A Rich Man for Dry Creek / a Hero for Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad Page A

dresses were lavender, slate gray, buttercup yellow, forest green, primrose pink—and they all seemed to have full skirts that trailed on the plank flooring of the barn. Their skirts reminded Jenny of a bed of pansies.
    â€œWe could be swirling, too—” Robert held out one hand for the coffeepot and the other for Jenny’s hand.
    The light in the old barn had been softened when the music started. Someone had turned off a few of the side lights and shadows crowded the tall corners of the structure. The air was cool and, by the sounds of it, a winter wind was blowing outside.
    When Jenny had looked outside earlier, she’d thought that the snow falling in the black night looked like a snow globe turned upside down—with the barn at the center and an old-fashioned waltz playing while the snow fell around the globe.
    â€œI can’t dance in this.” Jenny brought her mind back to reality. She gestured to her chef’s apron. Her broad white apron was serviceable for working with food, but it had nothing of taffeta or silk about it. Even Ginger didn’t dance in coarse cotton. “And there’s my hair—”
    â€œYour hair is beautiful. You just need to get rid of this.” Robert reached over and lifted Jenny’s hairnet off her head.
    Jenny’s hands flew up. “But that’s my hairnet—the health code.”
    â€œNo one needs a hairnet for dancing.”
    No, Jenny thought, but they did need air in their lungs. She felt dizzy. She could almost hear her sister’s squeal of delight if she knew Robert Buckwalter had plucked the net off her hair and asked her to dance.
    But Jenny had always been more practical than her sister.
    Jenny knew that Prince Charming didn’t even notice Cinderella until after the Fairy Godmother had given her a whole new look. Men, especially handsome men like the one in front of her, just didn’t dance with women with working shoes and flat hair. Not even the coachmen would have danced with Cinderella if she’d arrived at the ball with a net over her hair and an apron around her waist.
    â€œI should change.”
    Jenny’s hand had already found its way into his and now she was twisting away from him to go do something as foolish as change her clothes.
    â€œYou’re fine.” Fine didn’t begin to cover it, Robert thought to himself. Jenny’s eyes, usually a dark brown, had lightened to a caramel. She had a dazed look about her that made him want to dance with her in a quiet corner instead of in the middle of a throng of teenagers.
    It wasn’t that she was beautiful, he decided after a moment. He’d seen dozens of women whose features were more perfect. But he’d never seen anyone who looked like Jenny. He could almost trace her thoughts in her eyes. She wasn’t trying to hide who she was or what she thought. He wondered if she even knew how rare that was. Or how compelling.
    â€œBut my hair…” Jenny frantically tried to fluff her hair up a little. It was all about bone structure. With flat hair, the small features on her face made her look like a Christmas elf. With just a little bit of fluff, she managed to look merely petite instead of childish.
    Robert captured her hand and calmed her.
    â€œYour hair is—” He’d been going to say “fine.” But then he felt the cloud of her hair fall against the back of his hand. “—incredible.”
    â€œIt’s brown.” Jenny shook her hair away from his hand. No wonder he was in the running for the number one bachelor. He was a charmer, all right. “Plain brown and flyaway on top of that.”
    Robert shook his head. “I’d say more chestnut than anything, golden highlights. The kind of hair the masters used to paint in all those old European pictures. Mona Lisa colors.”
    â€œNext you’ll be saying my apron is the latest fashion from Paris.”
    Robert could see the