A Rich Man For Dry Creek And A Hero For Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad
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“You danced with Robert Buckwalter the Third! Wait until I tell Mom! You really danced with him.”
“It was a short dance,” Jenny was forced to admit. “The kidnapping sort of got everyone distracted.”
“Kidnapping! Somebody kidnapped him! Why didn’t you say so! Now that’s a newsbreak.”
“No, no, not Robert. It was someone else. He didn’t have anything to do with it. It’s all tied up with some rustling that’s going on.”
“Oh.” Jenny’s sister paused. “Rustling? You mean for cows? You’re sure the kidnappers weren’t really out for him and they just grabbed the wrong person or something. I mean if you were going to kidnap anyone, he’d be the one to pick. He’s got more money than the president of the United States. He certainly has more money than some cow.”
“Yes, I’m sure. He wasn’t the target.”
Jenny sensed someone standing slightly behind her before she heard the man clear his throat. She looked up.
“Make sure she knows I didn’t even know the kidnap victims,” Robert said firmly. Snowflakes were melting on his hair and he still looked as if he’d stepped out of the pages of a catalog. “Make sure she knows the kidnapping had nothing to do with me. It would have happened if I hadn’t been here.”
“That’s what I told her. I said you wouldn’t have even gone with the men if it hadn’t been for the bus. I mean your mother rented it and all.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.” Robert frowned. How is it that he had never noticed Jenny’s eyes turned a snapping black when she was annoyed? Fascinating. He wondered if she was annoyed with her sister or with him. Maybe she thought he should have ridden to the rescue on a horse like the FBI agent instead of worrying about a big old bus. He guessed a bus wasn’t very dashing. If that was it, he needed to explain. “I would like to think I would go to anyone’s aid if they were being kidnapped. It wasn’t just the bus.”
“What’s this about some bus?” Jenny’s sister asked on the phone. “Was it a school bus? Were there kids in danger? That would make a good angle.”
“There is no angle. Robert—I mean, Mr. Buckwalter—was just driving.”
Robert frowned deeper. He wasn’t sure he liked the turn this conversation was taking. Granted, he didn’t want his life splattered all over some tabloid in the morning, but he didn’t know that he cared to have Jenny dismiss his efforts so lightly.
“It wasn’t just easy driving,” Robert finally said. “The gears had been stripped. I had to get everyone back here. It was cold enough out there to freeze to death if we didn’t get back.”
There, that should let her know his actions were important, he thought.
“What’s that?” Jenny’s sister spoke forcefully in Jenny’s ear. “Put the receiver out more. I need to hear. I got the part about the kids in the school bus almost freezing to death. This is great. My boss will love this story.”
“There is no story,” Jenny said firmly.
“But what about the children?”
“There are no children.”
“Well, then, what was the school bus doing? Work with me here, Jenny. It’s not like this won’t hit the local papers anyway. School bus kind of stuff always does. This is practically real news.”
“Listen, to me—there are no children. There was no school bus.”
“Well, then, give me a little something. Right this minute—what is Robert Buckwalter the Third doing?”
“He’s just—” Jenny looked up at Robert. The snow had melted and his hair was wet now. His cheeks were still red and his nose was white. His hands shivered slightly as he held a cup of coffee in them. “He’s just warming up.”
“Ohhh, that’s a good quote. Can I use that? Sources close to the man said that he is warming up and looking to be hot again.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Well, then, can I talk to him? Ask him if I can do an interview.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t—”
“Just ask him. Please.”
“Oh, all right.” Jenny began as she put her hand over the receiver so her sister could not hear the conversation. “I know you won’t want to—that’s why I only said I’d ask. Not that you’d agree.”
Robert watched the blush creep up Jenny’s face again. Her eyes had lightened again until he could see the caramel highlights in them.
“I’ll do it,” Robert said.
“But I haven’t asked—”
“Oh.”
“Not that you might not want to anyway. You might be able to sway the decision on the bachelor list and if that’s what you want—”
“Did she give any hint of that?” Robert’s face came to attention. “That she’d be willing to speak to the editors and plead my case?”
Robert wasn’t sure that Jenny’s sister could do anything to get him off that list, but if she was anything like Jenny he didn’t want to underestimate her.
“I’ll let you ask.” Jenny held out the phone. She was defeated. Why try and protect the privacy of Robert Buckwalter when he obviously wanted people all across the country to read about him as they stood in line to buy groceries? She suddenly wished she had told her sister he was hot.
Robert took the phone from Jenny’s hand.
A faint siren filtered into the barn and could be heard even over the commotion caused by the three kidnappers being tied up on the barn floor against their wishes.
“I want to negotiate,” Robert said into the phone. “Agree to my terms and we’ll talk.”
Jenny looked up. “You have terms?”
Robert nodded emphatically to Jenny as he continued speaking into the phone. “That’s right. I’ll cooperate if you cooperate. And I assure you you’ll get your story somehow.” He listened and then grinned. “Yes, something with pictures. It might take me a day or two to work it out first. Talk to the editors. See what they say.”
Jenny felt stiffer than she could remember feeling for years. Terms. He had terms. He was planning to sell his soul and become an underwear model.
Jenny almost missed the barn door opening once again. If it wasn’t for the siren growing louder and then stopping, she wouldn’t have paid much attention. But then she heard the booming voice of Sheriff Carl Wall.
“Where are they?” the sheriff demanded as he stomped into the room carrying two large suitcases.
“Careful with those.” A platinum blonde stepped daintily behind him. “Those are alligator skin cases.”
Jenny had never seen such a woman. Now there was somebody who could get away with modeling underwear. She was tall, thin and reeked of style. She was just a touch haughty and Jenny knew without a doubt that the hair color she wore was not her own.
The FBI agent seemed to share Jenny’s suspicions that the woman was not one of the locals and he walked over to the woman. “I’ll need to see some identification.”
“Identification?” The woman stopped. She managed to look very offended. “I don’t need any identification. I’m with him.”
The woman pointed at Robert Buckwalter.
Jenny saw Robert flinch. He’d quietly pressed the off button on the cell phone, hanging up on her sister. That meant that whatever was going to be said now was something that Robert wanted to be kept from the press.
This