See Jane Fall (28 page)

I think I sort of did
, she answered,
and then she admitted the truth that she had kept hidden from
herself, and certainly from Lars.
Yes, I did. I hoped.

“Smarten up,” she said aloud, quietly, under
her breath. “You know better.”

She opened the door of the Prairie Dawn and
saw her friends waiting at a table in the back.

“Jane! You’re here!” said Paul as Maggie
waved her over to the table.

“I’m here,” she answered, glumly, glancing
at the empty chair. “Where’s Nils?”

Something indefinable passed across Maggie’s
face as she glanced at Paul, before she offered Jane a tight smile.
“I don’t know if he’s coming. Had to go get Lars.”

Just his name. Just his name made her
ache.

“Go get him? Is everything okay?” Jane
asked, hating herself for wondering.

“I guess he and your cousin broke down on
the way back to Gardiner,” said Paul.

And that’s all it took for her eyes to fill
completely with tears.

She stared down at the table, miserable,
unable to conceal it from her new friends. She had promised she
wouldn’t cry anymore after her shower, but she couldn’t help it.
They had probably pulled over to make out, unable to keep their
hands off each other. She remembered the sweetness of his lips on
hers just a few days ago and felt the tears well up and spill over
the corners of her eyes. She stared at her hands folded on the
table. She couldn’t bear the sympathy or kindness she knew she
would see on their faces if she raised her head.

“You okay, Janie?”

She shook her head back and forth slowly
no.

Paul reached over and put his hand over
hers. “You want to talk about it?”

She shook her head again and reached up to
wipe the tears away, grateful that they didn’t force her to talk.
They just gave her a moment, sitting in respectful silence beside
her.

Finally she took a deep breath and sighed,
looking up at them and wiping her nose with a proffered napkin.
“I’ll be fine.”

“Jane, sometimes things might look one
way—”

“Paul, I know you’re trying to be nice, but
gosh I don’t want to talk about it.”

Jane switched her glance to Maggie, who had
been conspicuously silent.

“Can I just say one thing?” Maggie
asked.

Jane exhaled noisily, rolling her eyes, then
nodded once.

“He cares for you, Jane. He didn’t want to
break things off with you. I know that for true.”

“Well…” Jane looked at the table, refusing
to let Maggie’s words make her second-guess her choices. Lars and
Sara had been inevitable from the start. When she looked up,
Maggie’s eyes were soft, sorry. “He got over me pretty quick either
way, so it really doesn’t matter anymore. Now can we
please
talk about something else? How was
your
day?”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Maggie,
searching her eyes.

Jane shrugged, a little taken aback. For the
first time since she arrived, she realized her friend was acting
strangely. Preoccupied. Jumpy. “Just wondering if you had a good
day.”

Maggie twisted the claddagh ring back and
forth on her finger. “Busy. Up to Billings and back for an
appointment.”

“Is that a long drive?” asked Jane.

Maggie looked flustered and without
answering, she turned to Paul, changing the subject. “How’s, um,
how’s Miss Mystic?”

“She’s good.”

Jane smiled at him, swiping the last bit of
wetness from her cheeks. “From that grin, I’d say better than good.
Did you tell her you’re coming?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“She’s getting used to it.”

“Huh.” Her hackles rose at the thought of
some Connecticut girl playing around with a man as nice as Paul. “I
hope you’re being careful.”

“Careful?”

“I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I haven’t felt like this since…” His voice
trailed off.

Maggie tapped the table twice to get their
attention. “Now don’t you go all murky too!”

“Nah. No regrets, Maggie. I don’t love
her
like that anymore.”

“Who?” asked Jane. “Love her
who
?”

He looked at Jane. “Jenny. Jenny
Lindstrom.”

“Another Lindstrom breaking hearts? Is there
no escape from that family?” Jane cried.

“Not in Gardiner,” said Maggie, giving Jane
a sympathetic smile of her own.

“Well, we’re quite a threesome,” Jane
observed. “Forget coffee. We should get some vodka. Drown our
common sorrows.”

Paul piped up. “You two drown ’em. I’m over
my
Lindstrom. Got Mystic on my mind now…”

Speaking of Lindstroms, the front door
opened, and Nils trudged in, locking his eyes with Maggie
immediately and heading for their table.

“You’re here,” Maggie murmured, almost as
though she couldn’t believe it, and Jane could have sworn her
friend’s eyes watered before she looked down at her half-finished
coffee like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

Boy, she was acting funny tonight. Jane made
a mental note to ask her what was going on later when Nils and Paul
were out of earshot.

“I’m here,” he said softly, staring at her
bowed head like he wasn’t sure if he should go or stay. Finally he
flicked his glance to Paul. “Did you deal yet?”

“All yours, brother. Everything okay?” Paul
slid the deck toward Nils as he put his coat on the back of his
chair and sat down beside Maggie.

“Long day. Finally get back to Gardiner and
I have to pick up Lars and drive Miss Amaya back to her cottage.
Then I got to pick up that nervous, sweaty fella from the motel and
take him over there to keep her company. These famous types sure
are a lot of work.” He looked up and caught Jane’s eyes, looking
away quickly. “Uh. Sorry, Jane. No offense. Present company
excepted.”

“Oh, I’m not famous, Nils. No offense taken.
Samara Amaya’s a terrible person. Say whatever you like.”

Paul glanced at Jane nervously then went
back to sorting his cards. Maggie still hadn’t looked up from the
table, and though she’d slid her cards from the center of the table
to the edge in front of her, she rested her hands on the pile,
making no move to sort them, like she was frozen, or waiting for
something.

“How’s Lars?” Jane asked, flicking her gaze
up to Nils.

“Fine. But his truck’s dead for now.
Arranged for a tow. He won’t be back in Gardiner for a while.”

“Poor, disappointed
Miss Amaya
,” Jane
observed, dryly.

Nils looked up at Jane. “How’s that?”

“She’ll have to wait for this evening’s
company.”

“What’s that got to do with Lars?”

“Lars is screwing my cousin,” Jane offered
matter-of-factly.

“I guess that’d be his business if it were
true.”

“I guess so. And it
is
true. We could
be family one day, Nils. My cousin. Your brother.”

“We could be family one day, I guess. But,
it won’t come about like that.”

“Why not?” asked Jane.

He looked at her square in the eyes, and she
saw the compassion there, and she knew whatever she said didn’t
matter; he wouldn’t rise to the bait. He wouldn’t spar with an
injured thing. He spoke firmly but gently to her, and it shamed her
a little bit. “There ain’t no chance on God’s green earth that Lars
is sleeping with that woman.”

“Really?” challenged Jane, loving Nils for
letting her be angry without pushing back too hard, hating him for
not letting her pick a fight when she wanted one, further hating
that his words made her feel a glimmer of hope. “My information
says otherwise.”

“Then your information’s bad, Jane.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“And why is that?”

Nils folded his cards in a neat pile and
folded his hands on top of them, in almost a mirror image of Maggie
beside him. “Because Lars is taken with
you
. And if you’re
taken with someone…if you feel that they—in fact—
belong
to
you…” He shifted toward Maggie, who still stared down at the table
in front of her. Jane watched, mesmerized, as he leaned his face
toward Maggie’s ear, speaking in almost a whisper, “…it’s
impossible
to let them go.”

Maggie lifted her eyes slowly and looked up
at Nils, her mouth opening softly in surprise, as she held Nils’s
gaze with a primitive, aching intensity.

The energy between them was like a force
field, magnetic and exclusive, demanding silence and respect from
those in witness and reply exclusively from each other. Jane knew
that the decent thing to do would be to give them privacy by
looking away, but she was utterly captivated by the scene playing
out in front of her.

Maggie’s face grew increasingly pink under
Nils’s unwavering scrutiny, and Jane saw her clench her jaw twice,
but it was her eyes; large and shimmering green in her face, that
broke Jane’s heart as they searched Nils’s face for the answer to
some unasked question.

Finally, Maggie looked away from Nils,
blinking her eyes rapidly and biting her lower lip. She didn’t say
a word as she stood up and headed out the back door without looking
back.

Jane could barely breathe; she shifted her
gaze from the back door to Nils, who stared down at the table,
nostrils flaring, his breathing audible to Jane, who watched him in
tense, fascinated silence. He finally stood up, scraping his chair
loudly across the floor as he grabbed his coat. Shrugging into it
without a word, he followed Maggie out the door.

Jane watched until the back door slammed
shut, then turned, with wide eyes, to Paul, who stared after them
like he was in shock.

“What just happened?” Jane whispered,
flustered and uncertain, and sort of excited.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” He beamed at Jane,
and then laughed aloud, shaking his head as if in shock. “I
definitely don’t think we’re playing euchre tonight.”

Paul picked up his cards and threw them into
the center of the table.

Jane gave Paul a wobbly smile.

“Coffee?” she asked, taking his cup. He
nodded and she went up to the bar for two fresh cups. When she
returned, he was still staring at the table with a bemused
smile.

“I’ll be damned…” he muttered again,
glancing at the back door of the café then beaming at Jane.

“Okay. You have to school me here, Paul,
because I am in the dark. What. Just. Happened?”

“I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t
been here. This is the sort of stuff legends are made of, Jane. I’m
serious.”

He picked up his coffee and took a sip.
“Okay. Ready for this? Family tree time. You gotta follow me here,
Janie. Listen carefully.

“Jenny, who I used to have a thing for, is
Nils’s sister, married to Sam. Ingrid is Jenny’s best friend, who’s
married to Sam’s cousin, Kristian. Kat is Kristian’s sister, also
Sam’s cousin, married to Erik, who is Nils and Lars and Jenny’s
brother.”

“Oh, for the love of Pete! Don’t you people
ever marry someone from out of town?!”

“Like Miss Mystic?”

“Don’t distract me.”

Paul chuckled. “Here’s another way to look
at it…Jenny’s a Kelley, but she was a Lindstrom. Kat’s a Lindstrom,
but she was a Svenson. Ingrid’s a Svenson, but she was a
Nordstrom.”

“Clear as mud, Paul. Clear as mud.”

“Jen, Ing and Kat. Let’s just call them the
Lindstrom Ladies.”

“Now you’re talking.”

“Okay… There’s always been another Lindstrom
Lady, but only unofficially, because the brother she belonged to
hadn’t claimed her. Well, he had, sort of. No man in town was going
to make a play on Maggie Campbell while Nils Lindstrom lived and
breathed. Only one ever tried and failed, because even though there
was nothing spoken between them, everyone knew. Everyone knew they
were meant to be.

“Nils pretty much fell in love with Maggie
at first sight, I guess…three or four years ago now. We all knew
it. Even Nils knew it, not that he ever did a blessed thing about
it, really. After a year or so, Maggie caught on too. But, somehow
he never managed to make a real move on her. Mr. L…he started
inviting Maggie to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and she became a
good friend to Jenny too. Nils and Maggie became great
friends
, as you can see…”

Jane nodded, taking a sip of her coffee.
“But, he never made a move? In all that time?”

Paul shook his head. “I’ve had my
suspicions, but no, I don’t believe he did. His brothers and sister
tease the living daylights out of him. But he never budged. Almost
like since we were all watching and waiting, he got stage fright or
something. Kept Maggie in the friend zone, and then it became a bad
habit, I think.”

“And Maggie was okay with that?”

“Maggie told me once, just a few months ago,
actually—after way too many beers on May Day—that there were only
two moves left that Nils could make: He could ‘bed her or wed her,’
but anything else would be a waste of her time.”

“Whew! She told you that? Did she ever tell
him
that?”

“I think she must’ve. I forgot my wallet at
the bar and he walked her home that night. And Janie? She was three
sheets to the wind. Could have said anything. And I have to
say…sure sounded like he was answering a question for her
tonight.”

“Yeah. It was decision time. Go time.” She
smiled at her friend. “So… Wedding bells…or…?”

Paul shrugged, and then chuckled. “Damn if I
know, Jane. Still can’t believe it happened. Literally
just
happened.”

“Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe she walked home,
and he…”

“She went home all right. She lives
upstairs.” Paul pointed to the ceiling and Jane couldn’t help but
look up and wonder what was going on up there.

“Then he…”

“…was a man on a mission.” Paul nodded.
“Sure
looked
like he followed her home.”