Creed's Honor (15 page)

Tricia crouched next to the old woman’s chair, her vision blurred by hot, sudden tears. Despite Natty’s advanced age, and her recent health issues, the thought of her passing away was almost inconceivable. “No matter what,” Tricia said, her throat thick with the same tears that were stinging in her eyes, “Winston will be fine. I promise you that.”

Natty rested one cool, papery palm against Tricia’s cheek. “I believe you,” she said tenderly. “But can you promise me that
you
will be fine as well? I’d feel so much better if you were married—”

Tricia gave a small, strangled giggle as she stood up straight again. She felt torn between going upstairs to Sasha—it was past the girl’s bedtime—and keeping Natty company in the dearly familiar kitchen. “I can take care of myself,” she reminded her beloved great-grandmother softly. “Isn’t that better than being married just for the sake of—well—
being married?
”

Natty chuckled fondly. Shook her head once. “I know you think I’m old-fashioned,” she said, “and you’re at least partially right. But it’s a
natural thing,
Tricia, for a man and a woman to love and depend on each other. Certain members of your mother’s generation—and yours, too—seem to see men as—what’s the word I want?—
dispensable.
I think that’s sad.” As tired as Natty looked, the twinkle was back in her eyes. “There’s nothing worse than a bad man, I’ll grant you that,” she summed up, waggling an index finger at Tricia, “but there is also nothing
better
than a
good
one.”

Tricia laughed. “Duly noted,” she said. “Shall I help you back to bed?”

“I can get
myself
back to bed,” Natty informed her. “Besides, I haven’t finished my tea. I may even have a second cup.”

Tricia was moving away by then, though her pace was reluctant, shrugging out of her coat as she started for the hallway and the staircase beyond, “If you need anything—”

“I’ll be fine,” Natty said, making a shooing motion with one hand. “You just think about what I said, Tricia McCall. Fact is, I’m not sure you’d know a good man if he was standing right in front of you.”

Tricia stopped, turned around in the doorway to the hall, narrowing her eyes a little. Like Diana, Natty wasn’t keen on Hunter.
Un
like Diana, she’d never met him.

“If that was a reference to—”

“It was a reference,” Natty interrupted succinctly, “to Conner Creed.”

“I barely know the man,” Tricia pointed out, lingering when she knew it would be better—and wiser—to go upstairs.

“Well,” Natty said, rising from her chair and picking up her saucer and empty cup, apparently having decided against a second helping of tea, “perhaps you ought to make an effort, dear. To get to know him, I mean. He comes from very sturdy stock, you know. Granted, Conner’s dad was something of a renegade, and it looks as though Brody takes after Blue, but Conner’s more like Davis, and a finer man never drew breath. Unless it was my Henry, of course.”

The corner of Tricia’s mouth twitched. “Of course,” she said.

Her great-grandfather, Henry McCall, had been dead for decades, but thanks to Natty, his legend as a man and as a husband lived on. Their only child, Walter, Tricia’s grandfather, had died in a car accident, along with his wife, when Joe was still in high school.

Tricia’s dad had gone away to college the following year, then served a stint in the Army. Having met and married Tricia’s mother soon after his discharge, he’d gone to Seattle and tried hard to make a life there, while a still-spry Natty ran the drive-in and the campground for him. After the divorce, Joe had returned to his hometown and, at his grandmother’s urging, converted the second story of the old house into an apartment. He’d lived there until his own death, from a heart ailment, only two years before.

“Good night, Tricia,” Natty said, setting the cup and saucer carefully on the countertop, next to the sink. “Sleep tight.”

“Good night,” Tricia said, feeling as though she and her great-grandmother had just engaged in some sort of gentle contest, and Natty had come out the winner.

Which was just silly.

T
HE ATMOSPHERE IN THE
community center’s kitchen was redolent with the delicious aromas of spicy chili and fresh coffee the next morning, when Tricia, Sasha and special guest star Natty McCall entered through the propped-open back door.

The night shift—three women who had remained at the center to oversee the kettles of fresh chili simmering on the stove—reacted with delight when they
spotted Natty. She didn’t even get a chance to take off her tailored black coat before they were hugging her and telling her how much they’d missed her, all of them talking at once. So far, one of the women reported, the profits from the event were even higher than last year’s had been. People had come from miles around to sample Natty’s famous chili, and sales of the donated goods were up, too. Those fancy new uniforms for the high school marching band were as good as ordered.

“See?” Natty told her friends, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, as Tricia helped her out of her coat. “I
told
you the sky wouldn’t fall if I retired as head of the committee, didn’t I?”

Sasha took Natty’s coat from Tricia and went to hang it up on the portable closet in the storage room. “There must be fifty million people lined up out front,” she said, when she returned. “
Again.
I can’t figure out where they’re all coming from.”

“Everywhere,” Natty told the child, after winking at Tricia. “Henry McCall’s secret chili recipe attracts foodies from all over the United States and Canada.”

That, Tricia thought wryly, might have been something of an exaggeration, but it
was
true that Natty had had several opportunities to sell the recipe over the years, not only to two different manufacturing firms, but to a well-known chain of restaurants, too. Tricia had seen the letters herself.

Someone brought Natty a cup of coffee, once she was settled at the long table in the kitchen. Evelyn barely opened the door separating them from the main part of the building and peered through the crack, clucking her tongue at the size of the crowd waiting on the sidewalk out front.

“Just imagine how many there would be if
church
services weren’t in session all over town,” she said. “We’d need the riot squad, or even the National Guard.”

Natty and her friends chortled merrily at that. All of them were faithful members of their various churches, but every year when the rummage sale/chili feed weekend rolled around, they threw themselves upon God’s patient understanding and skipped a week.

“I say it’s a good thing today’s a half day,” one of the other women remarked, after stifling a yawn with one hand. “We’re not getting any younger, ladies.”

Carolyn hurried in through the back door just then, pulling off her jacket as she walked. “
Who’s
not getting any younger?” she teased happily.

“Well,” Evelyn conceded, smiling, “you and Tricia
might
be. Maybe it’s time for you to take over the biggest event of the year so all us old ladies can follow Natty’s lead and put our feet up.”

“You’d miss it too much,” Carolyn replied.

Natty checked the wall clock above the giant coffee percolator on the nearby counter. “It’s almost time to admit the eager hordes,” she said.

Evelyn huffed at that. “It won’t kill those people to wait a few more minutes, Natty. They bought everything they really wanted yesterday, you can bet on that, and today they’re just here to inhale every last chili bean and buy back the stuff they wish they hadn’t given up when we held our big donation drive back in August.”

Tricia and Carolyn exchanged amused glances.

Sasha, standing close to Natty’s chair, rubbed her small hands together. “I wouldn’t mind opening the door,” she allowed diplomatically, “if no one else wants to do it.”

Evelyn chuckled and handed over the keys. “Wait five more minutes,” she told a beaming Sasha. “Our kitchen reinforcements haven’t arrived, and Carolyn and Tricia can’t be expected to wrangle that mob without help, either.”

Sasha’s eyes were wide with solemn excitement. “But
I’d
be there to help them,” she said.

Evelyn patted the girl’s head. “Of course you would,” she agreed. “Mind, you stay behind the door when you open it. Junk collectors are a dangerous breed—they might just run right over a little bitty thing like you.”

About that time, the day crew arrived to monitor the sales of chili and hot coffee, and Evelyn and her bunch put on their coats, picked up their large patent-leather purses, said goodbye and left.

Two other women turned up to help Carolyn and Tricia out front, and Sasha raced to unlock the door.

Time, as Natty had always maintained, had wings. The morning flew by, the chili was consumed, along with two giant urns of coffee and all the canned soda that was left from the day before, and the last of the rummage was boxed up for charity.

“Now we can go riding!” Sasha cried, all but jumping up and down in the kitchen.

Tricia had taken Natty home some time before and the day crew was busy scrubbing out the huge soup kettles, sweeping up and putting the third load of dirty coffee cups into the dishwasher.

“Yippee,” Tricia said mildly, putting on her jacket.

Since they’d dressed casually for rummage sale duty, and she’d taken Valentino out for a quick walk when she drove Natty back to the house earlier, there was no reason go home.

Tricia and Carolyn left the center together, Sasha skipping along behind them, unable to contain her joy. “It’s still an hour before the trail ride starts,” Carolyn said, after looking at her watch. “Why don’t you and Sasha follow me back to Kim and Davis’s place, and we’ll head over to the main house when the time comes?”

Tricia recalled that Carolyn was housesitting for Davis and Kim, who were away on one of their frequent road trips. She considered both of them friends, but she’d never actually visited their home, and she was a little curious, so she agreed.

Once Sasha was safely ensconced in her booster seat, Tricia got behind the wheel of the Pathfinder and followed Carolyn out of the parking lot, into the alley behind the community center and then onto a paved street.

The drive out into the countryside was spectacular, the hillsides practically on fire with changing leaves in every shade of orange and crimson, yellow and rust, the sky so blue that just looking at it made Tricia’s throat constrict a little.

Carolyn led them past the colonial-style ranch house that had stood even longer than Natty’s house in town. Like Natty’s property, it was well-maintained, with grass and a picket fence and venerable old rosebushes everywhere. The barn, though it looked sturdy enough to last another century, showed its age. The reddish paint, fading and peeling away in places, lent it a distinctly rural charm.

The rambling one-story log house Kim and Davis Creed called home stood high on a ridge, overlooking much of the ranch, and was considerably newer than its
counterpart, though it had a rustic appeal all its own. The driveway was paved, and there was a huge metal outbuilding, which most likely housed the couple’s RV.

The Creeds had a barn, too, smaller than the one down the hill, but surrounded by a large, fenced-in pasture. Three horses grazed the plentiful remains of that year’s grass crop.

“Are they the ones we’re going to ride?” Sasha piped up, before she was even out of the booster seat. She was pointing toward the buckskin, Appaloosa and bay in the field.

Carolyn, having parked her car and waited for Tricia and Sasha to get out of the Pathfinder, smiled and shook her head. She looked every inch the country woman, Tricia thought, standing there in her jeans and boots and Western-cut blouse, with her hands in the pockets of her coat.

“Nope,” Carolyn answered. “These guys are all retired. They’re basically pets. The horses we’ll be riding are down at the other place.”

Sasha frowned. “I didn’t see any horses there,” she said.

Carolyn chuckled. “Trust me, they’re around,” she promised. “Let’s go inside.”

They entered through a side door, stepping into a spacious modern kitchen. Everything gleamed—the windows, the floors, the appliances and the counter-tops.

“Kim’s a housekeeping demon,” Carolyn explained, evidently reading Tricia’s mind. “It’s intimidating, isn’t it?”

Tricia laughed. “I’d be dusting twice a day.”

Carolyn nodded, hanging her shoulder bag from a peg on the wall next to the door and then placing her jacket on top of it. “If Kim wasn’t such a nice person,” she agreed, “I’d probably be so paranoid about messing something up that I couldn’t housesit.”

Sasha, a city child, was taking in the wide-open spaces of a Colorado ranch house. “Is it scary, staying here all alone?” she asked.

“No,” Carolyn answered, with a smile. “I like it a lot.”

“Can we look around?” Sasha asked, barely noticing as Tricia helped her extract herself from her coat.

“Sure,” Carolyn said. “Let’s take the tour.”

The living room and dining area were one huge room, and the table, surrounded by more than a dozen charmingly mismatched chairs, must have been twenty feet long. The natural-rock fireplace was so big that Sasha could have stood upright in the cavity, and there were floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides.

The view was quite literally stunning.

“Wow,” Tricia said.

“Yeah,” Carolyn agreed wryly. “
Wow
is definitely the word.”

By tacit agreement, they didn’t go into the master suite, but the other bedrooms, one of which Carolyn was using, were all impressive. Each boasted its own bath and, like the ones in the living/dining room, the windows offered a grand tableau of the mountains and the vast expanse of rangeland.

A well-stocked library with a baby grand piano and a spacious, leather-scented studio, where Davis did his saddle making, completed the house.

“Where do you live when you’re not here?” Sasha asked Carolyn, when they were back in the kitchen.

Something flickered in Carolyn’s eyes—the briefest flash of sorrow, Tricia thought—but her smile didn’t waver.