Shepherds Abiding in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

Marla Gossett might very well have suited him.

      Now, of course, he couldn’t ask her out. It would be pointless; she’d never accept. Not when he was going to be knocking at her door in a couple of minutes to ask if her daughter was a thief. Only a fool would ask for a date after that, and one thing Les prided himself on was never being a fool.

      It was a pity, though. These days Les didn’t meet that many quiet women who looked as if they’d make sensible wives. He’d noticed when he saw her in the hardware store that she was a sensible dresser, right down to the shoes she wore. Because of his father, he paid particular attention to a woman’s shoes. They told a man a great deal. Still, everything about Mrs. Gossett had seemed practical that day, from her washable cardigan to her well-worn knit pants.

      Most men liked a lot of flash in their women. But Les figured the quieter the better. He never really trusted a woman with flash.

      Les wondered, just for a moment, if it would be worthwhile to let Mrs. Gossett know he was single, just in case she ever started to wonder about him the way he was wondering about her.

      Then he shook his head. He didn’t want to chase after an impossible dream. He didn’t even know Mrs. Gossett and she didn’t know him. What he did know were the reasons he wasn’t likely to get to know her. He had to just let the thought go.

      Chapter Three

      Marla moved the hanging blanket slightly so she could look out the window of her new living room. The sun would be coming up any minute, but the small town of Dry Creek was still dark and quiet. Snow had fallen during the night and there was just enough light in the small circle from the one street lamp to see that there were no fresh tire tracks on the road going through town.

      That didn’t mean she could relax and remove the blankets, though. Down the street there was a glow in the window of the café and she could see several figures through the big window. People had obviously come into town from the other direction and any one of them could decide at any minute to drive down the road toward her. If they did, they would soon be able to see inside her front window if she moved the blanket, and she didn’t want anyone to look into her place until she was ready.

      The words of her neighbor back in Los Angeles were never far from her mind.

      Marla had cleaned her windows with vinegar yesterday and she could still smell the cleaning solution as it mingled with the scent of the mothballs from the blanket. The panes in the windows rattled because the putty was all worn away, but at least they were finally clean.

      Today Marla planned to wash the walls. The paint was peeling away and she’d feel better if she knew the walls were brushed down and ready to go when she could afford to buy paint.

      In a strange way, she was grateful for the necessity of scrubbing this old house. If it had been less filthy when she arrived here with her children, she might still be brooding over the change she’d made. She’d been nervous the whole trip up here, but now the peeling paint and thick dust called her to action and she had no time to fret.

      She had not given any thought to the house until she arrived. If she had not been desperate, she would have turned around and driven away after she first looked inside the door. The house was set back from the street a little and there was a nice white picket fence around it. That part was how her husband had described the house to her. Marla had been okay with the idea of that white picket fence, but nothing Jorge had said had prepared her for the inside of the house.

      Of course, her husband’s memories of the house had been from thirty years ago. Jorge wouldn’t have recognized the house today, either. Even in their cheap apartment in Los Angeles, the paint had managed to stay on the walls.

      Marla didn’t want anyone from this small town to look past the fence and into her windows until she was ready. There wasn’t much inside her house and, what was there was shabby. On the long drive up, she’d promised herself she would make a proper life for her children in Dry Creek, and she didn’t want her relationship with the town to start off with the people here pitying them.

      Somewhere around Utah, she’d realized that the ethnic difference was only part of what she needed to worry about. After all, her parents had raised her to be more Anglo than Hispanic, anyway. They’d even given her an Anglo name. She and the children might be able to fit in that way eventually. The fact that they were also poor was another problem. She knew that from the welfare days of her childhood. A lack of money would be harder to hide than anything.

      Marla planned to get the house in shape before she did more than say a quiet hello to anyone. She didn’t want her children to feel shame for either their heritage or their lack of possessions. First impressions were important.

      That’s one reason she had hung the plain khaki-colored blankets over the windows and left the Mexican striped blankets as coverings for the sleeping bags.

      Maybe if Sammy had had neighbors who expected good things from him back in Los Angeles, he wouldn’t have been drawn to the 19th Street gang. Of course, the neighbors were only part of it. She knew she hadn’t given him what he needed, either. She had been so preoccupied with taking care of Jorge that she hadn’t paid enough attention to Sammy.

      It was Sammy who most needed a new start.

      Marla took a deep breath of the cool winter air. Despite the fact that the air was tinged with the scent of vinegar and mothballs, it still smelled clean and fresh when she compared it to what she’d breathed down south.

      Dry Creek promised a new life for all of them and Marla intended it to go well. Even though she’d had car problems on the way up and hadn’t had much money left after she’d paid for the repairs, she was determined she and her children were not going to be charity cases. Charity was never free; one always paid the price by enduring the giver’s pity. She didn’t want that.

      She wanted her children to feel proud of who they were.

      Besides, they didn’t need charity. Any day Marla expected to get a check in the mail refunding the deposit on their apartment. Her rental agreement gave the landlord twenty days to refund the money and he’d probably take all that time. Once she had that check, she would have enough money to buy paint for the walls and a good used sofa. And that was after she put aside enough money to support her family for a few months while she looked for a job. She knew she needed to spend some time with her children before she started a new job, though. Too much had happened too fast in the past year for all of them. They needed time to be together.

      At first Marla had worried that she would not have enough money to support her and the children for those few months. It seemed as if the cost of heating the house would take what little money she had, but then she had discovered that the fireplace in the living room worked and that there was a seven-foot-high woodpile half-hidden in the trees behind the house.

      At last, something was going her way.

      It looked as if, during the years when the house had stood empty, the trees had grown up around the towering stack of log chunks back there. She hadn’t paid any attention to the stack until the children told her about it one day and she had gone out to look it over. The pile had good-sized logs meant for long winter fires. If need be, on the coldest nights, she and the children could camp in front of the fireplace to sleep.

      At least heat was one thing that wouldn’t require money for now.

      Which was a good thing, because the refund check was going to total only around a thousand dollars. There wouldn’t be much money left for extras. Christmas this year would be lean. She’d explained the situation to Sammy and Becky and they seemed to understand. Wall paint and a used sofa might not look like exciting Christmas presents, but it would make their house more of a home. She was letting each child pick out the color of the paint for their bedroom and she was hoping that would be enough of a Christmas present.

      Besides, they could make some simple gifts for each other this year. That could be fun for all of them. And she’d make the sweet pork tamales that were the children’s favorite. It was her mother’s special