A Hero for Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad

Author:Janet Tronstad
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2003-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Nicki glittered. She could see it out of the corner of her eyes. She hadn’t put on any of the “pot of smudge” Glory had loaned her so she must have gotten sugar on her cheek when Mrs. Hargrove, who had been making pies all afternoon, hugged her. The fortunate thing was that in the darkened church no one cared if Nicki glittered or glowed or downright sparkled like Garrett did.

The day had quieted down and the church looked elegant in the candlelight. The work for the day was done, and all was peaceful except the rustling of little feet in the back pews of the old church. The church walls were white but the flickering of the candles turned the walls golden. Long shadows stretched along the walls as people filed into the church.

Nicki was wearing a plain navy pantsuit with a very ordinary silver pin. She’d looked at the makeup Glory had lent her and quietly set it aside. She could dress up like she was a princess but that wouldn’t make her one. She needed to keep her feet firmly planted and, for her, that meant looking the way she always had. She knew there were no fairy-tale endings, and she needed to remember that Garrett was going to leave soon.

The fact that she had dressed plainly didn’t mean that Garrett had. He was wearing the tuxedo again and he looked every bit as handsome as he had early this morning.

Even without the limousine, he took Nicki’s breath away. But it wasn’t just the tuxedo or the limo. She would have found him handsome if he was wearing an old jogging suit and standing beside a bicycle. All of which was why Nicki needed to keep her feet planted in reality. It would be all too easy to let herself become too attached to him. She needed to keep her heart safe.

Nicki and Garrett were on their date. The people of Dry Creek had given them their own pew in honor of the occasion. At least Nicki assumed that was why everyone said hello to them but no one stayed to sit beside them.

The evening had transformed Dry Creek.

All afternoon, everywhere Nicki looked, someone was chopping vegetables or peeling apples or grinding cranberries. She and Garrett had driven to Miles City and returned with enough bags of groceries to fill up the limousine. Nicki’s mother had given them a wad of fifty-dollar bills, insisting the Thanksgiving dinner was on her.

By the time they got back to Dry Creek, the work teams were aproned and ready to go. Mrs. Hargrove took the ingredients for the pies and her helpers went with her to her house to bake. Jazz and Linda took the turkeys and the bread for the stuffing. Glory and Matthew were in charge of vegetables and took the bags of green beans, muttering something about hoping the twins liked to snap things.

Even Elmer had been put in charge of the butter when Lillian remembered he liked to carve.

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