Ozark Sweetheart Read online

  “Could you hear what the man said?”

  She shook her head. “No, I backed out of sight, figuring it was someone the boys knew.” She couldn’t bring herself to explain what she feared.

  The marshal gave Delmer a grim scowl. “I’ve heard there are some rough characters hanging out in our woods, buying stuff from some of our locals. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Strong meaning laced the words.

  Delmer’s Adam’s apple bobbed again. “No, sir.” The response was low and unconvincing.

  Callie’s heart ached. Of course the marshal knew about the local stills. The boys had money lately because they had gotten involved in bootlegging. After the crash of 1929, poverty and hard times made people willing to do most anything to get their hands on some money, even forsake their Christian principles.

  Marshal Gentry’s gaze turned speculative on Callie. “Did the man look familiar to you?”

  Callie swallowed hard and tightened her entwined fingers. She couldn’t lie, but she couldn’t get the whole story past her lips. What if she told him she feared the gunman had shot the wrong person? It might not have been him. “I may have seen him somewhere, but I don’t know his name.” That was the absolute truth.

  “Then why are you so scared?”

  She stiffened her shoulders and raised her chin. “Marshal Gentry, I saw a man shoot my brother. He could come back and shoot more of my family. Why wouldn’t I be scared?”

  She shot to her feet and marched to the door. “I have to get back to Riley.”

  To her surprise, Trace followed her. Delmer started to, as well, but the marshal halted him. “Sit down, young man. I’m not done with you.”

  Callie met her youngest brother’s eyes and nodded that he should cooperate, then she turned and left the building.

  Trace caught up with her. They walked in silence to the end of the block before Callie came to an abrupt halt and faced him—then wished she hadn’t. He was taller than she remembered. Of course, she had never stood this close to him. That is, not since the age of seven.

  “Why are you trailing after me?” she demanded, wishing she didn’t always feel at such a disadvantage around him.

  He touched a detaining hand to her shoulder, his eyes going even darker. The late-afternoon sun made her squint up at him. “I wanted to talk to you. I think you know more than you’re telling. What are you really afraid of?”

  Callie jutted her chin a notch higher and kept her face as impassive as possible. “You heard what I told your brother. A gangster shot my brother and is running loose around here.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Gangster? You didn’t say anything about a gangster before.”

  She attempted to shrug it off, regretting the slip of tongue. “He reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of gangsters, dressed in black and carrying guns. That’s all I meant. And it’s improper for us to be out here together. You have a fiancée, and I’m sure she wouldn’t approve.”

  “I don’t have a fiancée.”

  Chapter 2

  Callie stared at him, her eyes rounded in shock. “You’re not engaged to Beulah Parker?” she asked after several moments.

  “I am not. We broke up this past week.”

  Her mouth moved soundlessly, as if struggling to grasp what he had said. “I’m sorry. I—”

  “Don’t be,” he cut off her words of sympathy. “I made a mistake.”

  “I’ve made my share of those,” she said, chin up, her expression even. “I have to get back to my family.”

  Head high, she resumed her march back to the doctor’s office.

  Trace watched her for a moment, and then strode back to his office, deeply disturbed by what had happened to Riley Blake, and unable to prevent a mental comparison between Callie Blake and his ex-fiancée. Beulah might dress nicer than Callie Blake, and the name Beulah might mean beautiful, but he had learned that she was not a beautiful person. He couldn’t believe how good it felt to be free.

  After his first love Joanna’s death, too numb with grief to have any interest in another relationship, he had buried himself in work. He was proud of the success he had achieved as his dad gave him more and more authority, making improvements and expanding sales. He also liked the affluence that accompanied success and had plans for further growth in both the business and his savings account. But he had hard work ahead of him if he continued to succeed in these terrible times.

  During a period of acute loneliness after years alone, he had let his parents nudge him into going out with Beulah Parker, the daughter of their longtime close friends. He had been fond of Beulah at the time, so when she asked him if he intended to marry her, he had foolishly said yes. He had regretted it almost immediately. Catching her at the movie theater smooching with another man had been a painful betrayal, but a welcome excuse to break their engagement. But he couldn’t think about all that now. Not with a gunman on the loose.

  Wild thoughts tumbled in his brain, vying for attention. He didn’t know for sure how Leon planned to proceed with the manhunt, but Trace wanted to be a part of it. The Blake family had known too much hardship and grief. He felt an unexpected well of compassion, and knew that he had to do anything he could to help them.

  The cramping in his stomach from his ulcer grew so bad that he took out the box of baking soda he kept in a desk drawer, put a spoonful of it in a glass of water and drank it.

  “What was all the commotion at the doctor’s office? I was busy with a customer and didn’t catch it all.” His father walked to the back.

  “One of the Blake boys was shot.” Trace gave him a quick summary of the incident.

  Bill Gentry shook his head. “That family sure has had a lot of hard luck. It’s been about fifteen years since they lost their oldest boy.”

  Trace remembered that awful time when Mr. Blake had driven like a maniac into town, his wife and four daughters in the back of the wagon. The mother had been cradling her oldest boy in her arms—much like Callie had done with Riley today—while the frightened girls crouched in the wagon bed. Callie’s huge dark eyes and black hair had struck him as tragic, but so pretty. He had only been an awkward eleven-year-old at the time, but he had tried to comfort her. Today he had been struck anew with her adult beauty.

  Yes, Callie’s clothes were dirty and her beautiful black hair, worn in a short, practical style, was untidy, but he knew what hard work and tragedy looked like.

  “The boy was only fifteen, as I recall.” His dad’s words reclaimed Trace’s attention. “He had started to help his dad bring their steam engine to town, and the tail of his coat got caught in the cogs of the engine and pulled him into it. His arm and side were chewed up real bad.”

  Trace nodded as the details came back to him. “He needed more medical help than Doc could provide, so you took a new car from this showroom and took him to Rolla.” Thirty-five miles north, Rolla was the nearest town with a hospital.

  “The boy died on the operating table.” Dad’s somber statement was accompanied by a sad shake of his head. “The next year the family’s house burned down.”

  Trace swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. “I remember all that, but I never had much contact with the family over the years. I believe the parents are godly people, but I sure don’t see that they have much to thank God for.”

  Guilt stabbed at him. He had been wrapped up in his own life and pleasures, too busy working and making money to notice the brutal plight of others around him. The gnawing in his stomach worsened.

  His dad picked up a cleaning rag and began to wipe fingerprints off the display car he had shown to a potential customer earlier. “Arlie and Dessie Blake are hard-working people. It’s too bad their kids aren’t.”

  The comment brought Trace up short. “What do you mean?”

  Bill paused in his task
and raised his head. “Those youngest two have reputations for being wild, and I’ve heard the boys mentioned in connection with bootlegging. It makes me wonder if the whole family is involved, or running a still of their own.”

  Trace remembered hearing rumors. Today’s incident could mean that the boys were, indeed, mixed up in the making or selling of illegal hooch. But not Callie.

  “I can’t believe the whole family is involved. Especially Callie.”

  His dad frowned and shook his head in doubt. “I’d hate to see you get involved with that bunch. I’m afraid they can’t be trusted.”

  Could his dad be right? Trace didn’t think so. But would the man who shot Riley come back to make another attempt on Delmer’s life?

  He thought he could trust Callie, but today he had sensed something more to her fear. Her family appeared to need Callie’s financial help as much as ever. So why had she quit her job and come home?

  * * *

  Callie’s mind raced as she marched down the sidewalk. Fear and concern for her brother mingled with elation. He was not engaged. It changed nothing. Poverty had taught her not to dream. She had given up hope of ever finding love and having a home of her own.

  When she got back to the doctor’s office, her parents were just returning to the waiting room. Mom’s eyes were red and puffy, and her salt-and-pepper hair straggled from its bun.

  Dr. Randolph accompanied them. In his early sixties, the stocky man wore a solemn scowl. “See he stays in bed a few days, even if you have to tie him down. I’ll stop in to check on him tomorrow afternoon.”

  Dad nodded. “Thanks for patching him up, Doc. We’ll pay you soon as we can.”

  But Callie knew they wouldn’t. They didn’t have the money. Callie would take care of it from her dwindling savings. Should she leave and find another job? Or stay and take care of her folks? She had been on the verge of leaving, but now they needed her at home more than ever. They already had more work than they could handle, and now Riley couldn’t work at the mill and had to be nursed. Guilt gnawed at Callie for bringing more trouble to them. She had to do something, and she would. But it was too big a problem to think about right now.

  By the time they got Riley home, the encroaching dusk had gradually cooled the hot, muggy evening. As the sun disappeared behind a thick growth of forest foliage, her sister Clementine met them at the edge of the yard.

  They got Riley inside and into the bed at the west end of the bedroom where he and Delmer slept. Blankets suspended from wires divided the long room into three sections. Mom and Dad used the east section. Callie and Clem had the middle. Callie went to fix supper while her mother stayed with Riley.

  “I’m tired of eating the same old things all the time,” Clem complained as she peeled potatoes. “I wish we could have something different once in a while. I’m sick of green beans. I hate snapping the things. The only thing worse is stemming gooseberries.”

  “Be thankful you have anything to eat. Many people don’t. Are you going to stay in school? Or have you tried any more to find a job?”

  Clem tossed her head in a gesture of disdain. “What do you care? You don’t have a job.”

  No, she didn’t. Not anymore. And Clem resented the loss of money that used to come in the mail every week.

  Callie clamped her mouth shut. She couldn’t share her fears with Clem, and she didn’t want to fight with her and cause even more distress for the family. She stepped out the kitchen door and went to get a stick of wood for the cookstove—and a grip on her emotions. She hoped Clem would finish school, but anticipated she would quit, as all their other siblings had done.

  By the time Callie went back inside, her brain had begun to churn. Maybe there was a way to vary their diet a little—and at the same time help some people whose circumstances were even worse than theirs.

  An idea formed and grew in her mind.

  After church service Sunday Callie accompanied her best friend, Jolene Delaney, from the building. “I have an idea,” she said when they arrived at the Delaney family car.

  Jolene, a slender girl with long, wheat-colored hair and big hazel eyes, rolled those eyes upward. “So what else is new? You always have an idea.”

  Callie huffed. “Do you want to hear it or not?”

  Jolene grinned and pulled the car door open. “Spit it out.”

  “Why don’t we organize a community food swap?”

  Jolene released the door handle and leaned against the fender, her expression pensive. “This is to accomplish what?”

  “Well, if people from all over the area bring something they have extra of, and are tired of, we could put it all out on tables and let them choose something different to take home. It would give them more variety and a change from eating the same old things.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jolene tapped a finger against her cheek. “And what if someone brought too much of something? What would happen to the extra?”

  “Well, they could be, uh, given to someone.”

  “Like the ones who have hungry bellies and nothing to swap?”

  Callie didn’t say anything for a moment, but she didn’t have to.

  Jolene’s face glowed. “I love the idea. I’ll talk to the school board. I’m sure they’ll approve of us using the school. And if we can get people who are better off to donate stuff, I can see that my neediest students get food.”

  Jolene taught at the Deer Creek School. Located practically across the road from Callie’s home, they had both attended there through eighth grade before going to high school in town.

  Suddenly Jolene’s eyes glistened, and her lips trembled. She threw her arms around Callie. After a bear hug, she drew back and made a hasty swipe at her eyes. “If it works, we could branch out, swap clothes and shoes that have gotten too little for their owners, but could be used by others. We could swap all kinds of things.”

  Callie hugged her again. “How soon can we start? And how often should we meet?”

  “I’ll talk to the board president and get back to you in a day or two. If they approve it, I’ll put a notice in the paper and write notes to send home with the children. Oh, Callie...” She placed a smack on Callie’s cheek. “I’m so glad you came home.”

  Callie grinned as Jolene crawled into her dad’s Model T and drove away. Then she went to pull Clem away from the Tucker boy she currently fancied and make the half-mile ride home on horseback.

  Callie found her mother making chicken and dumplings. Mom looked tired, and her left hand massaged her lower back as she stirred the pot with her right. Lines etched her worn face, and loose hairs straggled from the bun coiled on the back of her head, but she smiled when Callie entered the kitchen.

  “I think Riley can eat.”

  She rejoiced with her mother when Riley ate a small bowl of chicken and dumplings. That afternoon after Dr. Randolph stopped by and pronounced him on the mend, Callie followed the doctor to his car and presented him with the money she had taken from its hiding place. At least paying him would take one burden from her parents.

  Monday evening Jolene stopped by to report that the school board had approved use of the school for their swap day, and that she had put a notice in the paper.

  Wednesday morning, seeking asylum from curious eyes and the fear that dogged her, Callie tackled the mundane chore of cleaning the chicken house.

  * * *

  Trace’s spirits lifted as he drove out of town. Business had been slow this morning, so he had decided to try again to order the wood for his display case. And maybe see Callie again.

  He pulled in at the Blake property and parked. As he walked past the house, he spotted the realization of his thoughts coming out of the chicken house behind the backyard.

  “Callie,” he called over the background noise of the steam engine down the hill.

  She wen
t on back inside. Moments later she emerged carrying two wooden feeders.

  He eyed the clever workmanship. “Looks like someone around here knows how to use the wood they cut.”

  “Dad and the boys are at the mill.” She jerked a thumb in that direction and headed back inside the chicken house.

  Trace winced at the abrupt dismissal. She definitely did not want to talk to him. He inhaled sharply and strode down the hill, where Arlie Blake thanked him for his intervention in getting Riley to the doctor and then gave him estimates on lumber for his project.

  On the way back to his truck, Trace glanced over at the chicken house again. Knowing that Callie was in there drew him, even if he wasn’t welcome.

  She emerged with a shovel full of chicken droppings and carried it to the compost pile in the back. He couldn’t resist following her when she returned and went back inside the building. He stepped through the doorway and looked around. “It looks like you’ve been very busy.”

  Startled, she looked up from wringing the rag she had dipped in a big bucket of water. She drew a fast breath and began to cough.

  “Bleach,” she explained when she could speak, waving a hand in front of her face. Her eyes moved over his dark pants and white shirt, and then at her own worn shoes and frayed dress, obviously drawing a comparison.

  “You look fine,” he said, meaning it.

  She rolled her eyes. “I do not. I’m dirty from mucking out the home of a bunch of nasty chickens. What do you want?”

  Her sharp tone made him frown. “I just wanted to tell you that I got my wood ordered, and your dad gave me an update on Riley.”

  “Good for you.” She closed her eyes, then reopened them, her look one of contrition. “I’m sorry. I’m tired and not good company.”

  His heart twisted. She carried too big a load.

  “You look tired. I didn’t mean that in a bad way,” he added quickly, hands in the air, when she went ramrod straight, eyes flashing. “I just meant that you work too hard. You could use some help.”