Dry Creek Sweethearts. Janet Tronstad

in the back of the bus and wrapped the blanket around him. Sleep never sounded so good.

      Ten hours later, Duane heard a horn honking. He turned over and squinted at the soft light coming in the windows of the bus. It wasn’t even full day yet. And his throat was on fire. So, he pulled the blanket over his head to block the emerging sun and hoped that Phil would go talk to whoever was outside. Phil was good at reasoning with people who were annoyed and that honking sounded as if someone was upset about something.

      Linda stared at the big bus stuck in the middle of the Enger driveway. There were enough tinted windows in the thing to make it look like a caricature of a Mafia car. Only twenty times as big, of course. She wondered if a gamblers’ tour to Las Vegas had gotten blown off course in the storm last night. There was no sane reason she could think of for a bus like this to be parked in a Dry Creek driveway. So much mud was spattered along the side of the bus that she couldn’t read the name of the tour company. Sometimes tour buses came through here on the way to the park where Custer’s Last Stand happened and this could be one of them.

      Of course, there would be dozens of people milling around outside if that were the case. Once in a while, a tour bus would stop at the café and she knew tourists were never quiet. No, it couldn’t be a tour bus.

      Maybe Lucy was right about everything needing a name, after all. There was something unsettling about seeing things and not knowing their name. She didn’t have a clue about where the bus came from or what it was or why it was here. That’s why she’d pulled off the road and come in to check it out. Maybe Duane had decided to repair the old homestead and had sent a bus up filled with supplies. No, that didn’t make any sense, either.

      Linda’s heart sank. Maybe Duane had sold the place. He certainly hadn’t advertised for a buyer around this part of the country so that meant the new owners were probably from Hollywood. They’d probably tear the old house down and build some ugly mansion. Boots would be totally lost if they did that. He still walked over to the old house every day just to smell the familiar things. Not that Duane had probably bothered to find that out.

      It was just like Duane to sell the house without checking with anyone in Dry Creek. But that must be what happened. This bus surely made it look that way. That bus was even big enough to serve as temporary lodging for workmen while the mansion was being built.

      There was one of the workers now. Linda saw a man open the door of the bus and step down. He didn’t look very strong, but she supposed Hollywood builders might have enough sophisticated tools that they didn’t need to be strong to do their jobs.

      “Can I help you?” the man said as he closed the door to the bus and stepped closer to her. “We’re not blocking anything, are we?”

      “No, not a problem,” Linda said as she tried to give the man a cheerful smile. “Sorry if I woke you up. I suppose you’re with the new owners?”

      The man blinked at her. “Maybe.”

      “Oh.” Linda swallowed. That was a clear “none of your business” answer. “Well, if there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know. And welcome to Dry Creek.”

      “I could use some help finding the church.”

      “Oh, well, that’s easy.” Linda turned to point. “It’s the white building on the other side of town. You see the cross?”

      The man nodded.

      “You can usually find Pastor Curtis at the hardware store during the mornings. He works there some. If you need to talk to him, that is.”

      “Oh, we’ll need to talk to him,” the man said. “The Jazz Man is on a pilgrimage.”

      “Jazz—you mean?” Linda looked frantically at the bus. She wished she could see in those tinted windows. Or wipe the mud off the side of the bus and read what it said.

      The man nodded proudly. “He’s going to meet God, right here in Dry Creek, his childhood home.”

      “He’s here?” Linda asked. She took a step forward involuntarily and then took two steps back. “Here himself.”

      She wondered if there was another Jazz Man who had grown up around here.

      The man continued to beam and nod. “Isn’t it great?”

      Linda swallowed. Great wasn’t the word she would use to describe it. Astonishing, maybe. But great, no.

      “We’ll have to start making arrangements, of course. Are there any hotels around? We’ll need to reserve some rooms.”

      “Mrs. Hargrove has a room she rents out sometimes. It’s over her garage.”

      The man frowned, but he took out a notebook from his pocket and opened it up. “I suppose it will have to do. What is the name of her place?”

      “Name?” Linda was finally one hundred percent convinced that Lucy was right and that every business needed a name. “I don’t think it has one yet.”

      “Oh.”

      “But you can find it easy enough. It’s just down the street from my café.”

      “You own the café? Are you serving breakfast yet?”

      Linda nodded. “As soon as I get there and open up.”

      “I’ll be there. I don’t suppose you have soup on the menu?”

      She shrugged. “I could heat some up for you. It’s leftover from yesterday, though. Vegetable beef.”

      “Perfect. I’ll stop in before I go over to the church. Or should I go to the church first? That sounds more pious, doesn’t it?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. The reporters aren’t here yet. Besides, it’s Duane Enger who’s found religion. Not me.”

      Linda was speechless. What was the man talking about? She didn’t mean to be skeptical about another person’s faith, but the Duane she knew hadn’t spared a thought for God. Duane had gone to church to please his great-aunt and that was all. “You’re talking about the real God? Not some strange guru cult thing?”

      The man drew himself up to his full height. “Of course I’m talking about the real God.”

      “Oh, well then—” Linda stammered. She could have asked the man if he used real butter and gotten the same reaction. “Congratulations.”

      The man nodded. “I think we’ll have Duane sing a solo for church to celebrate his return to the faith. That should make for some good pictures. You have choir robes, don’t you?”

      Linda nodded her head. That settled it for her. The Duane she knew would never wear a choir robe. “Sort of. But they’re old. And faded. They’ve been packed away for a couple of years. No one usually wears them for a solo anyway.”

      “What color are they? I hope they’re not a metallic gray. That doesn’t show up so well in pictures.”

      “They’re blue with white collars.”

      “Good.” The man nodded. “Blue is good for pictures. And it looks so religious, if you know what I mean. You always see it in the old religious paintings. Why do you suppose that is?”

      “You really should be talking to Pastor Curtis about this. I think those robes would need to be cleaned if anyone was going to wear one.”

      “I’ll do that. Right after breakfast.”

      There didn’t seem to be anything else to say so Linda nodded. Maybe the man was crazy. She’d been looking at those tinted windows for five minutes now and she didn’t see any movement inside the bus. Maybe the man was some kind of stalker who went to the childhood homes of celebrities and told everyone the celebrity was inside a bus when it was really empty. It would be kind of creepy, but—

      Suddenly, Linda realized she and this man