At Home in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

don’t all turn out to be faithful either.” Barbara knew this was at the core of why she didn’t believe she would ever have a happy marriage. A happy marriage required a lot of trust, and Barbara had none left. She didn’t think she’d ever trust another man with something as important as her heart. But that was okay. A woman could live a fine life without a husband.

      Barbara could see there were no plates left for the cake Mrs. Hargrove held. She looked down and saw an open box peeking out from under the white tablecloth. “Here, let me get some more plates for you.”

      Barbara bent down.

      “Oh, no, I’ll be fine,” Mrs. Hargrove glanced around until she saw the sheriff. “Carl, come here and get these plates so Barbara doesn’t have to.”

      “They’re not heavy,” Barbara said as her fingers closed around a stack of plastic plates. She knelt down. Unfortunately, the sheriff’s fingers closed around the same stack of plates. He didn’t look as though he intended to let go.

      “Really, I can get them. It’s not like they’re gold-rimmed china or anything,” Barbara protested. Her voice sounded muffled because her head was half-covered by the white tablecloth as she knelt, but she’d thought she made her point.

      Apparently she was wrong.

      The sheriff knelt down, too and put his head under the tablecloth to look at the plates. He still kept his grip on the stack of plates. “Everything doesn’t need to be fancy. Sometimes the plain old ordinary things are best.”

      “I know. That’s what I’m saying,” Barbara continued. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. “The plates are plastic. Not fine china. They’re not worth anything.”

      No one would steal them, she added to herself silently. You don’t need to worry about me taking them.

      She wondered if people would talk later about her and the sheriff snapping at each other under the cake table at Judd and Lizette’s wedding reception. She hoped not. The one person she had thought would be her friend when she moved to Dry Creek was the sheriff, but it hadn’t worked out that way.

      She never did know all that she had said to him when he sat beside her hospital bed in Colorado. She knew she was out of it for some of the time. But the rest of the time, she thought they were becoming friends. She’d loved listening to him talk. He’d told her story after story about Dry Creek, some of them from the days when the cattle first came to the area and some as recent as last spring when he’d picked chokecherries for Mrs. Hargrove so she could make jelly to enter in some contest at the state fair.

      Barbara had thought at the time that not many men would pick berries so an old woman could win a prize with her jelly. That’s when she’d kissed him. It had been impulsive. Sort of a tribute to what a nice man he was. Then he’d kissed her back—really kissed her.

      The sheriff was the one who had driven Barbara back to Dry Creek when the hospital said she could go home. She had no home and no car left, since Neal, not content with putting her in the hospital, had taken a sledgehammer to her parked car. Her children had been staying with Judd so she’d been grateful for the ride.

      Barbara had no choice but to accept the sheriff’s offer of a ride. And she’d decided at the time that it was just as well. She needed to gently explain to him that, as much as she had enjoyed his kiss, she was never going to marry again and she didn’t want to lead him on to expect a certain kind of relationship when all she could offer him was friendship.

      Barbara had her words all picked out and she had decided, with a man’s pride being what it was, that it was best to let the sheriff bring up the subject of the kiss.

      She had worried for nothing. The sheriff never mentioned the kiss. Once they were back in Dry Creek, he’d become all official and formal around her. He acted like she was a stranger—an unkissed stranger at that.

      At first, she’d thought maybe he had a girlfriend and he’d been worried that she might misinterpret the kiss, but she’d soon learned there was no girlfriend. No, he must have just been concerned she would read too much into that kiss for the simple reason that it didn’t mean anything to him.

      Well, he hadn’t needed to worry. She knew the kiss didn’t mean anything. She didn’t want it to mean anything. Still, she thought he could have at least brought the subject up. No kiss was all that meaningless. She had gotten the message back then and she got it now.

      “You’re a guest here,” the sheriff finally said as he gave another tug at the stack of plates.

      Barbara let him have the plates as she moved her head back so she could stand up. “No more than everyone else is a guest.”

      Mrs. Hargrove smiled at Barbara when she stood. “That’s better—you wouldn’t want to get frosting on that pretty dress of yours.”

      Barbara nodded in defeat. A person couldn’t force acceptance. She wondered if she’d ever really find a home here. Before she could belong, they needed to trust her at least a little. It was disheartening that they wouldn’t even let her touch the plastic plates. She could forget about something as advanced as pouring coffee.

      She felt like one of those birds in a gilded cage. It wasn’t just that no one let her do anything for the community. She was an outsider in the most basic of ways. No one burdened her with their troubles, even though they all knew hers.

      On a day like today, Barbara would have liked a friend to talk to about the wedding, but friendship went both ways. She wouldn’t ask a stranger to care about how hard today was for her when no one shared their troubles with her.

      She was lonely.

      Barbara had known she’d have to listen to Judd and Lizette recite their wedding vows today. She’d been prepared for it to be hard, but she hadn’t expected it to be as hard as it was. She hadn’t been able to listen to those vows without counting all the times her ex-husband had broken his. Talking to a friend would have made that hurt easier to bear.

      “Not all men are like your ex-husband,” Mrs. Hargrove said adamantly as she lifted another piece of cake and set it on the plate the sheriff was holding out to her. She then turned her attention back to Barbara. “Carl here’s a good boy.”

      Barbara almost laughed at the startled look on the sheriff’s face. She wasn’t sure if being called a “boy” was the surprise or if he was shocked anyone would think of him as a husband prospect for a woman whose ex-husband was a criminal.

      Barbara wondered if that was why the sheriff had never brought up the subject of the kiss. He was probably dismayed he’d kissed the ex-wife of a thief.

      Mrs. Hargrove seemed oblivious to the sheriff’s reaction as she kept talking to Barbara. “Just give yourself a year or so and you’ll meet someone nice.”

      Barbara shook her head. There weren’t enough years in eternity for that. “I have the kids to think about instead.”

      She looked over at her children, but she didn’t walk away from the refreshment table. She’d give herself a minute to pull her thoughts together. She didn’t want the children to sense her unhappiness.

      The wedding was bringing it all back to her. It had taken her years to end her marriage to Neal, despite the fact that he had started cheating on her almost from the beginning. When she had tried to talk to him about it, he’d become abusive and accused her of being boring and not open to having any fun.

      She’d remembered thinking at the time that it was hard to have fun when they never had the rent money and never stayed in one place long enough to make a home. No, she’d given up on fun. What she hadn’t given up on was having a father for her children and a faithful husband for herself. She had kept trying to make Neal into that man, but she’d failed miserably.

      “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from your ex-husband?” the sheriff asked Barbara as he passed a plate of cake to someone on his left.

      “I’ve got nothing to say to him.”