Sugar Plums for Dry Creek & At Home in Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad

Author:Janet Tronstad
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2006-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

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 Sun day-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—un less, of course, the woman herself seemed un willing 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

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