Dakota Home. Debbie Macomber
Dennis was thirty and wanted a wife and children. He’d given Sarah four years and she hadn’t changed her mind, and after all this time, it wasn’t likely she would.
“I want to get married,” he said. “She doesn’t.” Sarah’s excuses had disappeared but the real reason hadn’t changed. Calla. It was always Calla. The kid had been a real pain. Calla had gone out of her way to let Dennis know she didn’t want anything to do with him. She resented the fact that her mother was obviously interested in him.
“You talk to Calla much?” Bob asked.
He shook his head. The teenager lashed out at him every single time he made an effort. She clearly considered him a threat and refused to accept him, no matter what he said or did.
“Hmm.” Buffalo Bob rubbed the side of his face. “You find a way to smooth things over with Calla, and my guess is Sarah will marry you.”
As God was his witness, Dennis had tried. Tiredly, he pointed that out.
Instead of leaving Dennis to eat his meal in peace, Buffalo Bob swung a chair around and straddled it. “If that’s the case, then why aren’t you doing more? It took you quite a while to get Sarah’s attention, didn’t it? What makes you think it’s going to be any easier with her daughter?”
“I guess you’re right… She’s not a bad kid, you know,” Dennis muttered, thinking out loud.
“I do know,” Buffalo Bob said, grinning. “I’ve talked to her a few times.”
“You have?” This was news to Dennis.
“Yeah. Remember that Sweetheart Dance the high-school kids put on last February? Calla was in charge of selecting the music, and her and me got on real well.”
Buffalo Bob’s news didn’t encourage Dennis. He’d tried to win over Calla, but every attempt had been met with attitude, all of it bad. She made it plain she wanted nothing to do with him. The fact that she’d been friendly to Buffalo Bob cut deeper than Dennis wanted to analyze.
It was dark by the time he returned to his home on the outskirts of town. Still feeling discouraged, he pulled into the yard. Through the narrow beam of his headlights he thought he saw a shadowed figure standing beneath the willow tree in front. His heart raced with the hope that it might be Sarah, but she rarely came to the house, and never on her own.
He parked, then looked again and saw nothing. A figment of his imagination, he decided. He’d just stepped inside the house and flicked on the lights when he remembered he’d left his mail in the truck. He turned back, opening the door. To his amazement he discovered Sarah standing on the porch.
“Sarah.” Her whispered name caught in his throat.
She flattened her palm against the screen door, and he saw tears glistening in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, reaching for her, urging her inside.
She shook her head and stepped back.
Dennis moved onto the porch with her.
Wiping her cheeks, she stood on the top step, as if ready to take flight. “I shouldn’t be here,” she murmured.
He longed to tell her this was where she belonged, where she’d always belonged, but realized that if he did, she would simply walk away. “What happened?” he asked, coming to stand at her side, not touching her.
She shook her head again. Then she raised her eyes and looked directly at him. She seemed about to make some statement, but when their eyes met, hers softened and she lowered her lashes and bit her lower lip.
“Don’t love me, Dennis. Please… don’t love me.”
He almost laughed. “Do you think I can stop?”
“Yes…”
He did laugh then, but quietly. “I’ve loved you for so long, I wouldn’t know how not to.” He’d hardly ever seen Sarah weep, and her tears unnerved him. He desperately wanted to comfort her, pull her into his arms and assure her he could fix whatever was wrong, but he knew she wouldn’t allow that.
Taking her hand, he wrapped his fingers around hers and drew her inside the house. At first she resisted, but then, sighing, she followed him. No sooner had they walked in than he turned her into his arms. They kissed, and as his mouth worked on hers, he unfastened the buttons of her blouse until he’d opened it enough to reveal her breasts.
“Dennis…” she objected, her voice trembling.
“Shh,” he whispered huskily.
She buried her face in his shoulder, her own hands busy unbuttoning his shirt. “I didn’t come here to make love.”
Once again, he knew better than to argue; he also understood, even if she didn’t, that making love was exactly why she’d come. Dennis didn’t care. He loved Sarah, and if all she sought was a few moments of shared passion, then fine. He’d swallow his pride and offer her a small part of his soul, as well as his body.
Thursday morning, as Maddy Washburn was sweeping the grocery store, she found a slip of paper that had apparently been someone’s shopping list. She stared at the sheet and decided that whoever had written it was probably a man. The handwriting was brusque, impatient, and the items listed were without detail or description.
Maddy grinned. A few months ago she hadn’t been sweeping floors; she’d been cleaning up the messes people made of their lives—and their children’s. As a social worker for the state of Georgia, she’d worked long, difficult hours until she’d finally reached a point of emotional collapse.
Meeting the Hansens at Lindsay and Gage’s wedding had felt like fate, and even if buying the grocery store was the biggest risk she’d taken in her life, it seemed right to her. Never mind that her mother considered the move too drastic, too outlandish.
The wedding was actually Maddy’s second visit to Buffalo Valley. A year earlier, she had accompanied Lindsay, who’d come to Buffalo Valley to see her grandparents’ house. Like her friend, Maddy had been drawn to the town and she liked to think her encouragement had contributed to Lindsay’s decision to accept the teaching job. Over the next twelve months, Lindsay had kept her updated in an exchange of newsy letters and e-mail messages. Long before she met them at the wedding, Maddy knew many of the townspeople from Lindsay’s descriptions and anecdotes.
The Hansens had been eager to sell and the terms they’d offered were ideal. She’d spent two weeks with them, learned the ins and outs of the business—ordering and stocking shelves, bookkeeping, inventory control. She absorbed as much as she could. Then, while the Hansens packed up nearly forty years of memories, Maddy unpacked and began her new life.
The community had welcomed her, and she’d noticed none of the reserve Lindsay had originally experienced. Just about everyone she’d met seemed friendly. Gradually she was putting faces to names. But she had to admit the most interesting person she’d come across in the past few weeks was Jeb McKenna. In fact, looking at the discarded grocery list, she realized it could very well have been his.
What an intriguing person Jeb McKenna had turned out to be. People called him a recluse, and the description seemed accurate, since Calla had informed her it’d been nearly ten months since his last visit to town. Others referred to Jeb as a loner, a man with a chip on his shoulder, a cripple. Maddy could see that he most likely was a loner, and he did maintain a certain emotional distance. She’d met people like him before and didn’t take offense, although she could understand how others might. But despite what she’d heard, she couldn’t think of Jeb as a cripple.
She recalled their brief meeting. He’d been cordial enough although he’d obviously been thrown by her presence. Maddy had no idea what to think of him—except that he wasn’t what she’d expected. Rumor had led her to believe he was a small, thin man, but quite the opposite was true. He was a good six feet, with a robust build and wide muscular shoulders. He resembled his sister somewhat,