The Bridal Path: Danielle

by Sherryl Woods

  “Dad,” Timmy prodded. “Dani said to get the stuff in the garage.”

  “Oh, right,” he said distractedly.

  “Now,” Timmy said emphatically.

  “Okay, okay.” He followed his son to the garage, where a dozen or more cartons were crammed with every conceivable kind of junk. He couldn’t imagine that the combined worth was more than a few dollars. Obviously the avid people in their cars thought otherwise.

  For the next half hour he carried boxes and helped to arrange the items they contained on old blankets and tablecloths that had been spread over the grass until it looked like some sort of country patchwork quilt.

  At precisely eight o’clock Dani surveyed everything, gave a little nod of satisfaction and gestured toward the growing crowd of would-be buyers. They emerged from their cars like racers exiting a starting gate.

  In no time at all the boys were overwhelmed with enthusiastic shoppers. Dani’s hair, which she’d tucked into some sort of a knot on top of her head, was coming loose, tendril by silky tendril. Slade had the most incredible desire to sweep a few curls away from the back of her neck and kiss her on that exposed bare skin.

  She turned just then and, as if she’d guessed his thoughts, blushed prettily. Then almost at once she returned her attention to a customer who was bargaining enthusiastically for some china knickknack that couldn’t have been worth more than a dollar new, but appeared to be selling for 12.50 now that it had a little wear and tear on it.

  Slade decided at that moment, with his sons shouting happily over each sale, with Dani clearly in her element and desire slamming through him like a freight train, that he would forever think of garage sales in an entirely different way. Maybe they could have one every weekend. Surely there was enough stuff crammed into his grandparents’ attic to keep this crowd going for weeks on end.

  “You seem to be enjoying yourself,” Sara Dawson, Dani’s sister, said, surprising him. He hadn’t even known she’d arrived. He recognized her from an occasional glimpse he’d caught of her in town.

  “Actually, I’m a little out of my element,” he confessed.

  “Didn’t look that way to me. I saw the way you were staring at Dani. I recognized the look.”

  He swallowed hard and forced a casual note into his voice. “Oh, and what look would that be?”

  “A hunter about to claim his prey.”

  He chuckled at the comparison. “I expected something a little more romantic.”

  “Hunger is hunger,” she said. “No matter which kind it is.” She eyed him intently. “Just where do things stand between you and my sister?”

  The blunt question didn’t surprise him. The Wildes were obviously a very direct clan. “Isn’t that between your sister and me?”

  “Not if you intend to hurt her,” she said fiercely. “Then it becomes a matter for all of the Wildes and the Dawsons and the Fords.”

  “In other words, the Wilde sisters and their mates stick together.”

  “You bet. And Daddy’s the toughest one of us all.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “See that you do.” She grinned then. “In the meantime, you might try to knock her socks off. She deserves to have her world go topsy-turvy for once, instead of being the rock who holds the rest of us together.”

  Slade nodded soberly. “I’ll remember that, too.”

  Dani dashed up just then and scowled at Sara. “What are you telling him?” she said, clearly fearing the worst from her very direct, red-haired sister.

  “Not a thing,” Sara swore, casting a thoroughly innocent look at her sister.

  “You’re not meddling?” Dani asked doubtfully.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sara insisted. “That’s Daddy’s job.”

  Dani faced Slade. “Is she telling the truth?”

  He exchanged a grin with Sara, who was looking a little worried suddenly about where his loyalties might lie. He decided, for the sake of family peace and his own peace of mind, he’d better stick to her story just this once. “Absolutely,” he swore.

  “Good,” Dani said, obviously relieved. She held out her hand to him. “Come with me. I need help with Mr. Garrett. He’s trying to steal my favorite old records for practically nothing. I told him I had to check with someone who’d submitted a sealed bid that was higher than what he was offering.”

  Slade grinned at the blatant lie. “You love this, don’t you?”

  “What’s not to love? I get rid of all my junk. People leave with treasures they’re sure they got at bargain prices.”

  “Bargain prices, my eye. I saw you negotiating over that silly china dog. You bamboozled that woman.”

  “Did not. She would have paid twice that. She has a collection. She knew exactly what she was getting. So did I.”

  “If you say so. Just remind me to watch my back if we’re ever trying to strike a deal.”

  She reached up and patted his cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll always give you fair warning before I bamboozle you.”

  Again there was a spark in her eyes that struck him as downright dangerous. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was behind it.

  Before he could worry too much about it, he was caught up in the negotiations for a bunch of dusty old 78 RPM records that were probably collector’s items. The old man he was supposedly bidding against had an avaricious gleam in his eyes that suggested there was a lot more room for bargaining.

  Just as Slade figured they had reached top dollar, a flustered, gray-haired lady wearing a loose-fitting jogging suit and bright red sneakers jumped off a motorcycle, ran up, listened for the latest bids, then topped them both by twenty bucks.

  “Sold!” Dani said before either Slade or the other bidder could react. She threw her arms around the woman. “Congratulations, Mrs. Fawcett!”

  “I was so worried we wouldn’t get here in time,” the older woman said. “Your father was dillydallying all the way over here. He said this whole sale was a bunch of nonsense. He seems to think if you need money, you ought to be coming to him, not selling off your belongings on the front lawn.”

  “This isn’t about the money,” Dani protested. “Oh, for goodness’ sakes, what’s wrong with him?”

  Slade turned and stared at the man in question, who was just now climbing off the Harley and sauntering their way. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it. Trent Wilde wearing a motorcycle helmet and careening around town on a motorcycle with his lady love was about as unexpected as watching sweet little Dani bargaining like Donald Trump.

  “Did you get here in time to get those silly records?” he asked Matilda Fawcett.

  “No thanks to you,” she shot back, drawing grins from Slade and Dani.

  “What the devil are you planning to do with them, anyway?” Trent demanded.

  “I was planning on inviting you over to dance to them, but at the moment I wouldn’t let you get that close, you old sourpuss.”

  Slade chuckled aloud, then tried to hide it as Trent shot him a baleful look.

  “Women!” the old man muttered, and stalked off toward the house.

  Dani leaned down and whispered something that had Mrs. Fawcett grinning. After she’d gone off to finish her argument with Trent, Slade asked Dani what she’d said.

  “I told her to give him hell.”

  “I don’t think there’s a doubt in the world that she’ll do just that,” he said, laughing at the prospect.

  Dani laughed with him. “The thought of Daddy being one-upped at his own game does hold tremendous appeal, doesn’t it?”

  “Amen to that,” Sara said, joining them.

  She held up some sort of kitchen doodad that Slade didn’t recognize.

  “How much for this?” she asked.

  “Be prepared to sell your soul,” Slade told her with a wink, then went off to check on his sons.

  He found them hovering over a cash box overflowing with dollar bills and change. “Have you ever seen so much
money in all your life?” Kevin asked, clearly awed by their success.

  “Remember now, only some of that is yours,” Slade reminded them.

  “But it’s still lots and lots,” Timmy said. “More than we’ve ever gotten in our allowance.”

  “And more than you’re likely to get. I think it would be a good idea if we opened a savings account with it first thing Monday morning.”

  Both boys stared at him as if he’d threatened to banish them to their rooms for a year. “You want us to put it in the bank?”

  “It’s the safest place.”

  “But we wanted to buy stuff,” Timmy protested.

  “Such as?”

  “Books,” Kevin said, sounding more dutiful than enthused.

  “And computer games,” Timmy added. “Some that aren’t yours.”

  “And ice cream,” Kevin chimed in, finally back in character.

  Slade looked into their hopeful faces and decided on a compromise. “You may each buy one book and you can get one computer game together,” he said.

  Despite the offer, disappointment clouded their faces. “What about the ice cream?” Kevin demanded.

  He grinned. “I’ll buy that.”

  The two boys slapped hands in a high five, then Timmy asked, “Can Dani come, too?”

  “Of course,” Slade said, trying very hard not to reveal that that was exactly what he’d hoped they’d ask. An invitation from his sons would keep him from having to show the woman just how badly he wanted to spend time with her.

  According to his logic, if he didn’t have to admit to this growing yearning, then it simply didn’t exist. He could go on thinking that Dani Wilde was just a nice woman who was generously filling a huge void in his sons’ lives. It was a delusion he intended to cling to as long as humanly possible.

  Chapter Six

  The outing to the ice cream parlor that Slade proposed grew rapidly from a foursome to a crowd. First Sara overheard the boys inviting Dani and decided to tag along. Then her father and Mrs. Fawcett claimed to have a craving for hot fudge sundaes.

  Someone–Dani figured she would never know for sure who–called Ashley and Dillon, who wandered in just as they were taking over the entire middle row of tables. Slade looked a little bemused at being suddenly surrounded by her family.

  “This wasn’t exactly what you had in mind, was it?” Dani asked, deeply regretting the lack of privacy herself. “Unfortunately, impromptu family gatherings happen a lot with the Wildes. Don’t panic at all these interlopers. Daddy will pick up the check.”

  Slade frowned. “No, he won’t,” he said adamantly. “This was my idea.”

  “You’ll have to fight him for it, then. He considers it his God-given right as patriarch of the clan. Dillon and Jake have finally stopped arguing.”

  Slade appeared undaunted. “Then they’re not half as sneaky as I am,” he told her, grinning. “I gave my credit card to the waitress when we came in the door. Even as we speak the charge is being written up in my name.”

  Dani chuckled at his sweet innocence. Obviously he didn’t understand the ways of small towns yet. “Do you honestly think that any waitress in this town will go against Daddy’s wishes?” she asked. “They all know his habits. That credit card will come back to you with an apologetic shrug and without a charge slip attached.”

  “Care to make a wager on that?” he taunted.

  “Sure,” Dani said without hesitation. “What are the stakes?”

  “You choose.”

  The first part was easy enough and suited her own devious purposes rather nicely. “Okay, if you win, I’ll make you and the boys dinner for a week,” she said.

  Slade grinned. “Done. And if you win?”

  She hesitated over that one, then finally said, “You come to Three-Stars with us next time we go.”

  His face promptly clouded over. She could see a storm brewing in his eyes and expected a negative answer, even before he said, “I don’t think so.”

  “You said I got to choose,” she reminded him, even as she tried to gauge exactly how painful the thought of such a visit was to him and why. She played her trump card. “I doubt if I’ll be able to get Timmy back there without you.”

  He sighed, his innate sense of parental responsibility obviously kicking in. “You don’t play fair.”

  “Just looking out for your boys,” she retorted. “And you.”

  His eyebrows rose a fraction. “Me?”

  “People should always confront the things they fear most.”

  The suggestion clearly stung. Slade went perfectly still, and his gaze hardened. “What makes you think I’m afraid of Three-Stars?”

  “Your reaction when I asked you to go there. What’s with you and ranches? It can’t be Three-Stars itself. As far as I know, you’ve never set foot on the place. So it must have something to do with your past.”

  His stony reaction told her she’d hit the nail on the head. That subtle confirmation was enough to satisfy her for now. She didn’t have to know every detail of his antipathy toward ranches. That could come later. For now, she met his gaze evenly. “So,” she said gently, “will you come? For Timmy’s sake?”

  “I’ll come,” he said tersely, then added, “if you win the bet.”

  * * *

  Slade cursed the day he’d ever gotten mixed up with Dani Wilde and her pushy family. He stopped his car at the wrought-iron gate to Three-Stars and sucked in a deep breath. No matter how often he told himself that this wasn’t his father’s ranch and that there was no reason on earth to react as if it were, his insides twisted into a knot anyway.

  Damn that stupid bet he’d made with Dani. He should have realized she knew her father through and through. Slade never had figured out how Trent Wilde had managed to pay the bill at the ice cream parlor without getting caught at it. Sure enough, though, Slade’s credit card had come back with an apologetic shrug, just as Dani had predicted.

  As a result, instead of getting a solid week’s worth of decent meals, here he was facing his demons. The only thing holding him together at all was the fact that Timmy was clearly more terrified than he was to make the trip down that long, winding driveway.

  “I’m not getting on a horse again,” he said fiercely from the back seat.

  “You don’t have to,” Slade reassured him.

  “But it’s so much fun,” Kevin argued. “You won’t fall this time. You have to try it.”

  “Dad, make him stop bugging me.”

  “Kevin, leave your brother alone. It’s his decision.” Slade glanced into the rearview mirror. “Dani did suggest a picnic by the creek, though. She says we’ll have to take the horses to get there.”

  Timmy looked suspicious. “Why can’t we drive?”

  “There’s no road,” Slade told him.

  Timmy’s forehead creased with a frown as he weighed his options. “I could stay at the house with Sara,” he said resignedly, proving just how greatly his fear had been magnified during the past week.

  Kevin stared at him with shock. “You’d miss the picnic?”

  “Who cares about an old picnic?” Timmy retorted stoically.

  “You don’t have to decide right this second,” Slade told him. “Let’s see how you feel when we get up to the house.”

  “I won’t change my mind,” Timmy vowed.

  “Bet you will,” Kevin taunted.

  The next thing Slade knew the two of them were wrestling in the back seat, taunts and fists flying.

  “Enough,” he said sharply, then added a threat that suited his own purposes all too well. “Or no one will be going anywhere. I’ll turn around right this second and go back home.”

  To his deep regret, not even Timmy was willing to risk that, apparently. Uttering a heavy, put-upon sigh, he settled back into the seat as far from his brother as he could get. Kevin glared at him.

  The tension lasted until they reached the ranch house. Kevin bolted eagerly from the car, while Timmy trailed along behind, loo
king dejected. Slade put an arm around his shoulders.

  “How about riding with me?” he suggested casually.

  Timmy stared at him doubtfully. “On the same horse?”

  “Sure. You can sit right in front of me in the saddle.”

  Timmy considered the new option carefully, then brightened. “I guess that would be okay.”

  “You won’t fall,” Slade promised him. “I’ll see to it.”

  Though Timmy was rapidly reaching the age where he shunned public displays of affection, he threw his arms around Slade’s waist. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “You bet. Now go with your brother and pick out the best horse for us, preferably not one named Diablo,” he added dryly.

  “How come?”

  “Just take my word for it. Diablos usually come by their name naturally. They are not gentle creatures.”

  “Oh,” Timmy said. “I’ll find us a really tame horse, Dad.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  As soon as Timmy had run off, Slade paused and absorbed the once-familiar sensations of being on a ranch. The scents of dust and recently mowed grass, the distant lowing of cows, the feel of unrelenting sun on his shoulders, burning even through his shirt. Oddly enough, it wasn’t nearly as awful as he’d expected.

  “How does it feel?” Dani asked softly, coming up beside him.

  “Familiar,” he said at once.

  “Scary?”

  He smiled down at her. “No, this place isn’t scary at all.” He wanted to add that it was because she was there, but feared that would be far too revealing of feelings he wasn’t ready to acknowledge.

  “You grew up on a ranch, didn’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you hate it?”

  Slade considered the question thoughtfully. “I don’t think I hated the ranch nearly as much as I hated the man who ran it. He turned it into a torment.” He glanced around at the stark, rugged terrain that was so different from his home in Texas and yet in so many ways the same. “How could any place this beautiful be despised?”

  “Like you said, it’s not the place. It’s the people. Neither Ashley nor I were cut out to be ranchers. Sara got all of those genes. Even so, I didn’t leave because I hated my home or the life-style we had here. I left Three-Stars because my father was overbearing and controlling. Now that I have my independence, I actually enjoy coming back.” She grinned. “Once in a while, anyway.”