Only Mine

“Dakota,” Finn said dryly.

“Right. Her. Stick with her. She’s gotta make sure we don’t hurt her precious town.” Geoff rolled his eyes. “I swear, my next gig is going to be filming in the wilderness. Bears don’t have demands, you know? That’s a whole lot easier than this. So what do you say?”

What Finn wanted to say was no. He didn’t want to hang around while they filmed their reality show. He wanted his brothers back in college, and he wanted to return to South Salmon and get on with his life.

Standing between him and that was the fact that his brothers weren’t going to go home until this was over. His choices were to agree or walk away. If he walked away, how could he make sure Geoff and everyone else didn’t screw them?

“I’ll stay,” he said. “Fly you where you need to go.”

“Good. Talk to that Dakota chick. She’ll take care of you.”

Finn wondered how she would feel about him hanging around.

“Maybe the twins will be voted off early,” Geoff said, opening the trailer door and stepping inside.

“My luck’s not that good.”

DAKOTA WALKED to her mother’s house. The morning was still cool, with a bright blue sky and the mountains to the east. Spring had come right on time, so all the trees were thick with leaves, and daffodils, crocuses and tulips lined nearly every walkway. Although it was before ten, there were plenty of people out on the sidewalks, residents as well as tourists. Fool’s Gold was the kind of place where it was easier to walk to where you were going. The sidewalks were wide, and pedestrians always had the right of way.

She turned onto the street where she’d grown up. Her parents had bought the place shortly after they’d married. All six of their children had grown up here. Dakota had shared a room with her two sisters, the three of them preferring to live in the one bedroom through high school, even after their older brothers had moved out.

The windows had been replaced a couple of years ago, the roof a few years before that. The paint color was cream instead of green, the trees taller, but little else had changed. Even with all six kids out on their own, Denise still kept the house.

She walked around to the backyard. Her mother had said she would be spending much of the week working on the garden.

Sure enough, when she opened the gate, she found Denise Hendrix kneeling on a thick, yellow pad, digging vigorously. There were tattered remains of unworthy plants scattered on the grass by the flower beds. Her mother wore jeans, a Tinkerbell hoodie over a pink T-shirt and a big straw hat.

“Hi, Mom.”

Denise looked up and smiled. “Hi, honey. Was I expecting you?”

“No. I just stopped by.”

“Good.” Her mom stood and stretched. “I don’t get it. I cleaned up the garden last fall. Why do I have to clean it again in the spring? What exactly are my plants doing all winter? How can everything get so messy, so quickly?”

Dakota crossed to her mother and hugged her, then kissed her cheek. “You’re talking to the wrong person. I don’t do the garden thing.”

“None of you do. I obviously failed as a parent.” She sighed theatrically.

Denise had been a young bride to Ralph Hendrix. Theirs had been a case of love at first sight, followed by a very quick wedding. She’d had three boys in five years, followed by triplet girls. Dakota remembered a crowded house with plenty of laughter. They’d always been close, drawn more so by the death of their father nearly eleven years before.

Ralph’s unexpected passing had crushed Denise but not destroyed her. She’d pulled herself together—most likely for the sake of her children—and gone on with her life. She was pretty, vibrant and could pass for a woman in her early forties.

Now she led the way through the backdoor, into the kitchen. It had been remodeled a few years ago, but no matter how it looked, the bright open space was always the center of the home. Denise was nothing if not traditional.

“Maybe you should get a gardener,” Dakota said as she collected two glasses from the cupboard.

While her mother pulled out a pitcher of iced tea, Dakota filled the glasses with ice cubes, then checked the cookie jar. The smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies drifted to her. She tucked the ceramic ladybug container under one arm and made her way to the kitchen table.

“I would never trust a gardener,” Denise said, sitting across from her daughter. “I should plow the whole thing under and pour cement. That would be easy.”

“You’ve never been into easy. You love your flowers.”

“Most days.” She poured iced tea. “How’s the show going?”

“They announce the contestants tomorrow.”

Humor brightened her mother’s dark eyes. “Will we see you on the list?”

“Hardly. I wouldn’t have anything to do with them if Mayor Marsha hadn’t guilted me into agreeing.”

“We all have a civic responsibility.”

“I know. That’s why I’m doing the right thing. Couldn’t you have raised us not to care about others? That would have been better for me.”

“It’s ten weeks, Dakota. You’ll live.”

“Maybe, but I won’t like it.”

Her mother’s mouth twitched. “Ah, that maturity that always makes me so proud.”

The teasing was good, Dakota thought. Things were about to get a lot more serious.

She’d put off this conversation for several months now, but knew it was time to come clean. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep things a secret, it’s that she knew the truth would hurt her mother. And Denise had already been through enough.

Dakota took a cookie and put it on a napkin in front of her but didn’t taste it. “Mom, I have to tell you something.”

Nothing about Denise’s expression changed, yet Dakota felt her stiffen. “What?”

“I’m not sick or dying or going to be arrested.”

Dakota drew in a breath. She studied the placement of the chocolate chips, the rough edges of the cookie, because it was easier than looking at the one person who loved her best.

“You know at Christmas I talked about wanting to adopt?”

Her mother sighed. “Yes, and while I think it’s wonderful, it’s a little premature. How do you know you won’t find a wonderful man and get married and want to have kids the old-fashioned way?”

Material they’d been over a dozen times before, Dakota thought, knowing she only had herself to blame. Regardless of her mother’s opinion, she’d gone ahead with the paperwork and had already been vetted by the agency she’d chosen.

“You know my period has always been difficult for me,” she began. While her sisters sailed through “that time of the month,” Dakota had suffered from a lot of pain.

“Yes. We went to the doctor a few times about it.”

Their family doctor had always said everything was fine. He’d been wrong.

“Last fall things seemed to get worse. I went to my gynecologist and she did some testing.” Dakota finally raised her gaze and looked at her mother. “I have a form of polycystic ovarian syndrome and pelvic endometriosis.”

“What? I know what endometriosis is, but the other?” Her mother sounded worried.