Always Dakota. Debbie Macomber

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СКАЧАТЬ remembered. Larry had spent a good part of the day meeting and greeting his new neighbors.

      In some ways, not much had changed in Buffalo Valley. When he’d left, there’d been a reserve toward strangers, a hesitancy. It remained in place to this day. The town … well, it looked better than he’d expected, but there was still much to be done. People were pleased with the most recent improvements and planning more. Then there was—

      “Lunch is ready,” Joyce called from the kitchen, breaking into his musings.

      He’d met Joyce while he was in the seminary. His wife had been raised in Boston, but over the years she’d come to love small-town life.

      “What are your plans for the afternoon?” she asked as she sat across the table from him. She’d prepared one of his favorites, a chicken salad made with cold noodles and tossed with a soy vinaigrette, but today he had virtually no appetite.

      “I thought I’d go over and visit Joshua.” A question about a couple he’d met at Bernard’s funeral had been bothering Larry and he could think of no one better to ask than his old friend. After barely touching his lunch, he wandered over to Joshua McKenna’s second-hand store. Joshua sold a little of everything. The sign in his window claimed there wasn’t anything he couldn’t fix, and Larry believed it.

      “Good to see you,” Joshua called out when the bell above the door announced Larry’s arrival.

      “I’m not disturbing you, am I?” Larry saw that Joshua was up to his elbows in grease, working on some kind of engine.

      “Trust me, I welcome the interruption.” Joshua reached for a wadded-up rag, tucked in his back hip pocket. “This,” he said, gently patting the huge metal contraption, “is the engine to Gage Sinclair’s tractor. Dennis had it two weeks and couldn’t get it running. He threw up his hands and asked me to give it a try.”

      Larry knew that low prices were killing many of the small farmers in the heartland. Farmers kept their equipment running as long as possible, and then eked out another twenty thousand miles.

      “Did you hear I was over at Buffalo Bob’s?” Larry said as Joshua studied the engine. “Went there a couple of weeks ago, after I met them at Bernard’s wake.” Bob had talked him into trying his karaoke machine. Larry had no singing voice whatsoever, but bolstered by Merrily, he’d fallen victim. He was fairly confident they wouldn’t invite him to sing again.

      “They have a little boy, don’t they?” Larry had noticed the child at the Clemens house but hadn’t seen him since.

      “His name’s Axel.”

      “Unusual name.”

      Joshua nodded and continued to inspect the engine.

      “Haven’t seen him around much,” Larry said.

      “Seems to me Merrily said he’s got the chicken pox,” Joshua muttered.

      “Poor little boy.”

      “I’ve never seen a couple crazier about a kid,” Joshua said absentmindedly. He rubbed the side of his face, smearing a smudge of oil along his jaw.

      “Bob seems to be a good father,” Larry commented.

      “He is,” Joshua said. “Especially for being so new to it.”

      “Axel isn’t his child?” Larry suspected as much, but then, he suspected a lot more.

      “No. The boy belongs to Merrily,” he said, and reached inside the engine with a long-handled wrench. “No one realized she had a kid until she showed up with him one day.”

      Larry’s suspicions mounted. When he’d moved into the house, there’d been a pile of junk mail stacked in the post office box, waiting for him once he’d submitted his change-of-address information. Never one to toss a piece of paper without first looking at it, he’d come across some flyers, notifications of several missing and abducted children. The name Axel, being unusual, had stuck in his mind. Within a week he’d met Bob and Merrily and their boy … Axel.

      “Come to think of it, I never saw Merrily pregnant, either,” Joshua said. He twisted the wrench again and glanced up. “It used to be that Merrily would drift in and out of town. She’d stay with Buffalo Bob a few weeks, then disappear. He took her leaving real hard and never seemed to know when she’d be coming back.”

      “You never saw her pregnant?” Larry repeated.

      Joshua paused. “Funny, I never thought about it before, but no.”

      “She didn’t bring the boy with her on earlier visits?”

      Joshua shook his head. “No, not once.”

      “You’re sure the boy is hers?”

      His friend looked uncertain. “It’s clear he belongs to her,” he finally said. He held Larry’s eyes for an uncomfortably long moment. “If you’ve got something to say, then say it.”

      Larry wasn’t sure this was the time or place to voice his suspicions. For many, he was a newcomer to the community; he had no intention of wading into an explosive situation without being sure of himself.

      “Did Sarah hear from Calla?” he asked instead, purposely changing the subject.

      “She did.” Regret flashed across Joshua’s face. “Apparently Calla’s not coming.”

      Larry had been afraid of that. “Is Sarah upset?”

      “Real upset. Frankly, I don’t understand Calla. Makes me wonder what lies that no-good father of hers is feeding her.”

      “You might never know.”

      Joshua scratched his head, leaving more grease in his hair. “I told you how she ran away from his place, too, didn’t I?”

      Larry nodded.

      “Sarah and Dennis tried to talk sense into her, but she wouldn’t listen. Calla had a choice—either move back here to Buffalo Valley or return to her father. No one understood why she’d choose to live with Willie. I tell you, it’s got us all worried sick. No one would object if you mentioned it the next time you’re talking to God.”

      “I’ll be glad to,” Larry offered. And while he was praying for Calla and her mother, he intended to ask God about the situation with Axel and his parents, too.

      In the past few days, Sheryl had phoned no fewer than seven times. She was hounding Matt about Margaret, quizzing him about the relationship and what he was doing to promote it. Heaven help him if she ever found out about those kisses! At first, he’d assumed Sheryl’s talk about how he should marry Margaret for her ranch was nothing but that—talk. He’d been wrong. She was dead serious.

      That anyone could so blatantly use another for such a mercenary purpose angered him. He should have realized from the beginning that Sheryl was trouble. The evidence was there. Sheryl had bragged about collecting on three frivolous lawsuits, as well as two minor car accidents and a workman’s compensation claim. Every single time, she’d walked away with money in her pocket. It was a way of life with her. He’d been unimpressed and somewhat contemptuous, СКАЧАТЬ