Dakota Blues Box Set

by Lynne M Spreen

  “No problem.”

  Karen closed her door. She had learned so much her head hurt. Clearly, she needed to find a programmer right away, sooner than she’d expected. So much to learn, and so much to do.

  On her way back to the hotel, she stopped in at the boutique and maxed out her credit card on a new party dress, earrings, and heels. She didn’t like spending the money but considered it a business investment. Once the project was funded, she would reimburse herself.

  In the few hours before the party, she researched Ted Natchez. In addition to his wealth, he had the reputation of being a playboy. Still, he was respected by the business community, although his ego was well-known.

  Motivated, Karen put together a compelling response to their questions. She printed out a cover sheet and supporting data and tucked it into an envelope. Then she helped herself to the minibar and ran a bath, feeling like a warrior. She would make her case. Party or not, she would convince Ted Natchez and his band of investors to fund her.

  CHAPTER 11

  CURT ROLLED THE BARN door shut and crossed the yard, squinting at his phone. Not that he really expected to hear from her.

  He hung his jacket on the hook in the mudroom and set his boots under the bench. A chill was seeping into the house. Snow had fallen last night, and the heater kicked on. Curt dropped into the leather sofa, thinking he should start getting ready, but he felt too tired to move. He didn’t want to go to the party tonight. All that fake holiday joy. He scratched at his stubble. Didn’t want to have to shave or get dressed up. For what? The woman he wanted was two thousand miles away, and he was losing her. Again.

  It wasn’t overt—nothing in actual words. It was her tone. Last time they’d spoken, she could have been ordering pizza for all the warmth in her voice.

  Don’t overthink it. She’s busy, that’s all.

  In the library, the grandfather clock chimed softly. Curt put his hands on his knees but didn’t rise. He looked around at the room, remembering. They had such a good time together, and were so at ease with each other, as if they had been together all their lives. He thought of her that last night, resplendent in her nakedness, reclining on all the blankets and comforters and pillows he’d laid before the fire. They fell asleep there, only waking when the fire went out and the cold returned.

  Curt went into the kitchen for a beer before going upstairs to dress. He hated the idea of this party, but the house was silent, and he hated that more. Might be a good idea to haul his sorry, isolated ass to a function. The university president had already approved a year’s sabbatical for the gig in Spain, so Curt felt he owed them. And he wouldn’t be stuck in a corner; as one of the senior and most accomplished instructors at the university, people would say hello. Plus, the chancellor would be there, a guy Curt liked to talk fly-fishing with, so it wouldn’t be a complete waste. He tipped the bottle and took a couple of long swallows, wanting to feel the warmth in his belly. For a long time, he stood at the kitchen window, looking out at the bleak winter landscape. He couldn’t help but think it would be a lot nicer in Florida right about then.

  He emptied the rest of the beer down the sink and went upstairs.

  Reaching into the closet, he pushed past Karen’s wide-brimmed hat hanging from a peg. She had wrapped a long blue scarf around the band, trying to jazz it up. He’d bought it for her last summer, prior to their setting out for a Badlands dig with his students. She could probably use it now. He stopped for a minute, thinking how it would look on her, lounging by the water, palm trees swaying overhead.

  Nah. Karen was probably inside working.

  He pulled on a black T-shirt and sport jacket over his best faded Levi’s and cowboy boots.

  The last time he had been inside March Hall was at the summer art festival, with Karen on his arm. It had been their first date, and they’d danced nonstop to old and new songs spanning the years they’d been apart. After they had clung to each other through Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” Curt had taken her home, right back here to his family farmhouse. That night, they’d consummated their thirty-year love affair. In the weeks following, they’d been inseparable, until Karen’s boss told her she was fired. Then all hell broke loose. The neighbor lady, Frieda, wanted to go to Denver and see her relatives. Problem was Frieda was ancient, so she talked Karen into driving her camper van. Curt hadn’t liked the idea, but the women were out of town almost before he could express his opinion. When Karen got back a few months later, she was different. More than once he’d had to nudge her out of that thousand-yard stare. Then she got this crazy idea of buying a fifth wheel and hauling it all the way to Florida. Now she was there, and he was here.

  When they’d talked, she hadn’t been crazy about his coming to see her. Fine. He figured she was moving on, even if she didn’t realize it. He pulled on the jacket and considered the Stetson but then hung it back on its peg.

  Karen was a dreamer. He wasn’t going to stand in her way, but now she had him thinking that maybe he should try something new before he got any older. The place was too lonely and quiet now. Maybe he’d like Spain so much he’d want to retire there. Isabel was still at the university—a fact he knew due to her occasional texts and e-mails. She’d always been friendly, and he knew she’d welcome him back.

  He rolled his shoulders, trying to convince himself the party would be fine and he’d have a decent time, but Karen was raining all over his parade. The best predictor of future behavior was past behavior, and she’d left him once before. Bolted for the West Coast in her twenties and married some doofus stockbroker. Meanwhile, Curt had sewed his youthful oats, jumping from one relationship to another with inevitable consequences. He married the girl, dealt with the predictable divorce, and raised his daughter alone. But now Erin was on her own journey, and he needed to think about the future. Time seemed like it was passing faster every year.

  Curt opted for the four-wheel-drive Ram pickup, its black paint reflecting the Christmas lights he’d strung along the porch. Climbing in, he connected his old reliable iPod, since streaming was iffy way out here in the country. As Chris Isaak sang about a woman he shouldn’t have, the deserted highway rolled silently past snow-dusted fields of brown stubble. The heavy sky clung to the earth along a gray-blue seam at the horizon.

  At the university, he parked his truck, waved at a couple of coworkers, and fell in with the girls from admin services. One of them, a zaftig thirty-year-old with chestnut curls, called out, “Hey, handsome.”

  Angela was a flirt, always joking about catching him in a dark hallway or the supply cabinet. Now she looped her arm through his, as if she were his date. Rene, on his other side, did the same, and the three of them waltzed up the steps. At the door of the ballroom, the head of life sciences scowled at Curt, but the rest of his colleagues mostly laughed and shrugged at the fact that he’d arrived with two women on his arm.

  Eventually, Curt extracted himself and meandered over to the bar at the edge of the dance floor. He asked for a bottle of Grain Belt and listened to the warm-up band. A server came by with an appetizer tray, and he helped himself to a couple of mini pizzas and a melted-gouda/grapes/walnuts concoction that tasted pretty good. A couple of the guys from geophysics came over to shoot the shit, and they talked shop for a while until Curt got another beer and made the rounds. His mood didn’t lift, and the beer didn’t help. After an hour of working his way through the politics, he found a quiet spot as far away from the dance floor as possible, calculating how long before he could sneak out. He’d been seen by enough people to escape without repercussions. As soon as the chancellor took the stage, he’d ease out.

  “Hey, Professor.” The willowy brunette sidled up next to him.

  His mouth went dry. He took a sip of beer. “Maddie. Thought you were in South America.”

  “I was, but UND offered me an adjunct, so I’m back here. I start Monday. How’re you?”

  “Good. Good. I’m, uh, good.” He nodded. This couldn’t be the same girl.


  “Is that all you can say?” She smiled, and one side of her mouth turned up, the lip gloss catching the light—that witty sideways grin that surprised people who wrote her off as nerd-like. Maddie, the teaching assistant, was a quiet girl with a genius-level intellect, who usually wore baggy T-shirts, denim overalls, and field boots to class.

  But now she wore a tight dress made out of some kind of copper fabric that caught the light and shimmered over every dip and curve of her luscious frame. Her glossy hair cascaded over her shoulders like black silk. He stole a sideways glance, wanting to look at her again in that dress. She caught him. With those skyscraper heels, she was eye level with him. Blue eye level. Blue like some alpine lake.

  He looked away, trying to think of something witty to say...but he couldn’t. Trying for urbane, he clinked his beer bottle against hers and drained it.

  She set hers on a nearby tray. “Want to dance?”

  “I don’t know, I—”

  “Come on.” He barely set his beer down before she hauled him out onto the shiny parquet for a seventies disco tune. Thank God, or he probably wouldn’t have known what to do. After that, it was Creedence, and he began to relax. Then Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, and he started thinking he could maybe get into this younger music. He hadn’t danced since last summer with Karen, but his feet woke up and did what they were supposed to, and Maddie seemed happy, shaking her hands over her head like that.

  After a while the band took a break. Curt and Maddie sat at the bar, perched next to each other on tall stools with her leaning toward him. Sometimes they would touch—his shoulder against hers, her hip and thigh against his. He could smell her perfume, a light citrus and something else that interfered with his thought processes. Her shoulder was warm against his, and he wondered if she was crowding him on purpose.

  He felt dizzy. He took a pull on the icy beer and turned to her. Maddie Hesse, who’d been a student in long, lazy classroom days gone by.

  Sometimes life seemed stupidly random.

  Maddie was pulling on his arm, wanting to dance again. For a minute he thought he should call it a night. She’d been his assistant. She was twenty years his junior. On the other hand, she was about to graduate with a PhD in chemistry.

  So they drank beer and danced, fast, slow, and otherwise. In between, they took little breaks to catch their breath, until the band started up again and drew them back into the happy melee. Two hours later, when the party wound down and Maddie went to powder her nose, Curt took a breather outside. He hoped she took her time, because he was going to flat out have a heart attack or something. As he stood out on the patio, inhaling the icy fresh air of a Dakota winter evening, he realized he hadn’t thought about Karen in these last few hours at all.

  The crowd began to disperse. The parking lot was a madhouse. Red taillights punctuated the darkness on the roadway below. He went back inside and found Maddie. Tall and sleek, she reminded Curt of a blue heron, beautiful and elegant, poised to fly. He pulled her close. For one painful moment he thought of Karen, but she’d made her decision. He would make his. He took one long ringlet of her hair and wrapped the strand around his finger. Their eyes met. “Can I give you a ride home?”

  The girl answered with a deep, long kiss.

  CHAPTER 12

  WHEN KAREN ARRIVED at the St. Regis just before nine thirty, glamorous revelers jammed the drive and filled the entryway of the building. She took the elevator to the tenth floor, where a private ballroom had been reserved for the corporate party. It was packed, and she was relieved to spot Ben almost immediately. “Come say hi to Yolanda,” he said. They made their way across the crowded room.

  “Yolie.” Karen hugged Ben’s wife. “So great to see you again.”

  “How’ve you been, girl?” The three of them made small talk until Karen spotted Ted standing in the center of the room, surrounded by a crowd of supplicants. She excused herself and walked up to him, looking like dynamite and feeling just as powerful. Ted turned toward her. “Ms. Grace.” He took her extended hand and kissed it, his mustache tickling her skin. As he held her hand and looked into her eyes, the others drifted away. Karen gave him the envelope. He folded it into his breast pocket without looking at it.

  “Aren’t you going to glance it over?”

  He patted his pocket. “It’ll keep.”

  “That document represents my full and complete response to your questions this morning. I have absolute confidence you’ll see the value of my software project. When can I expect you to take the time to read it?” Karen was tall, around five nine last time she measured, but in four-inch heels, she had to look up to glare at him, a fact that annoyed her.

  He grinned, drew her to his side, and turned to greet another star-struck businessman, a man in a vest and party top hat. Ted and he spoke briefly, and the man moved on, to be followed by a couple and then a half dozen well-wishers. Unable to escape, Karen stood next to Ted, smiling mechanically at his supplicants. The line kept growing. Politicians, celebrities, and the regional elite lined up for a word with Ted. They met the mayor, a city councilman, and a collection of fat cats who bowed and scraped in front of the media oligarch. As much as he pissed her off, she was fascinated by the parade. And besides, there was his cologne, a combination of smoke and sandalwood. What was it about powerful men? They exuded pheromones like nerve gas.

  Every now and then, Ted would give her waist a squeeze or whisper something in her ear that would make her laugh out loud. She was aware of the flash of cameras.

  When the line dissipated, she stood in front of Ted, feet planted. “Just FYI, I intend to start building this app tomorrow morning. So if you want in, tell me now.”

  “How about a dance first?”

  She wasn’t going to let him use her as a prop all night. “It’s been fun, Ted. Good-bye.”

  “All of Savannah’s here right now. It’ll be good for you to be seen with me. Kinda like your southern debut.” He half bowed, sweeping his hand toward the dance floor.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” She let him lead her out to the polished marble floor, where couples whirled in three-quarter time. Karen said a silent prayer of gratitude to her mother for insisting on dance lessons in seventh grade. They danced two prim-and-proper waltzes, and then she told him she wanted a drink.

  “Of course.” He flagged down a waiter.

  “Now, about my proposal.”

  “There’s no quit in you, is there?”

  “No.”

  The waiter brought over a silver tray with two glasses of champagne. Ted reached into his pocket, removed the envelope, tore it in half, and placed it on the tray. The waiter turned, preparing to walk away.

  “Hey!” Karen grabbed the two halves of her envelope and jammed them into her clutch. She whirled on Ted. “What the hell was that about?”

  “Champagne?” He held out one of the flutes.

  “I only drink with friends.” She snapped her clutch shut and turned to leave.

  “Darlin’, your idea has legs. It’ll work.”

  “If you already knew that, why did you let me slave all afternoon to answer your questions?” Karen’s face and chest flushed hot.

  He eyeballed her cleavage and smiled. “Just trying to toughen you up. You were unprepared this time. Next time, you won’t be.”

  “Next time?”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “Inventors usually have more than one idea. You’re smart. You’ll be doing this again. But inspiration and development are only a part of the process. You have to run the politics, too.”

  “But what about the committee? They’ll be expecting my response.”

  “Nobody’s going to look at it anyway. They do what I tell ’em.”

  Karen stood there with her mouth hanging open. The man was pure arrogance, pure, unadulterated ego.

  He chuckled. “You’re an incredibly sexy woman.”

  “And you’re a goddamn pain in the ass.”

  Ted threw back his head and laughed. “You’re
not a suck-up. I like that.”

  “I don’t care what you like. Are you going to fund me or not?”

  “Course I am. Didn’t I say that already?” He pulled Karen back on the dance floor. This time, she went more willingly. They danced slow, and they danced fast, and she let down her guard and enjoyed herself.

  Besides being a good dancer, Ted was funny, wiggling his eyebrows at some of the more remarkable dancers or outfits. More than once he had her shaking helplessly with laughter. She enjoyed his attention, and the pure feeling of movement was a blast after being stuck behind a desk for so many days. Ted was slick, maneuvering her through the flailing crowd, with a quick word, a smile, or a nod for just about everyone there. She kept pace, feeling as if she’d tapped into an overcharged battery. Her body tingled, and her brain felt euphoric. She never wanted to sit down. Finally the band slowed the pace, and Ted pulled her close. She felt the warmth of his breath against her ear.

  “How long’ll you be in Savannah?” he asked.

  “I leave tomorrow.”

  “Me, too. Want to come to Hong Kong?”

  “Sounds like fun, but I have work to do.”

  He smiled at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling in the way that made men of a certain age look better than when they were young. “Anybody ever tell you to lighten up?”

  “All the time. But it’s who I am.”

  “I already know that. Hey, remind me to give you the check before you go.”

  “What are your terms?”

  He raised one eyebrow.

  “I mean financial! I didn’t mean—” she sputtered.

  He laughed uproariously. “Oh, Karen, you are priceless, you know that? Hey, Jimmie, get on over here. Somebody you should know about.” Ted waved to a local news reporter, who approached with a camera operator. “Want you to meet Karen Grace. She’s going to be a celebrity in about ten minutes, so you better get hoppin’. Karen’s a software inventor, and she’s working on an app that’s going to set the world on fire.”