A Rich Man for Dry Creek / a Hero for Dry Creek (31 page)

The maps were the perfect table covering, Nicki concluded in satisfaction when she stood up and admired the ten tables. She'd just finished taping the last of the maps to the plywood tabletops and they looked good. All of the lines and the tiny blocks of color here and there in the maps made the bunkhouse look happy.

Nicki looked more closely at the map on the table closest to her.

“What's this?” Someone had drawn lines with a red pen.

Garrett came over to look and started to chuckle. “Oh, that was a hurricane from a couple of years ago. I had to reroute myself all over the place.”

“And this?” Nicki pointed to something written in green.

“Oh, that was my sunshine route. I was determined to work my way down to Florida for Christmas that year. I decided I wanted to see an alligator. Had to take loads to five states to do it, but I made it. Pulled into Florida Christmas Eve and met an alligator on Christmas Day.”

Nicki looked at the other maps on the tables. The maps were taped together and wrapped around the edges of the table. She walked from table to table. All of the maps had lines drawn on them. “We can't use your maps. They'll get all dirty.”

“That's fine.” Garrett looked up from the folding chair he was fixing.

“You don't understand—I don't mean just a little dirty, I mean gravy-and-cranberry-sauce-spilled-on-them dirty. They'll be ruined.”

Garrett shrugged. “Then we'll throw them away.”

“But you can't—these maps tell all about your trips.”

“I can get new maps and add new trips.” Garrett snapped the chair into place and stood. “You know how it is—new horizons and all.”

“I wish I did know how that is,” Nicki said. Her voice was glum. She had such a tight hold on the past, she couldn't even see the future. She'd even been a little superstitious about going too far outside of Dry Creek. It was as though she thought that if she went someplace else, she couldn't come back. “The furthest I've been is Billings.”

“Well, you could—” Garrett stopped himself. Was he going to say,
come with me?
He cleared his throat. “If you're interested in traveling, I could give you a list of good places to see.”

“I've never seen an alligator.” Nicki thought a moment. She hadn't realized how much she had missed. “Or a crocodile. Or a whale.”

“You'll want to start on one of the coasts then.”

Nicki nodded. Maybe she needed to buy an encyclopedia of sea animals. Just in case she ever got a chance to see one.

Someone stomped his boots lightly on the porch outside the bunkhouse door. Then Reno opened the door.

“She—” Reno jerked his head toward the house “—wants to know if you're all set out here. They called from the café and asked if it was time for the turkeys to be brought out.”

Garrett snapped the last chair into place. “We're set for eighty people.”

Nicki looked around. She'd lit a couple of pine candles and the air in the bunkhouse now had a light holiday scent. The windows sparkled. The wood floor shone. The chairs were neatly lined up around each of the ten tables. “We're ready.”

“And we're using paper plates?” Reno stepped over to Nicki and asked quietly. “She's okay with that?”

Reno didn't need to say who “she” was.

“I don't think she knows we have her china packed away,” Nicki said. She had shoved the boxes even farther back into the walk-in closet that hung off the side of the bunkhouse. “I thought she'd ask, but she hasn't. She always used to say a lady needed her china.”

Garrett was of the opinion that all a lady needed was a pair of emerald eyes, but he doubted Nicki wanted to hear that so he shuffled two of the chairs. “We got the extra-thick paper plates.”

Reno nodded. “Works for me. I was just wondering.”

“I'm surprised she never came back for the china.” Nicki avoided looking in the direction of the closet. “Dad said she bought that china with the egg money, one piece at a time. It took her five years to get all of the pieces.”

“Well, people's taste changes, I guess.” Reno shrugged.

“I guess,” Nicki agreed, but she wasn't really sure. Her mother's taste had been for pretty things back then and, as far as Nicki could tell, it was pretty things that her mother still wanted. Even this Thanksgiving dinner. It was some sort of pretty fairy tale all wrapped up in neighborhood cheer. Her mother couldn't just make a quiet apology and drive away like a normal person. No, she had to make a production of the whole thing with tears and hugs and cranberry sauce.

“She's not giving any speeches, is she?” The thought suddenly struck Nicki. “I mean the food is the whole thing, isn't it? She's not planning to apologize for stealing the money and leaving and everything again, is she?”

“She apologized for leaving?” Reno frowned.

“Well…” Nicki thought for a moment. “She sort of implied an apology. Then she made it sound all mysterious and said it involved someone else—she as good as said she did it because Dad was a heavy drinker back then. Dad wasn't a drinker.”

“He was around the time when Mom left.”

“How do you know that? You were only four years old.”

Reno shrugged. “He drank some here and there for years. But it used to be worse. After Mom left, he cut back.”

“Well, see—then it was because of her. When she left, he cut back.”

“He cut back because of us. Without Mom, there was no one but him to take care of us.”

She nodded. She wondered what their life would have been like if her mother had been willing to stick with her father in spite of his drinking. She supposed a drinking husband did not fit in with her mother's picture of a perfect life and so she just left.

Nicki looked down. She had a film of gray dust over her jeans. “Now that the room is ready, I guess we should all get ready, too.”

Nicki wondered if she and Reno could ever be ready for this dinner their mother wanted.

“M
ore yams?” Mrs. Hargrove leaned across the table and offered the dish to Nicki. “They're good for you.”

Mrs. Hargrove had pronounced every item on the table as good for a person, even the butter in the turkey molds that Jacob had carved and the rolls that had been left too long in the oven and gotten hard and crusty.

“I'm stuffed,” Nicki said.

“How about you?” Mrs. Hargrove offered the yams to Garrett who sat at Nicki's right.

“I've already had two helpings of yams.” Garrett wondered why he'd avoided holiday dinners for so long. He kind of liked the friendly chaos of passing dishes and dodging elbows. He even tolerated Lester who sat to the left of Nicki, but who had the good sense to keep his mind on the food. “But thanks. I believe they were the best I've ever eaten.”

Mrs. Hargrove beamed. “I put a little pineapple in them this year. It was a new recipe in
Woman's World
.”

“I don't suppose you have the magazine with you?” Garrett had wondered how he could get his hands on a couple of issues. They were the experts at this male/female stuff and they should have an idea or two about how a man could propose after dinner with eighty other people around. At the very least, they should have a strategy for making sure Lester wasn't around when Garrett asked the big question.

Mrs. Hargrove looked over her shoulder. “I think Elmer took it to show to someone. But I don't see him. Unless he's over at table five.”

The people at table number five all had their heads down studying something.

“There it is!” a boy whom Garrett didn't recognize said as he pointed. “That's got to be Boston.” The boy looked up from the table and called over to Garrett. “Mister, have you been to Boston in that truck of yours?”

Garrett nodded. “I left the truck as close in as I could get at some delivery station and took a bus down to the Commons. I saw a boy skateboarding there about your size.”

“The maps were a brilliant idea,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “Everybody's been looking up cities and talking about traveling. Seems like everybody has a special place they want to see.”

Nicki was proud of Garrett. He'd answered everyone's questions about places he'd been and not made anyone feel foolish for asking anything, not even when Elmer had confused Rhode Island with Washington, D. C., on the map and asked if Garrett had shaken hands with the president there.

“Where would you go, Nicki?” Mrs. Hargrove set the half-eaten dish of yams down. “You haven't said yet.”

“She wants to see a whale,” Garrett answered for her. “I figure we should just drive over to Seattle and down the coast until we find one.”

“Why would she want to see a whale?” Lester asked from Nicki's right. “There are plenty of animals to see on the ranch.”

“I'm thinking of buying a book,” Nicki added. “That way I can see pictures of all kinds of animals.”

Garrett was wearing his tuxedo and Nicki had decided to wear a green pants suit that she kept for special occasions. She'd even put on some of the makeup Glory had lent her.

“A picture of a whale doesn't begin to do it justice,” Garrett argued. He was glad he'd dropped the hint about taking Nicki down the coast. He figured he'd given everyone notice that way. But neither of the women even batted an eye over his statement and Lester just kept on eating. “I could drive you to see a whale in a day or two.”

Lester did put down his fork at that.

“How nice.” Mrs. Hargrove smiled politely.

Nicki didn't even bother to smile. “You're right. Maybe a video would be better than a picture.”

“Are we going to have pie pretty soon?” Lester asked.

Garrett realized no one, not even Lester, thought he was serious about taking Nicki to see a whale. Either that or, he thought with dismay, they knew Nicki so well they were confident she would never go. If that was the case, his proposal was doomed.

Nicki wished Lester would forget about food for just one meal. How was her heart supposed to be happy at the prospect of a future with him when he seemed to care more about a piece of pie than he did about her? It wasn't that she was expecting love from Lester, she assured herself. Her feelings on that hadn't changed. She wanted a sound business relationship with him if he ever did propose. But she'd never expected to be less interesting to him than a piece of pie.

“I think there's going to be a little bit of a program before we have the pie,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “It'll give everyone's meal time to settle.”

“Oh,” Lester said. “Then I think I'll have some more of the yams.”

“I didn't know about a program.” Nicki tried to keep the panic out of her voice.

“Well, ‘program' is probably too formal of a word for it. The pastor was just going to say a few words—”

“Oh.” Nicki relaxed.

“And then I think your mother was going to say something,” Mrs. Hargrove continued.

“Oh.” Nicki looked around to see how she could leave the bunkhouse. While all of the tables fit just fine when all of the chairs were pushed under the tables, when the chairs were pulled out and people were sitting in them, it was a different story. But she thought she could squeeze through to an outside aisle if she asked Mr. Jenkins to pull his chair over closer to Jacob's and lifted one of the Curtis twins up while she passed behind his chair.

Nicki stood up at the same moment that the pastor did. He had had the good sense to sit at the end of his table, however, so he wasn't caught in a sea of chairs like she was.

“Since this is truly a community Thanksgiving table,” the pastor said, “our long-lost neighbor, Lillian Redfern, has asked me to invite people to share what this community has meant to them.”

“Oh.” Nicki sat back down.

Mrs. Hargrove was first. Then Mr. Lucas. Then Mr. Jenkins.

Nicki had decided her mother wasn't going to speak after all when her mother calmly stood up.

Lillian Redfern looked over the people in the room before she began to speak. As she looked, the room grew more and more silent. Finally, not even a fork was heard scraping against a plate.

“I came back to Dry Creek to say I am sorry I left twenty years ago. Charles and I were having problems and—well, it's not important what happened. He was angry with me. I was angry with him and swore it was all his fault. In the end, it didn't matter whose fault it was, I was the one who left. I didn't think about how many people my leaving hurt.”

Lillian looked directly at Nicki and Nicki lowered her eyes.

“Especially my children. I am very thankful to the people of Dry Creek for taking care of my children in my absence.” Lillian swallowed and then continued. “The one thing I regret most in my life is that I lost my children. The one thing I am most grateful for is that I have been able to see them one more time.”

There was silence after Lillian sat down.

Nicki refused to look up from her plate. Her mother tied everything up in such a pretty little bow. Lillian might be able to fool the people of Dry Creek, but Nicki wasn't so easily fooled. She knew what her mother most regretted leaving behind.

Nicki looked up and over at her mother. “We have your china, you know.”

“The china!” Lillian exclaimed excitedly as she stood up again and walked closer to Nicki's table. “Why didn't you say something? I thought something had happened to it.”

“It's in the back closet,” Nicki said. It was the only piece of her mother that still remained on the Redfern Ranch. Maybe it was time to let it all go. “I'm sure you'll want to take it back with you.”

“Me?”

The surprise in her mother's voice made Nicki look up.

“Why, the china wasn't for me,” Lillian said softly. “The china was always meant for you.”

“What?”

Lillian nodded. “You were so taken with fairy tales as a child—remember how you used to always make a castle out of hay bales and play princess?”

“I outgrew fairy tales.”

“I was sure you'd like those dishes in your own home someday. The rose pattern was so close to the border in your book on fairy tales. I was going to give the china to you when you got married.”

“Oh.” Nicki remembered the roses. She still had the book on her bedroom bookcase. “I thought it was all for you.”

Lillian shook her head and took a step closer to Nicki.

Chairs scraped and people moved until there was a path between Lillian and Nicki.

Nicki blinked her eyes, but she didn't move away. When her mother opened her arms, Nicki let herself be pulled into a hug.

“I'm so very sorry,” her mother whispered into Nicki's hair. “Can you forgive me?”

“I can try,” Nicki replied. Maybe Garrett had been right and she should talk to the pastor. Maybe, if she asked for God's help, she could forgive her mother.

“That's all I ask.” Nicki's mother held her.

“I didn't open the box,” Nicki said as she pulled back a little from her mother's hug. “But Dad packed them away carefully so they're probably still all right.”

“We'll wash them up for you and you can start using them.” Lillian blinked a couple of times, as well.

Garrett sat at the table next to Nicki's empty chair and blinked his eyes, too. These holiday meals were nothing like he'd expected. He felt warm enough inside to hug someone himself. Garrett looked across Nicki's empty chair. There sat Lester eating his yams. Garrett drew the line at hugging Lester so, instead, he reached across the table and patted Mrs. Hargrove's hand. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it.

“Is it time for pie?” Lester looked up.

“I don't see why not,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she stood. “They're on the table in the back, all cut and everything. If someone will help me pass them out, we'll get started.”

Garrett helped Mrs. Hargrove pass out the pie slices. In the spirit of goodwill, he even brought Lester a second piece of pie after everyone else had been served.

“They got you trained,” Lester sneered as he took the extra pie. “What are you going to do next—dishes?”

Garrett nodded. He figured he could take Lester in a fair fight. Maybe after he did the dishes would be a good time. “You going to stay around for a while?”

Lester nodded.

“Good.”

Garrett looked up and saw Nicki leave the room with the Curtis twins. He supposed it was time for the promised ride on Misty.

Aunt Rose would love all this, Garrett thought to himself as he looked around in satisfaction. People had taken some of the tables down and sat around in small groups talking. A fire was going in the black cast-iron stove at one end of the bunkhouse and an electric heater was plugged in at the opposite end. The day outside was cold, but the sun was shining and someone had opened one of the windows.

“Hey, mister.”

Garrett looked down to see the small boy who had asked him about Boston. Three other boys were with him.

“You want to play with us?” the boy asked. “We're going to play trucker.”

Garrett smiled. “Maybe you'd like to see the inside of Big Blue.”

“Can we?”

Garrett looked over to Mrs. Hargrove. “Don't start the dishes without me. I'll be back in ten minutes.”

 

It was fifteen minutes before Garrett started walking back through the yard toward the house. The boys had been excited about all of the knobs and levers on Big Blue and Garrett had been distracted by the sight of Nicki outside leading Misty around the yard in a circle for the Curtis twins.

Nicki had put a parka over her pants suit and had taken off her shoes and put on her boots. The twins looked as though they were chattering and waving their arms trying to convince Misty to be a dragon. The mare just patiently kept walking. She did, however, obligingly lift her head periodically and blow out a gust of air that turned to fog in the cold afternoon air and could almost be mistaken for smoke. The twins giggled every time Misty did it.

“Hi,” Garrett said as he walked up to them all.

“Do you think something's wrong with me?” Nicki looked up from the ground and demanded of Garrett. When Nicki stopped walking, Misty stopped, too.

“No,” Garrett answered firmly. Here was his chance. He could say he thought she was so wonderful that he wanted to drive away with her. Or that she was so perfect he wanted to marry her. Or that—he didn't get a chance to say any of it.

“How can I promise to forgive someone when I don't know how I'll do it?” Nicki asked.

“You'll have lots of help with that. The whole town will help, especially the pastor. He's already offered to help you sort it out. And, of course—” Garrett took a deep breath “—there's me. I'm happy to help.”