Read the book: «The Dakota Man»

One

His brow furrowed in a frown, his square jaw clenched and his lips sealed in an anger-tight thin line, Mitch Grainger sat at his desk and stared at the object cradled in the palm of his broad hand. He could only scowl at the brilliant, multi-faceted engagement ring of clustered pink diamonds, encircled by smaller rubies.

Less than an hour ago, Mitch had retrieved the ring from the floor near his desk. Which is where the object had landed after bouncing off his chest, hurled at him in unreasonable fury by Natalie Crane, the beautiful, cool, usually unemotional woman who had been his fiancée mere moments before.

The flawless gemstones caught the afternoon sun rays slanting through the window blinds behind him. Mitch made a soft sound that was part rude snort, part unpleasant laugh.

Women. Would he ever understand them? Had any man ever understood them? More to the point, Mitch mused, closing his fingers around the bauble, did he give a damn anymore?

Not for Natalie Crane, certainly, he thought, answering his own question. Without allowing him the courtesy of offering an explanation for the scene she’d witnessed, she had jumped to the wrong conclusion. Coldly calling him a cheat and telling him their engagement was over, she had thrown the ring at him.

Fortunately, Mitch had never deluded himself into believing he was in love with her; he wasn’t and never had been. He had simply decided that, at the age of thirty-five, it was time to choose a wife. Natalie had appeared eminently suitable for the position, being from one of the most wealthy and prestigious families in the Deadwood, South Dakota, area.

But now Natalie was history. With her precipitous accusations, she had impugned his honor, and he forgave no one for that.

Honor, his personal honor, was the one standard Mitch held as absolute. He had believed Natalie knew the depths of his sense of honor. Apparently, he had been mistaken, or she never would have misconstrued the situation she had happened upon, immediately leaping to the erroneous conclusion that he was playing around behind her back with his secretary, Karla Singleton.

Poor Karla, Mitch thought, recalling the stricken look on his secretary’s face after the scene. Shaking his head, he slid open the top desk drawer, carelessly tossed the ring inside and slammed it shut again. He had never really liked the token, anyway. The concoction of pink diamonds encircled by clustered rubies had been Natalie’s choice; his preference had been a simple, if large, elegant two-and-a-half-carat, marquis-cut solitaire.

Poor, foolish Karla, he amended, heaving a sigh raised by both sympathy and impatience.

Mitch could understand passion, he had experienced it himself…quite often, truth to tell. But what he couldn’t understand, would never understand, was why in hell any woman—or man, either, for that matter—would indulge their passions to the point that they’d risk their health as well as pregnancy through unprotected sex.

But believing herself in love, and loved in return, Karla had risked all with a man who had taken his pleasure…then taken off. He had supposedly left to find a job with a future, but nonetheless leaving Karla devastated, pregnant, unwed and ashamed to tell her parents.

Not knowing what else to do, Karla had turned to her employer, sobbing out her miserable tale of woe on Mitch’s broad shoulder. Of course, Natalie had picked that moment to pay a visit to his office. She had witnessed him holding the weeping young woman in his comforting arms and heard just enough to erroneously conclude that, not only had he been fooling around with Karla, but that he had impregnated her, as well.

As if he would ever be that stupid.

In retrospect, Mitch figured it was all for the best, since he certainly didn’t relish the thought of being married to a woman who didn’t trust him implicitly. From all historical indications, marriage could work without depthless love, but in his considered opinion, it couldn’t survive without trust.

So had ended his brainstorm of acquiring a wife, setting up house and having a family.

On reflection, Mitch acknowledged the niggling doubts he had been having lately about his choice of Natalie, not as a wife—he felt positive she would make an exemplary wife—but as the mother of his children. And Mitch did want children of his own some day. While he had admired Natalie’s cool composure at first, he had recently begun to wonder if her air of detachment would extend to her children…his children.

Having grown up with two brothers and a sister, in a home that more often than not rang with the sound of boisterous kids, controlled by a mother who had always been loving, even when firm, Mitch desired a similar upbringing for his own progeny.

In all honesty, Mitch admitted to himself that he was more relieved than disappointed by the results of Natalie’s false assumptions.

But he still had Karla’s problem to contend with, for she had asked for his advice and help. Mitch had always been a sucker for a woman’s tears, especially a woman he cared about. His own sister could give testimony to that. The sight of a woman he cared for in tears turned him, this supposedly tough, no-nonsense C.E.O. of a gambling casino in Deadwood, South Dakota, into the stalwart protector, the solver of feminine trials and tribulations…in other words, pure mush.

And Mitch did care about Karla, for her sake, because she was a genuinely nice person, and for his own sake, for she was the best assistant he had ever employed.

He had made some progress with Karla after calming her down following Natalie’s dramatic little scene. With some gentle probing—in between dwindling, hiccuping sobs—Mitch had learned that Karla was determined to have and keep her baby. Not for any leftover feelings for the father, because she had none, but simply because it was her baby.

A decision Mitch silently applauded.

Still, Karla had maintained that she felt too ashamed to go to her parents, who lived in Rapid City, to ask for their financial or moral support. Karla was an only child, so there were no siblings to apply to for assistance. And, though she had made some friends in the year and a half she had been in Deadwood, she felt none were close enough to dump her problems on.

That left him, Mitch Grainger, the man with the tough exterior, surrounding a core of marsh-mallow in regards to weeping, defenseless females.

Helluva note, for sure.

An ironic smile of acceptance teased the corners of his sculpted, masculine lips. He’d take on the combined roles of surrogate father, brother and friend to Karla because of his soft spot…and because, if he didn’t, and his sister ever found out about it, she’d have his hide.

His humor restored, Mitch reached for the intercom to summon Karla, just as a timid rap sounded on his office door, followed by the subdued sound of Karla’s voice.

“May I come in, Mr. Grainger?”

“Yes, of course.” He sighed; despite the numerous times he had asked her to call him Mitch, Karla had persisted in the more formal address. Now, after the emotional scene enacted mere minutes before, the formality seemed ludicrous. “Come in and sit down,” he instructed as the door opened and she stepped inside. “And, from now on, call me Mitch.”

“Yes, sir,” she said meekly, crossing to the chair in front of his desk and perching on the edge of the seat.

He threw his hands up in exasperation. “I give up, call me anything you like. How are you feeling?”

“Better.” She managed a tremulous smile. “Thank you…for the use of your shoulder to cry on.”

He smiled back. “I’ve had plenty of practice. Years back, my younger sister went through a period in her teens when she was a regular waterworks.” His wry confidence achieved the desired effect.

She laughed and eased back in the chair. But her laughter quickly faded, erased by a frown of consternation. “About Miss Crane… I’d like to go see her, explain…”

“No.” Mitch cut her off, his voice sharp.

Karla bit her trembling lip, blinked against a renewed well of tears. “But…it was a misunderstanding,” she said, her voice unsteady. “Surely, if I talked to her…”

He silenced her with a slashing movement of his hand. “No, Karla. Natalie didn’t ask for, or wait long enough to hear an explanation. She added one and one and came up with three—you, me and your baby. Her mistake.” His tone hardened with cold finality. “It’s over. Now, let’s discuss another matter of business.”

She frowned. “What business?”

“Your business.”

“Mine?” Karla’s expression went blank.

“The baby,” he said, nudging her memory. “Your baby. Have you made any plans? Do you want to keep working? Or…”

“Yes, I want to keep working,” she interrupted him. “That is, if you don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind?” He grinned. “Hell, you’re the best assistant I’ve ever employed.”

“Thank you.” A pleased glow brightened her brown eyes, and a flush colored her pale cheeks.

“Okay, you want to continue working.”

“Oh, yes, please.”

“How long?”

“As long as I can.” Karla hesitated a moment before quickly adding, “I’d like to work up to the last possible minute.”

“Forget it.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that would be good for you or the baby.”

“But the work’s not really physical,” she insisted. “Having a baby is expensive today, and I’ll need every dollar I can earn.”

“I provide excellent health insurance coverage for you, Karla,” he reminded her. “Including maternity benefits.”

“I know, and I appreciate that, but I want to save as much as I can for afterward,” she explained. “I’ll need enough to tide me over until I can go back to work.”

“Don’t concern yourself with finances, I’ll take care of that. I want you to concentrate on taking care of yourself, and the child you’re carrying.” He held up a hand when she would have protested. “Five more months, Karla.”

“Six,” she dared to bargain. “I’ll only be seven-and-a-half months by then.”

He smiled at her show of temerity. “Okay, six,” he conceded. “But you will spend that sixth month training your replacement.”

“But it won’t take me a whole month to train someone,” she exclaimed. “I won’t have anything to do!”

“Exactly. Consider it a small victory that I’m allowing that much.”

She heaved a sigh of defeat. “You’re the boss.”

“I know.” His grin lasted all of a few seconds before turning into a grimace. “Damn,” he muttered. “When the time comes, how in the hell are we ever going to find someone suitable to replace you?”

A little over a month later, and many miles distant to the southeast, an individual ministorm raged beneath a sun-drenched corner of Pennsylvania….

“Rat.” The scissors slashed through the voluminous skirt.

“Louse.” A seam tore asunder.

“Jerk.” The bodice was sheared into small pieces.

“Creep.” Tiny buttons went flying.

“There…done.” Her chest heaving from her emotion-driven exertions, Maggie Reynolds stepped back and glared down at the ragged shards of white watered taffeta material that had formerly been the most exquisite wedding gown she had ever seen.

With a final burst of furious energy, she gave a vicious kick of one bare foot, scattering the pile of material into large and small pieces that glimmered in the early June sunlight streaming through the bedroom window.

Tears pricked her eyes; Maggie told herself it was the glare of sunlight, and not the fact that she was to have been married in that designer extravagance in two weeks’ time.

The sting in her eyes grew sharper. Just two days before, Maggie’s intended groom had thrown her a vicious curveball right out of left field. After sharing her apartment and her bed with him for nearly a year, and after all the arrangements for their wedding had been in place for months, she had come home from work to find all of his belongings gone, his clothes closet empty, and a note—a damned note—propped against the napkin holder on the kitchen table. The words he had written were imprinted on her memory.

Maggie, I’m sorry, I really am, he had scrawled on the lined yellow paper she kept for grocery lists. But I can’t go through with our marriage. I have fallen in love with Ellen Bennethan, and we are eloping to Mexico today. Please try not to hate me too much. Todd.

The thought of his name brought his image front and center in Maggie’s mind. Average height, sharp dresser, attractive, with coal-black hair and pale blue eyes. And, evidently, a class-A cheat. A sneer curled her soft lips. Hate him? She didn’t hate him. She despised him. So, he had fallen in love with Ellen Bennethan, had he? Bull. He had fallen in love with her money. Ellen, a meek, simpering twit, who had never worked a day in her life, was the only child and heir of Carl Bennethan, owner and head honcho of the Bennethan Furniture Company, and Todd’s employer.

Dear Todd had just taken off, leaving Maggie to clean up the mess after him. Which in itself was bad enough. But the thing that bit the deepest was that they had made love the very night before he split.

No, Maggie corrected herself with disgust. They hadn’t made love, they had had sex. And it hadn’t been great sex, either. Great? Ha! It had never been great. Far from it. From the beginning, Todd had been less than an enthusiastic lover, never mind energetic.

Or was she the less-than-energetic one?

How many times over the previous year had she asked herself that question? Maggie mused, self-doubt raising its nasty little head in her mind. In truth, she acknowledged, she had never become so passionately aroused that she felt swept away by the moment. Perhaps there was something lacking in her….

The hell with that, Maggie thought, anger reasserting itself to overwhelm doubt. And, to hell with Todd, and men in general. In her private opinion, sex was highly overrated, a fictional fantasy.

Outrage restored, Maggie made a low growling sound deep in her throat, and gave the rendered sparkling white pieces another scattering kick.

“Bastard.”

“Feel better now?”

Maggie spun around at the sound of the smoky, dryly voiced question, to glare at the young woman leaning with indolent nonchalance against the door frame. The woman, Maggie’s best friend, Hannah Deturk, was tall, slim, elegant and almost too beautiful to be tolerated.

Maggie had often thought, and even more often said, that if she didn’t like Hannah so much, she could easily and quite happily hate her.

“Not a hell of a lot,” Maggie admitted in a near snarl. “But I’m not finished yet, either.”

“Indeed?” Hannah raised perfectly arched honey-brown eyebrows. “You’re going to take the scissors to your entire trousseau?”

“’Course not,” Maggie snapped. “I’m neither that stupid nor that far gone.”

“Could’a fooled me,” Hannah drawled. “I’d say, any woman who’d tear apart a gorgeous three-thousand-dollar wedding gown in a fit of rampant rage is about as far gone as is possible for a woman to be.”

Just as tall as her friend, just as slim, and no slouch herself in the looks department, with her long mass of flaming-red hair and her creamy complexion, Maggie gave Hannah a superior look and a sugar-sweet smile.

“Indeed?” she mimicked. “Well, there’s possible, and then there’s possible. Stick around, friend, and I’ll demonstrate possibilities that’ll blow your mind.”

“You almost scare me,” Hannah said, a thread of concern woven through her husky voice. “But I will stick around…just to ensure you don’t hurt yourself.”

“I’m already hurt,” Maggie cried, a rush of tears to her eyes threatening to douse the fire of anger in their emerald-green depths.

“I know.” Hannah relinquished her pose in the doorway to go to Maggie. “I know,” she murmured, drawing her friend into a protective embrace.

“I’m sorry, Hannah,” Maggie muttered, sniffing. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry anymore.”

“And you shouldn’t,” Hannah said, her voice made raspy with compassion. “That son of a bitch isn’t worth the time of day from you, never mind your tears.”

Maggie was so startled by Hannah’s curse— Hannah never cursed—she stepped back to stare at her friend in tear-drying amazement.

Hannah shrugged. “Occasionally, when I’m seriously upset or furious, I lose control of my mouth.”

“Oh.” Maggie blinked away the last of the moisture blurring her vision and swiped her hands over her wet cheeks. “Well, you must be seriously one or the other, because I’ve known you since soon after you arrived here in Philadelphia from flyover country, and this is the first time I’ve ever heard a swear word from you.”

“Actually, I’m seriously both,” Hannah drawled, her tone belying the glitter in her blue eyes. “It just fries me that you’re tearing yourself apart over that…that…slimy, two-timing, money-grabbing slug.”

“Thanks, friend,” Maggie murmured, moved by Hannah’s concern for her. “I appreciate your support.”

“You’re welcome.” A smile curved Hannah’s full lips. “And it’s Nebraska.”

“What?”

“The flyover country I come from is the State of Nebraska,” she answered.

“Oh, yeah, I knew that,” Maggie said, interest sparking in her green eyes. “What’s it like there…in Nebraska?”

Hannah frowned, as if confused by both the question and her friend’s sudden show of interest on a topic she’d never before evinced any curiosity over. “The section I came from? Mostly rural, kind of placid, and at the time I decided to move to the big city, I thought, pretty dull.”

“Sounds like just the ticket,” Maggie mused aloud in a contemplative mutter.

“Just the ticket,” Hannah repeated in astonishment. “For what? Being bored silly? What are you getting at?”

Maggie’s smile could only be described as reckless. “You know those possibilities I mentioned?”

“Ye-e-es…” Hannah eyed her with budding alarm. “But now I’m almost afraid to ask.”

Maggie laughed; it felt good, so she laughed again. “I’ll tell you, anyway. Come with me, my friend,” she invited, turning away from the room and the scattered debris that had once been her wedding gown. “Venting my spleen in here made me thirsty. We’ll talk over coffee.”

“You can’t be serious.” Her half-full cup of coffee—her third—in front of her, Hannah stared at Maggie in sheer disbelief.

“I assure you I am. Dead serious,” Maggie said, her features set in lines of determination. “I have already started the ball rolling.”

“By slashing your gown to ribbons?” Hannah asked, her tone reflecting the hope that her friend hadn’t done something even more drastic.

“Oh, that. That was symbolic.” Maggie dismissed the act with a flick of her hand. “I couldn’t stand looking at it another minute. No,” she said, shaking her head. “What I have done to get the ball rolling was to spend this lovely Sunday morning composing notes to all the guests invited to the wedding, informing them that there would be no wedding, after all, e-mailing those on-line, and preparing the rest for snail-mail delivery.”

“If you’d given me a holler, I’d have gladly helped you with that,” Hannah said, heaving a sigh of exasperation.

“Thanks, but, well…” Maggie shrugged. “That chore is done.”

“You didn’t e-mail your parents….” Hannah’s eyebrows shot up. “Did you?”

“Well, of course not. I telephoned them.” Maggie sighed. “They were understandably upset, insisted I go spend some time with them in Hawaii.”

“Good idea.”

Maggie gave a quick head shake. “No, it isn’t. They both took early retirement and moved to Hawaii to relax after Dad’s mild heart attack. If I went there, in the mood I’m in, Mom would probably knock herself out to fuss all over me. Dad would likewise fret, curtail his golf games and try to distract and entertain me. And I’d feel guilty as hell because of it.”

Hannah frowned but nodded. “I suppose.”

Maggie soldiered on. “I also drafted a letter to my superior at work, giving my one-month notice of my intention to leave the firm.”

Hannah’s eyes widened with alarm. “Maggie, you didn’t.”

“I did,” Maggie assured her, raising a hand to keep her friend from interrupting. “What’s more, I faxed a Realtor I know, asking him if he’d be interested in listing my apartment for sale.”

Hannah jumped from her chair. “Maggie, no.” She shook her head, setting her sleek, bobbed honey-brown hair swinging. “You can’t do that.”

“I damn well can,” Maggie retorted. “My grandmother left this place to me, I own it free and clear.” She rolled her eyes. “And the forever taxes that go with it.”

“But…” Her hair swung again, wildly. “Why? Where will you go? Where will you live?”

“Why? Because I’m tired of the treadmill, nose to the grindstone, following the rules.” Maggie shrugged. “Who knows, maybe I’ll join the circus.”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this.” As if unable to remain still, Hannah began to pace back and forth in front of the table. “To give up your job, sell your apartment…” Hannah threw up her hands. “That’s crazy.”

“Hannah—” Maggie came close to shouting “—I feel crazy.”

“So you’re just going to take off?”

“Yes.”

“For how long, for Pete’s sake?”

Maggie hesitated, shrugged, then answered, “Until I’m broke, or no longer feel crazy enough to break things and hurt people… Todd what’s-his-name in particular.”

“Oh, Maggie,” Hannah murmured in commiseration, dropping onto her chair. “He’s not worth all this anguish.”

“I know that,” Maggie agreed. “But knowing it doesn’t help. So I’m cutting out, cutting loose.”

“But, Maggie…” Hannah actually wailed.

Maggie shook her head, hard. “You can’t change my mind, Hannah. I’ve got the itch to run free for a while and I’m going to scratch it.”

“But you must have some idea where you’re going,” Hannah persisted, always the one for detail.

“No.” Maggie shrugged. “Who knows, maybe I’ll wind up in Nebraska.”