A Bride for Dry Creek (10 page)

“And I won't be closing my eyes when I pray,” Flint assured her.

“Oh, well, surely, there's nothing to worry about at church,” Francis said indignantly.

Flint didn't remind her that the hit man that had come after Glory Beckett had chosen the Christmas pageant as the place to make his attempt on her life. The way Flint heard it, it was only the quick thinking of Matthew that had saved the woman's life.

“I'll call Mrs. Hargrove and tell her to be on the lookout tomorrow for someone who is in church but doesn't usually attend,” Flint said as he walked toward the telephone. That should pinpoint any problems. “I wonder if it's too late to get some kind of metal detector set up in the entrance hall.”

“I don't remember that the church has an entrance hall,” Francis offered. She hadn't been in the church for years, but her memories were of a large square room that opened directly onto the street.
Concrete steps led up to the double doors that opened into the main room of the church. Two rows of old, well-polished pews faced the front of the church, and tall narrow windows lined the walls. A dark linoleum covered the floor, and a strip of carpet was laid over that to cover the aisle between the pews.

“I should alert Matthew, too,” Flint muttered as he picked up the telephone to dial. “Maybe he could shake everyone's hands before the service instead of after. He can do a visual check for weapons that way. Of course, we're probably okay as long as the roads stay closed.” He turned to Francis. “Don't suppose you've heard the weather lately?”

“I heard Robert Buckwalter ask Garth earlier. I think that he was hoping to fly his plane out of Dry Creek.” Francis grimaced at Flint. “Either that or I hear he's thinking of having more supplies flown in somehow. Tricky business. Garth said the latest forecast was for wind and continuing cold. Unless the county snowplow can get through on the roads, I don't think cars will make it through.”

“And none of the rental places rent anything but cars?”

“No, Sheriff Wall checked on that—also told the places at the Billings airport to let him know if any strange men were making a fuss about not being able to rent a four-wheel drive.”

“What about women?”

Francis looked at him blankly.

“They might hire a woman,” Flint said softly. “In a place that doesn't expect a woman, that could be a key element of surprise. And my guess is that they'll go for a professional this time—someone who is supposed to get in and take the hostage out without attracting any attention.”

“But a woman would stick out more than a man,” Francis protested. “More men travel through these parts, looking for ranch jobs or following the rodeo circuit.”

“Like Sam,” Flint offered.

“Sam would never,” Francis protested. “I can't believe you'd even think he'd be a kidnapper.”

Flint shrugged. “It's probably not him. But it could be the woman that came looking for Robert Buckwalter.”

Flint had already had the bureau run a check on the woman, and she sounded like she was little threat to anyone but Robert. The report he had gotten back suggested the woman was there to try and convince Robert to marry her.

Any man who could fly in a load of lobsters on his private plane to feed a bunch of inner city kids, as Robert had done, had money to spare. That meant the woman's motive was simple. She had sighted her prey.

The blonde was having problems paying back some gambling debts and she needed to raise lots of
cash fast. She'd already slipped the information to her creditors that she was on the verge of getting engaged to Robert. Flint had taken a close look at that plane Robert landed several nights ago on the snowy pasture by Garth's barn. The plane was so new it still held the smell of the mocha leather seats that turned the cockpit into a relaxation center. No doubt about it. That plane belonged to a rich man.

Marriage to Robert would certainly get the blonde out of hock. But then so would doing a little favor like kidnapping someone for a crime syndicate.

“We can't be too careful,” Flint said.

“Well, I can't live in a bubble,” Francis said as she sat down at the kitchen table. “We can take reasonable precautions, but that's all we can do.”

Flint started to dial the number for Matthew Curtis. He wondered if the minister would be willing to rope off the last two rows on one side of the church. That way Flint could keep a neutral empty zone around Francis. She probably wouldn't like it, but he would rest easier with that arrangement.

“Besides—” Francis gave a little smile “—if another kidnapper is around here they will have noticed that the woman to kidnap, if they really want to rattle Garth, is Sylvia Bannister.”

Flint looked at her in question.

“I think my brother's in love,” she said softly.

“Garth?”

Francis nodded. “He might not know it yet, but, yes, Garth.”

Francis was even more convinced that her brother was in love when he ate supper in the bunkhouse with a few of the men instead of joining the rest of them in the house. She wondered if all men got as grumpy as Garth when they fell in love. If that was the case, she didn't have to worry about Flint. He'd been smooth and polite to her ever since he'd agreed to attend church with her in the morning. He didn't look like he had a care in the world. He certainly didn't look like a man in love.

“Pass the salt?” she asked Flint as they sat in the middle of the table, surrounded by boisterous teenagers. The beef stew she had helped make for supper didn't really need more salt, but it was the only conversational opener that came to her mind.

“Sure,” Flint said as he lifted the little glass bottle and passed it to her. “Want pepper?”

“No, thank you.” Francis smiled stiffly. Well, that wasn't much of a conversation starter. At this rate, they'd never get the important conversations going. Not that the supper table was a good place to have such a conversation, anyway. Maybe they should wait until they drove to church tomorrow. Flint had already made it clear the two of them were going alone in the four-wheel-drive pickup he was driving.

T
he supper dishes were done, the cows were fed, and the house was dark. But Francis couldn't sleep. She lay in the single bed in the small bedroom that had been hers for her entire girlhood. When she lay there, the years evaporated and she felt just as young and insecure as she had thirty years ago. She missed her mother.

Strange, she thought, she hadn't missed her mother for years. She thought about her on holidays and sometimes when she saw a woman who had that same shiny black hair, but she never really missed her deeply. Francis had been ten when her mother died, and it seemed like such a long time ago. She had long ago firmly closed the door on those young memories of her mother.

But tonight, Francis missed her. She wished she
could ask her mother what she felt about love and happiness. And faith. Had her mother found comfort in her faith or had it been a mere duty to her?

Francis remembered their home had known laughter as long as her mother was alive. After her mother died, no one laughed anymore.

Francis felt a moment's envy of Flint because he had his grandmother's Bible and had something to hold that had been precious to her. Then she remembered that her own mother's Bible was on a shelf in the den. Like the rocking chair, Garth had never moved it even after all those years.

Francis pulled her chenille robe off the peg behind the door and slipped her arms into its sleeves. The night air inside the house was chilled, so she moved fast. She tucked her feet into fuzzy peach slippers and tightened the belt on her robe.

Once covered, she turned on the small lamp beside her bed. If she left her door open, the lamp should give enough light so that she could sneak down the stairs and pull the Bible off the shelf without waking anyone.

Sam was sleeping on the living room sofa again tonight, and she supposed Flint was in the kitchen. She had no desire to wake either one of them.

Shadows filled all the corners of the house as Francis stepped into the upstairs hallway. She always liked the house at night. Everything was
peaceful and stone quiet. When she was in Denver, she missed the absolute still of a Montana night.

Francis stepped lightly down the wooden hallway. The light from her room filtered softly into the darkness of the stairway.

 

Creak! Flint woke from a restless sleep and stiffened. Someone was slowly walking on the stairs. He'd tested the stairs already and found creaks on steps fourteen and nine. With only one creak, he couldn't tell if the person on the stairs was going up or down. Either way, he needed to check it out.

Flint stood silently and shrugged the blankets off his shoulders. He quickly moved along the wall that led to the stairs. He heard another creak, this one closer. Good, that meant someone was coming down the stairs instead of going up. It was less likely to be an intruder.

Flint stood beside the stairs as a shape came into view. He recognized Francis as much by the smell of the peach lotion she wore as by the shape she made in her bathrobe.

He wouldn't have guessed that the sight of Francis in her bathrobe would affect him so deeply. It wasn't even that he'd like to cuddle her up to bed—and he would like to do that—it was more that he was suddenly aware of the nights of lying together in front of the fireplace and talking he had missed.

That bathrobe got to him. It certainly wasn't the
sexiest robe in the world. He'd seen his share of see-through black robes and sleek silk numbers. They were all sexier than that old robe. But the robe reminded him of the comfortable love he'd missed. The kind of love one saw on the faces of couples who were celebrating their fiftieth anniversaries. The kind of love that was for better and for worse. He'd missed it all.

“It's me,” he whispered. He didn't want to frighten Francis, and she was sure to see him before she came much closer. He thought a whisper would be soft enough.

Francis yelped all the same as she turned around. “What are you doing there?”

“I heard someone on the stairs,” Flint explained softly. “I didn't know if they were going up or going down.”

Francis nodded. “I'm just going into the den to get a book.”

“Anything I can get for you?” Flint realized he'd never spent an evening with Francis reading. He didn't even know what kind of books she liked. “A mystery? No, not for this time of night. Maybe a romance.”

Francis shook her head. “The only reading books my brother keeps around are his collection of Zane Grey novels.”

“We could sit a bit and read them.”

Flint liked that idea. It was comfortable—the kind of thing old married couples did.

Francis shook her head. “I don't want to wake anyone.” She rolled her eyes in the direction of the living room where Sam was sleeping.

“Oh.” Old married couples certainly didn't have to worry about unwanted fiancés sleeping in the living room, Flint thought.

“I'll just be a minute.”

Flint walked with her into the den and stood by the door while Francis reached up and pulled a large book off the shelf.

“Thanks,” Francis said as she left the den. “I remembered this belonged to my mother.”

“I don't remember you talking about your mother.”

“I didn't.”

 

Francis still couldn't sleep a half hour later. She lay in her bed with her mother's Bible propped up before her. She wished she'd taken the time to look at her mother's Bible earlier. Her mother had written notes throughout the book.

Next to Psalm 100, verse five—“For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations”—her mother had written a note. “Yesterday my baby girl was born! I'm so very happy!”

Next to Matthew 5:4—“Blessed are those who
mourn, For they shall be comforted”—her mother had written in a slower hand, “What will my babies do without me?”

Her mother's life was bound up in the pages of the Bible Francis had pulled off the shelf. Her worries were all there in black and white. Her dreams were noted. Her joys. Francis hugged the Bible to her after reading it for a time. She'd never expected to know her mother like this.

 

The sun strained to rise, and the old man sat in his kitchen and urged it on. He'd been impatiently waiting for morning as he sat next to his west window and polished his old hunting rifle. He'd found a box of ammunition in a dresser drawer last night, and it was sitting on the table ready to be loaded.

If the sun rose hot enough, maybe some of this blasted snow would melt and someone would be willing to drive him to Miles City today, the old man thought. But then he remembered—it was Sunday. The only folks in Dry Creek he could count on to do him a favor all insisted on attending church on Sunday mornings.

He looked around his house. It was like he'd never really seen it for years. When had the walls gotten so stained? And those curtains. They were little more than threads hanging from curtain rods. He should pack some things for his trip, but he couldn't settle on what. Finally, he pulled out the
old photo album that had belonged to his parents and put it in a plastic grocery bag. That and the rifle were really the only things he needed to take.

He was halfway to the door when he remembered the cats. What would he do about the cats? He put down the rifle and bag and opened the cupboard door. He pulled all the tins of cat food out of the cupboard and stacked them on the counter. They were all gourmet tins—chopped chicken livers and tuna. He always bought expensive cat food. Then, one by one, he ran his manual can opener around their lids. As soon as a can was opened, he sat it on the floor.

By the time he finished, he had twenty-nine open cans on the floor. He didn't pet any of the cats that gathered at his feet, and they didn't expect it. He never petted the cats. He'd been content to simply feed them.

The old man comforted himself about the cats. When people realized he was gone, they'd come and take care of the cats, he told himself. The cats would all find good homes. Surely, the people of Dry Creek would take them in.

The old man fretted until finally the sun had softened the darkness enough so that he could put on his coat, pick up his bag and gun and walk across the street to the pay phone beside the café. He'd never put a telephone in his house—couldn't abide the demanding ringing of one. But today he needed
to call the bus depot in Miles City and find out if the Greyhound bus was able to get through on the roads.

The bus wasn't coming. The short phone call let him know that the bus service was canceled for Sunday because the interstate was closed until the snowplows could get through. The next bus was scheduled for Monday.

The old man swore. Monday could be too late. The more he had thought about that cocky FBI agent—coming right to his door and forcing the old man to talk to him—the more nervous he became.

He couldn't stay in Dry Creek until Monday.

The old man had a brief vision of himself driving his old pickup in the other direction, to North Dakota, without tires. The roads were covered with snow. Maybe the tire rims would get him there. He knew it was hopeless as he thought about it. Even if he got to the North Dakota border, he'd still be stranded.

He saw a cream-colored business card slipped into the door of the café, and he pulled it out of the crack. That hotshot Robert guy and someone—the man hadn't written the name clearly—had gone out to the plane. The additional supplies had been parachuted down last night, as ordered. They would be back as soon as possible.

The old man wished he was the one with the
plane. That would sure solve his problems. A plane didn't need to wait for any snowplows.

It wasn't fair, the old man decided, when some folks like Robert Buckwalter had fancy planes and a senior citizen like himself didn't have anything but his two aching feet to get himself around in good weather or bad.

And then the old man heard it—the soft whinny of a horse coming from nearby. He listened. It was coming from behind the café. Something about the mournful whinny of the horse told him that she was alone and missing her master.

He rubbed his hands together in triumph. The horse was back! That's what he needed. A horse didn't need tires, and even if the old man couldn't quite remember how to drive, the horse wouldn't care.

 

Francis let the sunshine filter through the thick frost on her bedroom window. She didn't need full sunshine to feel like this was going to be a good day. She felt more hopeful than she had in years. She'd connected with her mother last night, reading her mother's Bible. Something in her had softened while she read. She was looking forward to going to church this morning more than she had expected when she first announced her desire to Flint. She felt like she'd never really paid attention in church be
fore, and now she wanted to observe everything—to see it through her mother's eyes.

Francis smelled coffee before she started down the stairs later in the morning.

Flint was dressed in slacks and a gray turtleneck and was standing by the sink sipping a cup of coffee. If he'd noticed the creaks she made walking down the stairs, he didn't comment on them.

“You're up early,” Francis said as she walked to the cupboard and pulled out a cup.

Flint grinned. “I wanted to be ready in case you wanted to go get eggs again this morning.”

Francis groaned. “I think I'll wait until that rooster is awake.”

“Suits me.” Flint set down his coffee cup and reached over to pick up the leather shoulder holster that was on the counter. The holster was snapped shut, but the butt end of a gun was clearly visible. He hooked it over his shoulder.

Francis heard the hard footsteps on the hallway floor before she saw the outline of Sam entering the kitchen.

“You're wearing a gun to church?” Sam gave a pointed, reproving look in Flint's direction.

Flint felt the joy of the morning harden. Sam looked all starched and pressed. Since when was Sam planning to come to church with them? “I'm on duty.”

“Flint's been kind enough to agree to let me at
tend the services,” Francis said stiffly. She had never noticed before just how much of a pain Sam was. Had he always been this self-righteous? “It's been a lot of extra work, especially since he still has his responsibilities.”

Sam grunted and adjusted his silk tie. “I doubt there will be many people at the service anyway, the way the snow has covered the roads.”

“I've checked with the sheriff,” Flint said. “The roads are passable with a four-wheel drive.”

Flint had made arrangements for the sheriff and the inspector to both attend the services. One man would sit on each end of the pew where he and Francis sat.

Sheriff Wall had said he didn't usually attend, but he'd wanted to go and check the furnace in the old church, anyway. He was somewhat of a self-taught electrician, and the folks of Dry Creek often called on him for an odd piece of electrical work. He'd told Flint he'd check out the furnace early Sunday morning. That way he'd be there to see if anyone was snooping around the church building before the regular members got there.

“Anyone want some toast?” Flint said as he slipped two slices of bread into the toaster.

“I thought I'd take Francis to breakfast in Dry Creek before church,” Sam said smugly as he adjusted his suit jacket. “Give her a break from all of this business.”

Flint pushed in the button on the toaster. He studied Sam out of the corner of his eye. The man's face was innocent as a lamb's. But that didn't mean he wasn't capable of betraying someone. Flint wondered if someone could have gotten to Sam. The man certainly seemed intent on getting Francis away from anyone's protection. “You can take her to breakfast when we've caught all the rustlers. Until then, you'll just need to be patient.”

“Of course,” Sam said smoothly. “I wouldn't want to do anything that would put Francis in danger. Although—” Sam paused “—she wouldn't be defenseless with me around. I have my cell phone. I could call the sheriff in a heartbeat.”