At Home in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

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      The sheriff closed his eyes.

      “Well, surely someone will run against you,” Barbara said. She frowned a little. “They probably just haven’t put in their name yet.”

      The sheriff sat up straighter. She was right. Someone could decide to run against him. It wasn’t likely, but it could happen. Maybe there’d even be a write-in campaign. One or two people usually wrote in a name on the ballot instead of voting for him. The name was usually Daffy Duck or Santa Claus, but legally it was a vote for another candidate. That had to mean something. He moved a couple of chairs closer to Barbara without even thinking about it. “It’s a good thing we’re going to do a campaign then.”

      Barbara smiled. “It’s always good to get out the vote. It helps the whole community. We need to think of things that would rhyme with Sheriff Wall.”

      “There’s all,” the sheriff said, noticing that Barbara had picked up the bouquet she’d caught and was holding it in her lap. He slipped over onto the chair next to her.

      “And a button, we’ll need a button,” she said. “Something in blue. People trust blue. Or maybe red. Red is power.”

      The sheriff nodded. He didn’t care if Barbara decided to dress him up in a clown suit and have him pass out suckers in front of the café. She was sitting next to him and talking and her hands were going a mile a minute.

      Saturday night was definitely going to be a date if the sheriff had anything to say about it. He smiled his best smile. “I appreciate anything you can do—for the campaign, that is.”

      “I’m handling the bakery while Lizette and Judd are gone on their honeymoon, but I can think about the slogan while I work.” Barbara held up the rose bouquet as though she was seeing it for the first time. “And, another good thing about this campaign is that it will help people forget I caught this thing.”

      The sheriff couldn’t ask what the first good thing was. He had a bad enough feeling in his stomach about the second good thing. “Why is that?”

      “Everyone talks during a political campaign. There’ll be issues and answers. People will forget I caught the bouquet and that I’m supposed to be the next one to marry. People think Lizette knows I’m hoping to get married again and that’s why she tossed me this bouquet. But I’ve told Lizette it’s just the opposite. I’m never going to get married again.”

      “Oh.”

      Barbara stood up. “I’m going to be a good citizen though.”

      “You can be a good citizen and married at the same time.” The sheriff thought he should point that out.

      It was too late. Barbara was already opening the door to go back inside the barn.

      Barbara looked around when she stepped back inside. She felt better than she had since she’d come to Dry Creek. This was the perfect solution to her problem. If she campaigned for the sheriff, people would surely see that she took a firm stand in favor of law and order.

      Granted, it wasn’t like being asked to do a fundraiser for the school or anything that involved money, but it was a start. The next thing she knew, she’d be asked to join the Parent-Teacher Association. Then maybe they’d ask her to pour coffee for the town at some event.

      She was so excited. She really was going to make a home for herself and the children here in Dry Creek. And, maybe while she campaigned for the sheriff, she’d mention to people that the town needed a streetlight. That showed even more civic spirit. Eventually, she’d have a normal life with a house of her own.

      And, just so she’d know the real house was coming, she’d work on getting herself that kitchen table for her and the children. It was time she learned to cook something besides sandwiches, and time they started having Sunday dinners at their own table. Fried chicken would be good. Or maybe a pot roast. Having Sunday dinners together was something Dry Creek families did, just like they hung their sheets on the clotheslines in the summer to dry.

      Barbara had noticed a clothesline behind Mr. Gossett’s old house. It had fallen down, of course, just like most of the things around the house. The good thing about the Gossett house, though, was that it had a picket fence around it. The boards weren’t white any longer and they weren’t all standing straight, but a coat of paint and a few well-placed nails would change that. She didn’t know what she’d do if Mr. Gossett wrote and said his nephew wanted the house so he couldn’t rent it out.

      No, that wasn’t true. She did know what she’d do. She’d just keep looking. She was going to make a home here or, at least have the satisfaction of knowing she’d done everything possible to make it happen.

      Chapter Five

      Meanwhile, in the pickup truck parked in the night shadows outside the barn, Floyd Spencer had been watching Barbara and the sheriff and muttering to himself. His timing had been lousy ever since he’d robbed that bank with Neal and Harlow.

      It’d been his first robbery and he’d since decided that he just didn’t have the stomach for crime. Everything had turned out badly. His two partners were behind bars and they were likely to turn informant on him next week if he couldn’t get a message to them and let them know that he needed more time to get their money into those off-shore accounts.

      He had buried his own money in his backyard so deep that even his dog couldn’t find it. He was too nervous to move it inside under his bed. He didn’t know when he’d ever have the courage to dig it up.

      But it was the other men’s money he had to worry about first.

      Floyd had been watching Neal’s wife off and on over the past two weeks to see if she ever went to the prison to see Neal. If she did, Floyd would try to get her to take a message to her ex-husband about the additional time he needed to open those off-shore accounts. The message couldn’t be anything obvious, of course, or the people at the jail would stop it from getting to Neal.

      Floyd couldn’t spend too much time watching the ex-wife, however, because he didn’t dare call in sick to his job at the bank. He hadn’t planned on the whole thing taking so much time.

      It had all sounded so simple when Harlow had planned it. But, these days, Floyd couldn’t even take a long lunch at the bank. It hadn’t been his bank that had been robbed; Floyd wasn’t that stupid. But it had been the bank in a nearby town, and the jittery nerves had spilled over to his bank. He hadn’t thought about that happening.

      Everyone was watching everyone these days, and Floyd sure didn’t want to make anyone suspicious enough to remember that he’d called in sick on the day the other bank had been robbed. He had thought it would be easy to do everything Harlow had asked. But it wasn’t as easy as Floyd had thought it would be to transfer money into those accounts without anyone knowing about it. He’d found the instructions to make the transfer, but he didn’t see how it could be done secretly. Harlow and Neal had each set the accounts up in partnership with another person so, even in jail, they said they would be alerted when the money was in the accounts.

      Floyd didn’t know how all of that was to happen. He was a bank cashier, not a thief—well, until now, that is. All he knew was that Harlow was clever enough to do whatever he said he was going to do and Neal followed the other man’s directions. Harlow had been the one who’d talked Floyd into helping them rob the bank. He would never forgive Harlow for that. Robbing that СКАЧАТЬ