Married by High Noon Page 3

  “Why don’t we stop at Hannah’s for ice cream?” Gabe asked.

  “It’ll spoil his dinner.”

  “I don’t remember it ruining yours,” Gabe said with a sudden smile. “And you had it often enough. I dished it up, remember?”

  “Want ice cream,” Danny said.

  “Now see what you’ve done.”

  Gabe chucked Danny under the chin. “What kind do you like?”

  “’Nilla.”

  “I won’t have you trying to buy his affections,” Dana warned.

  Gabe felt a spurt of anger, but he supposed in a way that’s what he was doing.

  “I’ve got to start somewhere, and I don’t have any chocolate chip cookies. I have to go inside the store to get the ice cream,” Gabe said to Danny. “You want to go with me?”

  Gabe held out his finger. Danny sidled closer to Dana.

  Gabe wanted to bend down and scoop the child up into his arms, but he remained perfectly still, waiting, his hand outstretched.

  Finally yielding to the lure of ice cream, Danny hesitatingly reached out and took hold of Gabe’s finger.

  Gabe was stunned by the feelings that surged to the surface. He’d played with dozens of children, but never had a child’s taking his finger caused him to tear up. Danny looked so much like Mattie he could hardly stand it. Gabe’s throat tightened, and he swallowed.

  Gabe held out his other hand. “Want me to carry you?”

  Danny hesitated, looked at Dana.

  “Go on,” Dana urged. “I’ll be right here.”

  After a moment Danny held out his arms and Gabe scooped him up. The little boy felt tiny and fragile in his arms. Gabe shifted him to his right side, and Danny put his arms around Gabe’s neck. Gabe knew it was only to hold on, but his feelings intensified. He was strongly loyal, but he’d never suspected himself of being sentimental.

  It was the purely emotional reaction of a man to a child who shared his blood. He guessed it was something left over from primitive man’s instinct to care for and protect members of his family. It had to be instinct. It had come from nowhere to completely engulf him, but it felt good.

  “Want cone,” Danny said.

  One look into the child’s trusting eyes and Gabe was no longer interested only in proving himself to Dana. He wanted to prove to Danny that he loved him, that Danny could trust him, could always count on him.

  Dana stayed behind as Gabe and Danny started up the steps. Remembering how Hannah jammed the rows together until there was hardly room to walk between them wasn’t the reason she didn’t go inside. She wanted to be alone. Danny’s going to Gabe, even though he’d done so only because she encouraged him, had upset her. Another reminder that she was losing him.

  She loved Danny, and she wanted him to be happy, but it tore at her heart to see him go to anyone instead of her.

  Marry Gabe and you can be with Danny forever.

  She didn’t know where that little voice in her head came from, but it might as well go away. Nothing could convince her to consider Marshall’s ridiculous suggestion.

  Thank goodness Gabe hadn’t pushed it. She couldn’t believe Marshall had had the nerve to suggest it. She wanted nothing to do with Gabe or Iron Springs. She told herself the instantaneous attraction when she walked into Marshall’s kitchen represented nothing more than a healthy woman’s response to a handsome and virile man.

  The tiny voice somewhere deep inside her head kept whispering that this might be her only chance to get what she’d always wanted. She couldn’t convince that tiny voice she didn’t want it anymore.

  Even though she had passed her thirtieth birthday and could practically hear her biological clock ticking, she didn’t feel desperate to find a husband. The fact that all the men she dated seemed to be like her father—obsessed with business, short on time for her, unwilling to commit and uninterested in a family—didn’t discourage her. Older women had more trouble getting pregnant and delivering a healthy baby, but New York doctors could do wonders these days.

  Still, she couldn’t put the idea of marrying Gabe out of her mind. She was a partner in a business that dealt in very pricey antiques. Despite her family’s contacts, it had been difficult to build up a clientele. She had figured out that one way to attract a woman’s attention to a valuable antique was to have a handsome man sit or lean on it. In five years, she had worked with virtually every top male model in New York. Put up against them, there wasn’t a woman in her right mind who wouldn’t choose Gabe.

  It was impossible not to be attracted to him. His smile, when he bothered to smile, was devastatingly sexy. It was a little crooked, one side of his mouth a little higher than the other. He tilted his head ever so slightly, and his eyes sparkled. His lips—those full, wonderful, sexy lips—parted to reveal a set of teeth worthy of any toothpaste commercial. The women in this place must be blind not to have hauled him off to some dark cave long before now. She had known he was something special from the first moment she saw him twenty-five years ago.

  She had been a nervous five-year-old visiting her grandmother for the first time. He’d been behind the counter in Hannah’s store. He was eleven. He looked so big and handsome and confident when he winked and gave her an extra big scoop. After that she’d gone for an ice cream cone every afternoon—for the next eleven summers.

  Dana pushed the memories from her mind. She couldn’t afford to turn nostalgic. At this rate she’d soon want to marry him. That thought caused a tiny pool of heat to coil in her belly.

  “I keam,” Danny cried, as he burst out of Hannah’s store, his double scoop of vanilla leaning perilously to one side of the cone. Some of the ice cream dripped on her blouse when he threw himself into her arms, but she didn’t care. Having him run straight to her meant more than a dozen blouses.

  “Don’t blame me for the double scoop,” Gabe said. “That was Hannah’s idea.”

  She looked up to see Gabe holding two cones. “Your favorite, butter pecan,” he said as he held one out to her.

  “I didn’t want one.”

  “Hannah remembered how you could never come to the store without begging your grandmother for a cone. She figured you might still like it.”

  Smiling, Dana accepted the cone. “It’s still my favorite.”

  Hannah came out of the store. “That’s a fine looking boy,” she said, “the spitting image of Mattie. You staying long?”

  “Long enough to help settle Danny in,” Dana said. “We’re going to see his room now.”

  “Gabe’s got a beautiful place,” Hannah said before going back inside.

  Dana headed off at a rapid pace. Danny ran alongside.

  “Don’t be in such a rush,” Gabe said, sauntering along behind her. “It’s too hot to hurry.”

  “From what Mattie said, you never come out of your shop long enough to know the season, much less the weather.”

  “Mattie exaggerates. Exaggerated.”

  He tried not to show it, but she saw the lines of pain in his face. She wanted to let him know she understood, but she didn’t know how.

  They walked down the middle of the street, eating their ice cream. She couldn’t imagine such a scene in New York. She kept veering toward the sidewalk, but Gabe continued down the middle of the road. After a while she gave up. She hadn’t see a car since she arrived. “Where is everybody?” she asked.

  “Probably napping. We’re between sessions at the camp and the hotel. The new campers and a group of folk dancers will come in tomorrow afternoon. Until then we’ve got the place to ourselves. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  It would be if there were any reason to live here, but she didn’t say that to Gabe. He loved this town. He crossed the street and started up a short sidewalk.

  “I thought old Mr. Wadsworth lived here,” she said.

  “He did. But his children didn’t want the house after he died, so I bought it.”

  Dana couldn’t imagine why Gabe should want such a large house. She walked inside and came
face-to-face with an enormous grandfather clock. The hand work was incredibly intricate.

  “I’m surprised one of the Wadsworth children didn’t want this,” she said.

  “They did, but I wouldn’t sell it.”

  “Why would their father sell it to you instead of leaving it to one of them?”

  “It wasn’t his to leave. It’s mine. I made it.”

  Dana had always known Gabe handcrafted furniture, but she’d never expected anything like this.

  “Did you make any of these tables?” she asked. There were four in the hall, all with ball-and-claw feet. The carving alone must have taken days.

  “I made all the furniture in this house,” Gabe said, waiting for her to follow him.

  Dana’s gaze turned to a dining room she glimpsed through pocket doors. It contained a huge mahogany table surrounded by six chairs. A sideboard stood against the far wall next to a china cabinet. She crossed the hall into the living room. Tables, corner cabinets and a table-model grandfather clock offered mute proof of Gabe’s considerable skill. She wondered if he had any idea how much all of this would be worth on the New York market. She doubted he knew or cared.

  “Come on,” he called. “You can poke around in corners later.”

  A porcelain-topped kitchen table with pull-out leaves restored her feeling of how Iron Springs ought to be—old-fashioned, out of date, comfortable. She immediately found the paper towels. She tore off several pieces, dampened them under the faucet and washed Danny’s face and hands.

  “Me, too,” Gabe said, holding out his hands just like Danny.

  Marshall’s preposterous suggestion came crashing back with the force of an exploding bomb, and paralysis held Dana still for a moment. She jerked herself back into reality. She didn’t intend for Gabe to see how badly his joke had shaken her. “Sure. What’s one more grubby little boy?”

  But touching him, holding his hands while she washed away the nonexistent ice cream, caused a recurrence of the agitation that had attacked her earlier. “Can you cook?” she asked, hoping to distract herself from the uncomfortably disturbing feeling.

  “Sure. I’ve been cooking for myself since my divorce.”

  She’d been expecting him to say he ate at his mother’s house. “Show me Danny’s bedroom.”

  She followed Gabe up a staircase that curved along three sides of the front hall. The windows on the upper landing offered wide views of the front and back yards as well as provided a cool breeze.

  “You ought to air condition the place,” Dana said, pushing aside the thought that living in this house could be very pleasant.

  “I have, but the trees keep it cool most of the time.”

  “How many bedrooms do you have?”

  “Five.”

  “Why so many?”

  “That’s how many came with the house.”

  She didn’t appreciate his sense of humor. “Danny will feel lost.”

  “I bought it when I still expected to have a large family.” He said it as though his shattered dreams didn’t matter anymore. He opened the door to one of the rooms on the front. “This will be Danny’s.”

  Dana stepped into a room at least twice the size of Danny’s bedroom in her apartment. Gabe had furnished it with a bed, a chair and table, two chests of drawers, an armoire and two boxes spilling over with toys. Danny wiggled past her.

  “Where did all of these toys come from?” Dana asked.

  “All over. Everybody wanted to help when they heard Danny was coming home.”

  Danny bypassed the boxes of toys for a hobbyhorse in the corner. Dana didn’t think anybody had such a toy anymore. She instinctively knew Gabe had made it.

  “Horsey,” Danny said, pointing at the hobbyhorse.

  “Do you want to ride?” Gabe asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Say please,” Dana added without thinking.

  “Pease,” Danny said.

  Gabe moved to lift Danny onto the horse, but Danny ran to Dana. “Want Danie,” he said.

  Danny still loved her, wanted her, trusted her. Right now that meant more than anything in the world.

  If you marry Gabe, you can have Danny with you forever.

  The voice lied. They’d both demand a divorce the moment Gabe got permanent custody of Danny.

  “He’s still nervous about all the changes and new people,” Dana said as she lifted Danny onto the hobbyhorse.

  “That’s understandable.”

  Dana could tell Danny’s reaction hurt Gabe. But if his family was so important to him, he shouldn’t have let his father close Mattie out of their lives.

  If you marry Gabe, neither of you has to be hurt.

  Before the voice had the chance to drive her mad, they heard footsteps downstairs.

  “Gabe, are you here?” a voice called out.

  “Up here, Ma. We’re in Danny’s room.”

  In less than a minute a tall, matronly woman with iron-gray hair, glasses and a busy print dress that nearly gave Dana hives entered the room. Mrs. Purvis looked extremely nervous about finding herself face-to-face with Dana.

  “I was sorry to hear about your husband,” Dana said.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Purvis responded. An awkward silence followed. “Thank you for bringing Danny,” she finally said. She waited, looking even more uncomfortable. “And for taking care of Mattie. We…Gabe and I…”

  “She was my best friend,” Dana said. “I would have done anything for her.” She still couldn’t understand how any mother could allow herself to be cut off from her child.

  She sensed Mrs. Purvis had suffered terribly, suffered still. The older woman smiled sadly, as though accepting the implied guilt, but when she turned her gaze to Danny her entire countenance was transformed.

  “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?” she demanded of Gabe, planting a kiss on Danny’s head and rocking the hobbyhorse so vigorously Dana was afraid Danny might fall off.

  “Because I knew you’d take him away the minute you saw him,” Gabe said, smiling fondly at his mother, “just as you’re doing now.”

  Mother and son bent over the child, making over him like doting parents. Dana stifled an urge to elbow them aside.

  “We need to think about dinner,” she said. She’d planned to eat at a restaurant or up at the hotel.

  “You’re eating at my house,” Mrs. Purvis said.

  “She’s been planning what to cook for days,” Gabe said. “She’s changed her mind three times already. We can’t stay too late,” he warned. “Danny needs to get to bed early.”

  “I don’t think he ought to sleep in this room tonight,” Mrs. Purvis said.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too new, and he’s too far away from you.”

  “He could sleep in my room.”

  They were talking as if she wasn’t there, as if she didn’t matter.

  “You don’t have to worry about Danny being alone,” Dana said. “He’s staying with me.”

  “I don’t want him staying at the hotel,” Gabe protested.

  “He won’t be,” Dana replied. “We’ll be staying at my grandmother’s farmhouse.”

  Chapter Three

  “You didn’t have to come with me,” Dana said to Gabe. “I still remember the way.”

  “Nobody goes to that house anymore. No telling what you’ll find there.”

  Dana appreciated his company. The farm lay ten miles out of town.

  “Nothing more intimidating than a fox or two,” she said.

  “More likely a raccoon or an opossum.”

  Dana didn’t like the sound of that. She should have thought before she left New York to call the real estate agent and have her check over the house. But trying to figure out how to keep from losing Danny had filled her mind to the exclusion of everything else.

  “Do you want me to drive?” Gabe asked.

  “Why?” The road curved abruptly as it wound its way through the hills.

  “You’re not used to driv
ing in the mountains.”

  Dana laughed. “I spend at least a month each summer in the Adirondacks. Sometimes, after driving a particularly mountainous stretch of highway, I feel as though I never want to go back to flat roads. The sense of freedom is intoxicating.”

  But that’s not how she felt about these mountains. They gave her an empty feeling. She couldn’t understand why Mattie had insisted her son be raised in the very place Mattie had been determined to leave behind. There was nothing for anybody to do here except work, talk and take naps. Dana didn’t understand why such a handsome, intelligent man as Gabe hadn’t left years ago. Surely he had some ambition.

  “It shows,” Gabe said.

  “What?” His voice scattered her thoughts.

  “Your experience driving in the mountains. You drove that section like you’ve been doing it all your life.”

  It was a rather insignificant compliment, but Dana found herself quivering with pleasure. She told herself not to be silly, that she was no longer a little girl desperate for the approval of a handsome older boy.

  As they neared the entrance to the lane leading to her grandmother’s house, Dana caught sight of the little red barn mailbox. She felt a lump in her throat. She used to beg her grandmother to let her get the mail just so she could open the sliding door.

  “I need to get someone to paint that mailbox,” Dana said, noticing the colors had faded badly.

  “Why? There’s nobody here to get mail.”

  That wasn’t important. What mattered was that the mailbox look the way it always had. She couldn’t explain that to Gabe because she couldn’t explain it to herself. She had thought she hated Iron Springs, never wanted to see the farmhouse again. Yet one look brought a wealth of memories surging to the surface, good memories she had forgotten.

  The mailbox didn’t bother her as much as the neglected appearance of the driveway. Grass and great clumps of weeds grew through the loose gravel. A bank of tall weeds and bushy shrubs leaned into the driveway, seeming to block the entrance to the farm, telling people to stay out. Dana didn’t remember the trees being so tall. Their outflung branches would soon meet overhead.