Sleigh Bells for Dry Creek

In less time than he would have thought possible, Amy was sitting beside him in his pickup. His mother had said her hip would be sore if she couldn’t stretch her legs on the passenger side, so Amy had no choice but to slide in beside him.

He’d take what he could get when it came to being close to her. He was just glad he didn’t have any crumpled chip wrappers on the floorboards and that his heater worked. A mile or two down the road, he managed to check Amy’s neck to see if she had a ring hanging around it on a chain. The girls used to do that in high school. But she didn’t have a necklace of any kind.

“Excuse me,” he mumbled automatically. His elbow kept rubbing against her arm when he shifted gears. With the condition of the roads, he had already made his excuses more often than he liked. Added to that, he thought he caught the faint scent of spearmint. He would have asked her if she still chewed the gum, but she wasn’t looking like she felt real friendly toward him. She probably thought he’d already asked too many questions.

His mother was doing fine with the conversation, anyway, going on about how she wanted to decorate their old house for Christmas and needed to buy some ornaments, since they didn’t have any.

Wade felt Amy’s every move, but she clearly wasn’t as bothered as he was by the contact. He had never known a scratchy, wool jacket could be so tempting, though, especially after he noticed there wasn’t even a tan line where she used to wear a ring. That meant she must not be divorced or anything like that, either.

“Sorry again,” he repeated. This time, she was the one moving her arm, and she was doing it more than anyone needed to in his opinion. Not that he minded the contact; it’s just that he could do without the memories that were coming back.

Feeling her elbow graze his arm reminded him of the freckles on the back of her hand. When she was twelve, she’d worn a bandage over them one whole summer because she was afraid they were going to spread to the rest of her body. He’d secretly hoped they would, but he hadn’t said that to her because she had been so stricken by the thought.

He stole a glance at her now. Since she’d climbed in the pickup, she’d pulled the collar of that gray work coat closer and closer around her neck. But he didn’t see any freckles anywhere. Just the smooth, creamy skin along the side of her face.

“I was just pointing out the new fence along the Garrett place to your mother.” Amy turned and frowned at him.

He nodded, wondering if she could still read him like she used to be able to. Her expression certainly indicated she disapproved of something.

“I thought you would both be interested since you mentioned Shawn,” she added a little primly.

Wade grunted. The sun was completely up by now, and there were no shadows to hide the expression on anyone’s face, so he kept his eyes straight ahead. “I don’t care about Shawn one way or the other. I was just surprised. That’s all.”

He’d figured out by now that Shawn’s name was coming up in the conversation more than would be normal if he didn’t mean something to Amy. Why else would she point out those white-and-red cardboard signs nailed to that new fence begging folks to vote for the guy?

“Guess I’ll have to register to vote,” Wade added, trying his best to be pleasant about it. Men saw their childhood sweethearts get married to other men every day. Young love didn’t last for most people.

Maybe he’d even come back to cast his ballot for Shawn, if he could. Voting wasn’t the sort of thing a man who lived in hotels had to worry about. Of course, it was a whole lot of months before any election. One thing he’d have to say for Shawn—the man was smart enough to know he’d need an early start to collect enough votes to win.

It didn’t take many fence posts for Wade to remember everything he knew about the Garrett ranch. His father had complained bitterly about the fifteen hundred head of purebred Angus cattle old man Garrett ran on his place. And he had only one son to help him—a sickly boy who came in last every time the kids raced at school. The Stone family had worked to manage eighty head of scrub cattle in their best years, but, as often as not, Wade’s father would get drunk and let the cattle into the wrong pasture or decide they needed to head down the road somewhere, so he’d open a fence gate.

Wade and his brothers, all of them sturdy boys, had a hard time fixing all their father did wrong, and yet the man made them feel that Shawn Garrett was worth more as a son than the three of them added together. It was Tyler or Jake who had decided to call Shawn “that puny boy,” but they’d all been jealous of him.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a civil servant,” Amy said a bit later, eyeing him like she didn’t trust his response.

Wade nodded. He supposed he’d get used to being polite even when he felt like ripping the man’s heart out. “Of course not. Lincoln. Washington. All those guys.”

“Well, maybe that’s not quite Shawn,” Amy admitted wearily.

She didn’t seem to have anything more to say, and for once, she was keeping her arms quietly at her side.

“Oh—” his mother said suddenly from her place by the passenger window. “I forgot to get the eggs!”

Wade slowed his pickup to a stop. They were twelve miles outside of town by now. It wouldn’t take long to drive back, but the quiet of the dawn was over. People would be up and around. He trusted Linda at the café not to say anything about them, and the ranch hands probably didn’t know who they were. But if other people saw him and his mother, they would start talking.

And then the rumors would start to grow. He wasn’t sure either one of them was ready for that.

“We have eggs,” Amy said. “Stop at our place, and I’ll run in and get you a few.”

“Oh, would you?” his mother said, her face lighting up again. “They’re for Wade’s sausage-and-egg scramble.”

“I told you I don’t need breakfast,” he said.

Amy finally turned to him, her eyes blazing. “Of course you need breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day. Your mother is doing her best for you. Which you would know if it ever occurred to you to make her breakfast for a change.”

Wade felt his world tilt on its axis. He and Amy had been a little testy with each other back in the café, and maybe she could sense he wasn’t happy about her and Shawn, but the Amy he had known never really scolded anyone—not like this. She was sweet and forgiving and much too good for anyone. She might look faint when he kissed her and swing her elbows all around in the pickup, but she would never criticize him or contradict him—at least not like this. She’d been a good church girl. She prayed. She sang in the choir. She never said anything bad about anyone. Now that he thought about it, he should have seen that she had changed when she made such a big deal about refusing to work for him.

“And not just a cold-cereal breakfast either,” Amy continued, gesturing with her hands. The collar of her jacket had fallen away, and he saw the pulse in her throat. “I mean a real breakfast. You probably don’t even know how to cook eggs or oatmeal or anything like that.”

He tried to keep his tone mild. “I usually eat fortified cereal. Comes from a box. With raisins and cranberries and nuts—almonds. It has all the vitamins a body needs.”

Amy gave a small sound of disgust, whether at him or the cereal, he wasn’t sure.

“Well,” she continued, looking down at her hands like she was already regretting her outburst. “If your mother wants to make some kind of a scramble for you, I aim to see she has the eggs to do it.”

“Fine.” Wade gave up. “Fine. I was just trying to save her the bother.”

“Maybe I should make crepes instead,” his mother said, turning to Amy with a sympathetic twinkle in her eyes. “I heard from Mrs. Hargrove a few years ago that you had sent away for a correspondence course in French cooking. Maybe you could help me learn how to make them. I’ve always thought they were so elegant.”

“I’d love to,” Amy said, looking back up and beaming at his mother with the old enthusiasm she used to direct toward him. “They were the first thing we learned to make.”

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” his mother said complacently. “Wade here likes French food.”

“I do?” As near as he could remember, he wasn’t much on foreign food of any kind. Beef and potatoes were more his style.

“Of course you do,” his mother said as she gave him a look that said he better not contradict her. “You don’t want her to cook for Shawn. Didn’t you set a bag of that French coffee on the shelf in the enclosed porch this morning? Where I have the coffeepot rigged up?”

His mother had certainly learned to be a lot more direct while she’d been in prison. He wasn’t sure he was ready for it. “That’s French-roasted. I don’t think it qualifies as French food. Besides, I would have gotten the plain-roasted if I’d been able to find it when I stopped in Miles City.”

“You don’t need to worry,” Amy said, giving him a look that said he better not give anything his mother was saying another thought. “I’m teaching her—that’s all. There will be no cooking from me. Not for you or Shawn, either one.”

Wade heard her words, but something still wasn’t right. She was wound up tight. Many years might have passed, and she might be annoyed with him, but he could still read her feelings.

He looked over at her. “Why are you so touchy about Shawn Garrett anyway? What’d he do to you?”

Amy turned to look at him, and her eyes spit more fire than he wanted to see. “He asked me to marry him. That’s what the fool did. And he told my aunt about it, and now she thinks I should, too.”

With that, she burst into tears. Wade didn’t worry anymore about trying to appear smooth. He parked the pickup on the side of the road, reached over and drew her to him. He felt like some befuddled knight of old, ready to slay the dragon, if he could only see it. This was his Amy in tears. He’d expected her to marry someone, but he thought the man would be the prince of some small country or maybe an opera singer at the Metropolitan. He never considered it might be puny boy, Shawn Garrett.

He looked up to see a satisfied smile on his mother’s face. He shook his head at her, hoping she wouldn’t say anything. She nodded like she understood, and it was silent in the cab, except for the soft hiccups coming from Amy’s rosebud mouth.

Amy was appalled with her tears. She never cried, but when she did, the hiccups always followed. Fortunately, everyone knew where the Mitchell ranch was, so she didn’t need to tell Wade how to get there. He still had his arm loosely around her as he used one hand to drive up the short dirt road to her grandfather’s house. Wade’s arm was distracting enough; she didn’t need to risk further tears or hiccups by trying to explain anything to him.

“It wasn’t a real proposal.” That much finally burst out of her as they got close enough to the house so that Wade could park. She took a deep breath and looked around, trying to focus. She was glad it was winter so no one could see that the weeds needed cutting back around the lilac bushes. Or that the barn needed a new foundation.

“It’s all right.” Wade patted her shoulder as he pulled the key out of the ignition.

Even Gracie put a gentle hand on her knee. “Don’t worry.”