Jon Delk's parents lived in a St. Paul suburb, but lately he was spending a lot of time at his grandparents' farm in Burlington, North Dakota. I made the fourteen-hour drive in nine hours, mostly because I didn't have to stop to pee or eat, and because I went ninety on the interstate almost the whole way. I was pulled over three times, all three times by single male state troopers. Didn't get a ticket once.
It was the next evening-I'd had to get a motel room just before sunrise, but was on the move again by 5:00 p.m. the next afternoon.
Long gone were the Minnesota cornfields I was used to; out here, close to the Canadian border, it was all wheat fields and sloughs. Got kind of monotonous after a while. At least cornfields were an interesting color.
I pulled into the mile-long drive and shut off the engine (I'd picked Sinclair's banana yellow Ferrari for this drive. . . ninety felt like fifty), staring at the neat, large cream-colored farmhouse with not a little trepidation. I wasn't at all looking forward to what was coming next.
For one thing, it was late-for farmers, anyway. Ten o'clock at night. For another, Delk and I had not exactly parted on good terms. Specifically, he found out we'd stomped around inside his head and was not at all pleased. He expressed this by shooting me. (It was astonishing how often this sort of thing happened.) Then he'd stomped out, and we hadn't seen him since.
Making him a pretty good suspect for all the weird goings-on.
I stumbled up the gravel driveway, regretting my choice of footwear. I was wearing lavender kitten heels to go with my cream linen shorts and matching cardigan (sure, it was eighty degrees outside, but I felt cold almost constantly).
I went up the well-lit porch steps, inhaling myriad typical farm odors on my way: manure, wheat, animals, rosebushes, the exhaust from Sinclair's car. There were about a zillion crickets in the back field-or at least, that's what it sounded like.
I knocked on the porch door and was instantly distracted when a shirtless Delk answered.
"Betsy?" he gaped.
Farm Boy was built. Too young for me (not yet drinking age), blond, nice shoulders, fabbo six-pack. Tan, really tan. Blond hair almost white from being out in the sun all day. He smelled like soap and healthy young man. His hair was damp from a recent shower.
"What are you doing here?"
"Huh?"
His blue eyes went flinty and he squinted past me, trying to see past the porch light into the dark driveway. "You didn't bring anyone with you, did you?"
"I came by myself."
"Well, I'm not inviting you in." He crossed his (muscular, tanned) arms across his (ripped, tanned) chest and glared.
I opened the screen door and pushed my way past him, gently. "Old wives' tale," I said. "Got any iced tea?"