Heartland (10 page)

“Still hungry?”

She patted her stomach. “No. I think that was just about right. What about you?”

His eyes twinkled. “There is one hunger that isn't satisfied.”

“Oh, really. I thought we'd taken care of that one first.”

“That was just the appetizer. I was thinking of dessert.”

“Is this insatiable side to you something I need to worry about?”

“I was rather hoping you'd find it one of my better qualities,” he taunted. Then his expression suddenly turned sober. “There's something we should talk about.”

She waved her hands in a gesture of truce. “Please, no serious talk tonight. I just want to get some sleep.”

“No. This can't wait. It's something we touched on this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?”

“Yes. We were talking about your going back to school.”

“Steven, I don't want to discuss that again. It's out of the question.”

“Because you don't want to go?”

“I didn't say that.”

“Is it the expense?”

“That's certainly part of it. There's no denying that medical school would cost a fortune. As you well know, I'm a little short on fortunes these days.”

“I'm not.”

Her eyes widened. “Forget it! I will not take money from you.”

“Why not? Lara, I have more than enough. If college is something you want, I'd like to help you. It would make me happy to see you get all the things you deserve. God knows I owe you that much.”

“Absolutely not! You don't owe me anything. It's bad enough being in debt to the bank. I won't start borrowing money from friends.”

“Aren't I more than a friend?” he inquired with a wry expression.

She waved aside the argument. “Semantics. You're missing the point. If I can't do it on my own, I won't do it.”

“Does that mean you want to, though?”

“Please, Steven, leave it be. I didn't say that.”

A silence fell between them, and she thought that was the end of the matter, but not meeting her eyes, Steven said slowly, “There's another alternative.”

“What?”

“Sell me the farm.”

Those four words echoed off the walls, pounding into Lara's head as violently as unexpected blows.

Sell me the farm.

Was that what all this had been about? After eleven years was Steven after nothing but her land? Betrayal, so recently dismissed as a thing of the past, came surging back to choke her on its bitterness.

Shaking, her whole body literally trembling with anger, she got to her feet. “Get out,” she said very, very softly.

Steven stared at her in shock. “What?”

“You heard me. I asked you, no, I ordered you to get out of my house.”

“Lara?”

His confusion appeared real, but she was relentless. Her voice rose. “Leave! Now!”

He stayed right where he was. “Sit down. Let's talk about this. Why on earth are you so angry?”

“I think you've said quite enough. If you won't leave, I will.”

Faced with her stubborn determination, he finally stood. But when he got to the door, he turned and tried one last time. “Lara,” he began, his voice a plea.

She turned her back on him.

Only after she heard him leave, heard the finality of the door closing, did she give in to the sobs that seemed to well up from deep inside. Picking up a plate she flung it at the door, then cried all the harder as it shattered and fell to the floor.

The land! The damned land! That's all it had ever been about. Fool that she was, she had actually believed that he loved her, when all he really cared about were these acres she owned. She would pay him back for this. By God, she would find a way to make him pay.

Chapter Ten

A
lacy pattern of silver and shadow covered the lawn. It was nearly dawn, and hints of pink were coloring the horizon. Lara sat sideways in the swing on the front porch, idly pushing herself back and forth with one foot. Normally it would have been just enough motion to lull her to sleep, but her mind had been churning restlessly all night, and the soothing rhythm of the swing had no effect. She finally gave up on rest and decided to simply enjoy the faint breeze and to think through this latest turn of events in her tumultuous relationship with Steven.

For hours now she had thought about his offer again and again, trying to make sense of it. It always came back to the same thing. He'd never given up on owning the Danvers' acreage. She wanted to believe that over the past few weeks there had been something lasting between them. More than once he had made a declaration of sorts, a promise to win her back. His seductive efforts to do just that had been disconcerting at first, but they had worked. Dear heaven, how well they had worked. He had used her body's yearning for the intoxication of his touches against her.

Her desire to believe in him had led her to self-delusion. She had ignored her instincts. All along they had told her that it was unlikely that Steven had spent the past eleven years or so pining away for her, no matter what he said. After all, it wasn't as though they'd been separated by a tragic fate or some great natural disaster. He'd chosen to leave. Even after he'd returned nearly three years ago, he had done nothing to make amends, nothing to draw her back into his life. There clearly had been no urgent sentiment on his part.

So why now? she wondered.

Burned once, she approached his motives cynically. Perhaps there was some new development scheme afoot, some plan that would require her property for success. He'd gotten hundreds of acres dirt cheap years ago by buying up family farms that were in financial trouble. A man capable of capitalizing on others' difficulties was ruthless enough to try anything. How far would he have been willing to go? Marriage? Perhaps his only intention had been to insinuate himself into her life until the time came when her own disaster struck. Fortunately for him, he hadn't had long to wait.

In her case, though, she vowed that this time he had met his match. Her father had held out eleven years ago, and despite the setback of the storm damage, she was in an even better position to hold out now.

Unbeknownst to Steven she had studied hard at agricultural extension classes. She had learned the lessons well, and the past few years had been good. Her cornfields had yielded the best crops ever. Even last year when she had spent a lot to improve the farm's technology and equipment and hire reliable workers to assist Logan, she had squeaked by in the black. Steven himself had told her that Mr. Hogan was proud of her accomplishments. The banker was unlikely to refuse her additional money to put things back on track in the spring. Maybe she could even get a late crop in and salvage something this year.

She'd promised herself that someday she would buy back the land she'd been forced to sell to Steven. It was the goal that had driven her ever since that humiliating day in the bank. She would not compound the serious, if unavoidable mistake she had made then by giving in to his charm now and selling him the rest. Instead, she would concentrate on discovering his real motives.

When the phone began ringing again, as it had all through the night, she ignored it. It continued incessantly, until finally she snatched it up and snapped, “Leave me alone!”

“Lara?” The gruff, distinctive voice of Terry Simmons sounded uncertain.

Lara sighed. “Terry, I'm sorry.”

“Are you okay?”

“I've been better,” she replied honestly.

“I heard the storm hit pretty hard out your way. How are things?”

“The house and barn are okay. The fields took the worst of it.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No, thanks. I'm about to go into town to take care of some errands. I'll probably stop in at the bank to see how things stand there. I should be able to see from Mr. Hogan's reception how much trouble I'm really in.”

“Why don't we meet for lunch? It sounds as though your spirits could use a little boosting.”

Lara hesitated, then realized she needed Terry Simmons unquestioning comfort and perhaps even a little motherly advice. “Beaumont's at noon?”

“I'll see you there.”

As soon as Lara had hung up, she left the house and drove straight to the county courthouse to check on recent land purchases and zoning requests.

At the courthouse she found Franklin Dennison with his bifocals sitting on the tip of his long, thin nose. He was surrounded by huge, dusty volumes of county land records. He blinked when she spoke to him, then smiled in recognition, deep lines furrowing his narrow face.

“Lara, what brings you over this way? We don't see much of you in town this time of year. You're usually too busy with the farm. The girls still visiting?”

“No. They went back to Kansas City with Tommy and Megan.”

He shook his head disapprovingly. “Seems like a mighty long way to go. Families wander too much these days if you ask me.”

“It's a good opportunity for Tommy, and to tell you the truth, I think he wanted to get out of my hair. Even though he wanted no part of living on the farm anymore, he had his own ideas about running the place. As long as he was here, we were bound to butt heads about it. Greg's not like that. I doubt if he'd notice if I let the whole place go to seed, unless it interfered with the work he does in that studio of his down in Columbus.”

“Never did figure out where that boy got such an artistic streak,” Franklin said. “Your daddy couldn't even plant corn in a straight line, much less draw one, and your mama was as sensible and down-to-earth as they come.”

“But I found some of Mama's sketches after she died. Her doodles she called them. They were good. It's too bad she never really developed her talent.”

“Her family was all that mattered to her. She'd be mighty proud of you, Lara. Those boys turned out to be fine men, thanks to you. You'll make a good mama one of these days.”

“I did what I had to do,” she said, suddenly becoming impatient with the idle gossip. Franklin apparently heard the slight snap in her voice.

“You didn't come in here for a pat on the head from me, did you, gal?” he said, taking no offense. “What can I help with?”

“I need to look at your records of land transactions.”

He brushed a thick lock of grey hair back from his face and squinted at her. “Lordy, we got a lot of those. How far back you want to go?”

“Maybe the last five years.”

“Anything in particular you're looking for?”

“Nothing exactly. Just a hunch I want to check out.”

Two hours later she was exhausted, thirsty and practically cross-eyed from reading through the files. She'd found Steven's name on the deeds for a lot of property in the county, but it was scattered. Other than the housing development he'd put together eleven years ago, she couldn't find any logical pattern to suggest that he was planning another project of any kind. Nor had any zoning requests been filed to turn the residential and farmland properties he'd bought into shopping centers, industrial parks or even apartment complexes.

Sighing, she thanked Franklin and walked across the street to the newspaper office. Peter Grimes, the editor of the weekly, had gone to school with her. He'd gone on to Ohio State, majored in journalism, and then taken over the paper his father had founded. The family now owned similar local papers throughout the northwest section of the state.

Even though most newspapers printed digitally these days, Peter preferred the old-fashioned ways. She found him in the print shop in the back, moving galleys of type around on the forms for this week's edition.

“You look busy,” she said when he finally looked up and saw her watching him.

He grimaced. “Matt has the flu. Now I ask you, who gets the flu in the summer? You're supposed to get it in February when it's dreary and you can recuperate in front of a fire with bowls of chicken soup. This time of year all you can do is lie around and get heat rash to go along with it.”

“I gather his absence means you have to paste up the pages yourself.”

“I do if I want the paper to come out tomorrow. Care to help?”

“I'd be happy to if I didn't think you'd wind up with the headline announcing the state fair over Tiffany Wyatt's obituary on page six.”

“Believe me, that's the least of my worries,” he said wearily. “If you didn't come to help, what did you come for?”

“I was going to buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain.”

His eyes brightened. “With a Danish? Don't you dare tease me, Lara Danvers. I've been here since dawn with nothing more than that black goo that my wife tries to pass for coffee.”

Lara laughed at his wistful tone. “Just to show you what a sport I can be, I'll go buy takeout and bring it back.”

Twenty minutes later amid blissful sighs of gratitude, Peter was eating his second cheese Danish as he continued to work on the pages. “Okay,” he said when he'd swallowed the last bite and taken a long sip of the fragrant, rich coffee from Beaumont's, “my brain is yours.”

Lara plunged right in. “Is there much development going on in the county these days?”

“You've seen the shopping center out on the highway, and there are a couple of office buildings here in town. Nothing fancy. Why?”

“I'm not talking about things already going up. I mean behind-the-scenes stuff. Talk of big plans. Maybe some new housing developments. Have you heard anything?”

He studied her quizzically. “What have you heard?”

Lara laughed. “Don't try turning the tables on me, Peter Grimes. I'm picking
your
brain.”

“Sorry,” he said with a grin. “Force of habit. Now let me think a minute. There are always rumors every time anyone buys land, but I haven't heard anything specific. Nothing I'd be sure enough of to print anyway.”

“But you have heard some gossip?”

“That's all it was, Lara, gossip.”

“Who did it involve?”

Peter stopped what he was doing and met her gaze. He sighed. “So, that's what this is all about. You still haven't forgotten, have you?”

“Forgotten what?”

“Steven Drake and what he did to you years ago.”

She regarded him in astonishment, edged with embarrassment. “What do you know about that?”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Lara, this is a small town. Besides that, I was Tommy's best friend. I was around when Drake left. I saw the way you were before you left for college, mooning around the farm all sad eyed. When you came back when your mother died, you were no better. The pain was still there. I'd hoped it was a thing of the past by now, especially since I saw the two of you together out at the farm when Kelly was trapped in that well.”

“We have been getting along okay.”

“Then why all the questions?”

“I was just wondering,” she said defensively.

“And I'm the editor of the
New York Times
,” he retorted. “You're not fooling me.”

He regarded her seriously. “Let me give you a piece of advice, Lara. If you're thinking of trying to get even with him in some crazy way, forget it. He's a popular man around here now, a good man by all accounts. He's helped more than one person out and asked nothing in return. If you want to know something about Steven's plans, ask him. Don't catch your friends—his friends—in the middle.”

“Ask him,”
she muttered as she crossed the street to Beaumont's. Certainly it would be the direct approach, the one most likely to get answers. But would they be answers she could trust? Besides, the idea of confronting Steven was daunting. Just the thought of being in the same room with him made her heartbeat skip erratically, and once again, if honesty was to prevail, the reaction wasn't caused entirely by anger.

“Who put that stormy expression in your eyes?” Terry inquired when she joined her in a booth by the window. “Never mind. Let me guess. Steven?”

“Why would you say that? Isn't losing most of my crop justification for gloom?”

Terry nodded. “Would be for some folks, but I'm guessing that's the sort of storm you can weather, if you'll pardon a terrible pun. Nope. This has to be a man-woman thing. What's he done?”

Lara considered whether or not to laugh off Terry's incredibly accurate guess, then decided against it. This certainly wasn't something she could call Tommy and Megan to discuss. They were all for her getting rid of the farm and going back to school. They'd just tell her she was being a damn fool for turning Steven down, no matter why he'd made the offer.

Finally she took a deep breath. “He wants me to go back to medical school.”

Terry's brown eyes widened dramatically. “What an awful man!”

Lara stared at her, then caught the twitching of her lips. “Okay. You're making fun of me. I know that doesn't sound like much, but there's more. Since I refuse to accept money from him to do it, he offered to buy the farm.”

“I think I'm beginning to see the problem. You don't want to sell, not even if it means getting the career you always wanted.”

Lara shook her head. “I'm not so sure I even want that anymore,” she said slowly, surprised herself by the admission. “I mean when the subject first came up, I toyed with it. Becoming a doctor was real important to me at one time, but I think the truth of the matter is that I really like farming. In spite of everything, I like the challenge of it.”

“If you can say that after nearly getting wiped out yesterday, then I've got to believe it's true. So why don't you just tell Steven that?”