Wife Wanted in Dry Creek Read Online Free PDF

Conrad said.
    “Really? Then that means—”
    “It means nothing. I was joking when I said what I did. There’s no miracle answer to prayer going on here.”
    “But—”
    Conrad ignored his uncle. “The fact is, I’ve been thinking I should ask Tracy at the Quick Clip in Miles City out to dinner.”
    “Really? Linda at the diner said you two might make a couple.”
    Conrad nodded. He was glad to see someone else had some sense. “We’d be comfortable together.”
    “Comfortable?” Uncle Charley exclaimed with a frown.
    Katrina turned around and looked at them in puzzlement.
    “Nothing’s wrong,” Conrad said to her and she went back to her windowThen he turned to his uncle and said in a low voice, “Yes. Safe and comfortable.”
    They were both silent for a minute.
    “It’s my fault you’re willing to settle for that,” Uncle Charley said, his voice upset. “I should have paid more attention to you when your mother died. I didn’t know your father was so wrapped up in his grief he wasn’t even home most of the time.”
    “We got by.”
    “Yes, but—”
    “I do okay,” Conrad said. He could hardly even talk about those days after his mother died. Some things were just better left unsaid. There was no undoing what happened anyway.
    The older man nodded and started to walk away.
    Conrad didn’t mean to upset his uncle. The man was only trying to help him out.
    Just then it struck him. “Why, you don’t even know any young blondes to use in the picture of that sign. How are you going to find a model?”
    His uncle winked at him. “I figure that’s your department.”
    “My—” Conrad was speechless. How was he supposed to find a pretty blonde willing to pose by an old stop sign?
    No one said anything for a moment.
    “It could be she’s innocent,” his uncle finally added with a nod toward the window. “Just like she says. I’d hate to think we treated her unfairly in Dry Creek if she is. God wants us to do better than that.”
    Conrad didn’t have a chance to answer because just then Katrina stepped back from the window. She was beaming.
    “I think I saw it,” she said.
    Conrad sighed. His uncle was right. He needed to see that she was given the benefit of the doubt. If for no other reason than that she was still his customer. He’d built his business on doing everything he could for his customers. Usually, that didn’t include standing beside them as they were arrested, of course, but he would do what he could. Besides, seeing her with her face lit up touched him somehow. No wonder he’d been willing to put a two-hundred-dollar muffler on her car and not charge her for it. The woman was a wonder. Well, either that or a very good actress. He wished he knew which it was.

Chapter Three
    K atrina turned around and looked through the window into the garage. Fifteen more minutes had passed and the sheriff was still talking to the boys. She hadn’t noticed until now, but someone had turned on a radio and a big band tune was playing softly. She saw the radio sitting on a green file cabinet behind the desk. She hadn’t heard the soft static of a radio in years. It must have been Conrad’s uncle who thought of the music since he was standing over there looking pleased with himself.
    She looked up at the older man’s lined face. “Thanks. Dance music always cheers me up.”
    She tapped her hands against her leg in time to the music just to show him she was feeling better.
    The old man’s face lit up. “I had a hunch you might be a dancer. Conrad dances, too, you know.”
    Katrina heard a garbled sound over by the door. Conrad had his hands in his pockets and a look of panicon his face. She half expected him to open the door and rush outside to check the gas pumps, but he didn’t.
    “In junior high,” he muttered to her instead and then gave a dark look to his uncle. “I don’t dance now.”
    “It’s like riding a bicycle,” the old man said as he bobbed his head to the beat of