Her Dakota Man (Book 1 - Dakota Hearts)

by Lisa Mondello

  He rubbed his face in the dark as if it would wipe his sins clean. It all seemed like a blur now. And every move he’d made since then hinged on that one night when… That’s for another time, Poppy had said. I’ve never been engaged.

  What the hell was that all about? Poppy had urged him to read the letters last night and he’d refused. Part of him didn’t want to know the deep secrets shared between these two friends.

  You didn’t know everything, Logan. I didn’t either.

  Did he want to know now? Did it even matter after all this time?

  Easing himself off the bed, he slowly made his way across the room. He paused by the closet to pick up the hatbox and the stack of letters Poppy had left on top. He didn’t bother getting dressed, not wanting to disturb Poppy as she slept. Naked, he picked up the hatbox and letters and crept out of the bedroom and down the hall. He quickly pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants and a sweatshirt and carefully walked downstairs to the living room.

  As he dropped to the sofa, with the hatbox and letters on the coffee table in front of him, he wondered for a brief moment if he should wake Poppy. These letters were important to her. And for some reason, they’d been important to Kelly, otherwise she wouldn’t have kept them. But what could possibly be in these letters that Poppy would need to explain?

  He pulled the lid off the hatbox and his heart stopped. The box held a sweatshirt, a stack of pictures, and an envelope in Kelly’s handwriting…addressed to him.

  * * *

  It was surprisingly cold when Poppy woke up. Reaching her hand across the bed, she found she was alone and her heart stopped. Logan was gone.

  If she lived to be a hundred years old, she’d never forget the way Logan had made love to her tonight. Logan had asked her about the men in her life, and over the years, there’d been a few. But no one special. None of them ever touched her heart the way Logan had. No one had ever loved her or made her feel his love the way Logan had tonight.

  She ran her hand over her swollen breast, almost feeling the imprint of his hands caressing them as he had earlier or the way his mouth had loved them exquisitely. She wanted him back in her bed, loving her again. No matter how much he’d given her, no matter how much her body ached from his lovemaking, she wanted more.

  In the quiet night, she listened for sounds of him in the house. When she couldn’t hear anything, she decided to go look for him. Poppy quickly got out of bed. Naked, she made her way to the closet to retrieve her bathrobe, but stopped short. Something was missing. In the dark, she couldn’t tell. Reaching into the closet, she flicked on the light and turned around. The bed was unmade. Her clothes and Logan’s were still scattered on the floor.

  And then it hit her. Pushing the blanket off her, she bolted out of bed and ran to the closet, her heart in her throat. She searched the top shelf and found an empty space. She looked around the floor. Nothing. She didn’t know where Logan was but she knew what he was doing. The hatbox and all the letters were gone.

  * * *

  The creak in the stair tread told him Poppy was awake. He sat in the living room; pages of a long letter that was written long ago were spread out on the floor in front of him. No matter how he tried to piece it all together and make sense of it, Logan just couldn’t.

  When he looked up, Poppy was standing in the doorway. The robe she’d put on was wrapped tight around her as if to protect her from what was to come.

  “You knew about this?” he asked.

  “It’s not exactly bestseller material, huh?”

  Her attempt at a joke fell flat. All he felt was emptiness.

  “When did you know?”

  She took a deep breath. “Which part?”

  “Part? All of it. All the lies.”

  “Kelly told me after she was diagnosed with cancer.”

  “You were…never engaged. You were never going to marry some guy you met in college.”

  “Gary?” She rolled her eyes. “No, I couldn’t stand the guy.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Does it matter?”

  He swallowed hard. “Yes. She said you talked about him all the time.”

  “I did. I was saddled with him on a project for my chemistry class. I was never so happy as I was when that semester was over.”

  “What about New York City? Why didn’t you come back to Rudolph like you said you were going to? I waited for you.”

  She shook her head, her brows drawn together with a look of confusion. “It’s all there, Logan. Didn’t you read my letters?”

  “There are no letters here from you. Only Kelly’s letter to me.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Of course there are letters. Kelly told me she saved my letters. She said they’d explain it all. They have to be in the hat box.”

  He lifted the box to show her the contents.

  “I wrote to her all the… I kept her letters.” Poppy took a deep breath. “She left you a letter?”

  “I was on my way to New York City to see you. I was all ready to live there and see if we could…”

  “I know.”

  He looked at her hard. “When did you know?”

  “After. When Kelly got sick.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was accusing and he knew deep down Poppy didn’t deserve that.

  “Logan, Kelly was dying! What good would it have done to tell you the truth then? I could barely understand everything that happened.”

  “Is that why you didn’t come to her funeral?”

  “I couldn’t…face you. I couldn’t know what I knew and be near you. I was so torn apart by Kelly’s betrayal and then her death that I just… I just couldn’t, Logan.”

  “I wanted you to be there. I needed you at the very least as my friend. If anything, I thought we at least had that.”

  “I know. But what was I supposed to do? Tell you at the funeral? You were grieving for your wife, Logan. Did you really think that telling you that your life was a lie then was going to matter? You wouldn’t have believed me. You would have hated me.”

  “I did hate you. Because I thought you didn’t give a damn. She was never pregnant. Did she tell you that?”

  “Yes.”

  He picked up the letter from Kelly that he’d read with horror. “She’d made up the whole thing to keep me from going to New York. Did she tell you that, too?”

  “Not at first. She knew you wouldn’t run out on your responsibilities, Logan. She knew you’d never leave Rudolph or her if she was carrying your child. And she was right.”

  Logan bolted from the sofa and started to pace. “I didn’t remember that night. I was so drunk I could barely move. I was shocked when she told me we’d made love and…” He looked at Poppy and saw the pain on her face. He’d been married to Kelly. He had a child with her. They’d built a life together. But looking back on that day, he’d always felt as if he’d betrayed Poppy, not Kelly. “I didn’t sleep with her until after we were married. ”

  Poppy looked away. “She told me.”

  “What else did she tell you?” Tears filled her eyes, but he pushed her harder. “What are you not telling me?”

  “That first summer when I was supposed to come back to Rudolph and stay with Kelly…”

  “What?”

  “She told me not to come. By the end of the summer she said the two of you were dating.”

  He looked at her in disbelief. “And you believed her?”

  “She sent me a picture of her sitting on your lap. Logan, she was here and I was in New York. I wasn’t here to see what was really happening. And I had no reason not to believe her.”

  He closed his eyes. “That picture was taken before you left Rudolph. Ethan took that picture, and then Denny picked her up off my lap and tossed her into the pond. You came down to the pond right after that, don’t you remember?”

  She nodded. “That was before Denny had that accident and Ethan left for the military. She was so pissed off with Ethan and Denny that she didn’t talk to eit
her one of them for a month.”

  “Not until Ethan gave her the picture.” Poppy shook her head with the memory. “I’d forgotten all about that picture.”

  “We weren’t dating.” Logan thought back to their entire relationship with sadness. “Kelly and I never dated. We just got married. How crazy is that?”

  “Every time I called your house you weren’t home.”

  “I was working like a dog, trying to save every penny so I could…”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  He thought back with regret and sank back onto the sofa. “I wanted to surprise you. To prove myself to you. I sure proved myself, huh?”

  Poppy sat down next to him on the sofa.

  “I was crushed, Logan. I wanted to be happy for Kelly. But when she told me the two of you were getting married…I was inconsolable. I avoided her for a while. I…didn’t want to think about the two of you being happy together. I know that sounds awful. But then when she told me about the miscarriage…”

  “That night she told me you were engaged changed everything.”

  A sheen of moisture filled Poppy’s eyes. “She lied to both of us, Logan. I never realized how much she was in love with you or the lengths she was willing to go to keep you in Rudolph. I only knew that I loved you. What else was I supposed to believe? I trusted Kelly.”

  He had too. “I was on my way to you that night. Did she tell you that? I can barely remember that night other than her stopping me in the driveway as I was about to drive off, and telling me you were in love with someone else. I couldn’t stand the thought of another man’s hands on you. I was so tired from working and… My truck was all packed and I would have driven all night. But then she stopped me.”

  “She thought she was going to lose you.”

  “She didn’t have me then.”

  “You married her.”

  “She was pregnant.” He picked up the letters he’d spread in front of him on the floor and fisted them in his hands. “But that was a lie. My whole life with her was a lie.” He looked up at the ceiling yelled, “Why Kelly?”

  Poppy looked at him. “You had to have come to love her or you wouldn’t have stayed married to her.”

  He had loved Kelly. There had been so many times during their marriage where it would have been easy for him to jump ship, tell Kelly it had all been a mistake. He’d certainly felt that way many times and to this day the guilt of it ate him up inside knowing he hadn’t given her enough of what she’d deserved.

  Kelly never complained. And in the end he stayed. There were reasons that always made sense at the time. Kelly was depressed over the miscarriage. He couldn’t leave her then. Then she couldn’t get pregnant and he felt he owed her to at least try. Then she’d gotten pregnant with Keith.

  He didn’t have Poppy, and he’d convinced himself if he only tried a little harder, he could make his marriage to Kelly work and be the husband she deserved. Things had gotten better once Keith was born. But was he truly happy?

  “Why did she do this? Kelly wasn’t a mean person.”

  And yet it was all there in Kelly’s handwriting. They’d been husband and wife. The marriage may not have been perfect, but they’d been friends and he always believed that was something. Now he knew he never knew Kelly at all.

  Poppy picked up the letters Kelly had sent her. They were still wrapped in ribbon and tied in a bow.

  She looked up at him, confusion on her face. “Either you got really good at gift wrapping or you didn’t read these letters.”

  “I can’t read those. Those were Kelly’s letters to you.”

  “I want you to. I don’t know exactly what she said to you in her letter to you, but maybe these will explain more about what drove Kelly to do what she did.”

  She sighed. “Even after all this time, even after hearing it from Kelly, it’s still hard to believe. When I look back, I regret a lot of things, Logan. I should have questioned her. I should have tried harder to reach you to get the truth from you. I was angry with her for a long time after she told me. But she was my best friend. I took her word on blind faith. Why wouldn’t I? Even when I went to see her in the hospital at the end, I still didn’t want to believe it was true.”

  “You went…to the hospital? You saw her when she was sick?”

  “Of course I did. I had to at least try to make this right. I don’t think I could have lived with myself if I hadn’t. Did you really think I’d just let Kelly die without having the chance to say goodbye?”

  “I don’t know anything anymore. Whatever I thought before I read that letter…”

  “It took me a long time to forgive her, Logan. I don’t even think I truly did while she was still alive. But I did eventually and…”

  “What?”

  “I promised her I’d come back. On her deathbed, she begged me and I made that promise to her. So here I am.”

  “Because Kelly asked you to.”

  She nodded. “I didn’t want to at first. I couldn’t face you. I was angry with her. Angry with you. Angry with myself. It was killing me. Everything I’d believed, every decision I’d made...” Poppy sighed and shook her head as if she was somewhere else other than in that room. “Logan, she’d begged me. I thought that I’d gotten over you long ago after the initial pain of hearing that you and Kelly had gotten married wore off. She always told me you two were so much in love.”

  He turned away.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Tonight is the night for the truth. I think there have been enough lies and secrets over the years, don’t you? If we can’t be honest now, what’s left?”

  He couldn’t argue with that so he simply nodded.

  “She told me you both were happy,” she said.

  “She was happy. At least I thought she was.” Logan got up and paced the floor. “I…”

  “What?”

  “I wasn’t…I grew to love Kelly,” he said, watching Poppy’s expression.

  But only when he’d pushed his feelings for Poppy out of his mind. The thought of how he’d still thought of Poppy while being married to Kelly had eaten him up inside for years.

  Poppy nodded and smiled, a reaction Logan wasn’t expecting. Somehow he’d expected her to be jealous, maybe as disgusted with him as he’d been with himself for so long. He’d certainly been jealous enough over the years listening to stories about the men in Poppy’s life. Although after reading this letter, Logan wondered just how many of those stories were fiction, much like the novels that Kelly always read.

  “I’m glad. I’d hate to think she did all this for nothing.”

  Anger simmered inside him, making him want to lash out at someone or something. Except the person he needed to confront wasn’t there. “She manipulated me into marrying her under false pretenses.”

  The emotional mess he was caught in was just as devastating as the mess from the flood. Everything was spinning out of control. Everything he believed, everything he’d been able to count on for the past eight years evaporated. Numbness overtook the shock he felt and Logan wished he could dial back to another time where life was real.

  He’d loved Poppy tonight in a way he’d never loved any woman. Not even Kelly. And at that moment he wished Poppy had never come to Rudolph again. How was he ever going to get his equilibrium back and go on with a life that had kept him putting one foot in front of the other for over a year?

  Poppy didn’t know when it happened exactly. But somewhere between the journey downstairs and now, she’d lost Logan. He wasn’t angry with her the way he’d been when she’d first arrived a few days ago. Instead, he’d retreated somewhere and shut her out with his sudden silence.

  Poppy extended her hand to him. “Come back to bed. Keith will be back bright and early. We don’t have to figure everything out tonight.”

  Emotional fatigue dragged him down. “Not just yet. You go.”

  Poppy looked at Logan and knew the connection that had fused them all afternoon had been broken.

 
; “Logan you’re exhausted,” she said, desperate to hold on to what they had a short time ago.

  “I just need some time.”

  Without her. Poppy nodded. “Don’t be long, okay? It’ll be light soon.”

  “Keith is coming home early.”

  She stood before Logan and bent over to kiss mouth, but he turned away. And she wanted to die.

  “How long are you staying?” he asked, looking up at her with eyes filled with emotion she couldn’t decipher.

  “I don’t know. That all depends.”

  “On what?”

  She took a deep breath. “On you, I guess.”

  He bent his head and looked at his hands.

  “Goodnight, Poppy.”

  With each step she took upstairs, her feet dragged behind letting the happiness she’d felt all day slip away. And her world had shattered all over again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  She’d lay in bed alone the rest of the night, as she knew she would. She’d tossed in bed, hearing movement downstairs and then the door slam before light started to illuminate the room. She hadn’t slept but for those few short hours after she and Logan had made love and then she’d awoken alone.

  Dragging herself out of bed, she quickly dressed into a fresh pair of jeans, pulled on an oversized sweater, slipped into her sneakers, sans socks, and made her way downstairs. The living room looked much as it did last night. The long letter from Kelly that Logan was reading when she’d found him was spread out on the floor again. The paper was wrinkled and looked as if it had been smoothed out again. The letters Kelly had written to her were still wrapped in the ribbon she’d tied together with a neat bow.

  Walking the length of the hallway to the kitchen, she’d hoped to find Logan sitting at the kitchen table, but was disappointed to find it empty. She pushed the curtains to the window over the sink back so she could get a better view of the barn. The red barn doors were open.

  Keith was going to be home soon and Poppy desperately needed to talk to Logan before they both had to pretend everything was normal in front of family and friends. Without the bother of her jacket, she stepped out onto the porch and quickly made her way out to the barn, hugging her middle to ward of the bitter chill of the South Dakota morning.