Dakota Born. Debbie Macomber

listen to reason? I can’t marry you. I just can’t do it. Marriage ruins everything—I know that from experience. You—”

      “Don’t, please.”

      He advanced toward her, then stopped. “Fine,” he said, his voice cold, “if that’s the way you want it.”

      “I’m afraid it is.”

      “You’ll be back,” he said. “Until then, all I can do is wait.” He slammed the door on his way out of her apartment.

      Afterward Lindsay sat, mulling over their conversation, her arms wrapped around her knees. A chill spread down her arms that had nothing to do with the air-conditioned room. His bitter words about marriage echoed in her ears; so did his claim that she’d change her mind, that she’d come back. He seemed to think she’d eventually be willing to accept him on his terms, willing to give up her own dreams.

      Lindsay bit into her lower lip, and hugged her legs all the harder.

      It did no good to relive the same old arguments. The furniture in her uncle’s showroom might come with a guarantee, but life didn’t. Neither did marriage. But Monte’s divorce had destroyed any possibility of his taking a second chance on commitment. Nothing she could say or do would be enough to reassure him.

      For two years, Lindsay had believed that Monte would see the light and realize that she wasn’t his ex-wife. Because she was stubborn, and because she loved him, she’d refused to accept defeat. His marriage, brief as it was, had forever marked him. Monte was incapable of giving her anything more than he already had.

      Maddy had said it on their vacation. Either she take what he was offering or end the relationship.

      Lindsay had made her decision. One thing was certain; she had to stay away from him. Her love for him made her too vulnerable. He would fight to preserve their relationship, and he’d work at wearing her down, the same way he had before.

      Leaning back, she closed her eyes and reviewed her options. A new career, returning to college, starting her own business … Unexpectedly she remembered her visit to Buffalo Valley—and her conversation with Hassie Knight. She smiled. Hassie hadn’t come right out and said it, but without a teacher Buffalo Valley was doomed. That was the answer Lindsay sought. She would take the job; obviously, the town needed her … and perhaps she needed it.

      Lindsay had minored in education and could apply for a teaching certificate in North Dakota. She had an opportunity to make a difference. A year—she’d give Buffalo Valley a year of her life. In a twelve-month period, they could locate and hire a permanent replacement for the high-school position. She’d fill in, and those twelve months would give her the distance she needed from Monte.

      A chance like this didn’t happen every day. Her roots were in this dying town—her family’s heritage—and it was within her power to help. At the same time, she’d be saving herself from the agony of a dead-end relationship.

      And, she thought with growing excitement, she could move into her grandparents’ home. It was pretty dilapidated—no wonder it hadn’t sold. She recalled the peeling paint, the broken porch steps and falling-down fence. But she could get it fixed up, and she’d have a free place to live if she took the job. The house would be a connection to her past, while teaching school could be her future.

      She’d do it. Decision made, she dug through her purse for Hassie’s phone number. Funny, she mused as she reached for the telephone, she’d somehow known when she left Buffalo Valley that she was destined to return. She just hadn’t realized it would be this soon.

       Four

      The word that a high-school teacher had been found traveled faster than a dust storm through Buffalo Valley. Gage heard about it from Leta late one afternoon, two weeks after Lindsay’s visit. His day had been spent doing the second summer cutting of alfalfa. He smelled of grass and sweat and was hungrier than a bear in spring.

      “You remember meeting her, don’t you?” his mother said, excitedly.

      “There were two women in Hassie’s that Saturday,” he commented as he poured himself a glass of iced tea. He remembered, all right. And he knew without his mother’s telling him that it was Lindsay who was coming back.

      For two weeks now, the woman had been on his mind, crowding into his thoughts when she was least welcome. In the time since her visit, he’d thought of her far too much, and he didn’t like it. He distrusted the feeling that had come after their brief introduction. It was too close to hope.

      Gage didn’t want to feel anything for her. He couldn’t afford to feel anything—not for a city woman who’d be leaving after a year.

      A darkening mass of clouds gathered on his horizon, a sure sign a storm was brewing. Only this storm was of his own making, and Gage wasn’t going to let himself get caught in it.

      “The Snyder granddaughter’s the one who’s coming back,” Leta told him.

      He nodded. “I can’t imagine why she agreed to teach here,” he said casually.

      “She’s got roots in Buffalo Valley. You remember Anton and Gina Snyder, don’t you?”

      Gage nodded again. Anton Snyder had sold his farm before the bottom fell out. He’d lived in an era when it was possible to make a decent living off the land. In the thirty years since the Snyders had sold, the reality of farming had changed.

      “Aren’t you going to say anything?” his mother asked.

      Gage drank half the glass of tea in huge gulps.

      “Well?”

      “She won’t last.” He said it because he needed to hear it, needed to remind himself that he shouldn’t put any stock in her coming. Or her going.

      “Don’t be such a pessimist.”

      “She won’t last,” he said again. “Mark my words.” Lindsay Snyder had been born and raised in the South. One month of a Dakota winter, and this magnolia blossom would hightail it back to Savannah faster than he could spell blizzard.

      “I don’t care what you say,” his mother chided, “we’re lucky to get her.”

      If it was luck that had brought Lindsay Snyder to Buffalo Valley, then it was bad luck and he wanted no part of it. He didn’t know her, had barely even seen her, and he was already attracted to her. Attracted—to a woman who wasn’t going to stay.

      Kevin stormed into the kitchen, the screen door slamming in his wake. “Calla said we got a teacher. Is it true?” His excitement rang through the room.

      “Hassie phoned with the news,” Leta said. “Didn’t I tell you we’d find a teacher? Didn’t I?”

      Kevin nodded as if he, too, had shared their mother’s faith from the first. The boy was all legs and arms yet, as tall as Gage and fifty pounds lighter. Gage had looked much the same at seventeen, but had filled out over time. A stint in the Army after graduation had helped firm his muscles, and given him the confidence to tackle the world. After two years at an agricultural college, he’d come home and farmed with his stepfather, intending to buy his own section of land, but then John had collapsed with a heart attack one July morning. He was dead ten minutes later, despite Gage’s frantic efforts to revive him.

      “A bunch of us kids are going over to clean up the school.” Kevin looked toward Gage. “We’re gonna need help.”

      The implication was clear. Kevin wanted Gage to volunteer his services.

      “Everyone’s doing something,” Leta put in.

      Gage ignored the dig. “Where’s the new teacher going to live?” He avoided saying her name because he found he liked the sound of it too much.

      “Hassie told her a house came with the teaching contract, but Miss Snyder says she wants to live in her grandparents’