Badland Bride (Book 2 - Dakota Hearts) (9 page)

“What about FEMA aid?”

“What? In two years? The repairs need to be made within a certain period of time. Without enough money to repair the foundation the floods destroyed, the town will order the building to be completely torn down. That means no more Wounded Veterans Center. ”

Now it all made sense to him. “I’ll talk to her.”

“She can’t do anything. At least, that’s what she said. It came from higher up. Oh, and she’s really sorry.”

Hawk squashed down his anger as best he could. Why hadn’t Regis come and told him about the claim for the mill herself? Why was he getting it secondhand?

“Let’s put that aside for now and get you stitched up.”

“What’s the hurry? It’s not like I have anything pressing to do with my day now that the project at the mill is all but dead.”

Ian might be ready to give up. But Hawk was a long way from giving up the fight.

* * *

The community center was busier than it had been in days now that a full FEMA staff had set up camp there. People were coming in and out of the room from morning until late afternoon. Regis was glad she’d gotten most of the paperwork for her claims finished. Now she was just fielding questions and dealing with disgruntled customers who weren’t happy.

She was tired, physically from lack of sleep, and emotionally from dealing with a heart so heavy, it physically hurt. She’d hated sleeping alone last night. Regis hated even more that each time she rolled over, she’d searched for Keith’s warm body. Not finding him there left her cold.

She forced herself to be in the present and not the past. She had too much work to do to spend time pining over a man who’d be part of her past very soon.

The main area of the community room was full of people. Some were filling out paperwork, others were lined up in front of a table. Off to one side, a group of older kids watched their younger siblings playing while harried parents waited for their turn in line with the FEMA reps. Luckily, no one was lining up in front of her table needing help. It gave her some time to go through paperwork that needed to be finalized and filed by the end of the week before she left.

She heard a familiar voice greet someone in the crowd and lifted her gaze from the computer screen long enough to see Keith charging her way. The look on his face made her stomach drop.

“Can I talk to you a minute in private?” He didn't bother with preliminaries as he stepped behind the table.

Regis looked up, startled. She braced herself for what she knew was coming.

“Can it wait until later? I really want to finish this paperwork before the end of the day. Maybe we could have dinner out somewhere tonight.” she said.

“This is important,” Hawk insisted. “There is an empty room down the hall. We can talk there.”

“All right.” She quickly asked the agent at the next table to watch her computer while she stepped away, a courtesy they each did for each other during the day when it got busy and promised to be quick.

She followed Keith to an empty room down the hall and waited for him to shut the door behind her. She didn’t wait for him to get to what was on his mind.

“I didn’t tell you because I thought Ian should know first.”

“That was very thoughtful of you. But that doesn’t change the fact that the Buxton Mill claim has been denied.”

“It wasn’t denied. It just wasn’t approved for the full amount.”

“It may as well have been denied for all the good that tiny settlement will do for the cause.”

“Keith,” Regis shifted, uncomfortable with his question. “You know that I'm not really supposed to discuss my cases.”

“Ian isn’t a case,” he spat out the word. “You should have seen him, Regis. He’s given up. That center was a lifeline for him and now…”

She closed her eyes and tried to steady her nerves. This had been her fear.

“I did everything I could do, Keith. These things aren’t always as cut and dry as you think. Every claim has certain criteria that needs to be met if it's going to be approved. I skated on thin ice with my report but I got called on it by my manager. The pictures clearly show flood damage inside the building. That water level was enough to show that it was flood water, not the rain, wind or ice that damaged the property. I can only pay out for how the policy reads. Believe me, I wish the damage had been done by wind and ice. It would have been easier to approve more for the claim.”

“The engineer said the foundation needs to completely be replaced or the building needs to be demolished. If you read the report.”

“I had the engineer report. Ian gave it to me. But unfortunately, the engineer also said that the foundation showed signs of wear before the storms. The building was aging. The insurance company won’t pay out for an aging property that was already in disrepair.”

“So that’s it?”

“There’s nothing else I can do.”

Keith paced in front of her, clearly upset by what his cousin was going through. Then he stopped and looked at her directly.

“Is that why you didn’t stay with me last night?”

She drew in a slow breath. “I needed to call Ian and prepare the letter to the town. I wanted to make sure it was thorough.”

“That’s an excuse. You could have done that at my place.”

“You know I wouldn’t have worked if I had stayed at your house last night.” She smiled up at him and was taken aback when he didn’t respond in kind.

“If we can’t get the money to repair Buxton Mill, it’ll have to be demolished. The town won’t let it stand in that condition while we raise money.”

She’d never felt so helpless in her life or wanted to do something more than what she could do for anyone. “I know. And I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

His accusation was like a slap to the face. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You blow into town, take a quick look at a policy or a property and decide the fate of people’s lives. And then you get the hell out of town again and leave the people left behind to pick up the pieces.”

Anger surged in her. “Yes, that’s what I do. That’s all I do. But in doing that I’m trying to help people just like you do, Keith. It may not be the same, but I can help some people. There are times when I can’t. Sometimes my hands are tied.”

He paced in front of her again. “Ethan served eight years in the Navy, Regis. Ian did two tours in Iraq, lost his leg and nearly lost his life. This center was important to the soldiers in this community coming home from service overseas. It was supposed to be a place where they could come together and deal with whatever they experienced while serving this country. They need this center.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? Believe me, I have been around active military and veterans my entire life. But it doesn’t change what I can and can’t do for the center.”

Keith ran his hand over his head in frustration. “Jeez, Logan and Poppy were talking about getting married there. Now that’s not going to happen either.”

She took in the heavy slump of Keith’s shoulders and felt it herself. She was losing this battle. And maybe it was never a battle that could be won. This is what she’d always dreaded, falling for someone and then having to disappoint them .

Keith pierced her with a pleading look. “They’ll never get the building inspector to approve repairs without the money. And without the money the mill will have to be demolished and that’ll be the end of the community center for the veterans. They need help.”

“I know.” She glanced at the door and thought about all the people waiting in line. Every one of them was feeling as desperate as Keith felt.

“I can’t help everyone. But I can help some of the people in there,” she said, pointing out the door. “I need to get back to doing that.”

Keith nodded. “You’re right. Okay.”

“I’ll understand if you don’t want me to come over tonight.”

“No, I do.”

With a wary smile, she said. “I’ll see you then.”

* * *

Hawk watched Regis walk down the hallway until she disappeared in the room that was mulling with activity. Every emotion inside him was raw and conflicted, making it hard for him to even think. Deep down he knew this wasn’t Regis’s fault. She didn’t make the rules and there were a whole lot of rules that were stacked against them.

But part of his frustration went deeper than the center. She hadn’t told him what was going on. Instead, she’d avoided him last night. She was leaving. She’d said as much the other day at breakfast. And that was the harder pill for him to swallow than losing out on insurance claim money for the mill. It was losing Regis that was eating him up inside.

If he was going to fight, then the fight started there.

# # #

Regis sat in her car in front of Keith's house for a minute, hoping that tonight would turn out better than this afternoon had. She’d reminded herself a thousand times over the course of the afternoon why she didn’t get involved. It was for this. There was always going to be someone leaving. And leaving was just as hard when you cared about someone as being left behind.

But she wouldn’t deny herself the chance to spend as much time as she could with Keith before she left Rudolph. She hoped he felt the same.

She checked her hair and make-up again in her rearview mirror and tried to push away the memory of her confrontation with Keith earlier. She'd known he would be upset about the Buxton Mill claim. But she had no idea how deep his feelings for it went. She only hoped they could get past that tonight.

The moment she entered the house, it was clear that her hopes had been in vain. A meal was set out on the table, and the lights were low, but the normal easiness of their nights together was gone. Instead, Keith sat at one end of the table and ate his dinner while she silently ate hers.
Regis looked down at her plate, trying to figure out what she could say that would fix this. She picked at her food, pushing it around on her plate with her fork, unable to eat any of it. Her stomach was in knots, waiting for Keith to say something, anything that would indicate what he was thinking. But she already knew. She’d been through many nights like this right before her father would ship out on a tour.

“Maybe this wasn't such a good idea,” she finally said.

Keith looked at her then, questions clouding his handsome face. “What? You coming here or us?”

“Both.”

“You can’t mean that.”

She didn’t. She couldn’t imagine not having spent these last few weeks with Keith and yet, part of her wished she hadn’t. It would be so much easier to leave.

“I’m leaving in two days, Keith. It’s not going to get any easier.”

“Then stay,” Keith said. There was more there, in his eyes and in his voice. But he said no more.

She shook her head slowly. “I’m no good in one place.”

“That’s an excuse not to face what you feel.”

“Really?”

Frustration shadowed his normal happy-go-lucky expression. He got up from the table and dropped his plate into the sink, the sound of it jarring her.

“You’ve spent a lifetime leaving people behind, Regis. Aren’t you tired yet?”

“Correction. People left me behind.”

“And you followed suit.”

She started to protest, to argue the same clichéd points she’d convinced herself of all these years. But those arguments were bogus. They just fell flat in her mind and she knew she’d lose as soon as the words came out of her mouth.

She did leave. Just like her mother had. Just like everyone else who’d left her behind. It was easier that way.

“Stay,” he said again. This time, his eyes were pleading. “Stay long enough to see if something is real. To see if there’s anything here worth holding on to.”

Her bottom lip threatened to betray her with a slight quiver. “That’s easy for you to say. To imagine. You have this fantastic family and wonderful friends you’ve known since the cradle. Everyone in this town has memories that go all the way back to the dinosaurs.” She laughed at the absurdity of her statement, but at its core, Regis had meant it.

Hope filled his eyes. “You could have that, too.”

She shook her head quickly. “How? All I have are faces. I don’t even remember the names any more. They’re all blurred into one.”

“Then stay and let someone love you. Let someone leave an imprint on your heart. I want so much to do that. You have no idea.”

“You say that because you’ve never had anyone you loved leave you before. I have.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. My best friend left me and he’s never coming back.”

Her heart stopped just seeing the anguish on Keith’s face.

“Do you know what the last thing was that I said to Wade? ‘I can’t.’ Those are two words I regret more than anything.”

“You couldn’t know what was going to happen.”

He nodded. “No, but it doesn’t change what did. All he wanted to do was have a few beers with his brothers before he left for his tour with the Peace Corps. I was in the middle of my residency in Sioux City, working eighty hours a week. I didn’t want to lose precious sleep to drive the few hours to meet him halfway between Sioux City and Aberdeen and then drive back.

“Regis, I think about that phone call with Wade all the time. I would change that in a heartbeat if I could. I missed my opportunity to say goodbye to my brother. Of course, I never would have known at the time it was my last chance. But if I’d known, I would have driven all night and worked all day to have that last laugh or last hug from him before he boarded that plane.”

“I understand your loss. But there’s a difference. Wade didn’t leave you on purpose. My mother did. She just…left.”

“This isn’t about loss, Regis. It’s about risk. I was so focused on becoming a doctor and doing well at my residency that I didn’t risk stepping out of my comfort zone to do something that was probably one of the most important moments of my life; my opportunity to see my brother one last time. I would have been fine. I’d pulled all-nighters before, working two days straight without sleep.”

“This isn’t the same thing.”

“Then why are you leaving? Why not stay and take a risk? You and I both know there’s something special here. I’ve never felt the way I feel about you before. No other woman in my life has even come close. Even though you’re too stubborn to admit it, I have a feeling you feel the same. Except the closer we get, the more you want to run. That’s the real reason why you didn’t want to stay last night.”