Danny looked forward to these lunches. Gabe made certain all the machines were off, everything dangerous out of reach. He did his best to answer all of Danny’s questions about the machines and the dozens of other tools and pieces of equipment.
Dana looked forward to these times, as well. Gabe had never been so approachable, so at ease, so much like a friendly lover without requiring her to act loverlike. She loved watching the progress of his work almost as much as she enjoyed watching his progress with Danny. He still had a lot to learn about small children, but he had nothing to learn about how to make Danny feel loved and secure. Danny still needed Dana, but he turned more and more often to Gabe.
The very best times of all were the evenings. Gabe came home early, helped her fix dinner and clean up, played with Danny and helped her put him to bed. Even though things tended to get rather tense after that—they had difficulty being alone in the same room together. Dana cherished the time they had alone, but she didn’t dare let him touch her for fear she wouldn’t be able to control herself. Even though she liked him more and more each day, even though she shamelessly lusted after his body, she didn’t love him. She couldn’t let herself.
He still wasn’t able to see the real Dana. Until he did see her, she couldn’t trust him with her feelings. She had made up her mind she would never marry a man who, like her father, equated her value with her material success.
Yet it would be nice to know he liked her.
“Gabe said you had learned to make dinner all by yourself,” Salome said. “I told him he was crazy, that it was just a bridegroom talking.”
Dana came back to the world with a start. She’d missed half of what Salome said, but apparently it didn’t matter.
“Salome, for goodness sakes, leave her alone,” Liz said. “She’s got a new husband, a new town, and a new son. She’s got more than enough without you hassling her.”
“I’m not hassling her,” Salome insisted. “If she learns, then I have to learn. And you know how I hate anything to do with cooking.”
“You don’t have to break out the recipe book yet,” Dana said, feeling more in sympathy with Salome than ever before. “Gabe is still a much better cook than I am.”
“That’s what I need,” Salome said, “a man who can cook. But you can’t find one in this valley. They’re brought up expecting to be waited on hand and foot.”
“Matt doesn’t,” Liz said.
“You imported him,” Salome pointed out.
Dana was an import, but she didn’t mind learning to cook. Once they discovered she genuinely appreciated their help, most women in town couldn’t wait to help. She had gotten enough food—with instructions on how to prepare more when that disappeared—than they could eat in the next two weeks.
“Are you deaf, or do I have to ask you a third time?”
“What?” Dana said. “I’m afraid I didn’t hear you.”
“She’s been asking questions that are none of her business,” Liz said. “It serves her right to have you ignore her.”
“She didn’t even hear me,” Salome said. “I’ll bet she’s thinking about what’s going to happen tonight after she puts Danny to bed.”
“Salome Halfacre, I’m ashamed of you,” Liz Dennis said. “That’s none of your business.”
“Have a heart,” Salome said. “You’re both married to hunks. All I can do is dream.”
Unfortunately that was all Dana could do, too. Or was it?
Chapter Fourteen
Gabe found himself whistling as he hurried home from the shop. The last two weeks had been the best of his life. After the scene at the airport, they’d decided that people ought to see them showing affection. So they kissed when he left in the morning and when he returned in the evening. They kissed when she and Danny came to eat lunch with him, and they kissed when they left. They held hands in church and when they were out with other people. They even shared jokes. Occasionally their eyes would meet and they’d smile, each knowing what the other thought.
Only one thing marred the tranquility of the two weeks. He went through hell keeping his hands off Dana when they were by themselves. He couldn’t even kiss her before they went to bed. The one time he’d tried it, Dana had stammered something about carrying their pretense too far and disappeared into her room.
No, into his room. And he couldn’t think of her sleeping in his bed without becoming rigid with stifled desire. Even though they went to bed earlier than ever—he thought Dana did this so she wouldn’t have to spend so much time alone with him—he didn’t get enough sleep. He would wake up dreaming of making love to Dana, his body so rigid the pain alone kept him awake. It seemed the more affection she showed toward him in public, the more uneasy she became in private. She managed to appear calm until Danny went to bed. After that she turned as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof.
Gabe hadn’t managed to stay very calm, either. He reminded himself on an hourly basis that their marriage was only an arrangement, that Dana wanted a career and her freedom, not marriage and a life in a small town. He kept telling himself that he wanted things that way, but if so, why had he gotten to the point his happiness required that she be present.
He would have to talk to her, explain the difficulty he had keeping his hands off her. It sounded awfully crass when he said it that way, but if they had to be together for several more weeks, why couldn’t they enjoy each other? They were both mature adults. They could handle it.
He’d talk to her tonight.
Danny and Elton were in the backyard when he reached the house.
“Gabe!” Danny called and came running to him. Gabe picked him up and tossed him in the air. Danny laughed and wanted to be tossed higher.
“Mama says you’re not supposed to toss little kids in the air,” Elton said. “She says it scrambles their brains.”
“It won’t scramble Danny’s brains,” Gabe said, tossing Danny once more. “He’s so smart, he’ll have lots of brains left over.”
“That’s what my dad says,” Elton said. “Mama says she sometimes wonders if I have any brains at all.”
“All moms say that.”
“Did your mom say it about you?”
“Still does.”
“Did your pa toss you?”
“All the time.”
Elton broke into a big grin. “Then it has to be a fudge. Mama says you must be a genius to get Dana to marry you so quick.”
“I had to work fast before she went back to New York,” Gabe replied, hoping he didn’t show his shock at hearing what other people must be saying.
“Pa says it’s going to take ankle irons to keep a gal like her in Iron Springs. Is Dana still a gal?”
“Only to an old codger like your pa. Now you’d better head home before your ma calls you for supper.”
“We’re having liver and onions. I’ll wait.”
Gabe laughed. “You want to eat supper with us?”
“Naw. I don’t mind liver. I just say it ’cause it makes my sister mad. Ma’s making her learn how to cook.”
Gabe laughed again. “That sounds like me and my sister. We were always on each other about something.”
Bittersweet memories. He still couldn’t think of losing Mattie without pain.
“Come on, scamp,” he said to Danny. “We’d better help Dana start dinner. My stomach’s already growling. Give Elton back his ambulance.” Danny loved it. When he rolled it across the ground, the light flashed and the siren blared.
“He can keep it,” Elton said. “Dad says I’m getting too big to play with toys. He’s going to get me a go-cart.” Elton walked away whistling through his teeth.
Dana had the portable phone to her ear when Gabe walked into the kitchen.
“I’ve told you a hundred times why it can’t be annulled,” she said into the phone. “There’s no use going over it again.”
Her parents had called every day since she got back from New York. Her mother called from Switzerland, her father from Bangko
k or Singapore or Hong Kong.
Dana held the phone between her head and shoulder while she turned pork chops. He took the fork and finished the pork chops himself. Dana mouthed the word “thanks” and rolled her eyes to go along with her look of impatience.
“You’ll just have to wait,” Dana said. “Nothing you say will change my mind.”
Her father had offered to buy her a partnership in a well-known French antique firm. From what Dana said, Gabe guessed that would have set the old man back at least a million bucks.
“Then stay with father in Tokyo, or wherever he’ll be next week. I’ve got to go, Mother. I’m cooking dinner. It’ll burn.”
Their frantic efforts to end their daughter’s marriage had angered Gabe at first. Now they just amused him.
“Then don’t tell them I cook. Now I really have to go. Bye.”
Dana put the phone down on the counter with uncustomary force. “Can you have an unlisted number?”
“They’d just call some old crony and get the new one.”
“Maybe I’ll disconnect it.”
“Then Ma would be over here every half hour making sure we’re all right.”
“There’s got to be some way to keep my parents from calling. They’re about to drive me nuts.”
“It won’t last forever.”
He waited, hoping she’d say something that showed she didn’t want it to end. But he knew that wouldn’t happen. And in all fairness to Dana, he couldn’t let it happen. These few weeks had been a pleasant idyll, but it had to come to an end. Dana constantly talked about what she would do when she went back to work. She looked at him like he ought to be interested. He would smile and pretend to listen, then think about something else. He couldn’t let himself brood on how different things would be when she left, so he concentrated on what he and Danny would do together.
Though he liked Dana more and more each day, he didn’t want to fall in love with her. It made him too vulnerable. He’d been down that road once, and he still bore the scars. He could still remember how happy he felt the day he and Ellen exchanged vows. He also remembered his plans for the shop, for children, for growing old together in Iron Springs. He remembered even more clearly the pain when Ellen told him what she had done, when she walked out on him.
He and Danny were both alone, perfect for each other. He didn’t need love. But if he ever did allow himself to fall in love again, he’d make certain he and his wife were so perfectly matched there couldn’t be any possibility of their ever falling out of love. Of all the women he knew, Dana was the one least able to fit that requirement.
No, they would continue their pretense until he got custody. After that—
“Damn! I’ll never get dinner ready if this phone keeps ringing,” Dana said.
“What do you have left to do?” he asked.
“Just the bread and the salad.”
“No problem. Answer the phone.”
It was her partner. Dana took the portable phone and went into the den. Gabe never liked it when Sheila called. Dana’s career threatened him in a way nothing else could. When Dana didn’t come back right away, he knew there was trouble.
“You ready to eat?” he asked Danny.
An unnecessary question. Danny held up his arms to be lifted into his chair. He cut up Danny’s pork chop. “Here, scamp. You go ahead. I’ll wait for Dana.”
The food had gone cold before Dana returned.
“I’ve got to go to New York,” she said. “There’s trouble over the authenticity of a piece we sold to a very important client. Sheila falls to pieces over this sort of thing. Really, really rich people scare her to death.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“A couple of days. Maybe three.”
“We’ll miss you.”
“Lucius’s lawyer is going to start sniffing at the trail again.”
“You take care of your business. We’ll let Marshall worry about Lucius.”
“I hate to leave Danny again so soon.”
“He knows Naomi and the kids so well he won’t mind.”
“I know, but—”
“I’ll take him over to Ma’s every night so he can get his ration of female spoiling. She’ll be so happy she’ll probably start trouble in New York so you’ll have to go up more often. She’s been hinting we ought to go away on a honeymoon so she can have him to herself.”
“That’s it!” Dana exclaimed.
“What’s it?”
“You can come with me. Lucius can think we’re going on our honeymoon.”
“But we won’t be.”
“Bring pictures of your best pieces,” Dana said, ignoring his objections. “I’ve got several people I want to see them. You’ll soon be getting offers that’ll make that Middleburg buyer’s eyes pop.”
“Dana, I can’t just up and leave.”
“Why not? Sam and Billy can take care of the shop for a few days. You just said Naomi and your mother can take care of Danny between them. Do you have a really good camera? We can wait until we get to New York to get the photos developed.”
Gabe had no earthly reason to go to New York. He didn’t even like the place. He wouldn’t have anything to do while Dana took care of her business, and he didn’t really care if no one ever paid top price for his furniture.
But he caught Dana’s excitement. Before he knew it, he had entered into her plans, adding his own suggestions. All the while, he kept telling himself to stay home, that this would make things harder in the end. But he’d be lying if he pretended he wouldn’t jump at the chance to spend several days with Dana. He’d been trying to think of an excuse to do just that. Now that the perfect opportunity had been dropped in his lap, he couldn’t turn it down.
“Confess, New York isn’t as bad as you thought it would be,” Dana said. She and Gabe were in a taxi heading toward her apartment. She was relaxed and tired after a long day and a leisurely dinner. She hardly noticed the noise.
“I still wouldn’t want to live here.”
“I wasn’t talking about that.”
“Okay, it’s not so bad.”
Dana laughed. “Hurt yourself. Give it a little praise. After all the compliments you’ve had on your furniture, you ought to be walking on air.”
“I’ll wait until I see the color of their money before I get excited,” Gabe said.
They had taken an early-morning flight. Dana had gotten her business straightened out in a matter of two hours, and they had spent the afternoon showing Gabe’s photographs. New York buyers were pretty cagey, but several asked to see more of his work. Sheila had been enthusiastic about putting several pieces in their showroom. Gabe hadn’t said yes to any of this yet, but she intended to give him all the time he needed.
Dana couldn’t make the decision for him. Putting himself at the mercy of the international market with its ability to make or break a reputation required a thick hide. She had no doubt he’d succeed, but he had to want it enough to take the chance. Gabe gave the impression of being unmoved by other people’s opinions. But she knew something of creative artists and their fragile egos. She wondered if part of Gabe’s reason for staying in Iron Springs wasn’t a reluctance to expose his work to the evaluation of strangers who valued a piece of furniture more by its commercial value than the artistry that went into its making. A little bit of Gabe went into everything he made. That little piece was safe in Iron Springs.
Within a couple of hours after the plane landed, Dana knew bringing Gabe to New York had been the smartest decision she’d ever made. During the most difficult part of the negotiations she only had to look up, see Gabe, and know a huge slice of her life didn’t depend on whether a deal fell through, if a customer was unhappy. Most important of all, she didn’t have to depend on it for her own fulfillment. She liked her work, and she didn’t intend to turn her back on it, but other things were more important.
She knew that now because she loved Gabe. Not the way she had when she was a teenager. She had been
in love with a fantasy, had thought only of what she wanted and needed, not what she had to give. Looking back on it now, she wondered why she hadn’t forgotten him long ago. If she hadn’t been best friends with Mattie, she might have.
She still thought of what she wanted from Gabe, but she thought, too, of the many things she wanted to do for him. She wanted to give him the confidence to face the New York critics, to help guide him through the shoals of the New York market. She wanted to help restore some of his faith in women. He liked them, lusted after them, but he didn’t trust them with his heart. She wanted to give him the family he so desperately wanted, help turn his big house into the home he’d envisioned when he bought it.
She’d dated enough men to know Gabe was one in a million. His being mind-numbingly handsome didn’t hurt. She didn’t mind his being so big and strong she felt warm and protected. Neither did she mind that he seemed to find her just as attractive.
He took his duties and obligations seriously. He’d committed himself to becoming a good guardian for Danny. He’d not only learned to play with Danny, he devoted all his free time to helping the child learn to love him. He’d actually cut back on the time he spent at the shop. She knew how much Gabe’s work meant to him, what a sacrifice that represented.
She liked his commitment to his family and community. She’d never felt as if she belonged anywhere, had never felt part of anything. Maybe that’s why she’d held so tightly to Mattie’s friendship.
Buried deep inside her, almost out of sight, even to herself, had been a desperate desire to be needed and loved. She had denied its existence when she could, said it didn’t matter when she couldn’t, done with substitutes when she couldn’t find anything else. Her grandmother had been a substitute for her parents, Mattie and Danny a substitute for the family she didn’t have, her work a means of putting a value on a life no one else seemed able to appreciate.
Over the past weeks she’d come to see that she and Gabe were very much like lighthouses helping guide other lives to safety only to be left in lonely isolation when they were no longer needed. His father’s inability to love had caused a rift in his home. His sister and wife had left him. He didn’t trust love. He was reaching out to Danny, holding on to the child in hopes that a child’s innocent love could fill the need.
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