The Dakota Man Read Online Free PDF

glanced around at the number of trucks parked in neatly aligned rows. The vehicle Karla stopped next to was not what Maggie had envisioned as a “truck,” but a large dusty sports utility vehicle. But what a sports utility vehicle. Even with the coat of dust, the black behemoth fairly shouted expensive.
    “Isn’t it super?” Karla said, smiling at what Maggie knew must have been her bemused expression.
    “And big,” Maggie said, nodding. “No, huge.”
    Karla shrugged, and pushed a button on the key case, unlocking the doors. “These vehicles are almost a necessity in this mountainous terrain.”
    “What does it get, five miles to the gallon?” Circling the monster, Maggie slipped into the plush passenger seat, noting that plush described the entire interior.
    “A little more than that,” Karla said, grinning as she carefully slid behind the wheel. “But it drives like a dream,” she continued, giving evidence that she had driven the vehicle before. “Like a luxury car, really.” Firing the engine, she proved the claim by smoothly maneuvering the purring beast out of the parking lot.
    “You know, I really don’t need help moving my stuff, if I decide to take the apartment. We wouldn’t have had to waste Mr. Grainger’s fuel.” Maggie turned her head to smile at Karla. “We could have used your car.”
    “No, we couldn’t,” Karla said, laughing. “Because I don’t have a car.”
    “Then how do you get around—to shop, to work?” Maggie asked. “Is the house within walking distance?”
    “Well I have walked, and I still could, if Iwanted, which I don’t, at least not anymore.” Karla smiled and shook her head. “No, Mitch drives me in to work.”
    Uh-huh, Maggie thought, growing more convinced about an intimate relationship between the two. Unbidden, and shocking, a vision rose in her mind of the bedrock-hard Mitch Grainger and the soft, puppy-friendly Karla, locked and writhing in a lovers’ embrace. She immediately blanked the image. For some strange, confusing reason, she felt upset, almost hurt by the very thought of him making love to Karla.
    Another thought rushed in, nearly as upsetting as the first, a horrifying thought that required immediate clarification.
    “Does Mr. Grainger live in the house?” she asked, hearing the ragged threads of strain in her voice.
    “Oh, no,” Karla answered. “He has an apartment on the third floor of the casino, above the office.”
    Relief washed through Maggie, only to be followed by an odd and unwelcome sense of dejection at this further proof of their relationship. Why else, she reasoned, would he put himself out to fetch Karla back and forth?

Three
    T he house was beautiful.
    Maggie fell in love with it on sight. It reminded her of the lovely old Victorian houses that had been converted into bed-and-breakfast inns in Cape May, New Jersey. But this house had been built on an even grander scale, and was a true mansion. It had a deep-roofed wraparound porch, intricate and lacy-looking decorative gingerbread and a copper-roofed tower on one corner.
    Gazing up at the distinctive bell-shaped roof, Maggie quivered with anticipation at therealization that there were windowed tower alcoves on all three floors of the building. Having lived all her life in modern, boxlike apartments, first with her parents, then in the similar flat her grandmother had willed to her, Maggie loved old-fashioned places with nooks and crannies.
    “So, what do you think?” Karla asked, breaking into Maggie’s bemused near-trance.
    “It’s…magnificent,” Maggie murmured.
    “Big, too.” Karla laughed. “Do you want to come in, or just stand here and stare at the outside of the place?”
    “I want to come in,” Maggie answered, grinning. “I can’t wait to see the inside.”
    On entering the foyer, Maggie felt a pang of disappointment at the obvious but necessary changes that had been made to convert the once-gracious private home into apartments. Still, quite a