A Rich Man for Dry Creek / a Hero for Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad Page A

house. You’re both welcome to spend the night at my place.”
    â€œRobert doesn’t need to,” Jenny began in alarm. A man like him shouldn’t be helping with cleanup.
    â€œI’d be delighted.” Robert accepted the older woman’s invitation.
    Robert grinned. Things were working out better than he could have hoped. He’d have some talking time with Jenny tonight and tomorrow.
    â€œI already invited your friend—” Mrs. Hargrove smiled at Robert.
    Robert’s grin froze.
    â€œâ€”or fiancée, I guess I should say. Considering that she brought a wedding dress with her to Dry Creek.”
    â€œShe brought a what!”

Chapter Seven
    â€œN ow, Laurel, you take the room at the top of the stairs and to your left. That’s next to mine. Robert, you’ll have the couch in the living room. And Jenny, the room down that hall has a bed in it already made up. That room is closest to the furnace and should be toasty.” Mrs. Hargrove smiled at Jenny. “It’s my sewing room and the bed in there is my best. You’ll need a good night’s sleep after all you’ve done today, dear. Such a wonderful dinner party.”
    â€œThank you,” Jenny whispered. She could have slept under a cardboard box in some old alley. A sewing room would be heaven. She was damp, cold and tired. She just wanted the day to end. She didn’t know whether or not she believed Robert’s vehement protests that he wasn’t engaged to be married to anyone, but she did know she was ready to be alone. She’d been right not to trust a rich man with any tiny bit of her heart.
    The walk across the snow to Mrs. Hargrove’s house hadn’t been long, but Jenny felt like it had taken an eternity. She didn’t have snow boots so she had to follow in the footsteps Mrs. Hargrove made. But it wasn’t just the snow that seeped into her shoes that made her cold and tired.
    It was all of this. She glared at Robert. She just wasn’t cut out for this—the kind of roller-coaster life that people like Robert and Laurel seemed to lead. Jenny was a simple person and liked to deal with people who were straightforward—people you could trust to be who they said they were. Not something like this.
    Who really knew who was engaged to who? It was like the dating game with extra doors for people to pop in and out of whenever they took a fancy to do so.
    The bottom line was that Laurel said she had a wedding dress sitting in a box at the Billings airport. That was part of the special-occasion clothes she’d talked about earlier. The sheriff hadn’t had room to bring the box to Dry Creek in his patrol car. But there it was—waiting in Billings.
    No woman traveled around with a wedding dress unless she had a reason. And if Robert Buckwalter III was getting a visit from a woman who was so sure of herself that she brought a wedding dress along, why was he kissing another woman? Especially when the kiss was a whopper of a kiss like the one Jenny had gotten from him.
    Not that any kiss meant anything to a man like Robert, Jenny took a deep breath and reminded herself. She knew the rich kissed everyone, from their hairdressers to their dog trainers. A kiss from a rich man meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. A handshake was probably more sincere.
    Robert watched Jenny walk down the hall. Her back was military straight. He knew she hadn’t believed him about Laurel even though he’d said everything he could to convince her he wasn’t secretly engaged to Laurel or anyone else. He certainly didn’t know anything about a wedding dress!
    To make it worse, Jenny wouldn’t come right out and say she didn’t believe him. She just kept repeating that it was none of her business and it didn’t matter whom he married or what kind of a dress the woman wore.
    Robert knew there was a world of difference between “I believe you” and “it