Dakota Born

  Six

  Brandon hadn’t mentioned their anniversary all day. They’d been married ten years, and he’d apparently forgotten. That hurt. Joanie did her best to pretend it didn’t matter, but it did. She didn’t want to fight. Not today. Not when it seemed that all they did anymore was fight.

  They didn’t usually have loud arguments the way some couples did, with angry words and slamming doors. Instead they ignored each other. They were infinitely polite when they did have to speak, and both made an effort to avoid doing or saying anything that would distress their children. Sage, at eight, seemed the most perceptive of the undercurrents. Joanie wanted to spare her daughter and son their parents’ unhappiness.

  Actually, Brandon’s forgetting their anniversary shouldn’t have surprised her. He hadn’t remembered her birthday last March, either. At Christmas he’d given her a token bottle of cologne, the same scent he’d bought the year before. She half suspected he’d purchased two bottles at a discount and saved the second for the following Christmas.

  With the kids anxious for the start of school on Monday morning, Joanie spent the day in town picking up the necessary supplies of paper and crayons and lunch bags and a thermos for Stevie. When she returned home, she started dinner, determined to make it a special evening despite her husband’s forgetfulness.

  At six that evening, Brandon came in from the fields. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.

  “Steak.”

  “We celebrating anything special?”

  “It’s our anniversary,” she said, putting on a brave smile. “I baked your favorite coconut cake this morning and picked up a couple of frozen entrées for the kids. I thought we might have dinner together tonight, just the two of us.”

  “How long we been married now?” Brandon asked, opening the refrigerator and pulling out a jug of iced tea. Despite years of her complaining, he drank directly from the pitcher, guzzling the liquid.

  “Ten years,” she told him. The fact that he had to ask was indicative of the problems in their marriage, she thought wryly. “Your parents mailed us a card. I put it on the buffet.” The Wyatts had retired to Arizona, in the same town—a suburb of Phoenix—as Rachel’s parents. The payments Brandon made on the land were the bulk of their retirement income.

  She didn’t mention that they’d gotten a card from her parents, too, because any mention of them could lead to a disagreement. If he looked at the one card, he’d see the other for himself.

  “Ten years?” Brandon repeated. “Has it really been that long?”

  Busy tossing the salad greens, picked fresh from the garden, Joanie answered with a nod. The most profound years of her life, she mused. In some ways the happiest, in others the hardest. In retrospect she realized she’d romanticized life on a farm and had come into this marriage an innocent. Completely naive. It didn’t help that she’d married a man who was as stubborn as they came. When she grew discouraged and depressed, Brandon threw the fact that she was a city girl in her face, as if to discount her years with him. Lately, she had to force herself to remember why she’d fallen in love with Brandon, and search for ways to recapture what they’d lost. But she seemed to be the only one who was trying….

  Microwave dinners were a rare treat for Sage and Stevie, and they wolfed them down, then ran outside to play. While Brandon showered, Joanie set the kitchen table with their best china and silverware. Her husband might not appreciate her efforts, but she was determined to make this evening as special as she could.

  Brandon didn’t comment when he saw the table, but he lit the candles without her having to suggest it.

  “Would you open the wine?” she asked, carrying the salad to the table.

  “We have wine?”

  She handed him the bottle she’d picked up in town from Buffalo Bob. He sold a small supply of wine and bottled liquor and had helped her choose a nice mellow merlot.

  “I guess I should’ve taken you out to dinner,” Brandon said as she began to fry the two steaks. Their barbecue had broken last summer and hadn’t been replaced. “But why pay good money when you cook better than anyone?”

  It was a compliment, she supposed, although she would have relished a night away from the kitchen.

  Dinner went well. They tried to celebrate, make the most of an intimate romantic dinner. Three times the kids raced into the house for one reason or another, but Brandon shooed them back outside with a gruff command.

  When they’d finished eating, Joanie took the dirty dishes to the sink and Brandon wandered out to the yard. Clutching the edge of the sink, Joanie closed her eyes and tried not to cry. They’d lost something vital and she didn’t know how to get it back. When she tried to talk to him about it, Brandon told her he was perfectly happy and if she wasn’t, then the problem was hers.

  “Joanie,” Brandon called her from outside.

  She brushed her hand across her cheeks and walked to the door.

  “Joanie, could you come here a minute?” Brandon called again. “In the barn.”

  She hesitated, then opened the screen door and headed across the yard, unable to fathom what was so important in the barn.

  The kids were there with Brandon, standing by the pickup, jumping up and down. Sage had her hands over her mouth and Stevie was smiling like there was no tomorrow. Brandon, too.

  “Happy Anniversary, sweetheart,” her husband told her and stepped aside.

  There, in all their glory on the bed of his truck, were a brand-new washer and dryer. Joanie stared at those beautiful white appliances and was stunned into speechlessness.

  “Say something, Mom,” Sage cried.

  “Oh, Brandon.” She fell into her husband’s arms, sobbing with happiness.

  Brandon wrapped his arms around her and hugged her, whispering how much he loved her.

  Joanie didn’t think one person could hold this much joy. Moments earlier, she’d been feeling sorry for herself, convinced that she was unloved and unappreciated. Then Brandon did something this wonderful.

  “Why’s Mom crying?” Stevie asked his sister.

  “Because she’s happy, stupid,” Sage answered.

  “Don’t call your brother stupid,” Brandon scolded her.

  Laughing and crying at the same time, Joanie spread light, watery kisses over her husband’s face. It seemed impossible that he’d been able to keep the gift a secret.

  “We knew last week,” Sage told her, then smugly added, “And we didn’t say a word.”

  “I’m proud of you both.” Joanie broke away from Brandon long enough to hug both her children.

  “While you were shopping this afternoon, I drove over to Grand Forks and picked them up,” he explained before she could ask when and how.

  “They’re beautiful.” She ran her hand over the shiny new surfaces. “A dryer, too?”

  “Figured I might as well go for broke. We were gonna need a new one soon enough.”

  “Oh, Brandon.” She kissed him again. “It’s the most beautiful washer and dryer I’ve ever seen.”

  “Top of the line, too.”

  “Oh, honey, I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it.”

  “Gage said he’d come over one day next week to help me hook them up.”

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks and offered him a teary smile. “I thought you’d forgotten our anniversary.”

  Grinning, he brought her back into his arms. “I love you, Joanie.”

  “And I love you.”

  “Are you and Mom going to get all mushy again?” Stevie asked, covering his eyes.

  Brandon laughed. “You two did good,” he told the kids, and they raced out of the barn.

  With his arm around her, Brandon walked Joanie to the house. When he reached the porch steps, he paused and jiggled his eyebrows, a long-ago signal that he was in the mood for lovemaking. She threw her arms around his neck and aimed her lips toward his ear to whisper. “Hold on, fellow, because you know what? It’s going to be worth waiting for.”

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p; Brandon laughed boisterously, and taking her by the waist, swung her around.

  The rest of the night reminded her of the way it was when they were first married. The anticipation. That simmering excitement. Several times they exchanged knowing looks and Brandon did his best to steer the kids to bed early but with little success. At nine, both Sage and Stevie were finally upstairs and the noise level dropped considerably.

  “Alone at last,” Brandon whispered from behind her while she finished the last of the dishes. He slid his arms around her waist and moved his hands up inside her blouse. His sigh was audible when he encountered her bare breasts. Their weight filled his hands. Brandon had always loved her breasts and she loved the way his hands fit over them, the way her nipples responded to his touch.

  “When did you take off your bra?” he whispered close to her ear, sounding almost drunk with desire.

  “When I got home from town. I was too hot.” She often did these days, especially in the hottest part of the afternoon. Until now he hadn’t noticed or cared.

  “Oh, baby,” he whispered. She could feel his arousal and sighed with longing. It’d been more than six weeks since they’d last made love. It seemed like a lifetime ago and she’d missed the intimacy, missed the closeness.

  “I love you so much,” he crooned, turning her in his arms.

  Their kiss was explosive and it didn’t take them long to move from the kitchen, turning off the lights as they progressed into the bedroom.

  “Now, what was that you mentioned earlier,” Brandon teased. “About something worth waiting for…”

  Joanie giggled and crawled onto the bed. “Come over here, and I’ll show you.” She didn’t need to issue a second invitation. Brandon slipped out of his clothes in record time.

  Like their kisses had been earlier, their lovemaking was volatile. And wonderful. Afterward, Joanie lay in his arms, too happy to sleep, her head on her husband’s shoulder.

  “If I’d known this was my reward, I’d have bought you that washer and dryer a whole lot sooner.”

  “Oh, Brandon.” Twisting her head, she nibbled on his earlobe. “You don’t need to buy me anything in order to make love to me. I’m your wife.”

  His arm tightened across her back. “It’s going to get better, baby, I promise. Both kids are going to be in school full-time this year, and you won’t be so tied to the house.”

  Joanie had thought about that a lot. “Would you mind if I took a part-time job?” She knew Peggy Stablehaus was looking for shorter hours at the bank, and Joanie had some banking experience. When she met Brandon she’d been working as a teller.

  “You can do whatever you like. All I want is for you to be happy.”

  “I am happy.” And she was. She loved her husband, and her children, and despite what Brandon assumed, she loved the farm. Their life together wasn’t what she’d expected, but as long as they had each other, she could cope. As long as they had this love, this passion, she could survive the tough times. Living from year to year, praying for good prices for their crops was an emotional drain. As was watching her husband pour his life’s blood into the land, each year making less and less profit from his backbreaking labor. Yet despite the hardships and the uncertainty, she was content to be his wife and the mother of his children.

  “I love you,” she whispered sleepily, kissing his jaw, “and I’m proud to be your wife.”

  He rubbed his chin against her hair and covered her with the thin, cotton sheet. Joanie had rarely known such love and contentment as she did right that moment.

  Lindsay knew she was in over her head the minute her twelve students filed into the one-room schoolhouse. The first to walk in was Calla Stern. If Lindsay hadn’t known better, she would’ve thought she’d taken over an inner-city class. Calla wore black army boots and black everything else. She had her nose pierced and her hair spiked. Everything about her spoke of attitude, most of it bad.

  Gage’s brother, Kevin, followed Calla with his arm tightly wrapped around a girl who was even blonder than he was and a head shorter. They selected their desks across from each other and shoved them close together.

  Two boys roared in behind the lovebirds, arguing heatedly as they elbowed each other at the door. These were the infamous Loomis twins, Larry and Bert. Lindsay had met them soon after her arrival and heard horror stories about them from almost everyone in Buffalo Valley. The twins lived in Bellmont and rode the school bus into town. She was grateful they were fraternal twins and not identical. That, at least, diminished the potential for confusion—and mischief.

  Since Larry and Bert couldn’t agree on anything, Lindsay foolishly suggested they sit at opposite sides of the room. The boys vehemently disagreed. They’d sat next to each other their entire school lives and weren’t about to let an upstart city teacher separate them now.

  Her day had gone downhill after that. By three-thirty, when school was dismissed, Lindsay was so tired she barely had the energy to walk home. Her first inclination was just to fall into bed and cuddle up with her dogs at her feet and sleep until morning. She’d had no idea teaching would be this physically and mentally exhausting. One day in the classroom, and she was convinced America’s teaching professionals were grossly underappreciated, not to mention underpaid.

  Instead of barricading herself inside her house, she decided to visit Hassie at the pharmacy. Lindsay was badly in need of some inspiration. Gage Sinclair had predicted she wouldn’t last beyond the first snowstorm; the way she felt just then, she wouldn’t last till the end of the week.

  “Looks like you could use one of my extra-thick, extra-rich chocolate sodas,” Hassie said immediately.

  “What I need is a hot toddy and a bottle of aspirin.”

  Hassie laughed amiably and made her way to the counter. She automatically reached for the ice-cream scoop while Lindsay climbed onto a stool and slouched forward.

  “That rough, was it?”

  “Worse.”

  “The Loomis twins are a handful.”

  That was the understatement of the century. “I’ve arrived at one profound conclusion,” Lindsay said, propping her elbows on the counter and, with an effort, lifting her head. “The classroom is not meant to be a democracy. After today, it’s a dictatorship. I don’t know what I was thinking. Hassie, I feel as though I’m drowning, and it’s either sink or swim.”

  “You’ll do just fine. If you want, I’ll stop by tomorrow and give those little hellions a chemistry lesson they won’t soon forget.”

  “I’ve got you scheduled for next week. Joshua McKenna agreed to speak this Friday. And I think his son Jeb will come in a couple of weeks—although Sarah said not to count on him.” She hadn’t heard from Gage, but had taken the liberty of putting his name down for a lecture on honeybees later in the quarter.

  “Anyone else volunteered?”

  “Gage—well, sort of.”

  Hassie set the fizzing soda in front of her. “Speaking of Gage, it seems the two of you are getting along famously.”

  Lindsay went still, wondering if Hassie had seen her and Gage kissing on her front porch Saturday night. “He stopped by—”

  “I saw his truck parked outside your place—not once but twice.”

  “He…came to apologize.”

  Hassie chuckled. “That boy has more style than I gave him credit for.”

  “You—saw?” Heat rushed to her cheeks. Lindsay had no reason to be embarrassed, but Hassie was the only person in town who knew about Monte.

  “My goodness, Gage had you practically bent in half. I had no idea the boy could kiss like that.”

  Lindsay would rather not discuss the incident, but now that Hassie had brought up the subject, she couldn’t ignore it. “I know what you saw, Hassie, but it wasn’t the way it looked.”

  Striking a relaxed pose, Hassie leaned forward on her crossed arms. “You don’t have to explain a thing to me. Gage is a fine man. You’re both young and if you were to become romantically involved—”

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nbsp; “We’re not romantically involved.” That was definitely a path Lindsay intended to avoid. She was healing from one relationship and wouldn’t immediately immerse herself in another.

  “Gage Sinclair is a good man.”

  “I’m sure he is, but I’m not interested.”

  Doing a poor job of disguising a smile, Hassie grabbed a rag and wiped down the counter. “Don’t be so quick to make a decision,” she said. “I don’t know what would have happened to Leta and Kevin if Gage hadn’t taken over the farm after John died. Nice man, John Betts, but not much with finances. He was up to his neck in debt when he passed on. So instead of buying and working his own land, Gage took over the farm and he’s the sole support of his mother and half brother.”

  Despite what she’d said, Lindsay was curious about Gage. “He was born here?”

  Hassie nodded. “Leta was a widow for almost ten years before she met and married John. Gage was about thirteen or fourteen at the time. He went into the Army as soon as he graduated from high school. The military seeks out farm boys, figuring they know how to work hard and don’t have a problem following orders. He stayed in the Army for several years, then he went away to school for a while. When he returned, he started working the farm with John. He was looking for acreage of his own when John died.”

  “He’s never been—” Lindsay stopped, unsure she should be asking these questions. Not that she was afraid of what Hassie thought, but because she herself might start thinking of Gage in terms that wouldn’t be good for either of them. Despite her claim that their kisses meant nothing, Lindsay had trouble suppressing the memory. In her entire life, she’d never been kissed like that.

  “Gage Sinclair would make you one hell of a husband.”

  “Hassie! The kiss was nothing. He—came to apologize.”

  “Twice?”

  “Yes. We seemed to have started off on the wrong foot and—”

  “You two were doin’ some pretty fancy footwork when I saw you.” Hassie laughed, looking pleased.

  Lindsay could see it would do no good to argue. This tendency to discuss everyone else’s business was part of living in a small town—something her father had warned her about. People felt they had the right to know and comment on whatever you did; there wasn’t a lot of privacy. It’d been foolish to let Gage kiss her on the front porch where someone was likely to see them.