High Plains Hearts (60 page)

She could only shake her head.

He sat down, keeping his back stick-straight, crossed his legs, and looked her directly in the eye. “For when you reopen. You are reopening, aren’t you?”

She knew Michael Evans well enough to pay attention when he was positioned like this, poised and attentive. She used to say that she could see his ears literally perk up when he sensed a business opportunity. She let him continue speaking, anxious to let him share his vision.

“This would be a splendid resort,” he said.

“But it wasn’t working,” she objected, pretending that she hadn’t been thinking of just that. The more she could learn from this man’s years of cagey expertise, the better. “Plus it’s not exactly Hawaii or the Riviera.”

“The destination is what you create.” He looked out the window, and Livvy’s eyes followed his. The copper and bronze of the Badlands were framed against the bright blue of the sky. “Look at that. You name me one other place that has that. And I wager that if that teenager would turn off his truck, we’d hear only nature. Am I right?”

She nodded, beginning to feel a twinge of excitement.

“Figure out what kind of resort you’d like it to be.” He stood and picked up the folder and tucked it under his arm. “I’d make it a retro theme, and market it to L.A. and New York. Big Internet splash, which is practically free. I bet that kid out there could cobble up a webpage with his eyes closed. Run off some flyers on a printer, nice full-color images with this place all spiffed up, and blast them to travel agents out there.”

It sounded wonderful, and as she listened, the ideas started to take root.

“One question, Mr. Evans,” she said as she walked him to the truck, nearly shouting to be heard over the music coming from Trevor’s radio. “Why aren’t you trying to get this from me, open it yourself, if it’s such a great business proposition?”

“Me?” he asked. He opened the door of the truck and with a look of complete revulsion, flicked a bug off the seat and climbed into the cab. He placed the packet neatly centered on his knees and snapped the safety belt across his shoulders. Then he faced her squarely, and with a voice just a touch under the decibels still thundering from the radio, said, “I don’t want it. But you do, and that’s what counts. You have heart, Miss Moore, and that’s what this is going to take. North Dakota heart.”

Trevor caught her eye over Mr. Evans’s shoulder and grinned, making loopy “crazy” signs and pointing at the real estate magnate.

She smiled back.

She loved this place, loved this old house, even loved this obnoxious truck and its driver and its blaring radio and amped-up engine.

North Dakota heart, indeed!

The chill of autumn was definitely in the air. That Indian summer day had passed, and the temperatures had become more October-like. The leaves on the trees along the river began to dry, and when the afternoon winds picked up, they rattled together like shells, a wind chime heralding the end of summer and the time-to-come of winter.

The little apartment in Obsidian was cozy—which was a code word for
cramped
. Gramps was still with him awaiting an opening in the senior living facility, and while Hayden was grateful to have his grandfather with him, a one-bedroom apartment was just that—one bedroom. He’d given Gramps the bed, and he’d been bunking on the couch in the living room, which was about ten inches too short for any comfort.

He sat at the kitchen table, papers that needed to be graded spread out in front of him, but he wasn’t seeing them. Too much was on his mind to be able to focus on the area of a trapezoid if side D was 1.3 and side B was 2.4.

Livvy had moved out to Sunshine, and they had an awkward arrangement. He’d bring Gramps out to her during the day, and he’d come back to Obsidian and teach. Then, at the end of the school day, he’d return to Sunshine, visit with Livvy and make sure everything was working well, and retrieve Gramps and the two of them would drive to Obsidian, to the tiny apartment.

He felt better knowing that Gramps was not alone during the day, but it was asking a lot of Livvy to have the older man out there all day long. And as the season progressed, he wasn’t sure it would continue to work.

But it had to. There just wasn’t any choice. Some things had to be the way they were, and that was simply all there was to it.

Gramps was in the living room, watching a video of an Elvis Presley movie he’d gotten at the grocery store. Why he’d chosen it from the rack of movie rentals, Hayden had no idea, but the old man had seemed delighted with the choice and was now deeply engrossed in it.

He stacked the homework into a neat pile and laid it aside. Maybe later he could get to it, but first he had to deal with what was topmost in his mind.

He picked up the envelope and removed the sheet of paper and read it once again. What should he do?

He buried his face in his hands in a futile attempt to wipe out what was in front of him. He had taken action, and now—now did he want it?

Earlier in the year, on a February day when the high was five below zero and the winds would not stop, he impetuously applied for a teaching job in Florida. He spread his fingers a tad and peeked through the opening at the correspondence in front of him. There were the letters, forming the words and sentences he had wanted to hear, and now dreaded. They had an opening and needed him to teach: Could he come for an interview?

He couldn’t leave. Sunshine might be sold, but his grandfather needed him. And without a place for Gramps to live, he had to stay in Obsidian. Until a spot opened in the senior living complex, his grandfather would have to live with him.

Not that he minded. He would walk over hot coals and through burning lava for his grandfather.

Plus there was Livvy. Livvy with her cap of dark hair that curled wildly when it rained, with her eyes so deeply brown that they glowed. She needed him to help her with Sunshine. There was no way she could do it by herself, not with just that goofy book to help her. What was the name of it again? Oh yes.
The Complete Guide to Home Construction and Repair
.

He put his hands together, palm to palm. When he had been a little boy, that’s what he would do when he prayed. He tried it now, asking for clarity, for comfort, for reassurance.

Usually he got a pleasant, warm feeling from his prayers, a sense that they had been heard and acknowledged, and this was no different. He came away from his brief time with the Lord refreshed and ready to face what was ahead.

Sadly, what was ahead was a stack of ungraded math worksheets.

He took a deep breath and dug in. Right now his problems were mathematical. The rest of them would have to wait.

“We need a bonfire,” Gramps announced one Saturday afternoon, when the three of them were at Sunshine. “One more bonfire before winter hits.”

They had just finished painting the interior of one of the old cabins, and they were sitting on the porch, enjoying the notion that there was just one more cabin to refinish before they would have all been renovated. It was a pleasant feeling.

Martha Washington grunted in her sleep. She was curled on Gramps’s lap in a furry ball. At the sound, one of Leonard’s ears perked up, but he didn’t open his eyes, apparently deeming a cat snort to be unimportant.

Livvy didn’t want to move. She wanted to sit in the chair with the slatted back and absorb the last rays of the weekend sun, wrapped in the soft fleece of a blanket.

Only one cabin was left. It seemed like it had been a race against the calendar, fixing one or two cabins a week so they’d be ready for visitors in the spring. If the weather held, she could probably get the last one done in the coming week, and maybe even get the old canteen painted. She’d found another box of the old signs. They’d be perfect in there.

She shut her eyes and let her imagination roam. A clear light blue, one that matched the summer sky here in North Dakota, would be perfect for the walls. She’d leave the signs as she’d found them, a few rusted, some partially broken, others in pristine shape, and scatter them across the walls.

Café curtains would let the sun in but filter the brightness. Maybe she could find some old-fashioned chintz, with the same color of blue as the walls, and perhaps a retro theme of families enjoying themselves on the water. She’d seen something like that at one time in Boston, back in a store that specialized in old-fashioned fabric themes. They probably would send her what she needed, if she could find samples on the Internet.

The Internet. She was connected again, thanks to the wonders of technology, and life was good. A satellite dish was tastefully positioned on the far side of the house, and through some marvels she didn’t understand, she had Internet, cell phone reception, and even more television channels than she could ever watch. Coverage didn’t extend beyond the house, but that was all right.

Now she wouldn’t have to drive into town to check her bank balances. She’d been spending her evenings investigating what kind of flowers she could plant around the house, and maybe she’d have a vegetable patch for fresh corn and tomatoes. She’d have to ask Hayden about that.

“We could,” Hayden said from the porch swing next to her. “What do you say, Livvy?”

She forced her eyes open. “About what?”

“About a bonfire.”

“Tonight?”

“Sure.”

“Would I have to move? Or can I stay right here and you do all the work?” She closed her eyes again. There really was nothing like the late autumn sun.

Martha Washington had it right. Sleep on the porch in the afternoon. Sit back, and relax. There would be time for work—well, for her anyway. Martha’s days of working were long over. She was now replaced by traps in the outbuildings, and it didn’t seem to bother her at all.

“Sure. All we have to do is put more wood on the pile and put a match to it. You’ve got marshmallows, right?”

She nodded, not bothering to raise her eyelids. “Amazingly, I do. I was going to make cereal bars with them but that would require me to move, and that’s not going to happen.”

“Do you have hot dogs?”

“Nope.”

“What do you think, Gramps? Should we go back into town and get some?”

The old man’s chair creaked as he rocked. Apparently the motion didn’t bother the cat; Livvy could hear her snoring continue uninterrupted.

“I put some pork chops in the Crock-Pot this morning,” Gramps said, “so we’ve got them for dinner. Let’s just go with the marshmallows. But you’ll need to go get some more logs, Grub. Down by the river, on the north edge, I think I saw some trees that didn’t make it through this last season. They’ll be fine for a bonfire.”

“Probably too smoky, I’d say,” Hayden commented.

“Smoky is okay. We’re outside. And it’ll keep the bugs away.”

“I’d rather use seasoned wood. There’s a pile over by the orange cabin.”

She could hear the teasing in his voice, and his grandfather rose to the occasion. “That’s good lumber. That’s not the stuff you burn. You might as well throw this chair onto the fire. Or that porch post. Maybe the kitchen Table …”

Livvy let the sound of their good-natured repartee wash over her like a lullaby, a backdrop to the soft chatter of the dried leaves that still clung to the trees, and the faint splash of the river, and the distant calls of birds that still lingered before migrating south. Wrapped in a blanket in the cool evening, she was so comfortable. Who knew that this would be one of life’s greatest pleasures, relaxing outside at the edge of winter? She knew she was falling asleep, but something kept nudging her arm.

“Leonard, go away,” she muttered drowsily. “I don’t want to throw the ball.”

“You don’t have to throw the ball. You just have to come in and have a pork chop.” It was Hayden’s voice. “Gramps got the table all set, and there’s a nice salad, and he’s got some goopy stuff he puts on the meat that makes it heavenly.”

“What?” She sat up and rubbed her eyes, still groggy.

“I don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s really good. You’d better come in and try it. His pork chops are almost as good as his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

“Was I asleep?” she asked. “I was just listening to you and Gramps talk about the wood, and—”