A Rich Man for Dry Creek and A Hero For Dry Creek: A Rich Man For Dry Creek / A Hero For Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

and had insisted the man keep it. Now he was glad one of the ranch hands had pressed a wool jacket into his hands as Robert was heading out. Even with the jacket, his heart pounded faster to keep warm. He’d swear his eyelids were freezing.

      “They’ve got jumper cables,” Jenny said through chattering teeth.

      A dim light was on in the café’s porch and Robert opened the porch door quickly. Even though the porch was boarded together and the wind blew in through some of the holes, it was several degrees warmer inside.

      “Let me get the door,” Robert said as he reached for the main door. “Do you have a key?”

      “It’s not locked. They left it open for us tonight.”

      “Then you better let me check it out first. Someone could have come inside.”

      In the yellow light of the porch, Jenny could see her breath come out in white puffs. Her lips were stiff from the cold and she felt snowflakes melting in her hair.

      “But what would you do anyway if someone was in there? You don’t have a weapon.”

      “Well, neither one of us has a weapon.”

      “I have this bowl.”

      “You wouldn’t dare break Mrs. Hargrove’s bowl over someone’s head. From what I hear, that bowl has served the punch for every wedding in this community for the past forty years. It’s practically a tradition all by itself.”

      “It is a nice bowl. Heavier than it looks, too. Real cut glass.”

      Robert had bent low and was looking in the glass panes of the café door. It looked like the only upright shadows inside were from chairs although it was hard to tell because the girls had used the café as a changing room and there were T-shirts and jeans everywhere. “I’m going in. Give it a minute and then follow.”

      The doorknob was as cold as any metal Robert had ever gripped. But it turned easily and he stepped into the café. The air inside still smelled of cooking. He thought it was the stuffed mushrooms he smelled.

      Robert flipped on the overhead light for the café and saw that the jumble looked undisturbed from the last time he had walked through. “Let me check out the kitchen first before you come in.”

      Without waiting for an answer, Robert walked toward the back of the room where the kitchen door was. The café was small so he reached the other side with a few strides. The light in the kitchen revealed all was safe there, as well.

      Robert heard the cell phone ring on the porch. It must still be in Jenny’s apron pocket. He’d bet a punch bowl full of pudding that it was Jenny’s sister calling. Which reminded him, he owed her a story. Assuming, of course, that she was able to get him off that cursed list.

      “For you,” Jenny called as she walked across the café and into the kitchen. “It’s my sister.”

      Jenny listened as Robert and her sister talked. Robert paced as he walked. Up and down the cold kitchen. His cheeks were red from the temperature and his dark hair was wet where snow had melted now that he was in the relative warmth of the kitchen. He looked excited though, wheeling and dealing with her sister. He said goodbye with laughter.

      “Your sister is something,” Robert reported as he hung up the phone. “Those editors will have their hands full with her.”

      “She is, isn’t she?”

      The outside door to the café opened and Jenny and Robert both stiffened until they heard Mrs. Hargrove. “I hope you’re not doing dishes at this time of night.”

      The kitchen door opened and the older woman stood there with a wool scarf wrapped around her head and a blanket thrown over her shoulders like a shawl. “We’ve had so much excitement tonight, the dishes need to wait. Tomorrow’s Saturday. Enough snow is predicted to close all the roads. We’ll have nothing better to do than dishes. I’ve already asked Mr. Gossett to help us. It’ll help settle him down. He’s been anxious lately.”

      “But if the roads are closed, we won’t be able to get to the café from Garth’s ranch,” Jenny said. “And I can’t leave the two of you with all these dishes.”

      “I’ve got extra rooms at my house. You’re both welcome to spend the night at my place.”

      “Robert doesn’t need to,” Jenny began in alarm. A man like him shouldn’t be helping with cleanup.

      “I’d be delighted.” Robert accepted the older woman’s invitation.

      Robert grinned. Things were working out better than he could have hoped. He’d have some talking time with Jenny tonight and tomorrow.

      “I already invited your friend—” Mrs. Hargrove smiled at Robert.

      Robert’s grin froze.

      “—or fiancée, I guess I should say. Considering that she brought a wedding dress with her to Dry Creek.”

      “She brought a what!”

       Chapter Seven

       “N ow, Laurel, you take the room at the top of the stairs and to your left. That’s next to mine. Robert, you’ll have the couch in the living room. And Jenny, the room down that hall has a bed in it already made up. That room is closest to the furnace and should be toasty.” Mrs. Hargrove smiled at Jenny. “It’s my sewing room and the bed in there is my best. You’ll need a good night’s sleep after all you’ve done today, dear. Such a wonderful dinner party.”

      “Thank you,” Jenny whispered. She could have slept under a cardboard box in some old alley. A sewing room would be heaven. She was damp, cold and tired. She just wanted the day to end. She didn’t know whether or not she believed Robert’s vehement protests that he wasn’t engaged to be married to anyone, but she did know she was ready to be alone. She’d been right not to trust a rich man with any tiny bit of her heart.

      The walk across the snow to Mrs. Hargrove’s house hadn’t been long, but Jenny felt like it had taken an eternity. She didn’t have snow boots so she had to follow in the footsteps Mrs. Hargrove made. But it wasn’t just the snow that seeped into her shoes that made her cold and tired.

      It was all of this. She glared at Robert. She just wasn’t cut out for this—the kind of roller-coaster life that people like Robert and Laurel seemed to lead. Jenny was a simple person and liked to deal with people who were straightforward—people you could trust to be who they said they were. Not something like this.

      Who really knew who was engaged to who? It was like the dating game with extra doors for people to pop in and out of whenever they took a fancy to do so.

      The bottom line was that Laurel said she had a wedding dress sitting in a box at the Billings airport. That was part of the special-occasion clothes she’d talked about earlier. The sheriff hadn’t had room to bring the box to Dry Creek in his patrol car. But there it was—waiting in Billings.

      No woman traveled around with a wedding dress unless she had a reason. And if Robert Buckwalter III was getting a visit from a woman who was so sure of herself that she brought a wedding dress along, why was he kissing another woman? Especially when the kiss was a whopper of a kiss like the one Jenny had gotten from him.

      Not that any kiss meant anything to a man like Robert, Jenny took a deep breath and reminded herself. She knew the rich kissed everyone, from their hairdressers to their dog trainers. A kiss from a rich man meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. A handshake was probably more sincere.

      Robert watched Jenny walk down the hall. Her back was military straight. He knew she hadn’t believed him about Laurel even though he’d said everything he could to convince her he wasn’t secretly engaged to Laurel or anyone else. He certainly didn’t know anything about a wedding dress!

      To make it worse, Jenny wouldn’t come right out and say she didn’t believe him. She just kept repeating that it was none of her business and it didn’t