Perhaps it was because she was so tired or because she felt unsure of her future and the choices she’d made. Whatever the reason, Joanie walked over to the phone and dialed the Buffalo Valley number.
Brandon took his time answering.
“Hello, Brandon. It’s Joanie.”
His silence told her he wasn’t pleased to hear from her.
“I wanted—the kids keep raving about your chili. I thought you might be willing to share your recipe.” It was a flimsy excuse and it sounded even flimsier once she’d actually said the words.
“My chili recipe?”
“The kids—”
“I heard what you said,” he snapped. “I’m just having trouble making sense of it.”
“I can see this was a mistake. I’m sorry, Brandon, I won’t bother you again.” She was about to replace the receiver when he called her name.
“I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”
“All right,” she whispered.
“Who’s Jason?”
Her eyes flew open. “Who told you about Jason?”
“Ah,” he said, sounding almost friendly now. “You didn’t know I was that well-informed, did you?”
“No…”
“According to Stevie, you’re on a diet to impress your new boyfriend.”
“You interrogated your children about my activities?”
“No,” he said coldly. “Stevie volunteered the information.”
“And you believe I’m actually seeing some other man.” The idea was so ludicrous, she laughed out loud.
“What’s so damn funny?”
“You don’t have a clue, do you?” Her laughter mingled with tears. “Not a clue.”
“Apparently not.”
The sobs came in earnest now. “I couldn’t get a date if I wanted to.”
“Then who the hell’s Jason?”
“Jason,” she cried, laughing, weeping, hiccuping, feeling miserable and unloved, “is your unborn son. For your information, Brandon, I’m seven months pregnant.”
Nineteen
“You had to do it, didn’t you?” Gage shouted at Lindsay as he jumped out of his pickup. He slammed the truck door and stalked across the street to Lindsay’s house, where she’d just parked. Apparently he’d been waiting for her, and from the way he stormed toward her, he wasn’t in the best of moods.
Lindsay had already received one verbal harangue that day and wasn’t sure she was up to dealing with another. She raised her hand to stop him. “Can you tell me what’s wrong without yelling at me?” she asked.
“You mean you don’t know?”
“So you found out about me contacting Angela Kirkpatrick.” She should have anticipated this type of reaction from him. He’d been against it from the first.
“Who the hell is Angela Kirkpatrick?”
“Maybe you’d better come inside,” she said, resigning herself to his anger. At least if he yelled at her it would be in the privacy of her own home.
She led the way into her house and flopped down on the sofa, feeling discouraged and disheartened.
“Angela Kirkpatrick?” he reminded her, firmly shutting the front door.
“She’s…our aunt.”
Gage momentarily turned his back on her. “So you went ahead and found her?” he said, shaking his head in disgust.
Lindsay braved a nod. “Only…there was a screwup.” The best she could figure was that she’d put the wrong zip code on the letter. In any event, Angela hadn’t gotten it.
“She didn’t want to be found, did she?” His tone unmistakably said I told you so.
Lindsay stared down at her hands. “I did write her, but she claims she never got the letter.”
“You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”
“No, I couldn’t,” she told him boldly. Given the opportunity she’d contact Angela again.
He went silent for a moment. “You’d better tell me what happened.”
Lindsay wadded up a fresh tissue. “Like I said, I wrote her a letter and told her about my connection with her and about finding the locket and the letters. I remembered what you said about invading her privacy, so I gave her the option of not meeting me if she preferred.”
“Apparently you didn’t remember very well.”
Lindsay winced at the harshness of his words. “She answered the door and Gage, she has your eyes.” Lindsay paused as she recalled the surge of emotion she’d felt when she saw Angela Kirkpatrick. It had taken restraint not to hug her and tell her how thrilled she was to meet her. Thank heavens she hadn’t.
“That was the first thing I noticed about you—what incredible eyes you have.”
Gage ceased his pacing and glared at her in the same disquieting way Angela Kirkpatrick had.
“I assumed Angela wanted to meet me,” she said. “I thought she was eager to see the things I’d brought for her. I’d written that if she didn’t want the locket or the letters, she shouldn’t answer the door, and she had, so naturally I assumed—”
“She was about to welcome you with open arms.”
Lindsay shredded the tissue in her hands and bit her lower lip. “That’s what I thought at first, but as soon as I explained who I was and why I’d come, she got angry and started yelling and then her husband came and he asked me to leave.”
It would have been better if she’d taken his advice, but Lindsay was convinced that if she gave Angela a few minutes, she’d change her mind and want to see the locket and the letters. But as it turned out, not only did she have no interest in seeing them, she wanted nothing to do with Lindsay.
In the end, her husband had actually been rude in his efforts to get her to leave. Hurt and confused, Lindsay had sat in her car, shaking, wondering how everything could have gone so wrong. Now Gage had come to rub salt in her freshly inflicted wounds.
“Why couldn’t you just have sent her the letter? That was all you wanted, wasn’t it? To let Angela know about her birth parents, and pass on what information you had. You could have given her the option of responding if she wanted to.”
“That wouldn’t work,” Lindsay cried. “I thought about writing and leaving it at that, but I wanted to be sure she received my letter—which she claims she didn’t. If I hadn’t contacted her personally, I would never have known.”
Gage continued pacing, his steps short and clipped. “Now you know. Are you happy? You didn’t want to listen to me because you thought you knew what was best.”
“If I’d been born here, I would’ve known better, right?”
“That’s right,” he shouted. “Despite what I told you, despite the fact that Angela Kirkpatrick is related to me, too, you just went ahead and barged into an emotionally explosive situation. You didn’t even tell me—”
“You’d already made it quite clear how you felt.”
“I had a right to know, even if I happened to disagree with you.”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”
He shook his head as if her apology fell far short of appeasing him. “You just don’t get it.”
“Oh, no,” she said, fighting down a sob. “I got it—right between the eyes. Angela Kirkpatrick, her husband and everyone else in Bismarck need never worry about hearing from me again.”
“She’s entitled to her privacy. You were wrong, Lindsay.”
“Fine, I was wrong. How many times do I have to say it?”
“One more time,” he flared back. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone with Angela Kirkpatrick—or with Kevin.”
“Kevin? Is something wrong with Kevin?” He’d missed a couple of days of school, but then so had Bert Loomis, and she’d assumed Kevin was out with the same flu bug.
“You pressured him into applying for that scholarship.”
“I didn’t pressure him into anything.”
“You encouraged him.”
“Yes, I did. Do you have any idea how talented he is?”
“You strung that seventeen-year-old boy al
ong, not once considering the consequences of what you were doing.” He frowned heavily, as if what she’d done was despicable.
“He has a dream! Everyone’s got a dream.”
“But you had to go and plant the idea of leaving Buffalo Valley in his mind—going to some fancy art school. I’ve told you—neither his mother nor I can afford art school for Kevin. This town can’t afford to lose our young people, and you encouraged both.”
“But the scholarship—”
“He can’t do it, and now I’m the one who has to tell him that. Thank you very much, Lindsay Snyder.”
She felt the blood drain from her face.
“I know you came here with the best of intentions, but you don’t know us, you don’t know our ways and you certainly don’t know me and my brother. So kindly stay the hell out of our lives.”
He slammed out of the house with such force, the living-room windows shook. For a long time, Lindsay didn’t move. Even breathing was an effort. She’d say one thing for Gage Sinclair—his timing was impeccable.
After her confrontation with Angela Kirkpatrick, she’d been convinced she couldn’t feel any worse, but Gage had proved her wrong.
Brandon sat in the roadside café outside Fargo and nursed his coffee while he waited for Joanie. He hadn’t seen his wife in four months and he wasn’t sure what he’d feel once he did. Pride had carried him the first few weeks after she’d left, but eventually he’d found it damn poor company. He wanted his family back and prayed that this meeting would help bridge their differences.
When Brandon learned Joanie was pregnant, he’d been furious. Not that she was going to have a baby, but that she’d kept the pregnancy a secret from him. He’d thought about it a lot since she’d blurted out the news and figured it must have happened the night of their anniversary.
During the same conversation, he’d questioned her about being on the Pill. She’d started sobbing and admitted she hadn’t been as faithful about taking it as she should have been.
Obviously.
Brandon loved Sage and Stevie and certainly didn’t object to adding to their family, but what they had now wasn’t a cohesive unit. This separation had taught him a great deal about himself, and about Joanie, too. He was sure that living apart wasn’t what she wanted, either. He’d heard the pain in her voice. Sage and Stevie had repeatedly told him how unhappy their mother was.
A car door slammed in the parking lot and Brandon glanced out the window. A trim but obviously pregnant woman battled against the wind as she made her way toward the restaurant. Brandon didn’t need to look twice to recognize Joanie. He felt his chest tighten with dread; he couldn’t predict the outcome of this meeting, didn’t know if they could arrive at any agreement. He dragged a deep breath through his lungs as she entered the café.
Brandon immediately saw the toll the past four months had taken on her. She remained as beautiful as ever, but he saw the strain in her eyes. From her awkward movements, he could tell the pregnancy hadn’t been an easy one. Little wonder. The first two had been hard on her health, as well, but he’d always been there for her. Not this time. Maybe not even after today.
Once inside, Joanie walked over to his booth. “Hello, Brandon.”
He stood, nodding, stiff with politeness. “Joanie.” Motioning toward the seat on the opposite side of the booth, he invited her to sit down. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
“I know you’re angry—I should have told you about the baby.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Is it important?” she asked, her voice small and shaky.
“I happen to think so,” he returned, trying to hide his frustration.
The waitress approached their table and glanced doubtfully between the two of them, a coffeepot in her hand. She refilled Brandon’s mug; Joanie shook her head.
Joanie waited until the waitress had left before she spoke. “I always intended to tell you…I’m sorry. You had the right to know.”
He couldn’t live with Joanie all those years and not know the way she reasoned. “It’s because of the health insurance, isn’t it?” he asked.
She gazed down at the table. “That was part of it. And if you’re going to be angry with me for keeping secrets, keep in mind that you didn’t tell me our health insurance had lapsed.”
Brandon didn’t find those facts comparable to a pregnancy, but he hadn’t driven all this way to argue with his wife.
“All right,” he said, doing his best to stay calm. “Blaming each other isn’t going to solve anything. You’re going to have a baby.”
“That doesn’t change the situation.”
“The hell it doesn’t.” His voice had grown louder, and two or three people turned around and stared at him. “I might have my faults—all right, I’ll admit it, I can be a real bastard—but there’s one thing you can’t fault me on. I love my children.”
“It just happens to be their mother you don’t love.”
The agony he heard in her wrenched his heart. “Joanie, no…”
She reached for the paper napkin and dabbed her eyes and he could see she was angry with herself for letting the emotion get to her.
“You were the one who said if I left, you weren’t coming after me, remember? For all you cared, the kids and I could leave, and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference to you. Your family was about to walk out, and the most important thing to you was letting me know that once I left, I was on my own.”
He had said that. Not exactly in those words, but close. “I had a few lessons to learn,” he murmured. “If you want me to say it, I will. I should’ve fought like hell to keep you and the kids, but I’m willing to fight now. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“So have I,” she surprised him by saying. “I thought…Nothing’s working out the way I thought it would. The kids miss you and they’re hurting. I’m miserable.”
He jumped on it. “Does that mean you’d be willing to move back?”
Joanie dabbed her eyes again and offered him a trembling smile. “I’ve dreamed about you asking me to come home.”
“I’ve missed you, baby, you and the kids. Nothing’s right without you.”
“Don’t say any more,” she pleaded, shaking her head.
She was so pale, and he knew she was emotionally and physically stretched to the limit. He reached across the table for her hand, linking her fingers with his, squeezing tightly so she’d know how he felt.
The tears came in earnest then. “I can’t move back, Brandon. I can’t.”
Her rejection hit him hard, too hard to disguise its impact or to keep the hurt from his voice. “Why not?”
Joanie glanced out the window rather than meet his gaze. “Nothing’s changed except that you know I’m pregnant.”
“I love you, Joanie, and I love Sage and Stevie and baby Jason or Janey. Don’t take my children away from me.” He’d never thought he’d beg, but he’d learned how lonely life could get when a man was too proud to fight for his family. That was one mistake he wasn’t willing to make a second time.
“Brandon—” She struggled not to cry, which seemed to make it impossible for her to talk.
“Are you so happy here in Fargo?” he asked.
She sniffled. “Miserable. I told you that. I miss you and my friends and…my life.”
“Would it help if we slept in separate bedrooms?”
“No—because it wouldn’t be long before we were sleeping together again and then everything would be back the way it was before.”
“Was that so bad?”
“Yes. You were always angry and it was me you blamed.” Her fingers tightened around his.
Having exhausted everything else, Brandon knew he had no other option. There was only one way left to prove himself. Prove his love. “All right, Joanie, I’ll do it. First thing next week I’ll put the farm up for sale.”
“Oh, Brandon, no! That isn’t what I want, either. I thought it was, but I was wrong. You’d be even more mis
erable in the city than you are now.”
Brandon knew that, too, but he was willing to sacrifice everything if it meant holding on to his family. The farm meant nothing without Joanie and his children. He’d just spent four of the unhappiest months of his life, and two thousand acres of prime farmland had been damn little consolation.
“You could move back to Buffalo Valley,” he said, thinking out loud.
Joanie frowned.
“There’s plenty of empty houses, any one of which we could rent,” he added, the idea gaining momentum in his mind. “You don’t want to move back to the farm—okay, I can understand that. Maybe later you’ll want to, or during the summer. Right now that doesn’t matter. Give me a chance to prove myself to you and the kids. If you’re sincere about not wanting a divorce, then at least give me a chance to show you I am, too.”
“Move into town,” Joanie repeated slowly, seeming to test the idea by saying the words.
He squeezed her fingers again. “We can go out on dates the way we used to.”
A hint of a smile touched her beautiful eyes. “I have a good doctor here. I want to continue living in Fargo until after the baby’s born—and the school year’s finished.”
“All right.” He could stand another two months. That would give him the opportunity to find a decent house for Joanie and the kids and work out some kind of rental agreement.
“I’d like us to see a marriage counselor, too,” she said. “I know Father McGrath is officially retired, but he might be willing…”
He hesitated, although it wasn’t because he refused to attend counseling sessions. Other than Father McGrath, the closest thing Buffalo Valley had to a marriage counselor was Buffalo Bob, and somehow he didn’t think Joanie would be keen on discussing their marital difficulties in a bar. “Maybe someone in Grand Forks?” he suggested.
She nodded. “We’ll probably have to go that far.”
He could tell from the way she said it that she expected him to disagree. On the contrary. He was serious when he said he wanted to save their marriage, and in the next few months he was going to show her.
May 1st
Dear Maddy,