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JANET TRONSTAD
A Rich Man for Dry Creek & A Hero for Dry Creek
Published by Steeple Hill Books™
MILLS & BOON
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Contents
A RICH MAN FOR DRY CREEK
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
A HERO FOR DRY CREEK
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
A RICH MAN FOR DRY CREEK
This book is dedicated with love to my nieces
Julie Miller
Sara Enger
Marcy Enger MacDonald
LaRae Tronstad
Starla Tronstad
Chapter One
“J ust because he’s rich doesn’t mean he’s crazy.” Jenny Black pressed the cell phone to one ear and stood on her tiptoes to look at another dusty shelf in the old pantry. Her sister should stop worrying about Robert Buckwalter’s sanity.
She should worry about Jenny’s instead.
Jenny was the one who was crazy.
What was she thinking? Trying to cater a black-tie dinner in a place like Dry Creek, Montana. Right now Jenny was in the pantry of the town’s small café and she was desperately looking for paprika.
Jenny had made a big mistake. She should never have promised hors d’oeuvres to go with the lobsters she was serving tonight.
The ranching community of Dry Creek, tucked up close to the Big Sheep Mountains in southern Montana, was absolutely delightful. But any sane chef would have insisted the menu be switched to chili dogs and corn chips the minute she discovered the only store in town sold ten kinds of cattle feed and not one single thing for a human to eat.
Jenny had not been able to buy any of her last-minute supplies.
She’d turned for help to the couple who ran the café but they were only set up to serve hamburgers, biscuits and spaghetti. They had sugar packets, squeeze bottles of honey and those plastic packets filled with ketchup. There was not one obvious hors d’oeuvre in sight.
She was doomed.
Jenny heard an impatient grunt on the other end of the phone.
“Sorry, but if you ask me, Mr. Buckwalter is so sane he’s almost comatose.” Jenny had tried earlier to make conversation with the man. No luck. “Stuffed-shirt kind of sane. Think Dad.”
“But Dad’s fifty years old!”
“Well, Robert Buckwalter acts like he’s a hundred.” Jenny still felt a twinge of pique. The whole world knew that her employer’s son, Robert Buckwalter, was a ladies’ man. He was supposed to flirt with all women.
Jenny had expected to dodge a compliment or two on the flight over. But the man had sat in the pilot’s seat next to her the whole flight and not said anything at all once he’d made sure she’d fastened her seat belt. For which, she told herself firmly, she should be grateful. And she should be fair to the man. “Of course he’s most helpful—especially when he’s got an apron around his waist.”
“He’s got an apron on!”
“Well, he’s helping me with the hors d’oeuvres. We’ve got a hundred people coming for dinner—Maine lobsters—and I’ve had to improvise with the hors d’oeuvres.”
Improvise was putting it lightly, Jenny thought. Try egg salad on toast—which wouldn’t be so bad if she could at least find something to sprinkle on top of it.
“Robert Buckwalter the Third is cooking for you—and he has an apron on!” Jenny’s sister couldn’t let go of that thought.
“Well, it’s only some carrot stubs. It’s not like he’s whipping up a soufflé or anything complicated.”
“But
