of the café had been turned into a girl’s dressing room and Robert walked quickly through the haze of perfume. Makeup was scattered over the table closest to the door and several pairs of high heels were lined up along the right wall.

Robert stopped in front of the mirror taped to the inside of the door and ran a comb through his own hair. He brushed a few snowflakes off the shoulders of his overcoat. The overcoat was black. His suit underneath was black. Each cost more than most men made in a month.

Robert nodded at his reflection with satisfaction; he looked good. Every man should look good on his way to his own public scandal.

The first bite of the cold when he stepped out the front door made him step even faster. The café was just down the gravel road from the barn where the party was to be held and the space between was full of old cars and trucks. This part of Montana certainly wasn’t prosperous, he thought as he spied the old cattle truck that was parked next to the bus his mother had rented to haul all the teenagers around.

He nodded to an old man who was weaving between the cars with a bottle of beer in his hand.

“Coming to the party?” Robert looked closer at the man.

“Ain’t been invited.” The man’s beaten face looked anxious in the moonlight.

“Everyone’s invited,” Robert said firmly. The old man looked like he could use a good meal that didn’t slide down from the neck of a brown bottle. “What’s your name?”

The old man looked startled. Robert didn’t blame him. He was startled himself. Since when had he cared about the names of poor old men?

“Gossett.”

“Well, Mr. Gossett, I hope you’ll come have some dinner with us.”

“I ain’t dressed for it.”

The man was wearing a beige cardigan sweater covered with what looked like cat hair and a thermal undershirt that had a yellow ring around the band. His neck was scrawny and his eyes were bloodshot. His denim jeans had grease stains on the knees. Only the man’s boots looked new.

“This will set you up,” Robert said as he took off his overcoat and offered it to the old man. “Put that on and you’ll be right in fashion.”

Warm, too, Robert thought to himself.

The man’s startled look turned to alarm. “You with the Feds?”

“The who?”

“The FBI. They don’t think I seen them. But they’re here. Sneaking around in the dark. Watching me.”

“They’re not watching you,” Robert said gently as he offered the coat again. “I’ve heard there’s been some cattle rustling reported. Interstate stuff. It’s been going on for some time and they can’t get a handle on it. That’s why they’re here. It’s just the cattle. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

Robert knew the FBI was in Dry Creek. One of their agents had questioned Jenny and himself when they’d landed with the lobsters out near Garth Elkton’s ranch the other night.

“You know who they think done it?” the man asked, leaning so close that Robert got a strong whiff of alcohol. “The rustling?”

“No, I don’t think they know yet.” Robert wondered if he should insist the man come into the warmth of the barn. With the amount of alcohol the man was drinking, it was dangerous for him to be out in the freezing temperatures. “You’re sure you don’t want to borrow the coat? You’d be welcome to eat with us.”

The man carefully set his bottle of beer on the hood of an old car before reaching out toward the coat. “I might just get me a little bit of something. It sure smells good.”

The two men walked inside the barn together.

The old man headed toward the table set up with appetizers. Robert resisted the urge to go over and visit his carrot flowers. Instead he looked around for the woman he needed.

There was a sea of taffeta and silk. Young teenage girls with heavy lipstick and strappy high heels. Farm wives with sweaters over their simple long dresses. A couple of women who looked unattached.

And, of course, the chef.

If he had his choice, Robert would persecute the chef. If for no other reason than to rattle her calm and make her take off that hairnet of hers. It was a party. She could loosen up. But the only thing he could think to do was to kiss her, and that certainly wasn’t outrageous. The media would just think he’d taken another in a long line of girlfriends. They’d yawn in his face.

No, he needed something shocking.

He looked over the teenagers and settled on the youngest one. His kissing her would raise the hackles of the tabloid world. She looked to be little more than a child, no more than twelve. Women all across the country would raise their handbags in unison to clip him a good one and he’d deserve it.

Robert went over to the buffet table. He’d look less threatening if he had one of those plastic cups in his hand. After all, he wanted to kiss the girl, not have her pass out in terror. She might be wearing lipstick, but twelve was still awfully young.

He nodded to the older woman behind the table. “I’ll have some champagne.”

The woman looked at him blankly. “I think there’s punch in the bowl.”

Robert looked over and saw the punch. It was pink.

“I don’t suppose there’s any bottled water?”

The woman shook her head no. “There might be coffee later.”

Robert nodded. He’d have to do this empty-handed. He walked over to the girl. She was leaning against the side of the barn and watching the other kids sort through some old records. Now who had those relics? He couldn’t remember ever seeing records played. Not with cassettes and CDs available.

“Know any musicians?”

The girl looked up and shook her head shyly. “Do you?”

Robert nodded. He’d be able to score a few points with this one. “Name a group and I probably know them.”

He realized when he said it that it was true. The world of the truly famous was pathetically small.

“Elvis,” the girl named softly.

“Elvis is dead.”

“I thought maybe you had known him. When you were young.”

Robert wondered if he’d fallen down a time warp. “How old do you think I am?”

The girl shrugged. “He’s my favorite is all.”

“He’ll always be the King,” Robert agreed gently. Maybe this girl wasn’t the one, after all. Her eyes reminded him of Bambi. He didn’t want to see the confusion in them that would surely come if a man as old as Elvis kissed her.

“You got a camera?” he asked instead.

“A disposable one.”

“Do me a favor and take a few pictures of me tonight. I’ll tell you when.”

“Sure.”

Robert nodded his thanks. Tabloids loved pictures like that and even sweet-eyed Bambis needed a college fund. Somebody might as well get some good out of tonight.

The lights in the barn were subdued and the whole place seemed to smell of butter and steam. Long tables were set up in the back of the barn and covered with white cotton tablecloths. Stacks of heavy plates, the kind found in truck stops, stood at the end of each table.

Several teams of ranch hands were holding big trays with a towel draped over steaming lobsters. Robert frowned at the men. Why hadn’t Jenny asked him to help? He’d had to practically demand a knife and some carrots earlier.

Jenny put a dozen silver tongs down on the head table and blessed Mrs. Buckwalter for requesting that they be brought to Dry Creek along with dozens of tiny silver lobster picks. Even Jenny wasn’t sure she’d tackle the lobster dinner with plastic forks and no tongs. “Can someone go back and get the last pan of butter?”

“I’ll do it.”

Jenny stopped arranging the tongs and looked up in panic. It was Robert Buckwalter. “But you can’t—I mean you don’t need to—”

“Well, someone needs to.”

“I can do it myself,” Jenny said. She could at least try to remember the difference in their social standing. He was, after all, her employer’s son. “You don’t want to spill butter on that suit. It looks expensive.” Jenny took a deep breath and smiled. Her sister owed her for this one. “I mean, it’s a tuxedo, isn’t it? Good enough to wear to a wedding.”

“Tonight’s a special occasion.”

“Aren’t they all?” She struggled upstream. “These receptions—nothing brings out the good suits like a reception or a wedding.”

Robert nodded. “Or a funeral.”

Jenny started to sweat. Being a news source was more difficult than one would think. “Funerals and weddings. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”

Robert looked at her like she’d lost her mind.

“I mean sometimes weddings get off to a rocky start.” Boy, did her sister owe her.

Robert nodded. “I suppose so.”

“Been to any weddings lately?”

Robert shrugged. “Not for a while. I’ve been away from the social scene.”

“Oh?” Jenny looked up brightly. Now they were getting somewhere.

“Haven’t missed it.” Robert looked toward the barn door. “It won’t take me a minute to run back to the café and get that butter.”

Jenny nodded in defeat. “It’s on the back of the stove. Be sure and use a pot holder.” She suddenly remembered to whom she was talking. “That’s a padded square of cloth. It’ll be on the counter.”

“I know what a pot holder is.” Robert didn’t add that he hadn’t known until five months ago.

Jenny stood with her back to the tables and watched Robert walk out of the barn. He was limping. Now she wondered why a man who had spent five months resting would be limping.

“Handsome, isn’t he?”

Jenny turned to look at the woman standing next to her. Mrs. Hargrove was one of the people in Dry Creek that Jenny liked the best. She’d organized the apron brigade for Jenny, using aprons from the church. Towel aprons. Frilly aprons. Patched aprons. They’d used them all.

“You’re pretty good-looking yourself,” Jenny said.

The older woman had worn a gingham cotton dress every other time Jenny had seen her. Tonight she was in a silk mauve dress with a strand of pearls around her neck. A lemon scent floated around her.

“Maybe he’ll ask you to dance,” Jenny continued. Mrs. Hargrove had said earlier that this was the first dance she’d attended since her husband died two years ago.

“Me?” Mrs. Hargrove laughed. “I was thinking he’d ask you to dance.”

“No time. I’ll be busy with the food.”

“Not when the dancing starts.”

“No, by then I’ll be busy with the pots and pans—washing dishes.”

“Goodness, no! The dishes can wait. Tomorrow’s soon enough for that. We’ll all pitch in then. That’s the way it’s done here. I might even ask old man Gossett to help us. Be good for him to get out. You’d be doing him a favor.”

Jenny had a sudden wish that she could dance. “But I’m not dressed for a party.”

Mrs. Hargrove shrugged. “I’ll bet there’s a few more dresses at the café.”

The women of Dry Creek had loaned their old prom dresses and bridesmaids dresses to the teenage girls from Seattle. For most of the girls, this was the first time in their lives they had worn a formal dress.

“He’s back,” the older woman announced.

Robert Buckwalter entered the barn doorway and stood for a moment. Jenny could see the blackness of the outside air. Snowflakes were scattered on his head and shoulders. His hands were carefully wrapped around the handle of the saucepan he was holding. He hesitated in the doorway as though he was shy, unsure of his place among the guests. His shyness, combined with the perfect balance of his face almost took her breath away. Maybe he did deserve to be the number one bachelor.

He certainly didn’t deserve to carry the butter.

“Here, let me get that.” Jenny wiped her hands on her apron and started toward him. The steam from the lobsters had made her hands clammy. “You shouldn’t have to—”

“I can carry a pan of butter.”

“Of course.” Jenny stopped. Of course he could. Why in the world was she so nervous around the man? It must be her sister. Making him sound so mysterious. Just because he was rich, it didn’t mean he wasn’t just a regular kind of a guy, too. He just had more change in his pockets than most.

“Dinner’s almost ready.” Jenny turned to talk again with Mrs. Hargrove.

The regular guy walked around her toward the table.

“Then your troubles for the evening will be over,” Mrs. Hargrove said kindly as she put a hand on Jenny’s arm. “We’re so grateful for all the work you’ve done, dear.”

Robert frowned as he set the saucepan on the table. If dinner was coming soon, he had work to do fast. He suspected people were always more easily shocked on an empty stomach. Plus, after dinner, the sounds of those records playing would mask his attempts at being outrageous.

He’d given some thought to his dilemma while outside and he’d decided age could go two ways. Instead of focusing on someone young like Bambi, he could try someone old enough to be his grandmother.

“Ah, there you are.” Robert turned back to Mrs. Hargrove. He understood she was the Sunday school teacher for most of the little people in Dry Creek. She should be thoroughly offended by a kiss from a strange man. Everyone else should be shocked, too.

He looked around for Bambi and called her over. There’d be no point in rattling the people of Dry Creek if he couldn’t shake up the rest of the country, too.

“Yes?” Mrs. Hargrove looked up at him. Her eyes were bright with curiosity. Her cheeks were pink. She must be seventy years old. She looked like every cookie-lover’s picture of Grandma.

Robert dove right in. “I love you.”

“Why, I love you, too.” She beamed back.

“What?” Robert stalled. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.

“I love all of God’s children,” Mrs. Hargrove continued. “They say that’s how Christians will know each other. By the love they have for others. I John 4:7. Does this mean you’re a Christian?”

“Well, no, I—I mean I’m not opposed to Christianity.” Robert started to sweat in earnest. How had God gotten into this? “Don’t really even know much about it—”

“Well, I’d be happy to tell you.”

“Great, maybe later. It’s just that’s not what I meant when I said I love you.”

“Well, then, what did you mean?”

Robert was desperate. He looked over and nodded at Bambi. She was in position. Then he started to bend down.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Hargrove bent, too. “My beads.”

Robert heard the scattered dropping of pearls as his kiss landed smack on the top of Mrs. Hargrove’s gray head. His lips met the scalp where her hair was parted.

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she bent down farther.

Now Robert couldn’t even kiss the top of her head unless he squatted down to where his kneecaps should be.

“Here, let me help you,” Jenny said as she stepped closer to both of them.

Robert wasn’t about to give up. It wasn’t ideal. But the camera was in place and he was determined to kiss someone. Even if it was Jenny.

He heard her first soft shocked breath as he drew Jenny to him. He was close enough to feel her second indignant breath as he bent his head.

The camera flashed. The talking stopped. A bead rolled.

Robert was triumphant. His big moment was recorded. He could end the kiss. But he didn’t. Something was happening.

The kiss blossomed. Jenny tasted of home. The minute Robert felt her lips tremble beneath his, he was lost. He didn’t want the kiss to end. He felt like he had caught a fragile thread of something precious he didn’t even understand.

“Mmmm, sweet. I like that—I mean you—I like you,” he whispered when he finally drew away.

“Not love?” Bright red dots stood out on both of Jenny’s cheeks. “I thought ‘I love you’ came easy enough to your type.”

Robert felt like he was coming out of a cozy cave and facing the frost of winter.

“My type?” he asked cautiously.

Jenny’s brown eyes had deepened to a snapping black. She bristled.

“The type of man who kisses his employees—whom he likes —even when he says he loves Mrs. Hargrove.”

“I don’t kiss my employ—” Robert stopped. That was no longer true. “I mean, I don’t. Well, I didn’t—”

There was an incessant ringing somewhere and a gnarled old hand reached from behind Robert. Mr. Gossett had pulled the ringing phone out of the coat pocket. “This yours?”

“You want it?” Robert asked Jenny.

Jenny’s cheeks were red still and her breathing quick. She was adorable.

Robert suspected she reached for the phone more for something to do than because she wanted to talk.

“Yes.” Jenny turned her back to him and walked a few feet away.

“You talked to him!” She looked over her shoulder in a betraying move. It was the sister. “So he knows.”

Robert knew he should pick up on the accusation Jenny had left dangling and make some strong sexual harassment statements. Publicly threaten to fire her unless she kissed him again. That would certainly knock him off the bachelor list. Women didn’t tolerate sexual harassment anymore and they shouldn’t.

But Robert didn’t open his mouth. Suddenly the list was not all that important.

He had met the woman the Bob inside him wanted to marry and she was looking at him this very minute like he was some hair ball a very unwelcome stray cat had coughed up.

Considering the set of her jaw as she talked to her sister, Robert figured he had as much chance of ever kissing her again as he had of teaching that stray cat to dance a tango.