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“No, sorry. I don’t have any comforters.”
“Do you know anyplace local that would carry comforters?”
He shook his head. “I think you’ll have to go to Spearfish for that.”
Yeah, they definitely didn’t have time for a quick jaunt to Spearfish.
“You might be able to find something at the thrift shop.”
“Okay, ring us up, please.” Gunner practically ran to the register.
Nova hurried to catch up with him. “Pillows,” she muttered.
“I don’t think they’re going to have any.”
“Pillows?” John said. “We have some!”
They had pillows, but no blankets?
“We’ll take five,” Gunner said.
By the time the man returned with the pillows, Gunner was tapping his toes. There wasn’t any music playing, so if he was tapping along to a catchy beat, the song was only happening in his head.
Nova nearly cried when she saw the price of the pillows run through the cash register one at a time, but she bit her lip. If she questioned it, she would only slow down the process, and she was pretty sure Gunner would still go through with the purchase.
Chapter 29
Gunner had spent alotof time in this thrift store. His mother had worked so hard to pinch pennies, he’d gotten nearly everything he needed after someone else in town had discarded it.
In a lot of ways, he’d fared better than his brothers. They’d gotten his hand-me-downs. So the youngest kids often wore coats that had already been worn by five or six other kids.
She’d lightened up when she’d gotten to Kash. It had felt like they’d suddenly had more money to play with, but now that Gunner had seen how hard it was just to break even with cattle ranching, he wondered if it was more of a case of his mother running out of energy.
Maybe she’d decided it wasn’t worth the hours and hours of coupon clipping and had just bought her youngest son a few coats.
Kash had always had less duct tape on his winter boots too.
Despite all this life experience, Gunner was still a little embarrassed to be leading his new wife into the thrift store. Unlike his mother, Gunnercouldafford new sheets and blankets—he just didn’t have time to get to the store and back. So he tried not to think about where he was, and he tried not to be ashamed of that pesticide-plus-moth-balls smell.
“Okay ...” Nova stopped walking and scanned the large but still cluttered store. “Where might the bedding be?” She sounded overly chipper for the situation.
He pretended to consider her question. He didn’t want her to know that he knew exactly where they kept the sheets withoutthinking about it. But then he felt disingenuous, and he didnotlike feeling like that, so he said, “This way” and led her deeper into the junk-pile jungle, hoping that maybe they’d reorganized the store in the years since he’d been here.
They had not.
And as he’d feared, the pickings were slim.
Nova chewed her lip as she studied them. “Well, they definitely don’t need to match.”
“Good thing,” he grumbled. After a moment of bewilderment, he said, “I don’t know why we’re staring. There are only two choices.”
“You’re right. I guess I was hoping that someone else would drop something off.”
He laughed. “Well, let’s grab the two they have.”
She looked at him, her eyes worried. “Are you sure?”
He understood her hesitation. One of the choices was a flannel sheet covered in faded roses.
