Married By High Noon

But he could see nothing of that innocence in Dana now.

She had turned into a New York siren with a body to die for. Dressed and accessorized with understated but expensive taste, she represented nearly everything he had come to distrust in a woman. At thirty-six years old, mature and experienced, he should have been beyond the impressionable age. Then why did his heart beat as if he’d just run the four hundred? He should be shouting down Marshall’s impossible suggestion that he marry Dana, but all that blood flooding his brain made it impossible to think.

“You’re crazy,” Dana said, finding her tongue before Gabe. “I wouldn’t marry Gabe if he were the last man in the world.”

“You both want to keep Danny,” Marshall said. “Gabe has to get married to have a chance. It’s the obvious solution.”

“There must be another way.”

“Maybe, but you’ve got less than twenty-four hours to find it.”

“You’re the lawyer,” Gabe said. “You’re supposed to find the solution.”

“I have,” Marshall replied.

“You can’t seriously expect us to get married just like that,” Gabe said, snapping his fingers. “We haven’t seen each other in more than fourteen years.”

“And we can’t stand each other,” Dana added.

That was going too far for Gabe. Dana might figure in his mind as the human embodiment of everything that had gone wrong in his life, but a man would have to be a misogynist to have any difficulty standing a woman like Dana.

“We have some differences of opinion,” Gabe said.

“I’m not saying you have to love each other,” Marshall said. “I’m just trying to come up with a way for you to keep this kid. If you don’t want—”

“Don’t be a fool,” Gabe snapped. “You know I want him.”

“Then you have to get married. It’s almost impossible for an uncle to win custody over the natural father, especially when the natural father is a wealthy, respected businessman with a wife and family ready and willing to welcome Danny into their midst.”

“Even if the natural father got furious when Maggie told him she was pregnant,” Dana said, angrily, “ordered her to get rid of the kid, and walked out when she wouldn’t?”

“Even then. Today’s courts lean heavily on the side of the natural parents.”

“He only wants Danny because he’s a boy,” Dana said.

“You can’t prove that. As far as the court is concerned, it would be the perfect situation for Danny, certainly better than living with a bachelor uncle who has to put him in day care. We’d have even less chance if he lived with you.”

“I could hire a live-in housekeeper.” Gabe said.

“You couldn’t afford it,” Marshall said.

“I’ll pay for it,” Dana offered.

“It wouldn’t matter where the money came from,” Marshall said. “It’s the family unit the judge is going to consider.”

Dana looked at Gabe. The look felt almost accusatory. “Can’t you find somebody to marry?”

“Not on twenty-four hour’s notice.”

“Maybe Marshall could get the judge to wait longer. If you could just—”

“There’s nobody I want to marry,” Gabe snapped, “not now, not in twenty-four hours or twenty-four days.”

“I guess that brings it back to you two,” Marshall said.

“You heard what he said,” Dana said. “That nobody includes me.”

“You don’t have to want to get married. You just have to do it. You can file for divorce as soon as the judge hears the case.”

Gabe looked at Dana. She glared back at him. He would never consider marrying her under normal circumstances. But if he couldn’t keep Danny any other way, he could put up with it, particularly if they got a divorce as soon as he got custody. If the natural father got custody, he would never see his nephew again.

“Can a person get married that quickly on a Saturday?” Gabe asked.

“Not normally,” Marshall said, “but there are ways.”

Dana jumped up and headed toward the door to the back porch.

“You can stop looking at me like that,” she said. “I’m not doing it. I’ll take Danny back to New York first.”

“There’s no way the courts will give him to you,” Marshall said.

“You can visit him anytime you want,” Gabe said.

“Do you think his father will make you the same offer?” Marshall asked.

Gabe could tell from her look she knew he wouldn’t. He could also tell she felt caught between two desperate choices, neither of which she felt she could accept. If she was to give Marshall’s idea even five minutes’ serious consideration, he had to find a way to take some pressure off her.

“Why don’t we get Danny and head over to my house so you can see his room?”

She looked relieved to have something else to do, thankful to him for having suggested it. He could understand. After years of burying himself in his work and not allowing himself to feel anything—not bitterness over his wife’s betrayal and subsequent divorce, not anger at the rift that tore his family apart—he felt buried under an emotional landslide. His father’s and Mattie’s deaths coming so close together had demolished his emotional barriers. Danny’s arrival made him feel even more vulnerable. Now, years of bottled-up emotions bubbled to the surface. He, too, needed time to sort things out.

“Why?” Marshall asked.

“Dana said she wouldn’t leave Danny with me until she was perfectly satisfied I could take care of him. Checking out the suitability of where he’ll live ought to be high on the list.”

“What about the lawyer hired by Danny’s father?” Dana asked.

“Let’s work on the assumption we’re keeping Danny.”

Dana nodded, opened the door and went out to the back porch.

“Do you think she’ll do it?” Marshall asked.

“I don’t know. It was a terrific shock.”

Marshall laughed. “I thought all women swooned at the thought of marrying a hunk like you.”

“She nearly did.”

Both men laughed, but Marshall sobered quickly. “What about you?”

“It’ll only be for a few weeks or a couple of months.”

“I wondered if after Ellen…”

“This isn’t the same.”

“You got that right. Dana isn’t a lying, deceitful witch. If she’s going to shaft you, she’ll tell you right to your face.”

“Why don’t you fix your sidewalks?” Dana asked.

They were walking back toward the heart of the community, the street and lawns shaded by huge oaks.

“We like them cracked and uneven,” Gabe replied.

“A person could break a leg.”

“Half the town learned to walk stepping over them.”

“Strangers didn’t.”

“We don’t have many strangers. And those we get stay at the ski lodge or go straight to the camp.”

“How about the people who come to the hotel?” she asked, referring to the huge, pre-Civil War building with wide verandahs on all three levels that towered over the surrounding houses.

“People come to the hotel to get away from their ordinary lives,” he told Dana. “They like the cracks in the sidewalks, the sixteen-foot ceilings, the rocking chairs on the verandas. Some of them come back every year just to sit and rock for a whole week.”

“I couldn’t stand that,” she said.

“I know.”

She whipped around. “What to you mean by that?”

He didn’t know how she walked in those heels without stumbling, though he had to admit they set her legs off to good advantage. Of course her legs would have looked good even if she’d been barefoot.

“Are you going to answer me, or are you going to stare at me as if I’m a piece of wood whose grain you’re judging?”

He grinned. “You’re much finer to look at than any piece of wood I’ve ever worked with. As for your grain—”

“I didn’t intend for you to take me so literally.”

She became uneasy under his scrutiny, looked away hastily, moved ahead quickly. It pleased him to know a country boy could rattle a woman used to the fast lane.

“We should be talking about Danny.”

Danny scampered along ahead of them, peeping through fences, walking in the bottom of the dry ditch, peering into drain pipes. He didn’t have any trouble with the sidewalk. Whenever a piece of concrete tilted a little too high for him to step on the crack, he jumped it. But he stopped frequently to make sure Dana followed close behind.

“Okay, we’ll talk about Danny.”

But talking about Danny wasn’t safe, either. It brought up Marshall’s preposterous idea. Gabe still couldn’t believe he’d suggested it. People didn’t do things like that anymore. Still, Gabe couldn’t dismiss the thought of marrying Dana.

He didn’t know what kind of suit she was wearing, or what kind of material it was made of, but he did know he’d never seen anything cling to and outline a body more effectively. Each time he dropped back to allow her to precede him where shrubs overhung the sidewalk, he marveled at her long legs, slim hips and small waist. He didn’t care if it came naturally or if she spent twenty hours a week in a gym. He practically had to clench his fists to keep from reaching out to touch her.

“How did Danny get along with Elton?” Gabe forced himself to walk alongside Dana, his gaze on Danny just ahead.

“Fine as long as the cookies lasted,” she replied. “Naomi said he seemed a little lost after that.”

“How come?”

“He doesn’t know how to play. He hasn’t had a chance to be around other children.”

Gabe couldn’t deceive himself into thinking the boy would soon forget Dana. Despite Marshall’s advice, he had no intention of attempting to tear Danny from Dana’s arms. If he and his mother wanted to be equally important to this child, they had to give and earn similar feelings of love and security. Gabe doubted two weeks would be enough.

Seeing how much Danny loved and depended on Dana—how deeply she was attached to him—forced Gabe to amend at least part of his opinion of Dana. She was obviously warm and nurturing in her relationship with Danny. Being separated would hurt Danny as much as Dana. Maybe more.

“Did you have a good time with Elton?” Gabe asked Danny.

Danny nodded, ducked his head, ran back to Dana and hugged her around the legs. She picked him up, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her neck. She didn’t seem the least bit conscious of the damage done to her expensive clothes.

Gabe wasn’t sure he could afford to think about Dana’s good qualities. The moment he did, visions of having her naked in his bed turned his thoughts to charcoal. He could forget her seductive charm as long as she stayed in New York, but he had trouble remembering the dangers of being attracted to a woman like her when she walked just ahead of him.

If he had half a brain, he wouldn’t think about that at all. A beautiful, smart, aggressive career woman, expecting to get anything she wanted, she came dangerously close to being like his ex-wife. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was more attracted to Dana than to any woman he’d met in more than ten years. Being told he had to marry her in order to gain permanent custody of Danny merely gave his libido license to go into overdrive.

“Danny will get along with the other kids just fine,” Dana said as she set Danny down again. He started forward, walking on the cracks. “All he needs is a little time. Mattie and I both thought he was too young to go to play school.”

Gabe didn’t think Danny was upset so much as clinging to someone familiar in strange situations. But until he got to know his nephew, he couldn’t be sure what the child needed or wanted. For the time being, he’d have to depend on Dana. And he would listen to her advice. He wanted the very best for his nephew.

“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.