At Home in Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad

Author:Janet Tronstad
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2006-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The sheriff adjusted his tie. He hadn’t fussed about what to wear some place in years. He knew he should probably have just put on a clean uniform and been done with it. That’s what he would normally wear to a dinner business meeting. But he knew that this dinner wasn’t about business; at least, it wasn’t for him. So, he’d put on his one suit, the same black one he’d worn to the wedding and the same one he’d wear to church in the morning. At least he had a new white shirt to wear with it tonight. He had even borrowed Mrs. Hargrove’s iron so he could press it.

“You look fine,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she stepped up until she was even with him at the door. “Do you want me to knock?”

“No, I should knock.” The sheriff rapped on the door with his knuckles. He wondered if Mrs. Hargrove knew how nervous he was.

“You’re a handsome man, Carl Wall, and don’t you be forgetting it,” Mrs. Hargrove said staunchly as they listened to the footsteps coming toward the door.

“Thanks,” the sheriff said, resisting the urge to smooth down his hair. He knew Mrs. Hargrove was just being supportive, but he did appreciate her telling him he looked fine. And everything would go fine, too; he just needed to take a deep breath and relax. The sheriff got his breath out, but he never got it back in again.

The door opened instead and he saw a movie star. Or one of those fancy magazine models. Whoever it was, she was dressed to go somewhere on the arm of a millionaire instead of a poor man who was going to pass out any minute now if he didn’t take a deep breath.

The sheriff gulped.

Mrs. Hargrove slapped him on the back at the same time as she said hello to Barbara.

“Is he okay?” Barbara asked Mrs. Hargrove.

“More than okay,” the older woman said. “I think he’s going to do just fine.”

The sheriff breathed again. At least, he thought he must be breathing, because he hadn’t passed out.

“I’ll just go on back to where the children are,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she walked through the doorway and headed toward the back room. “You two have fun now.”

The sheriff noticed that that thought seemed to alarm Barbara.

“We’re going to work on a slogan,” Barbara turned to say the older woman.

Mrs. Hargrove didn’t even break her stride as she walked across the floor toward the back room. “You’ll come up with a good one, too.”

Mrs. Hargrove entered the back room, and the sheriff heard the excited shrieks of the children.

“I see they woke up,” he said, wishing for the tenth time today that he’d been born with the gift of gab. He’d never seen the use of chitchat before tonight. But now he was coming to appreciate the skill of making small talk, even though he didn’t have any of it.

Barbara nodded. “I fed them a sandwich earlier.”

The sheriff nodded. “Do you need to do anything else before we go? Because I can wait if you need.

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