Dakota Blues Box Set

by Lynne M Spreen

  What a fool she had been to make this trip. Her face burned. She should have told him ahead of time but thought he’d be surprised and happy. What a mistake. What a gigantic waste of time and money.

  Well, she’d learned her lesson. She should have taken him at his word. He’d said he would get on with his life, and he had.

  So would she. She would get a hotel for the night and fly home tomorrow. Now that she knew the truth, she would be able to make progress again in her own life, no longer weighed down by thoughts of what could have been. She would return to Savannah and start over, this time for real. She would shape a life without him. In time, she would heal. Again.

  The click of high heels roused her out of her nightmare.

  “You didn’t find the professor?” It was the receptionist.

  Karen cleared her throat. “His assistant told me he was away from the building for a few hours.”

  The receptionist glanced at her watch and shook her head. “No, he’s here. If he’s not in his office, he is in lecture hall C. Just follow the noise.” She gestured toward the far end of the building and clicked away.

  Karen held her purse on her lap. So what if he was here? His fiancée would probably be in the audience, hanging on his every word. She was probably a student, like Madison Hesse. Now that she knew the truth, there was no point. Karen would never see him again, and that was as it should be.

  She stood, intent on collecting her suitcase and hailing a cab, but part of her brain wanted her to go in another direction, because she couldn’t leave without seeing him one more time, and if he didn’t like it, and his fiancé was pissed at her for breaking into their cozy little world, who gave a flying—she got madder by the minute.

  Karen followed the noise. She heard the sounds of applause and pulled open a door, but the room was empty. She hurried farther down the hallway and yanked open another door. Nothing.

  Where was he?

  Anger battled with dismay. If he would so quickly dismiss her, how much could he really have loved her? What was she to him, a toaster? A modern convenience, to make his life easier? She would not leave until she told him exactly what she thought of him and had closure. Then she would reclaim her life. She would be brilliant—the most successful businesswoman the South had ever seen.

  She yanked open another door and heard the sound of a lecture. She followed the sound, turning right and left. Then she yanked another door open stepped into the lecture hall—and onto the auditorium stage, behind the speaker, in front of hundreds of students and faculty.

  Karen froze, horrified.

  The speaker, a burly man with a walrus mustache and round glasses, stopped talking and turned to her. “Can we help you?”

  She stared at him and then the crowd, momentarily unable to grasp that she’d made her way to the stage door of a lecture hall. “No, sorry.” As she escaped, the sound of laughter burned her ears. She found her way back through the warren to the main hallway and ducked into an alcove to gather herself.

  It was all too much. What a disaster. She felt like a fool.

  How much time, money, and energy do you have to sacrifice to get this lesson into your head? You called the shots. All he did was give you what you said you wanted. You need to own that. Now go home.

  She headed for the front desk and her suitcase, anxious to get the hell off campus. As she rounded the corner toward the exit, her phone rang.

  “Were you looking for me?”

  Karen stopped walking. Her mouth went dry. “I was,” she croaked.

  “Turn around.”

  Curt stood in the middle of the hallway, arms open, waiting for her. Her shoulders sagged, her purse dropped unnoticed to the floor, and then she was in his arms, kissing him with every ounce of passion she had, right there in the middle of geological science, in the middle of a growing flood of students leaving the lecture hall. She didn’t care who saw them or if he was engaged to some woman or not.

  They broke apart, arms around each other’s waists, staring into each other’s eyes. A throat cleared, and the receptionist said, “Excuse me.” She stood nearby, holding Karen’s purse and phone. “Professor, is this your fiancée?”

  Curt looked at Karen, one eyebrow raised in a question.

  Karen laid her head against his shoulder.

  “Estella, could you please let my assistant know I’ll be gone for the afternoon with my fiancée?”

  Karen laughed. “I think she already knows.”

  LATER, IN HIS BED, Karen awoke from the coma brought on by sexual gratification and jet lag. She sat up, looking around his bedroom. A small suitcase stood by the door, zipped closed. She fell back asleep.

  When hunger drove them from bed, Curt fixed a plate of prosciutto and melon slices, and they sat on his balcony and watched the lights of Barcelona wink on.

  “I was in the audience,” he said, telling the story of seeing her on stage in the lecture hall. “At first, I thought I was hallucinating or something. But I knew it was you because of the way you stand when you’re processing information.”

  “You know that?”

  “Yeah. You do this little thing with your left shoulder, and you stand like—” He posed himself, and it was ridiculous, and they both laughed.

  “I can’t believe you’ve studied me to that extent.”

  “But I have,” he said. “You’re my life’s work.”

  She cut a bite of prosciutto, laid it atop a melon slice, and placed it on his tongue. “Your assistant told me you were engaged.”

  “She’s possessive.” His eyes lasered into hers, and she felt her breath leave her. Again.

  “So she just made it up?”

  “Karen, don’t you know me by now?”

  “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. And I have something to say to you.” She refilled their glasses with a crisp, cold white. She held both glasses and studied him before handing one to him. “You need to wait for me.”

  “I could as easily say you need to move here.” His eyes narrowed.

  “We’re both used to doing things our own way. We’ve lived a long time, and we have our routines. But we have decades ahead of us, another whole lifetime. For you to say you can’t wait for me is crazy. I flew here to tell you that. And if you want to call me selfish, so be it.”

  “You are selfish. So am I.” He pushed back his chair and went inside.

  Karen stared across the cityscape of Barcelona. Her speech wasn’t going that well. How else could she say it? She didn’t think she could function without him. They could live on separate continents for a few more months, and then he could come back to Savannah—she dropped her head onto her hands, imagining another fight looming.

  “Karen.”

  He leaned down, cupped her chin in his hand, and kissed her deeply. Then he knelt at her side and handed her a small velvet box. “I told Monica I had a fiancée because she got a call from the jeweler I was working with. She was very angry at me.”

  “I’m sure she was.” Karen eyed the box. “What were you going to do with that?”

  “Fly to Savannah and convince you to marry me. My flight left two hours ago.”

  Her eyes widened. “We would have missed each other.”

  “But we were thinking the same thing, and you moved first. Karen, look, I don’t care how long I have to wait. I just need to know you’re in my future for sure. And the only way I’ll feel sure is if you agree to marry me.”

  She opened the box. It held two blinding carats on a white gold setting.

  Then she looked up at him.

  “I agree.”

  “You do?”

  She laughed out loud, leaning away from him, holding both his hands. “Is that what you’re supposed to say?”

  They kissed, standing on the balcony, overlooking the city, the sounds of Barcelona the backdrop for their new life together.

  He asked, “What changed your mind?”

  “I tried living without you,” she said. “And I couldn’t.�
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  CHAPTER 47

  TWO YEARS LATER

  “COME ON. WE’RE GOING to be late.” Curt held open the front door of the brownstone.

  Karen dashed down the stairs, fastening her earring. “Did you get the present?”

  “It’s in the car. Do you have the address of the place?”

  “Down by the river just outside town. Jessie told me what spaces they’re camping in.”

  Karen got in the passenger side of the Mercedes coupe and shut the door. The CRS ladies were making a loop through the South, and she couldn’t wait to see them again. Since she’d left Key Largo, she’d stayed in touch with Jessie via Skype and other electronic means, but this would be the first time Karen would have a chance to see them again in person—and to hold the new baby.

  With Curt behind the wheel, Karen kept glancing at the speedometer, wishing he’d go faster, but he liked to see things along the route, as opposed to her tendency to race around getting things done. In the two years since they’d married, they found that they balanced each other.

  Karen told herself to calm down. She gazed out the window, appreciating the oak trees and azalea bushes dazzling every flower bed. The city was so rich in history and culture that they never went more than a few days without attending a gallery opening or a famous author’s book signing or a lecture by a visiting notable.

  After their passionate reunion in Barcelona, she had returned to the States to continue building Grace and Associates, and the business had expanded into three of the four office suites in the brownstone. When Curt’s year in Spain ended, he had resigned from the University of North Dakota and leased the fourth office for his consulting business.

  “You look happy.” Curt rested his hand on her leg. She felt the heat and, if it weren’t for the reunion ahead of them, would have told him to pull over. She placed her hand on his and met his eyes.

  “I am happy.” Of all the surprises in this second half of her life, the best was the discovery that lovemaking wasn’t just good; it was even better than when she was younger.

  They left the city limits and rolled through the rural countryside, heading for the camp. Eleven months out of the year, Jessie lived in a real house with her husband and two children. They’d built a successful business sourcing and updating vintage clothing, and then selling it at the price of new. Jessie wished they could camp more, but they were too busy. When she said that, Karen would remind her about the importance of balance. She hoped Jessie wouldn’t wait until she was fifty to learn that lesson.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Karen said.

  “Hmm?” Curt signaled to exit the highway. They were almost at the campground.

  “You know we’re getting older.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  She slapped him playfully. “In three years, I’ll be fifty-six. I never intended to work forever. We’re doing well.”

  “Yes.” He turned down a country road alongside the river.

  “And we’ve still got the farmhouse.”

  “True. The Eastmans are very good tenants.” He turned to look at her. “What are you thinking?”

  Karen leaned her head back. The deep greens of a lush southern countryside rolled past, and she felt lucky to have experienced it—to have experienced all the places she’d lived. Yet, for all her affection for her new home in Savannah, for all the beauty of Jekyll Island and Key Largo, and for all the golden sunsets of Newport Beach, her heart would always reside in the northern plains. That was where she’d met Curt, that was where she’d matured, and that was where she wanted to spend the rest of her life.

  “I’m thinking we need a three-year plan. And then we go home.”

  “Home where?”

  “Home, as in back to North Dakota.” She reached over and touched his face. “Could I talk you into it?”

  He parked in front of the campground office, turned off the car, and took her in his arms. His kiss was so tender it brought tears to her eyes. “You don’t have to talk me into anything. I want to go home, too.”

  She touched his lips, and he kissed her fingertips. It was the right decision. She’d savored every minute of her time away, from California to the Keys to the southeast edge of the country. But now she wanted to grow old in the land of her ancestors, to see the storms rolling in off the prairie and to be near her parents’ graves. To make a life with this man she’d loved since high school, this man who shared her prairie roots.

  “What about the winters?” he asked. “You said you never wanted to deal with the cold again.”

  “We’ll meet the ladies in Florida. We’ll buy an RV. A big one. With a dishwasher, and slide outs—”

  “And a TV compartment on the outside, and a barbecue—”

  They were interrupted by a pounding on the window. Karen opened the door and fell into the arms of Jessie and the CRS ladies.

  Goodbye to the Blues

  by

  Lynne M. Spreen

  Goodbye to the Blues Chapter 1

  My New Year’s resolution—yes, only one—was to go through my mother’s recipe cards and make every single dish. I’d tried a few—fleischkuecle and Round Steak Supreme and Walnut Walkaways, although the information wasn’t always that clear. For example, one recipe for chicken stew started this way:

  “Take an old rooster. Wring neck early in morning so meat can cool...”

  I didn’t plan to try that one.

  My resolution was due to a growing nostalgia for my childhood, probably because I’d recently returned to my birthplace of Dickinson, North Dakota. A lot of my friends felt the same, probably because we were all getting older.

  Or maybe there was another reason. Probably the true explanation was that I spent my whole life as a workaholic and lost my marriage over it, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again. Maybe I was late to the game, but I was determined to balance home and work, people and work, fun and work. My problem had always been that, for me, the last two went together.

  But it seemed a reasonable mission, learning to put a nice hot meal on the table for my husband. The new one. The one I was lucky to marry a couple of years ago. You get to fifty, and you know it might not happen.

  Looking out the kitchen window, I saw the vet’s truck was still in the driveway. Part of my dream of settling down in North Dakota after a lifetime away was to own a horse. Curt suggested we buy a nice, gentle old gelding.

  Instead, I brought home an abused racehorse named Looney Tunes who turned up pregnant, a surprise to us and the adoption people. But really, I was fine with it. I guess I saw them as two new eggs for my empty nest. I was truly on a domestic tear.

  When I was a kid living in Dickinson, everybody subscribed to a magazine called The Farmer. The pages were filled with news and information about crops, seeds, machinery, and the science of growing things. About three-fourths of the way through the magazine, there was a whole new cover: The Farmer’s Wife. That part contained information on gardening and canning, decorating on a budget, and providing hearty meals for your family. I was too young at the time to understand why I scorned that part, but I did know, even then, that I would rather go to work like my dad than stay home like my mom.

  Which I did with mixed results.

  Now, in my farmhouse kitchen, I was squinting at my mother’s handwritten recipe card for German Oven Roast, one last check to see if I’d forgotten anything when the phone rang.

  Jessie was upset. When she got done telling me what happened, there wasn’t any answer except, “I’ll do it.” Because even though it was the last thing I wanted to do in my life at this precise moment, it looked like I would be heading for Palm Springs.

  I grabbed a fat carrot out of the fridge and pulled on a heavy coat. My boots crunched over the frozen driveway, the sound reverberating inside my skull. Curt and I had rung in the New Year with friends last night and I was pretty careful about how much I drank, but at my age, I could get a hangover from a bag of popcorn.

  The barn’s
double doors stood wide open, letting in the cold, fresh air. Looney’s stall was at the far end of the barn.

  “Honey?” I called out.

  “Back here.” My husband was hidden on the other side of the horse who was a giant at seventeen hands. Randy, our brand-new veterinarian, peeled off a long glove and tossed it in the corner.

  I held the carrot out to Looney who grabbed it fast with her big yellow teeth as if worried I’d change my mind. “How’s our girl?”

  “She’ll deliver either tonight or tomorrow,” said Randy.

  “And you promised me twins, right?”

  Randy looked up in shock. “Did I say that? I don’t think I did. If I—” He saw my face and blushed. “Aunt Karen, you’re pullin’ my chain, aren’t you?”

  My nephew—the youngest of Lorraine and Jim’s kids—was twenty-four, shy, and adorable. I couldn’t help teasing him. He should have been used to it by now.

  Curt was watching the two of us. He swiped a forearm at the lock of hair hanging in his eyes, and I couldn’t look away. I swear, that man could make me forget my own name. I got weak in the knees, thinking of last night.

  He was smiling, reading me, as usual. Then his smile faded. “We’ll be done here in five minutes,” he told me.

  I stroked the white blaze running down Looney’s Roman nose. She shook her head, pushing at me for more carrots. She wasn’t the kind of girl whose head could be turned by sweet entreaties. In another day and time, she would have carried a general into battle.

  At the barn entrance, I sat on a bale of hay, my head pounding.

  When Jessie had called from Denver, her voice was pitched high with stress. “Fern broke her ankle, camping at Anza-Borrego.” She filled in the details as I listened, resting my forehead in my hand. “So now she’s on crutches and Belle’s about to collapse.”

  I mumbled a curse. You’d think Belle would know how to pace herself after twenty-some years together. “Can’t they hire help?”