A Bride for Dry Creek and Shepherds Abiding in Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad

Author:Janet Tronstad
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Dear Church People,

I took your dumb shepherd.

If you want to see him again, leave a Suzy bake set on the back steps of your church. It needs to be the deluxe kind—the one with the cupcakes on the box.

P.S. Don’t call the cops.

P.P.S. The angel wire is loose. She’s going to fall if somebody doesn’t do something.

XIX

Well, there was one good thing, Les told himself as he looked up from the paper. There weren’t that many people in Dry Creek who would want a Suzy bake set. That narrowed down the field of suspects considerably. He assumed the XIX at the bottom was some reference to a biblical text on charity. Or maybe a promise to heap burning coals on someone who didn’t do what they were told.

“So it looks like the shepherd is really gone,” Les said, more to give himself time to think than because there seemed to be any question about that fact, at least.

Elmer nodded. “The angel is just standing there with her wings unfurled looking a little lost now that she’s proclaiming all that good news to a couple of sheep. You don’t see anything standing where that shepherd should be.”

The door to the café opened briskly and an older woman stepped inside. She had a wool jacket wrapped around her shoulders and boots on her feet. Les thought she still had to be cold, though, in that gingham dress she was wearing. Cotton didn’t do much to protect a person from a Montana winter chill.

“Mrs. Hargrove, you shouldn’t be walking around these streets. They’re slippery,” Les said to the woman. The older people in Dry Creek just didn’t seem to realize how hazardous it was outside after it snowed. And they’d lived here their whole lives, so if anyone should know, they should.

“Charley told me some little girl was in trouble.” Mrs. Hargrove glared at Les as she unwound the scarf from around her neck and set down the bag she was carrying. “Something about kidnapping and theft. I hope you’re not planning to arrest a little girl.”

Les stepped over to help Mrs. Hargrove out of her jacket. “Someone stole the shepherd from the Nativity set. I don’t even know who did it yet. But if it is a little girl, she’ll have to be dealt with just like anyone else.”

Les turned to hang Mrs. Hargrove’s jacket on the coatrack by the door.

“Well, a little girl wouldn’t have done that,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she smoothed down the long sleeves on her dress. “Mark my words.”

“Little girls can get into just as much mischief as boys.”

One thing Les had learned in his reserve deputy sheriff training was that a lawman shouldn’t make assumptions based on stereotypes about people. There were all kinds of stories about mob men who loved their cats and sweet-looking grandmothers who robbed banks in their spare time.

“Still, I say no little girl took that shepherd,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she walked over to a chair next to Charley and sat down.

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