tire sale!" Laney's voice rose in a wail of despair as she brought the car to a bumpy stop on the side of a deserted gravel road between two endless cornfields just outside of Owatonna, Minnesota.
As rain pelted Francine, Laney sighed and switched off her engine. She wouldn't be stuck out here if she hadn't offered a ride to the pregnant wife and two-year-old daughter of one of her former boyfriends, a large-animal vet who had informed Laney three years ago that he wasn't ready to settle down.
He'd been mistaken about that, because he'd married her friend Megan just three months later.
And what was Laney's reward for driving Luke's family home after their car conked out, leaving them stranded while Luke was busy doctoring a sick cow at a dairy farm twenty miles away?
A flat tire in the rain.
Laney wasn't jealous of Megan, even though Luke had somehow neglected to break up with Laney before he'd begun seeing her friend. Laney had cried when she'd discovered that treachery, but Megan was perfect for Luke, anyone could see that. Laney was just having a tiny bit of trouble being patient and awaiting her own turn to get married and start a family.
Oh, all right. She was having all kinds of trouble being patient. But she was already twenty-five, and a woman who planned on having five or six children needed to marry young.
She sighed again and activated Francine's hazard lights. It was hardly rush hour out here in the cornfields, but if she didn't turn on the flashers, some distracted farmer would be sure to happen along and bash into Francine. That was the way Laney's week had been going.
She briefly considered calling her friend Ollie Lincoln, who ran a garage in town. But she'd been brought up by a courageous single mother who had never backed away from a challenge, and wimping out was no way to honor the memory of Hannah Ryland.
"So it's just you and me, Francine." Laney fingered the hem of her best black wool skirt. "And I am seriously overdressed."
It had been an unusually warm day for the first week of October in southern Minnesota, but it was evening now, and with the approaching rain, the temperature had dipped below sixty degrees. Eager to avoid a cold drenching, Laney determined to wait a couple of minutes to see if the storm would blow over.
She had a blind date with her friend Sarah Jane Swenson's cousin Eric in just half an hour, but she decided against calling him. As long as the rain stopped in the next few minutes and she got the tire changed without any trouble, she'd make it home before he rang her doorbell. And if he arrived before she'd had time to freshen up, she'd simply explain everything and ask him to give her a few minutes.
She turned on the radio for some soothing classical music but found her favorite station engaged in one of those chatty pledge drives. Twisting the tuning knob, she skipped past the rural stations' offerings of crop reports, perky polka music, and fishermen droning that record numbers of perch were being pulled out of nearby Tetonka Lake. She paused when she heard a rock ballad featuring a powerful baritone that sent a frisson of longing through her.
Jackson Bell was her best friend. At least that was what she told people, because she didn't know how else to describe their relationship.
He wasn't her boyfriend. She'd had several boyfriends, and she'd never experienced that giddy thrill with Jeb. Yet while there was no romantic component to her feelings for him, Jeb was as necessary to her life as food and water and air.
Just like Cathy and Heathcliff , a starry-eyed classmate of Laney's had sighed years ago, but that was true only to a point. Laney and Jeb had been extraordinarily close since childhood, but they weren't in love and they certainly didn't share the fictional couple's tendency toward mutual annihilation.
No, Laney mused bitterly, snapping off the radio in the middle of the song, Jeb was bent on self -destruction. Laney, he treated like hand-blown
As rain pelted Francine, Laney sighed and switched off her engine. She wouldn't be stuck out here if she hadn't offered a ride to the pregnant wife and two-year-old daughter of one of her former boyfriends, a large-animal vet who had informed Laney three years ago that he wasn't ready to settle down.
He'd been mistaken about that, because he'd married her friend Megan just three months later.
And what was Laney's reward for driving Luke's family home after their car conked out, leaving them stranded while Luke was busy doctoring a sick cow at a dairy farm twenty miles away?
A flat tire in the rain.
Laney wasn't jealous of Megan, even though Luke had somehow neglected to break up with Laney before he'd begun seeing her friend. Laney had cried when she'd discovered that treachery, but Megan was perfect for Luke, anyone could see that. Laney was just having a tiny bit of trouble being patient and awaiting her own turn to get married and start a family.
Oh, all right. She was having all kinds of trouble being patient. But she was already twenty-five, and a woman who planned on having five or six children needed to marry young.
She sighed again and activated Francine's hazard lights. It was hardly rush hour out here in the cornfields, but if she didn't turn on the flashers, some distracted farmer would be sure to happen along and bash into Francine. That was the way Laney's week had been going.
She briefly considered calling her friend Ollie Lincoln, who ran a garage in town. But she'd been brought up by a courageous single mother who had never backed away from a challenge, and wimping out was no way to honor the memory of Hannah Ryland.
"So it's just you and me, Francine." Laney fingered the hem of her best black wool skirt. "And I am seriously overdressed."
It had been an unusually warm day for the first week of October in southern Minnesota, but it was evening now, and with the approaching rain, the temperature had dipped below sixty degrees. Eager to avoid a cold drenching, Laney determined to wait a couple of minutes to see if the storm would blow over.
She had a blind date with her friend Sarah Jane Swenson's cousin Eric in just half an hour, but she decided against calling him. As long as the rain stopped in the next few minutes and she got the tire changed without any trouble, she'd make it home before he rang her doorbell. And if he arrived before she'd had time to freshen up, she'd simply explain everything and ask him to give her a few minutes.
She turned on the radio for some soothing classical music but found her favorite station engaged in one of those chatty pledge drives. Twisting the tuning knob, she skipped past the rural stations' offerings of crop reports, perky polka music, and fishermen droning that record numbers of perch were being pulled out of nearby Tetonka Lake. She paused when she heard a rock ballad featuring a powerful baritone that sent a frisson of longing through her.
Jackson Bell was her best friend. At least that was what she told people, because she didn't know how else to describe their relationship.
He wasn't her boyfriend. She'd had several boyfriends, and she'd never experienced that giddy thrill with Jeb. Yet while there was no romantic component to her feelings for him, Jeb was as necessary to her life as food and water and air.
Just like Cathy and Heathcliff , a starry-eyed classmate of Laney's had sighed years ago, but that was true only to a point. Laney and Jeb had been extraordinarily close since childhood, but they weren't in love and they certainly didn't share the fictional couple's tendency toward mutual annihilation.
No, Laney mused bitterly, snapping off the radio in the middle of the song, Jeb was bent on self -destruction. Laney, he treated like hand-blown
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