White Christmas in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

can ease up a bit, then. The sheriff should be there in a few minutes.”

      “The man needs an ambulance more than the sheriff!” Renee could hear the tension in her voice. Even though the man was doing better, she didn’t have much beyond iodine and bandages to use if his wound decided to bleed some more.

      Betty grunted. “Anytime a strange man stumbles onto your porch in the middle of the night with a bullet in his shoulder, I’m going to send out the sheriff along with an ambulance. Sheriff Wall is just closer than the others right now.”

      “Actually, we’re not at my place.” Renee realized that in the rush of things she hadn’t mentioned that pertinent fact to the operator. She’d barely had enough wits about her to make the call. “I’m housesitting. The Elktons are spending Christmas in Washington, D.C., with their son and they asked me to stay in the main house while they’re gone.”

      Everyone knew the bunkhouse cook at the ranch had her own quarters, and the EMTs would lose precious time if they went there first.

      “Worried about possible rustlers, are they?” Betty asked, her words slow and chatty, as if she had all the time in the world.

      “Yes.” Renee recognized that the operator was trying to help her calm down. She took a deep breath. “Have there been more cattle reported missing?”

      Betty was silent for a moment, likely passing along the additional information about where to go and then coming back to speak.

      “Not that I know of. It’s still seventy-three reported gone.”

      Renee listened for the sheriff’s siren but didn’t hear anything but the slight scraping sound of Tessie’s slippers as she fidgeted.

      “Well, be careful,” Betty finally said. “Women tend to think an unconscious man is harmless, but you never know.”

      “I don’t think he’s harmless,” Renee protested. She looked down at the man. He was still breathing okay. She didn’t easily trust the men she knew, let alone someone she’d never met. “I wonder what he was doing out there all alone in the middle of the night. Riding a horse and being trailed by a wolf. I can’t believe he was up to any good.”

      “We don’t have wolves around here,” Betty said sharply and then paused. “Well, not many.”

      “It only takes one to do damage.”

      Renee looked up and suddenly noticed the room had grown silent. Her daughter was standing stiffly next to the man. It was as if Tessie had never danced in delight at finding the stranger. Instead, her little face was scrunched up in resignation. And the angel wings that their friend Karyn McNab had lent her to wear in the church nativity pageant seemed to weigh down her shoulders.

      “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Renee asked as she covered the phone again.

      “You think he’s a bad man,” Tessie muttered. “You don’t believe Santa sent him.”

      “Oh, dear,” Renee said to her daughter. “I know you want him to be a prince, but we talked about this. Princes don’t exist. Not the fairy-tale kind, anyway. We need to accept that. And Santa is just for fun.”

      Tessie got a stubborn look on her face. Her lower lip protruded and her lips pressed together in a straight line. Renee would have said more, but she saw tears start to form in Tessie’s eyes.

      “I know who he is,” the girl finally whispered. “If Santa didn’t send him, then Daddy did. The prince has a Christmas message for me. He just needs to wake up so he can tell me what it is.”

      “Oh, sweetie,” Renee said, not caring that her hand had slipped off the phone.

      Before she could say anything more, Betty spoke. “Well, if you ask me, no one needs a prince like that to deliver a message. Not when we have the good old U.S. Postal Service with their white trucks and pretty stamps.”

      “Did you hear that, Tessie?” Renee held the phone out so her daughter could listen. She was surprised at the support she was getting from Betty, but she was grateful anyway. Maybe her daughter would pay more attention to another adult. “Betty doesn’t think you need a prince, either. If your daddy wanted to write you a letter, he’d just send it in the regular mail.”

      Renee supposed adding some reality to her daughter’s fantasies was an improvement even if the odds of Tessie’s father sending her a letter were no greater than her meeting a storybook prince out here in the middle of the Montana plains.

      “You listen to your mother, Tessie,” Betty said, the words coming through loud enough to be heard by both Renee and her daughter. “A letter is easy enough to send.”

      Tessie stepped closer to the phone and asked the operator, “But what if he is a prince?” Then she turned her back, no doubt hoping Renee couldn’t hear, and whispered, “Mommy doesn’t know what a prince even looks like.”

      “That’s not true—” Renee began and then stopped. She wasn’t going to get into a ridiculous argument like this. Renee intended to keep her daughter safe from strange men even if Tessie was angry about it. Her daughter could afford to fall in love with fairy-tale princes, but Renee could not.

      They were all silent for a moment.

      “Maybe your mommy just hasn’t met the right prince yet,” Betty finally said softly, obviously changing sides before the battle had even begun.

      Renee put the phone back to her own ear and whispered into it, “You’re not helping.”

      “Well, you must admit you don’t even look at single men anymore,” Betty replied. “You’re twenty-four years old—too young to give up on men because of one bad experience. It wouldn’t hurt you to think there was a prince somewhere who was meant for you.”

      Without thinking, Renee let her eyes stray to the man’s left hand and noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Of course, her ex-husband had seldom worn one, either, so that didn’t prove much.

      “I agree you don’t want another man like that husband you used to have.” Betty’s voice had gentled again and her gum chewing had stopped. “Why, he almost took you to prison with him. And the armed robberies he committed weren’t the worst of it. Everyone knows he was abusive to you and Tessie.”

      “I—” Renee wished she hadn’t brought up her marriage. She cupped the phone to her ear so her daughter wouldn’t hear. Tessie had turned around and was looking at her.

      “But you can’t judge all men by him.” The operator continued as though Renee hadn’t even tried to speak. “There are dozens of men around here who would be happy to be a little girl’s prince. And yours, too, if you’d let them. Maybe the new man who is delivering the mail in Dry Creek these days would do. He’s single and has a steady job.”

      “Barry Grover?” Renee asked, momentarily stunned. She’d met him. He was balding and had a paunch. She looked up to see if there was a red patrol light reflecting in the window. Barry was missing a tooth, too, if she remembered right. Sheriff Wall should be here by now. Please, Lord, bring the lawman soon, she prayed. If she stayed on the phone with Betty much longer, all the people in Dry Creek would be out looking for a husband for her, and she was afraid of what kind of man they’d find.

      It was bad enough that young Karyn, a high school student who worked weekends for her as a relief cook, had started dropping hints that marriage was good at any age. Of course, that was likely for her own benefit, since Karyn was infatuated with that boy she was seeing. Neither one of them was of an age to be thinking about a wedding, in Renee’s opinion.

      “Barry might be a little older than you,” Betty acknowledged. “But twenty years’ difference isn’t so much in a marriage. And he has that nice new Jeep. It has heated seats, I hear. And four-wheel drive. He’s taking some treatment for his hair loss, too, so he’ll look younger before you know it. And he’ll have a good retirement if he stays with the postal service. You’ll be well set