Dakota Born

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.

Four

The 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?”