Dakota Born (7 page)

He held his arms open to her and she went to him, savoring the feel of his embrace. “I woke up and found you gone,” he murmured against her hair. Then with a deep, shuddering sigh, he told her, “We'll find a way to buy you that new washer. The corn's good this year. Come harvest, we'll buy you a washer—and a dryer, too. I promise.”

“It's all right. I can make do for a while. Joshua can keep the washer going for me. And the dryer should last until next year.”

Her husband kissed the top of her head and his lips lingered there, giving Joanie the impression that he was either immersed in thought or still half-asleep. “Come to bed,” he urged a moment later. He slid his arm around her waist and led her back to their bedroom. She moved into his arms and pressed her head against his shoulder. He didn't reach for her to make love, and she didn't indicate that she was interested. The physical aspect of their marriage had always been strong—except for the past few months. When all else failed, this was an area where communication had remained healthy. But it'd been a month since the last time he'd wanted her…and a month, more than a month, since she'd wanted him.

It wasn't a good sign and Joanie drifted into an uneasy sleep, worried that her marriage was in more serious trouble than she'd suspected.

 

Refreshed and rejuvenated from her two-week vacation, Lindsay hadn't been home an hour—hadn't even picked up the dogs from her parents yet—when Monte showed up at her apartment door, holding a huge bouquet of long-stemmed red roses. The flowers were beautiful; even more beautiful was the look on Monte's face. Without a word it told her how much he'd missed her, how bereft he'd felt while she was away. That look alone was worth every miserable moment they'd been apart. It was a mistake to be this happy, to feel such undiluted joy, but she couldn't help herself.

“Welcome home,” he said at last.

“Oh, Monte.” She covered her mouth with one hand, hardly able to believe he'd come.

Before another moment passed, she was in his arms. “I've been lost without you,” he whispered between kisses. “Never again,” he insisted, clasping her by the shoulders and gazing intensely into her eyes.

The roses were clutched in Lindsay's arms, the thorns biting into her skin, but she barely felt the pain. “Who told you I was home?” she asked breathlessly, once they broke apart.

“No one. I overheard your uncle say you'd be back sometime today.”

Not knowing how to react, Lindsay stared down at the flowers. She loved him, she'd missed him—but she wasn't ready for a confrontation. Especially now, with her heart so hungry for the sight of him. Again and again she tried to remind herself that they'd covered this ground before. Nothing was going to change. And as she acknowledged this, her joy at seeing him began to dissolve.

“I know you said you wanted to break things off, but I'm hoping you've come to your senses. Tell me you have,” he pleaded. When she didn't immediately respond, Monte answered for her. “Your kisses say you've been missing me,” he whispered.

“I did miss you.” She couldn't lie, but the truth was more than she wanted to confess. In an effort to diminish the growing intimacy, she carried the roses into the kitchen.

“I've done nothing but think about you,” Monte told her.

Lindsay brought out the stepladder to reach for the vase stored above the refrigerator. She'd done a lot of thinking, too. But during her trip, on the road with Maddy, everything had seemed much clearer than it did now.

Monte leaned against the counter, gazing steadily at her. “You've had two weeks. Surely you realize we belong together.”

Lindsay set down the vase. It seemed ridiculous that they should be having the most important—and perhaps the final—discussion of their relationship while standing in the middle of her tiny kitchen. There was so much she'd wanted to tell him, about her trip and her visit to Buffalo Valley. She yearned to share the things she'd learned, the places she'd seen—the Badlands, Yellowstone Park, Mount Rushmore. He was her friend, too, and that aspect of their relationship was as difficult to relinquish as the rest.

“You've come to your senses, haven't you?”

“Yes, I suppose I have.” She sounded so…weak, so unsure. She
was
weak, but her resolve was growing stronger. She refused to let him talk her out of the very things that were most important to her.

Monte sighed. “Thank heaven for that.”

It took him a moment to realize she was still standing on the other side of the room. “Come here, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Let me show you how much I've missed you.”

“I don't think you understand.” Her voice was emotionless.

“You said you'd come to your senses.”

“I have—and it's over, Monte. Unless you've changed your mind about marriage and a family. And I don't think you have.”

He stared at her as if he didn't believe her. “You don't mean that,” he said, shaking his head impatiently.

“I do mean it.”

“I've heard that before, Lindsay, and it's foolishness. We belong together, we always have. You know it, and I do, too. We're good together.”

“That's true, Monte, but I want more. I want a husband and children. Is that so difficult to understand?”

His mouth thinned. “For the love of God, does it always have to go back to what
you
want?”

“In this case, yes. It's my life.”

He pounded his fist against the counter, then seemed to regret the outburst. “Lindsay, would you listen to reason? I
can't
marry you. I just can't do it. Marriage ruins everything—I know that from experience. You—”

“Don't, please.”

He advanced toward her, then stopped. “Fine,” he said, his voice cold, “if that's the way you want it.”

“I'm afraid it is.”

“You'll be back,” he said. “Until then, all I can do is wait.” He slammed the door on his way out of her apartment.

Afterward Lindsay sat, mulling over their conversation, her arms wrapped around her knees. A chill spread down her arms that had nothing to do with the air-conditioned room. His bitter words about marriage echoed in her ears; so did his claim that she'd change her mind, that she'd come back. He seemed to think she'd eventually be willing to accept him on his terms, willing to give up her own dreams.

Lindsay bit into her lower lip, and hugged her legs all the harder.

It did no good to relive the same old arguments. The furniture in her uncle's showroom might come with a guarantee, but life didn't. Neither did marriage. But Monte's divorce had destroyed any possibility of his taking a second chance on commitment. Nothing she could say or do would be enough to reassure him.

For two years, Lindsay had believed that Monte would see the light and realize that she wasn't his ex-wife. Because she was stubborn, and because she loved him, she'd refused to accept defeat. His marriage, brief as it was, had forever marked him. Monte was incapable of giving her anything more than he already had.

Maddy had said it on their vacation. Either she take what he was offering or end the relationship.

Lindsay had made her decision. One thing was certain; she had to stay away from him. Her love for him made her too vulnerable. He would fight to preserve their relationship, and he'd work at wearing her down, the same way he had before.

Leaning back, she closed her eyes and reviewed her options. A new career, returning to college, starting her own business…. Unexpectedly she remembered her visit to Buffalo Valley—and her conversation with Hassie Knight. She smiled. Hassie hadn't come right out and said it, but without a teacher Buffalo Valley was doomed. That was the answer Lindsay sought. She would take the job; obviously, the town needed her…and perhaps she needed it.

Lindsay had minored in education and could apply for a teaching certificate in North Dakota. She had an opportunity to make a difference. A year—she'd give Buffalo Valley a year of her life. In a twelve-month period, they could locate and hire a permanent replacement for the high-school position. She'd fill in, and those twelve months would give her the distance she needed from Monte.

A chance like this didn't happen every day. Her roots were in this dying town—her family's heritage—and it was within her power to help. At the same time, she'd be saving herself from the agony of a dead-end relationship.

And, she thought with growing excitement, she could move into her grandparents' home. It was pretty dilapidated—no wonder it hadn't sold. She recalled the peeling paint, the broken porch steps and falling-down fence. But she could get it fixed up, and she'd have a free place to live if she took the job. The house would be a connection to her past, while teaching school could be her future.

She'd do it. Decision made, she dug through her purse for Hassie's phone number. Funny, she mused as she reached for the telephone, she'd somehow known when she left Buffalo Valley that she was destined to return. She just hadn't realized it would be this soon.

T
he word that a high-school teacher had been found traveled faster than a dust storm through Buffalo Valley. Gage heard about it from Leta late one afternoon, two weeks after Lindsay's visit. His day had been spent doing the second summer cutting of alfalfa. He smelled of grass and sweat and was hungrier than a bear in spring.

“You remember meeting her, don't you?” his mother said, excitedly.

“There were two women in Hassie's that Saturday,” he commented as he poured himself a glass of iced tea. He remembered, all right. And he knew without his mother's telling him that it was Lindsay who was coming back.

For two weeks now, the woman had been on his mind, crowding into his thoughts when she was least welcome. In the time since her visit, he'd thought of her far too much, and he didn't like it. He distrusted the feeling that had come after their brief introduction. It was too close to hope.

Gage didn't want to feel anything for her. He couldn't
afford
to feel anything—not for a city woman who'd be leaving after a year.

A darkening mass of clouds gathered on his horizon, a sure sign a storm was brewing. Only this storm was of his own making, and Gage wasn't going to let himself get caught in it.

“The Snyder granddaughter's the one who's coming back,” Leta told him.

He nodded. “I can't imagine why she agreed to teach here,” he said casually.

“She's got roots in Buffalo Valley. You remember Anton and Gina Snyder, don't you?”

Gage nodded again. Anton Snyder had sold his farm before the bottom fell out. He'd lived in an era when it was possible to make a decent living off the land. In the thirty years since the Snyders had sold, the reality of farming had changed.

“Aren't you going to say anything?” his mother asked.

Gage drank half the glass of tea in huge gulps.

“Well?”

“She won't last.” He said it because
he
needed to hear it, needed to remind himself that he shouldn't put any stock in her coming. Or her going.

“Don't be such a pessimist.”

“She
won't
last,” he said again. “Mark my words.” Lindsay Snyder had been born and raised in the South. One month of a Dakota winter, and this magnolia blossom would hightail it back to Savannah faster than he could spell blizzard.

“I don't care what you say,” his mother chided, “we're lucky to get her.”

If it was luck that had brought Lindsay Snyder to Buffalo Valley, then it was bad luck and he wanted no part of it. He didn't know her, had barely even seen her, and he was already attracted to her. Attracted—to a woman who wasn't going to stay.

Kevin stormed into the kitchen, the screen door slamming in his wake. “Calla said we got a teacher. Is it true?” His excitement rang through the room.

“Hassie phoned with the news,” Leta said. “Didn't I tell you we'd find a teacher? Didn't I?”

Kevin nodded as if he, too, had shared their mother's faith from the first. The boy was all legs and arms yet, as tall as Gage and fifty pounds lighter. Gage had looked much the same at seventeen, but had filled out over time. A stint in the Army after graduation had helped firm his muscles, and given him the confidence to tackle the world. After two years at an agricultural college, he'd come home and farmed with his stepfather, intending to buy his own section of land, but then John had collapsed with a heart attack one July morning. He was dead ten minutes later, despite Gage's frantic efforts to revive him.

“A bunch of us kids are going over to clean up the school.” Kevin looked toward Gage. “We're gonna need help.”

The implication was clear. Kevin wanted Gage to volunteer his services.

“Everyone's doing something,” Leta put in.

Gage ignored the dig. “Where's the new teacher going to live?” He avoided saying her name because he found he liked the sound of it too much.

“Hassie told her a house came with the teaching contract, but Miss Snyder says she wants to live in her grandparents' old place,” Leta answered, frowning a little. “The house is going to need work—but I suppose she already knows that, since she looked it over while she was here. Still, she probably doesn't realize how
much
work….”

His brother and mother were watching Gage as if preparing the house
and
the school was entirely up to him. “What are you looking at me for?” he demanded.

Kevin's gaze widened. “
Someone's
got to get the place ready for her to move in.”

“You're a member of the council, aren't you?” his mother added.

“Yes.” Gage rolled his eyes. For the sake of his sanity, he planned to keep his distance from this Southern belle. Worse, a Southern belle who was all keen to discover her “roots.” A woman who probably had sentimental ideas and foolish illusions about this place and these people. Nope, he thought again, she wouldn't last until Christmas.

He'd had a perfectly good day and wasn't about to let his family ruin it by loading unwanted obligations on his overburdened shoulders. He'd just opened his mouth to say that when the phone rang.

Kevin raced for it as if someone might beat him to it. “Hello.” A moment later, he turned and thrust the receiver at Gage. “It's for you.”

“Who is it?”

“Heath Quantrill.”

Gage wasn't excessively fond of the banker, but then his aversion was toward all bankers and not just Quantrill. In truth, he—along with just about everyone else in town—owed a great deal to Heath's grandparents, who'd founded Buffalo County Bank. The original bank had been in Buffalo Valley, and by the end of the sixties, there were branches in ten other towns and cities. While the other branches appeared to be thriving, the one in Buffalo Valley had to be operating at a loss. Gage suspected Lily Quantrill kept it open for nostalgic reasons. Her grandson had been managing it since last year, driving in from Grand Forks three days a week.

Rumor had it that Heath Quantrill wasn't happy in the banking business. It was his brother, Max, who'd been slated to take over the operation. Until recently Heath, the younger of the Quantrill grandsons, had spent his time gallivanting around the world, rushing from one thrill to the next. Heath had the reputation of a daredevil who took crazy chances with his life, but it was his brother, his staid older brother, who'd died.

“Hello, Heath,” Gage said.

“Glad I caught you,” Heath said, sounding anything but. “Did you hear about the teacher?”

“I heard. When does she arrive?”

“Three weeks.”

So soon? Gage could feel his gut tightening. It wouldn't be long before every unattached male within a fifty-mile radius would find an excuse to drop by the high school, hoping for a chance with the new teacher.

Let them, Gage decided abruptly.
He
wasn't interested.
He
had better things to do.

“Hassie asked me to contact the members of the council for an emergency meeting.”

“When?”

“Tonight at seven. Can you be there?”

Gage didn't feel he had a choice since he'd missed the last one. “Yes.” He didn't need to attend the meeting to know what it was about; Leta and Kevin had already told him. The entire town was going to turn itself inside out to welcome a woman who wouldn't last three months.

When he'd finished talking to Heath, Gage took a quick shower and changed his clothes.

“Dinner's ready,” his mother told him when he came downstairs.

The three of them sat down at the table, and after his mother had said grace she passed him the platter of fried chicken, one of his favorites. He hadn't taken his first bite before Kevin began to talk about school.

“Did you repair the chicken coop like I asked?” Gage broke in before the entire meal was ruined with talk of Lindsay Snyder.

“I did it this morning.” Kevin immediately returned to the subject of school. “Jessica and her friends are going to ask Miss Snyder about holding a dance. It's been years since the last one.”

Gage started to tell his brother exactly what he thought of that, when his mother interrupted him.

“I think it's a wonderful idea, Kevin.”

The boy glanced at Gage. “Before you ask, I mucked out Ranger's stall, too. And I've already fed the dogs.”

Gage nodded.

“Speaking of dogs, I heard the new teacher's got two of 'em.”

Gage nearly groaned. It didn't matter what the subject, his brother and mother would find a way to turn it back to Lindsay.

“What's for dessert?” Gage asked in one final attempt to talk about something else.

“Peach pie.”

Another of Gage's favorites. “Is this my birthday and someone forgot to tell me?” he asked. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and peach pie were what his mother generally made for special occasions.

“Not your birthday.” His mother blushed with happiness. “But certainly a day for celebration. Oh, Gage, why can't you be happy? We have a teacher, and she's going to bring a breath of fresh air to this community!”

 

Buffalo Bob Carr knew his luck had changed when he won the 3 OF A KIND in a poker game two years ago. He'd inherited five thousand dollars from his mother's estate; he'd been looking for a way to invest it and prove to himself, and his father, that he was more than a bum on a motorcycle. Then he'd won the entire business.

He'd been rolling through Buffalo Valley on his secondhand Harley when he met Dave Ertz, who was trying to sell the hotel, bar and restaurant, at that time known as The Prairie Palace. With no buyers in sight, Dave had held a poker game, charging a one-thousand-dollar entry fee. Winner take all. Four men had played, and Bob had won with three of a kind, hence the new name of the establishment.

The way Bob figured it, his momma would be real pleased to see him as a businessman. His old man had always claimed he'd never amount to much, and up to this point, he'd been right. But not anymore. Buffalo Bob, as he'd taken to calling himself, was a dignified entrepreneur.

Bob had taken the four thousand bucks left of his inheritance, ordered a brand-new neon sign, reupholstered the restaurant chairs, spruced up a few of the hotel rooms and opened his doors for business. It didn't take him long to discover why Dave Ertz had wanted out. Money was tight in the farming community, and folks didn't have a lot to spare. A night in town was considered a luxury. The truth was, he sold more beer than anything else. Thus far he was making ends meet, but only because he knew how to pinch his pennies. If nothing else, his years on the road had taught him frugality.

He didn't need a master's degree from a fancy business college to figure out that if the high school closed because they lacked a teacher, he might as well board up the place and ride out of town the same way he'd rolled in.

Then, the day before, the word had come. One of the women who'd been his guests two weeks ago had decided to take the job. God bless her!

Jokingly, Buffalo Bob had said he deserved the credit for Lindsay's decision to return to Buffalo Valley. Well, he figured he
was
partially responsible for this sudden reversal in the town's fortunes. He'd put the two women up in his best room and served them his special all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner.

That Saturday night had been one of his best financially. He'd recently picked up the karaoke machine from a restaurant in Cando that was going out of business. With Joshua McKenna's help, he'd managed to get it working. That was the day Joanie Wyatt had stopped in and gotten things started with a song from the Beatles' “Sgt. Pepper” album. Bob had sold more beer that one afternoon than the entire previous week. He'd sell more this coming weekend, too, now that folks around town had a reason to celebrate.

“What's the special tonight?” Merrily Benson asked, breaking into his thoughts. She was his one and only Buffalo Gal. He'd considered that a nice touch, calling his waitresses “Buffalo Gals.” Granted, Merrily was it, as far as staff went.

Buffalo Bob looked up from his desk and smiled at her. He'd come into his tiny, makeshift office first thing this morning to pay bills; now it was almost noon. Paying bills usually meant juggling bills—his suppliers, electricity, water. Taxes. And maintenance. He'd had Joshua over to fix the refrigerator unit the day before and the repair had eaten up most of the profit he'd made in the last couple of weeks. But he'd get by; he had before and he would again.

Dressed in her uniform with the rawhide fringe skirt and matching vest, Merrily looked like the real thing. Yup, his one and only Buffalo Gal—in every sense. Merrily and Bob were soul mates. He'd recognized it the minute she'd come into town and approached him about a job. He hadn't been any better off then. He was barely making ends meet, but he found he couldn't refuse Merrily. Even if it meant tightening his already uncomfortably tight belt.