With No Warning (Romance/Inspirational)(Complete)

CHAPTER 11: One Dog Night

CHAPTER 11: One Dog Night

Semester finals came and went with a flurry of review, testing and grading. For two weeks, Dakota felt utterly chained to her computer, generating out the review sheets and compiling the test questions. And she had certainly been tied to her office chair, doing most of the work on her desktop computer rather than her laptop at the dorm, so that she would be available for any student who had questions or needed last minute help.

       It was with much relief, that she plugged her grades into the computer, then walked the paper records of the grades down the hall to Olivia’s office and dropped them into the marked tray for her particular classes. After three straight hours of grading, and that was only the tail end of it, she was pleased to find that all in all, her students had done exceedingly well. There was the occasional C and even a D, but she was overall satisfied with the first half of the year. The trip to spend the remainder of the season with her family was long anticipated, and she had planned for many weeks to leave on the morning following the last final.

       Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would hug her mother and dad, visit to her hearts content with her sisters, joke around with her brothers, and play with her nieces and nephews. Today she still had packing to do, then dinner with Evan tonight.

       The dorm was blissfully quiet when she let herself in. All of the girls had left last night and earlier this morning. Her heels echoed on the entry hall floor, and she passed the unusually quiet media room with barely a glance, en route to the second floor. As she milled about her room stashing clothes into her bag, she placed her phone on speaker as she phoned Lora, who as of this morning, had still been waiting on one of her girls to be picked up, before she could leave herself.

       Lora too had finished her grades, and reported happily that the last girl had just gone. Kelli, she said, had left within the last hour, and she herself would depart tonight. Wishing each other a happy holiday, they hung up. About midway into her packing, Dakota impulsively decided to begin her drive after her dinner with Evan. It was that, or put up with Ranger's company tonight, she contemplated wryly. Anyway, she would see how tired she was, and if she felt she were up to the drive, she would definitely begin the long trip.

       Evan was tending the grill when she coasted her car down his long, dusty dirt drive. She could see his form as she rounded the bend that gave her a view of the back deck and the thick woods to the side. A long line of leaves smoldered, and looking around, she could see that his raking of the large clearing, the center of which was his home, was coming along gradually.

       Ranger leapt from the five foot high deck onto the ground, racing pel mel to meet her, as she stepped from her vehicle. She thumped the dog on his brawny back, and rubbed the top of his head as she advanced to the steps leading onto the porch from where Evan waved in greeting. The smoky aroma of the meat, overtook the burning leaves and coerced a grumble from her stomach, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since midmorning.

       Sprawled comfortably in striped cushiony lounge chairs, they gobbled hamburgers and chips, staring at the scenic rolling hills behind his property as they talked. Evan’s rustic log house was perched on the side of a gradual sloping hill.

       The house was fairly new, designed by Evan himself, who had also done much of the building. It was one of three homes on a property spread of two hundred acres. His grandfather had long ago purchased the acreage and built a long farm house with a wrap around porch outside, and large airy rooms inside, for his bride. Evan and Mark’s father had built a house on the property when he had married their mother. Evan and Mark’s parents had eventually moved to the big house when his grandparents had passed. Now their mother still dwelled in that house, Mark and Jolee in the other house, and Evan had built his own.