Dakota Born. Debbie Macomber

He’d come into his tiny, makeshift office first thing this morning to pay bills; now it was almost noon. Paying bills usually meant juggling bills—his suppliers, electricity, water. Taxes. And maintenance. He’d had Joshua over to fix the refrigerator unit the day before and the repair had eaten up most of the profit he’d made in the last couple of weeks. But he’d get by; he had before and he would again.

      Dressed in her uniform with the rawhide fringe skirt and matching vest, Merrily looked like the real thing. Yup, his one and only Buffalo Gal—in every sense. Merrily and Bob were soul mates. He’d recognized it the minute she’d come into town and approached him about a job. He hadn’t been any better off then. He was barely making ends meet, but he found he couldn’t refuse Merrily. Even if it meant tightening his already uncomfortably tight belt.

      “What’s with the smile?” Merrily asked. “I thought you were all bent out of shape about the refrigerator going on the blink?”

      “Joshua McKenna came by to tell me a teacher’s been hired.”

      Merrily’s eyes lit up, and she threw her arms around his neck. Her kisses were the sweetest Bob had ever tasted, but he knew better than to let himself get accustomed to their flavor.

      Merrily had a bad habit of disappearing.

      He was finally beginning to see a pattern with her. Just when they started to get emotionally as well as physically involved, his Buffalo Gal would pack her bags and quietly vanish.

      The first time it’d happened, he’d been devastated. He’d awakened one morning and been shocked to find her gone. She’d hit the road without so much as a note goodbye. The only reason he’d known she’d left of her own free will was that she’d told Hassie Knight.

      On her way out of town, Merrily had dropped in at Dennis Urlacher’s gas station to fill up her old wreck of a car. While she was there, she’d casually announced that it was time for her to move on. Just that abruptly, she’d left him, bewildered and sick at heart.

      Three months later, she was back.

      Buffalo Bob never knew from one day to the next if Merrily would be staying, but he’d grown to accept the uncertainty. He didn’t know if she’d always return to him, but he realized there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Merrily had her own rules. The fact was, he loved her.

      She knew he was good for a job, a room and a small salary. But she’d only let him so close to her heart, and no closer. The moment it looked like she was in danger of falling in love with him, she’d take off, like a canary fleeing its cage. Only this pretty little canary always flew back. So far, anyway. Bob had learned to keep the door open for her.

      “A teacher. That’s great news.” Merrily continued to hug him, then broke away. “I need to know what the special is,” she said and stepped back, tucking her fingertips in the waist of her skirt.

      Buffalo Bob shuffled through the pages on his desk. He planned the menus two weeks in advance, but couldn’t recall what was scheduled for that night. To his surprise, Bob had discovered he was a reasonably talented cook, but folks around here weren’t looking for anything fancy. He served meat and potatoes with an occasional venture into the unusual. Well, unusual for Buffalo Valley. His spaghetti on Saturday nights sold well, chicken Caesar salad had done okay, but his Polynesian sweet and sour meatballs had been a dismal failure. And his Thai noodles—forget it.

      “How about pot roast?” Merrily suggested. “With mashed potatoes and gravy.”

      “Pot roast?”

      “That’s what my mother always served the first day of school.”

      Merrily had never mentioned her mother before. That was interesting, but he wasn’t entirely sure he followed her line of thinking. “It’s weeks before school starts.”

      “Yeah, I know, but you got a teacher so school is going to start. It’d be kind of a celebration.”

      “Sounds good to me.” Just about anything she suggested would get a favorable response from him. He had a couple of roasts in the freezer, lots of potatoes … Why not?

      Merrily sat down on the chair beside his desk and fingered the edges of a book, riffling the pages with her thumb. “Bob,” she said, not looking at him.

      He glanced up. Generally Merrily didn’t hang around the office much. If she wasn’t tending bar or filling in as a waitress, she stayed in her room. Some days he barely saw her.

      “I …” She didn’t meet his eyes. “Listen, I know you aren’t exactly rolling in dough.”

      She wanted a loan. He could feel it coming even before she said the words. Because of the refrigerator unit, money was tight, but he didn’t have the heart to refuse Merrily.

      “How much?” he murmured, saving her the trouble of asking.

      “How much?” she repeated with a frown. “Do you think I was coming to you for money?”

      He didn’t answer and wanted to kick himself at her look of pain. “I don’t need a loan, Bob. In fact, I don’t need anything.” She was out of the chair and his office faster than he could stop her.

      “Merrily,” he called, following her as she dashed up the stairs to her room at the farthest end of the hotel. “Merrily!”

      She whirled around and would have slammed the door, but he wedged it open with his foot. “What did I say?” he asked. He thought she’d come to him for money, and he’d give it to her, as much as he could, because he loved her. Because there was damn little in this world he wouldn’t give her.

      “You think I want money.”

      He didn’t know what to say when he saw the tears on her cheeks. “Don’t you?”

      “Well, sure, everyone wants money, but that wasn’t what I was going to talk to you about.”

      “What were you going to say then?” he asked patiently.

      “I … I was just going to tell you that you didn’t have to pay me this week.”

      “Not pay you?” He wasn’t sure he understood. “Why not?”

      “Because!” she cried, angry all over again. “You’re worried about what that repair on the refrigerator cost, and you might not have enough.”

      His heart melted at her words. “You’d do that for me?”

      “Yes, you idiot.”

      “Oh.” For once he found himself speechless.

      “Forget I offered, okay?”

      Buffalo Bob shook his head. He wasn’t going to forget; in fact, he was going to remember it for a very long time.

      Merrily swiped the back of her hand across her face and offered him a feeble smile. “Go back to paying your bills and I’ll start thawing those pot roasts.” She hurried past him on her way to the kitchen, but he reached out a hand to stop her.

      Merrily glanced over her shoulder.

      “Thanks,” he said.

      She smiled, kissed him briefly on the lips, then ran lightly down the stairs.

      Lindsay was delighted that her parents had decided to accompany her to Buffalo Valley. Her dad drove his truck, pulling the U-Haul trailer, while Lindsay followed behind in her own car, Mutt and Jeff, her dogs, traveling with her. They were mixed breeds, poodle and spaniel, easygoing dogs who loved car rides.

      Leaving Savannah hadn’t been easy for a lot of reasons, but particularly because of Monte. It’d taken several confrontations before he’d accept that he wasn’t going to be able to cajole her into staying. As she prepared for her departure, he’d become angry, insisting she’d be back.

      He was right, of course, but when she did return, he would be completely and totally out of