“Can’t say I do.” A new car would have been cause for celebration in Buffalo Valley. The only person he could think of with enough money to squander on a car would be Heath Quantrill, but the banker wasn’t likely to park outside Hassie’s.
“My!” his mother exclaimed, “look how clean it is.”
Most folks didn’t bother to wash their vehicles more than once or twice a year, if that. No need to show off the rust. In any case, it was a waste of time, since a vehicle parked near a barn would be caked in mud again as soon as it was driven out of the yard.
Gage parked a few spaces away, not wanting to emphasize the contrast between his battered green truck and the shiny new Bronco. His diesel truck had turned over two hundred thousand miles last month. John had bought it shortly before Kevin was born, Gage remembered. It’d been used ever since.
Gage had hoped to replace it last autumn, but grain prices had been down, just like the year before and the year before that. He’d eke another six or eight months out of this old truck. He’d been holding on for the past ten years, so one more wasn’t going to make much difference. Thus far, whatever had failed he’d been able to repair, but that wasn’t always going to be the case.
Gage could hear Hassie talking up a storm even before they entered the pharmacy. One glance at the two women sitting at the soda fountain told him they were from the city. Some Southern city, he guessed, judging by the slight—and very attractive—drawl. Atlanta? New Orleans? Their skin was pale as winter wheat, and their clothes looked like they came out of a fashion magazine. Gage didn’t know anyone from Buffalo Valley who dressed in such bright colors. Both were young and pretty, and he couldn’t imagine what would bring them to Buffalo Valley.
“Leta…Gage.” Hassie greeted them both with enthusiastic fondness. “Come meet Lindsay Snyder and her friend Maddy Washburn. They’re visiting here from Savannah—imagine that! Lindsay is Anton and Gina’s granddaughter.”
Savannah. Yep, he’d guessed right. Close enough, anyway. Gage touched the rim of his cap and nodded in their direction. His mother reacted with characteristic pleasure and started chatting about old times and what a dear person Gina Snyder had been.
Seeing that he’d walked in on a hen party, Gage was eager to make his escape. He would have left immediately if not for Lindsay Snyder. He’d given her a perfunctory glance but noticed the way her gaze stayed on him. Their eyes met again and held. Seemingly embarrassed, she offered him a small, apologetic smile and looked away.
Gage quickly excused himself. “I’ll be over at Buffalo Bob’s,” he said as he hurried out the door. Getting his hair cut could wait; his mother could do it that night if it truly bothered her.
“Tell Bob he’s going to have guests tonight,” Hassie shouted after him, looking pleased with herself.
Gage didn’t think the two visitors would be eager to linger in this town, but he’d pass the word on to Buffalo Bob and leave it at that.
Brandon Wyatt sat in the bar off the restaurant in the 3 OF A KIND, and Gage climbed onto the stool next to his friend and neighbor. The place was dim and mercifully cool, and he could hear Garth Brooks in the background.
“Get you a beer?” Buffalo Bob asked him.
Gage nodded. Bob—ex-biker and now the owner of this establishment—was the only man Gage knew who wore his hair in a ponytail. For that matter, he wore a black leather vest year-round. Still had a Harley, too.
“Howdy, neighbor,” Gage said to Brandon.
Brandon glanced over at him. “Good to see you.”
“You, too,” Gage said. He’d known Brandon his entire life. Their properties adjoined each other and they’d shared just about everything farmers do over the years.
“How’re Joanie and the kids?” Gage asked, raising the cold beer bottle to his lips. He hadn’t seen Brandon for some time. Joanie used to stop at the farmhouse once a week or so, but come to think of it, Gage hadn’t seen her in a while, either.
“Everyone’s fine.”
It was the clipped way Brandon said it that alerted Gage to trouble. He stared at his friend and wondered if he should ask. He decided against it. Brandon would come to him if he wanted advice, which he seldom did. That wasn’t how they did things. They were independent men who mostly kept their own counsel. As far as friends went, Brandon was about the closest one Gage had, but they rarely spoke, rarely spent time together. If he needed anything, though, he could count on Brandon, just like his neighbor could count on him.
They’d gotten together more often before Brandon married Joanie, but that had been eight or nine years ago. Brandon had gone to Fargo to buy a new tractor and the following weekend had found an excuse to return to the city. Soon he was spending as much time there as he was on his own farm. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out there was a woman involved. Within the year, Joanie and Brandon were married. A daughter and son followed soon after, a little more than two years apart. They were eight and six if he remembered right. Cute kids.
Gage didn’t know Joanie all that well, but from remarks his mother let drop, he suspected she hadn’t made the transition to farm life as easily as the couple had hoped. Life on a North Dakota farm could get desperately lonely for women, especially in the winter months when it wasn’t unheard-of to go two or three weeks without even leaving the house. Women, especially women not born to this life, seemed to think that sounded romantic until they experienced it themselves.
Gage’s mind wandered away from Brandon and Joanie to the two women visiting at Hassie’s. Both seemed vibrant and full of energy. He’d have to be a dead man not to notice. Over the years, Gage had given some thought to marriage but time and opportunity had worked against him. It wasn’t like single women were exactly plentiful around here.
He had to be realistic, and his chances of meeting someone in Buffalo Valley were slim to none. All that meant was that he had to venture farther afield. He had to be realistic in other ways, too. He wasn’t going to appear on any of those he-man calendars, but he was fairly good-looking. He possessed a strong work ethic and had a powerful sense of what was important. True, he was responsible for his mother and Kevin, but if he did find a woman willing to marry him, he’d take the necessary steps to care for their needs and see to his own and his wife’s, as well.
As far as he knew, there were only three eligible women in the vicinity and he’d known them his entire life. Sarah Stern—used to be McKenna—was one, but she had something going with Dennis Urlacher and that put her off-limits. Margaret Clemens was the second possibility. She was a rancher, and she worked the land with her father. The Clemens family had one of the most prosperous herds in the state on their Triple C spread.
Margaret was complicated, though. She might be a woman, but she’d never dressed or acted like one. He wouldn’t be surprised to find out that she cursed and chewed right along with the hired hands.
The last was Rachel Fischer, a widow with a ten-year-old son. He’d given some serious thought to asking her out, but while he liked her—admired her, even—he didn’t feel any strong attraction toward her. Of the three women, he liked Rachel best and respected her for staying in Buffalo Valley when her parents had closed down their restaurant and moved south. Her husband had died of leukemia when the boy was about six. Her parents had helped as much as they could, but money had been tight and gotten tighter. Gage knew she’d been tempted to leave with them, but for the sake of her son, she’d remained in town, thinking he’d had enough trauma and disruption in his young life without being uprooted from everything familiar. A decision that took courage.
The fact was, not one of those women really appealed to him physically, and if he was going to all the effort of seeking one out, he should feel something.
He believed that when he did meet the right woman he’d know, but at thirty-five, Gage suspected it might be too late.
“Who’s that over at Hassie’s?” Buffalo Bob asked. He’d tossed a dish towel over his shoulder and eyed the Bronco par
ked across the street.
“Anton and Gina Snyder’s granddaughter. She’s in town with a friend,” Gage told him. “They used to live here, the Snyders. Hassie seems to think the ladies’ll put up here for the night.”
That information cheered Buffalo Bob. “Great, I could use the business.”
Gage suspected they’d be among the few guests the hotel had all summer. “She going to be the new teacher?” Buffalo Bob asked next.
The thought hadn’t occurred to Gage. “I doubt it.”
With a morose and uncommunicative Brandon Wyatt sitting next to him, Gage finished off his beer and ordered a second. Again and again, his gaze was drawn across the street.
A couple of times he thought he heard the sound of women’s laughter coming from Hassie’s, but he could have imagined it. His imagination seemed to have shifted into overdrive, and his head was filled with thoughts of Lindsay Snyder. He couldn’t recall the other woman’s name now.
Lindsay’s blue eyes had sparkled with laughter and during those few seconds they’d stared at each other, he could almost feel the joy bubbling just beneath the surface. Within those few seconds he’d recognized that she was someone he’d like to know better. But there was no reason for her to stay; by morning she’d be back on the road.
A deep loneliness came over him. Gage had experienced it before; and life had taught him that, given time, it would pass. Life had taught him something else, too. The land demanded a farmer’s first allegiance and wouldn’t lightly accept his sharing that love and loyalty with another. This was a lesson Brandon was only now beginning to understand, and Gage intended to learn from his neighbor’s mistakes.
Joanie Wyatt sat alone in the darkened room. She hadn’t meant to fight with her husband. The truth was, she’d been hoping for a romantic afternoon—just the two of them. The grandfather clock chimed midnight, the sound as bleak as her thoughts. It was useless to try to sleep. Not that their disagreement seemed to bother Brandon, who’d been asleep for nearly two hours.
She’d asked him to come into town with her. It was a small thing, but they had almost no time alone these days. Sage and Stevie were attending Billy Nobel’s birthday party in Bellmont, which gave them a rare free afternoon. She’d been the one to suggest they buy groceries and then stop at Buffalo Bob’s for a beer.
All either of them did these days was work. Joanie had planted a huge, ambitious garden, and found herself spending hours every day looking after it. What had started as an experiment, a pleasure, had developed over the years into a necessity and now a chore. It made sense to raise as much of their own food as possible, seeing that they had the land. Then there was Princess to milk and chickens to feed and in the past year they’d added pigs. Thankfully Brandon did the butchering, but the care of the animals had become part of her duties.
The animals tied them to the farm, so it was unusual to get away for more than a few hours. In the last four or five years, Joanie had come to feel isolated, to doubt her own sanity and lately her femininity, her attractiveness. It’d been weeks since they’d last made love, weeks since they’d done anything but fall into bed at the end of the day, too exhausted to even kiss. Whatever romance had existed in their marriage now seemed dead.
Their argument that afternoon had started out as an innocent conversation on the drive into town, a mere mention of the washing machine, which was about to give up the ghost.
“We can’t afford a new one,” Brandon had snapped.
Her mistake, Joanie realized, was mentioning the two-hundred-thousand-dollar combine Brandon had purchased two years earlier. They couldn’t afford an eight-hundred-dollar washing machine, but forking over six figures for a combine was done without blinking twice.
That remark had sent their afternoon on a downward spiral. By the time they reached town, she’d walked over to Hansen’s Grocery on her own while Brandon headed for Buffalo Bob’s. He’d had three beers before she joined him.
Despite his sullen demeanor, Joanie had tried to make the best of the situation. Hoping to put the argument behind them, she’d asked Buffalo Bob about the karaoke machine he’d recently purchased. He’d been eager to have someone try it out and so, with everyone watching, Joanie had gotten up to sing an old Beatles song. Her singing voice was halfway decent and she’d earned a hearty round of applause. Soon others, their inhibitions no doubt loosened by several beers, were taking their turns, and Buffalo Bob had thanked her for getting things rolling.
Then, on the drive home, Brandon had accused her of flirting.
“With whom?” she’d cried.
He’d been silent for a long moment before he said, “Buffalo Bob.”
The idea was ludicrous and she didn’t know whether to laugh or act insulted. Instead of doing either, she said nothing. When they got home, Brandon had stormed off to the barn and she’d left almost immediately to pick up the kids.
Her appetite was dismal and the kids were filled up on excitement and birthday cake, so she’d just made a chef’s salad for dinner. Brandon had taken one look at it and claimed he wasn’t hungry. Joanie had sat at the dinner table alone with her children.
“Is Daddy mad?” Sage asked. Her daughter had always been sensitive to her parents’ moods.
“Of course not, sweetheart,” she’d assured her, wanting to lay the eight-year-old’s fears to rest.
“How come he isn’t eating dinner with us?”
“Well, because…” Joanie groped for a believable excuse. “Because we went into town while you were at the birthday party and had a little party of our own.”
The excuse satisfied their son, who’d shown only minor concern over Brandon’s absence from the dinner table, but Sage didn’t look convinced. “Maybe I should make Daddy a sandwich and take it out to him.”
“If he wants something to eat, he’ll say so,” Joanie insisted. She wasn’t going to pander to Brandon’s moods, and she wasn’t about to let their daughter fall into that trap, either. Joanie felt she’d put together a perfectly good salad, and if he wanted something else, he could damn well cook it himself.
After dinner, the kids watched a favorite Disney video. By nine they were ready for bed, tired out from the day’s activity. Joanie tucked them in, listened to their prayers and came back downstairs.
Brandon sat in front of the television. His gaze didn’t waver from the screen when she entered the room. The show was a rerun of Walker, Texas Ranger and she didn’t want to waste her evening sitting with an embittered husband watching a show she’d already seen.
Without a word she’d set up her sewing machine on the kitchen table, intent on making her daughter a new dress for church. It was a hundred-mile round trip to the closest church. A priest came to Buffalo once every two weeks to say Mass, but Joanie wasn’t Catholic. Brandon had stopped attending services with her three years earlier, so she made the long drive alone with the kids. Her husband had given up doing a lot of the things she considered important, another sign of the growing discontent in their marriage.
As she worked, Joanie had brooded, alternating between resentment and despair. She deftly ran the flowery fabric beneath the frantic needle, but the task didn’t calm her, the way it usually did. This sewing machine had once belonged to her mother. Joanie had inherited it when her mother purchased a newer model, but God help her if she were to hint at buying a new sewing machine. Look what had happened when she’d asked about a washer.
At ten, Brandon had wandered into the kitchen, glanced around, said nothing, then gone up to bed. It didn’t take Joanie long to follow. She waited until the room was dark before she climbed beneath the sheets.
Brandon lay next to her, as cold and silent as a corpse.
“I’m sorry about this afternoon,” she whispered, staring up at the ceiling.
He didn’t say anything for long minutes, then finally, “Me, too.”
“What’s happening to us?” she asked, her heart breaking. At one time they’d been so much in love. Neither of them would h
ave allowed anything—a disagreement, a misunderstanding—to come between them. But these days they almost seemed to invent excuses to argue.
Their courtship had been wildly romantic, but even then her mother had seen problems looming. When Joanie announced that she wanted to marry Brandon, her parents had advised against it. As a result, Brandon had never gotten on well with her family. Her parents didn’t dislike him, but he chose to believe otherwise. If she wanted to spend holidays with her mother and father, she and the children went alone.
“I guess your parents were right,” he mumbled in the dark.
“What do you mean by that?” she demanded, angered by the comment. She wanted to end this tension, not heighten it. Brandon couldn’t seem to let their disagreement drop, and it annoyed her.
“You’d have done better marrying Stan Simmons, like your mother wanted. He could buy you ten washing machines if you asked. Hell, he’d take them off the showroom floor and not miss a single one.”
“I wasn’t in love with him. As it happens, I fell in love with you. As for those washing machines, I don’t need ten. Five will do.” She expected Brandon would chuckle, roll over and hug her, but he didn’t. “That was a joke,” she said.
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you laugh?”
Brandon sighed. “The answer should be obvious.”
“Apparently not.”
“Okay, if I have to say it, I will. I didn’t happen to find your little joke all that amusing.”
Joanie swallowed a groan, wondering why she even tried. “You’re impossible.”
“Yeah—and not only that, I drive a two-hundred-thousand-dollar combine.” He abruptly rolled onto his side and jerked the covers over his shoulder.
Joanie waited until she was sure he’d fallen asleep before she slipped out of the bedroom and walked into the living room. For two hours she sat alone in the dark and listened to the chime of the grandfather clock every fifteen minutes. Eleven. Quarter after eleven. Eleven-thirty. This was her life, she told herself. Her life that was disappearing.