Dakota Born (35 page)

“I will.” Brandon stepped away from the car, his hands in his pockets as he watched his father-in-law start the engine, back up just enough to turn the vehicle around and then drive off.

Brandon had never felt a bond with Joanie's parents, and in fact, over the years had avoided contact with them. But if he'd had the power just then, he would have called Leon back. For all his grumbling about his in-laws, all his complaints and suspicions, he realized he liked Joanie's father.

Stevie was waiting for him in the kitchen when he returned. “Did Grandpa leave already?”

“He had to get home.”

His son accepted the explanation. “I'm hungry.”

“There's peanut butter and jelly. Make yourself a sandwich.”

“Okay.” Stevie was easily satisfied. He peeled off two slices of bread and laid them on the counter. “Mommy doesn't eat peanut butter anymore.”

Interesting, seeing that it was one of her favorite foods. “Why not?”

“I heard her tell Grandma she has to watch her diet.”

Involuntarily, Brandon bristled. So Joanie wanted to lose weight, probably because she was hoping to get noticed by her new boss. He didn't remember where she said she was working, but her previous experience had been in a bank, so it made sense that was where she'd look now. She probably had her eye on some rich banker like Heath Quantrill. Out with the old and in with the new. One thing was certain—she was never going to get rich married to him.

Stevie smeared a thick layer of grape jelly on top of an equally thick layer of peanut butter. “Mommy thinks she's getting fat.”

Women were habitually dieting. All women. Joanie no more needed to lose weight than he did.

“Her clothes don't fit her anymore.”

“Your mother's clothes don't fit her?”

Stevie nodded.

Perhaps Joanie had been using food as an emotional escape, a comfort to get her through this difficult time. But he couldn't imagine her eating so much in three months that her clothes would no longer fit. That didn't make sense.

“I'm sure she'll lose the weight.”

Stevie nodded. “That's what Grandma said, too.”

“Grandma?”

“They didn't know I was listening.”

“Oh.”

“Grandma said it's all Jason's fault.”

Brandon tensed. So Joanie was dating someone named Jason. Apparently he was rich enough to take her to fancy restaurants, to wine and dine her. Work clothes, nothing; she'd wanted her party dresses for her nights on the town with Jason.

His jaw tightened as the jealousy burned through him. The least she could do was wait until the divorce was final before she started dating again!

L
indsay hadn't heard anything yet from the on-line search agency, so she logged on to the Internet to search for herself. It proved to be a marvelous research tool.

She still wasn't sure this was the right thing to do. For one thing, Gage had worked so hard to convince her to change her mind. For another, she wasn't confident of the reception she'd receive.

Yet, much as she wanted to push the entire matter to the back of her mind, it refused to stay there.

Day after day, she thought about the search and wondered what, if anything, the investigator had found. One afternoon in late March, when Lindsay arrived home from school, she decided she couldn't wait another minute. She had to know, if only to satisfy her own curiosity.

The first thing she did was review all the facts she had, which she'd listed for the on-line investigator. Sex of the child, the approximate month and year of birth, plus the name of the adoption agency. In addition, she knew that the child had been adopted by a Catholic family in which the father was a physician. He also had a brother or brother-in-law who was a priest.

Lindsay was deep into her own Internet search and had located the names of all physicians practicing within the state during World War II. She printed that out and decided to break for dinner. Reading over the accumulated information, she paced the kitchen as the microwave cooked her frozen entrée. She was just about to sit down when the phone rang.

Groaning, she grabbed the receiver and held it between her ear and shoulder as she carried a steaming cardboard dish of low-fat low-sodium low-taste pasta to the table.

“Lindsay, it's good to hear your voice.”

Monte.

Lindsay carefully lowered the carton to the place mat. Since Christmas she'd heard from him only sporadically. Most days he was far removed from her thoughts.

“I've been trying to reach you for hours,” he said, his voice urgent.

“How did you get my phone number?” she demanded.

“Oh…I have my ways.”

Lindsay could imagine. Most likely her uncle had gotten it from her mother and passed it on, intentionally or not.

“Aren't you going to ask me why I phoned?” he asked.

“You've been hurt? You're ill?” He was one of those men who always seemed to need a lot of sympathy when they were injured or sick.

“No, no, nothing like that,” he said, then inhaled as though to calm himself. “I can't tell you how frustrating it is to dial your number and get nothing but a busy signal.”

“I was on the Internet,” she explained. “Was this so important you couldn't call back later?”

“Yes,” he nearly shouted. “You can't know how difficult this decision was to make. And now that I've made it, I can't think of anything else.”

“What decision?” While she had no idea what he was talking about, Lindsay understood his impatience. She'd only begun her research into the long-ago adoption and now begrudged every minute she couldn't spend on the project. A sense of excitement and purpose had filled her. She had to find this woman who was her aunt, had to let her know that her birth parents had loved her. And she wanted to give her the locket and the letters that rightfully belonged to her. “What decision?” she asked again, a little more irritably.

“I suspect the best way is to just say this,” Monte began. “Lindsay, I made a terrible mistake when I let you out of my life. I love you, I've always loved you. I want us to get married.”

His words sucked the breath straight from her lungs. Not long ago, she would have given anything to hear this. Now it was too late. “Monte, please, don't do this.”

“Hear me out, that's all I ask,” he pleaded. “Last summer when you left, I believed you were moving to Buffalo Gulch to—”

“Buffalo Valley,” she corrected.

“Yes, whatever. I believed it was a gimmick, a way of trapping me into marrying you when I wasn't ready to commit.”

This was old news to Lindsay. “I told you before I left that wasn't the case.”

“I know that now, but—”

“You don't know it, or you wouldn't be phoning me,” she told him, amazed at how unemotional she felt. She'd agonized over this decision—to leave him, leave Georgia—but once it was made, she'd known it was the right thing to do.

“Is there still a chance for us, Lindsay?”

“A chance?” He really didn't understand. It was over, completely and totally over. Furthermore, she knew through the grapevine—mostly from Maddy—that Monte hadn't lost any time looking for her replacement. He'd dated several women in the months she'd been gone.

“I didn't know what I had in you,” he said with the same frantic edge in his voice. “You wanted marriage—”

“And you didn't. We've been through all this.”

She heard him take a deep breath. “If marriage is what it takes to keep you in my life, then so be it.”

“This is a serious proposal?”

He paused. “Yes,” he finally said, his voice stiff.

Laughing probably wasn't the most delicate or diplomatic response, but she couldn't help herself. “Monte, forgive me for being so insensitive, but no woman wants to spend the rest of her life with a man who grits his teeth and offers to marry her. You make it sound like…like being tied to a stake.”

“I can't lose you!”

“You already did, seven months ago.”

He argued with her some more, insisting she loved him.

This time she interrupted him. “Monte, I did love you, and I still have feelings for you—but not like I used to.”

“You could learn to love me again, couldn't you?” he pleaded.

“Oh, Monte, can't you see it's too late?”

“No,” he said. “It can't be.”

“I don't mean to be cruel, but that's the only way you're going to hear me.
It's over.
” Lindsay had come too far in the past seven months to feel any victory. She wasn't interested in vengeance or reprisals. She wanted nothing from Monte now. If anything, his proposal embarrassed her.

“You said you'd be back after a year. At least promise you'll give me another chance once you're home.”

“Monte, please…”

“You are moving back to Savannah, aren't you?” He made it sound like she'd be crazy not to.

“I…haven't made up my mind yet.” For one thing, she hadn't been offered a contract, although she hoped she would be.

“You can't mean to say you'd actually choose to live in Buffalo Gulch—”

“Buffalo Valley,” she snapped. “By the way, it happens to be a perfectly wonderful town with good and decent people.”

“Buffalo Valley. Sorry,” he said, sounding genuinely remorseful.

She exhaled a deep sigh, surprised by her quick temper.

“I should have remembered.” His voice lowered and he continued, “Don't give up on me, Lindsay, please. I didn't know how much I was going to miss you, didn't know how bleak my life would feel without you in it. I want us to get married, I was sincere about that, and if you still want, we could have a baby. I'm not opposed to a family, you know that.”

“Monte, I don't think—”

“Don't say anything else. Wait until you're home.”

What he didn't understand was that Lindsay thought of Buffalo Valley as her home now.

 

Later in the week, Lindsay logged back on to the Internet. Finding the information about physicians had been relatively easy, but only a couple of the Catholic churches had Web sites. The on-line investigator had probably been to all the same sites, but Lindsay was impatient now. Between phone calls and the Internet, she'd been able to compile three lists of names. Then she'd compared those lists but found they had nothing in common, nothing to link them. Disheartened, she wondered about giving up the search.

The next afternoon, everything changed—she received an e-mail from the on-line agency. They had a name.

The girl had been called Angela and she'd been adopted on August 29, 1943, by Dr. LeRoy Farley and his wife, Eugenia. Stark County records showed a birth certificate listing Dr. Farley and his wife as the parents.

Confirmation came via a baptismal certificate, signed by—and this was the clincher—Father Milton Farley.

In addition, Lindsay was provided with a copy of the Stark County court records, a certificate of marriage for Angela Farley and Gary Kirkpatrick, filed in 1964.

Now she had a married name. It seemed too much to ask that Angela Kirkpatrick would live her entire life in or around Bismarck—but she had. The agency e-mailed her the Kirkpatricks' address.

Once she had all this information, a sense of unreality came over her. Until then, this child—Gina's daughter—hadn't seemed quite real. A character in a sad story. The subject of a complicated search. Now, however, she not only had a name, but a family, a husband and perhaps children. She had a history. Angela Kirkpatrick was Lindsay's aunt, and as such a part of her own life.

She knew then that she had to find Angela and talk to her.

 

Kevin drove with the window down and the cold wind buffeting his face until he lost feeling in his cheeks and had trouble seeing the road. The wicked cold brought stinging tears to his eyes and blurred his vision.

He'd told his mother and Gage that he was going over to Jessica's, and when he left the farm that had been his intention. But as he neared the turnoff, he realized he wasn't going to stop at his girlfriend's house.

He just kept driving until he could no longer see the road and the lump in his throat wouldn't let him swallow. He pulled off to the side, close to the ditch, and sat with his hands clenching the steering wheel. After a while he closed his eyes, trying to control the frustration and disappointment. He reminded himself that even as a farmer he could be an artist. It brought no comfort or solace.

His mother knew something wasn't right and had tried to get him to talk. He had nothing to say. Not to her and not to Gage. Neither of them understood. Even Jessica didn't get it. Everyone he loved and trusted was trying to force him into something he could never be. His family, his girlfriend—they all assumed they knew what was best for him.

Every morning, he looked at the letter from the San Francisco Art Institute and it reminded him what a selfish bastard he was. He wanted the chance to be the kind of artist he knew he could be, but that meant Gage wouldn't be able to do what
he
wanted. So, art school just wasn't going to happen. Obligation, duty, responsibility—they all worked against him. He owed Gage. His mother had pointed that out every day for weeks, as if she thought he was about to sell the farm out from under them.

The farm was supposed to be this wonderful blessing; to Kevin it was more like a curse
.
That winter, Miss Snyder had the entire high-school class read the Melville novel,
Billy Budd.
Lately Kevin had begun to feel that he, too, had a noose around his neck, strangling his creativity and his joy.

Some days, like today, he didn't know if life was worth living.

 

“Gage, have you seen Kevin?” his mother asked around nine o'clock.

Gage sat in his study, going over a mountain of paperwork. “Not since dinner,” he murmured, unconcerned. His younger brother had been brooding for days. Damned if Gage knew what was wrong with him. He suspected Kevin fancied himself some temperamental artist and that gave him the right to subject the entire family to his moods. Come to think of it, though, Kevin
had
been more morose than usual.

An hour later, his mother came into the study. She looked tense and worried. “I thought he said he was driving over to Jessica's.”

“That's what I heard him say.” Gage had a vague recollection of his brother asking for the truck keys in order to visit his girlfriend.

“Jessica phoned and asked why Kevin didn't show up. She hasn't seen him all night. They were supposed to study for a test together.”

“Maybe he went over to see the Loomis twins.”

His mother shook her head. “Not according to Jessica. She's talked to everyone in the class, and no one's seen Kevin.”

Not knowing what to think, Gage set his pen aside. “There's no need for alarm. I'm sure he's perfectly fine.”

“My son's missing—and all you can say is not to worry! Anything might have happened. He could be lying in a ditch bleeding to death, for all you know.”

“Have you talked to Lindsay?” he asked.

A look of relief washed over her face. “No, that's probably where he is. Time must have gotten away from him. He just didn't realize.” She reached for the phone and Gage crossed his arms and listened to her side of the conversation.