A Baby for Dry Creek and A Dry Creek Christmas. Janet Tronstad

word.

      The next month her mother had decided they should move.

      Until Chrissy was thirteen, she and her mother had moved almost every year. It was small town to small town to small town. In each town her mother talked about going to the church there, but they never did. Chrissy didn’t know how old she was when she sensed her mother was actually afraid of churches.

      Finally her mother decided they’d move back to the Los Angeles area. Big cities, her mother told her, were more forgiving of unmarried mothers on welfare.

      In Los Angeles her mother found the courage to go to a church she’d gone to many years ago, and she was happy. She repeatedly invited Chrissy to come to church with her.

      Chrissy had refused. She’d finally figured out that her mother had been afraid of churches because of the way people had treated her when she was pregnant with Chrissy. Her mother might be ready to forgive church people, but Chrissy wasn’t.

      The closest she’d been to a church recently was the time she’d walked up the steps of the church in Dry Creek looking for a place to sit while she waited for the café to open one morning.

      Ah, Dry Creek.

      Dry Creek had occupied her mind since she’d left there last fall. She supposed it was unfair to fantasize that the place was her real home, but she did nonetheless.

      For some reason, Pete’s Diner had reminded her of Dry Creek. With its worn vinyl booths and fluorescent lights, it looked as solid as the café in Dry Creek. The diner sat squarely between two retirement homes and it had a loyal group of customers. Business here would never be bustling, but it was steady.

      When she got the job, Chrissy felt she’d finally landed on her feet. Her mother could stop worrying about her. Chrissy didn’t need to ask to know the worries that were going through her mother’s mind. Her mother didn’t want her to be a welfare mother. She didn’t want Chrissy to have to accept the pity of others because she needed their charity. So the job at Pete’s was important. It showed she could take care of herself and Justin.

      And then two minutes ago, one of the other waitresses had told Chrissy that Pete wanted to see her in his office.

      Don’t think it’s bad news, Chrissy told herself as she knocked on the door outside the office. Just because she’d been caught in the rush of layoffs at other restaurants lately, it was no reason to panic. There had to be a dozen reasons that Pete might want to talk to her. Maybe the fry cook had told him it had been her idea to offer a shaker of salt substitute on the table along with the regular salt and pepper.

      “Come in.”

      Pete was probably grateful that she was concerned about his customers’ health, Chrissy told herself as she took a deep breath.

      “Please sit,” Pete said as he looked up from some papers. Pete had been a semipro football player before he bought the diner thirty years ago and, even with the gray hairs on his balding head, Chrissy thought he still looked as if he would be more comfortable on a football field than behind a desk.

      “You wanted to see me?” Chrissy sat down on the folding chair opposite Pete’s desk.

      Pete nodded and then swallowed. He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

      “Is it about the salt substitute?” Chrissy asked. She couldn’t stand the silence. Please, let it be the salt substitute. “I haven’t heard any customers complain. Except for Mr. Jenkins. But he thought it was sugar and put it in his tea.”

      “Oh, yes, the salt substitute.” Pete looked relieved. “It’s never too early to pay attention to good health. I should have thought of offering a salt substitute years ago. Someone mentioned it to the dietitian at the retirement home down the street, and she recommended us to some of the residents who’d never been here before.”

      “So business is good.” Chrissy was starting to feel better.

      “It’s never been better. That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, I—”

      Chrissy’s cell phone chose this moment to ring. She told herself to ignore it. But she’d gotten the phone only so that Mrs. Velarde could call her. Mrs. Velarde lived across the street from Chrissy’s mother and was baby-sitting little Justin temporarily. Chrissy was having as much trouble keeping baby-sitters as she was keeping jobs. She knew the call was about Justin.

      “Excuse me,” Chrissy said finally as she reached around to unclip the phone from her belt. “I need to get this.”

      She turned her shoulder slightly and said a low hello into the cell phone.

      “There’s a man,” Mrs. Velarde almost shrieked into the cell phone. “You told me to watch out for a man prowling around, and he’s here!”

      “Jared’s there?” Chrissy was shocked. When she had warned Mrs. Velarde to watch out for Jared, she had never expected him to make the drive down from Las Vegas to see Justin. The bond that had held her and Jared together in high school was no longer even a thread.

      Jared had learned that money could buy friends since he’d gotten access to his trust fund, and he no longer needed Chrissy. With his new friends, his life had unraveled even further in the months since Chrissy had left him. He’d told her he was glad she was gone, because now he could date women who really knew how to party.

      Chrissy had told him that he was a fool and she was sorry he was the father of her baby.

      No matter how isolated Chrissy had felt in high school, she had never turned to the drug crowd for friends. Jared was using drugs, and he had made it very clear he wasn’t interested in being a husband and or a father.

      But as much as Jared wanted to avoid the baby, Jared’s mother was adamant in her desire to know more about Justin. She had given up on Jared ever entering the family business, but she obviously had hopes she could start over and train a baby to be a more obedient heir. So far Jared had refused to tell his mother that Justin was his son, but if Mrs. Bard offered Jared enough money, he might decide to confirm what his mother already suspected and help her try to claim custody of Justin. “You’re sure it’s him?”

      “Well, I don’t know what Jared looks like, but there’s a man parked in front of my house who keeps looking over at your house. He even went up and rang the bell once, but no one answered, of course, with you and your mom both at work.”

      “You’re sure he isn’t a deliveryman or something?”

      “There’s no uniform. Besides, he’s young and good-looking. No one else comes to your house who is young and good-looking.”

      “I guess it could be Jared. Or someone else his mother has hired.”

      Mrs. Bard made Chrissy nervous. Mrs. Velarde had already told her that a private investigator had been asking questions about Chrissy in the neighborhood. It had to be someone working for Jared’s mother.

      “You want me to call the police?” Mrs. Velarde asked.

      “He hasn’t done anything yet, has he?”

      “He sits out there.”

      “Does he look like someone on drugs?”

      “No. He just sits.”

      “That’s probably not Jared, then. Maybe he’s a salesman and will go away in a minute or two. Just keep Justin inside until I get home.”

      Mrs. Velarde grunted. “I’ll keep my baseball bat by the door, too. Nobody comes to see our Justin without his mama here.”

      “Call if you need me.” Chrissy said goodbye and flipped her cell phone shut before she saw the concerned frown on Pete’s face.

      “Trouble at home?” Pete asked.

      Chrissy didn’t bother to deny it. He knew that much already. And the trouble would only get worse. Mrs. Velarde was scheduled to leave for Florida next week to move in with her daughter,