Cowboy Crescendo (Dynasties: The Danforths Book 7)

by Cathleen Galitz

“Look!” she exclaimed.

  Toby didn’t bother looking heavenward. His attention was fixed on the slender curve of an outstretched neck and shoulders so white they might have been carved from marble.

  “I am looking,” he told her.

  Heather lowered her eyes to meet a smoky gaze, a smoldering source of heat that rivaled the rapid-fire explosions overhead. Having wondered what it would be like to be kissed by this man, she was overcome by panic when it became obvious Toby was about to put her imagination to rest.

  This is crazy, she wanted to say. You’re my boss, and I’m your son’s nanny. It isn’t proper. And it most certainly isn’t smart.

  Still, those warnings didn’t keep her from leaning into him as he curled his hand around her neck and crushed her mouth beneath his. She would have fought against such unexpected roughness had it not made her so weak in the knees and left her desperately wanting more. His lips were firm, and she discovered that she very much liked the texture of his mustache against her tender skin. It did not tickle at all as she had read in foolish books she had hidden from her parents when she was a girl. But it did make her feel soft and feminine in contrast. And it left her wondering how that mustache would feel brushed against every inch of her body.

  Resounding booms were coming more and more quickly as the fireworks display drew the crowd out of the lobby and into the courtyard. Appreciative ooohs and ahhhs filled Heather’s head. Sparkles trailing across the sky were a poor imitation of the tingles racing up and down her spine. Great explosions of color mirrored the quick succession of emotions bursting inside her. She had been kissed before, but never had she tasted a man and been rendered insatiable by it. Wanting him to feel the same sense of powerlessness that she did, Heather held nothing back and responded wantonly.

  The lady might look as cool as a Grecian statue, but trembling in his arms she was all heat and wondrously giving. Emotions that sparked off one another the very first time they met now caught on fire. Fanned by passion, they spread like wildfire as need raged through them both. Though supple in his arms, Toby discovered that Heather was not as fragile as she looked. Having tasted the forbidden fruit of his secret desire, Toby wanted nothing more than to tumble her into the shadows and make her his own. Such thoughts in such a civilized setting were utterly inappropriate. It was an obsession, Toby was sure, born of a prolonged period of self-imposed celibacy.

  That didn’t stop him from kissing her deeply and plundering the sweet depths of her mouth. Heather met the thrust of his tongue with her own inquisitive exploration. Toby’s hands roamed freely over the warm, smooth skin of her exposed back. Moving his mouth to her neck, he thrilled to the beat of her pulse beneath his lips and the mewling sound caught deep in her throat.

  “I want you,” he confessed in a voice made raspy with need. “Right now.”

  There was no telling what Heather’s response might have been had not a flashbulb gone off in her face. Her startled gasp was lost in the shouts of a crowd mesmerized by the effects of Abraham Danforth’s elaborately planned fireworks display. Heather and Toby had been so engrossed in each other they hadn’t noticed people were laying blankets down on the ground about them as others gathered on the veranda to sip mint juleps and admire the show.

  Horrified to have a moment of weakness immortalized on film, Heather tore herself away from Toby with a sob. If it wasn’t enough to be made a fool of by Josef and be forced to endure whispering behind her back in her home state, now she would be whispered about in Savannah, too. If she knew the paparazzi, her shame was certain to be on display in magazines by the morning. She could write the caption herself: Most Masochistic Woman in the World Falls in Love with the Wrong Man All Over Again.

  Tabloids were sure to fly off the shelves at the little country store where Toby bought his groceries. By the time Dylan reached preschool, she supposed everyone would believe that his nanny was sleeping with his daddy. Angry at herself for succumbing to the charms of yet another man in control of her future, Heather turned and ran, less from the reporter who violated their privacy than from her mental admission that she was falling in love with Toby.

  Blinded by tears, she didn’t wait to witness Toby chase the unwelcome photographer down the sidewalk.

  The Twin Oaks Hotel was virtually abandoned. Most, if not all, of the guests were watching the fireworks outside, and Abraham Danforth’s political machine was gearing up to pass the proverbial hat around to solicit contributions to the cause. Heather had yet to meet the would-be senator, dubbed by the press as Honest Abe II. She doubted he would appreciate being upstaged in tomorrow’s newspaper by a picture of her in a compromising position with his nephew.

  She slipped around to a back entrance of the old hotel. The door stuck initially, but Heather had enough adrenaline surging through her blood to force it open. Making her way down a dimly lit hallway, she searched for some secluded spot where she could pull herself together and put that soul-shattering kiss behind her. If she failed to locate an unoccupied bathroom, she’d settle for simply finding the wing of the hotel that had been reserved for the children. Just thinking of Dylan’s heartfelt hugs had a calming effect upon her.

  One hallway led to another and before she knew it, Heather was completely lost. The place seemed to go on forever. With each step, the halls grew darker. Antique wall sconces that had been modernized with electrical wiring glowed with flickering lights intended to replicate candlelight. It was a touch too real for Heather, who was on the verge of turning around and retracing her steps when she caught a glimpse of someone at the far end of the corridor gesturing to her.

  She looked remarkably like the mysterious lady whom Heather had spied under the big oak tree back at Crofthaven on the day of their arrival. As this was a formal affair, Heather could have easily mistaken a modern floor-length gown for the period clothing she thought she’d seen the woman wearing that day. In the shadowy light, it was easy to imagine quite a lot of things, including the draft of cold air that raised goose bumps up and down the length of her arms.

  Nevertheless, Heather was drawn down that dark hallway.

  “Wait!” she called out as the woman disappeared around yet another corner.

  Hoping she was winding her way closer to the lobby, Heather gave chase. As she rounded the next corner, a scream died in her throat.

  In front of her appeared a young woman with dark hair, very pale skin and eyes rimmed with pain. The shadowy figure seemed to float in the air. A golden locket at her throat glinted in the flickering light. Having never seen a ghost before, Heather nonetheless recognized this apparition for what it was. Stumbling against the wall, she felt a drip of hot wax fall upon her shoulder from the wall sconce. She winced.

  As tempted as she was to run screaming back down that hallway, both Heather’s voice and feet failed her at once. Her heart pounded out of control as the specter stared through her with sorrowful black eyes. Without moving her lips, she relayed a message to Heather.

  “Don’t fail his little boy like I failed my charges….”

  The voice resonating in Heather’s head lacked the Southern tone which she expected.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  “Don’t fail the boy,” the woman repeated, blowing a frightening puff of breath directly in her face. “Or your own heart.”

  With that, she vanished altogether, leaving Heather to wonder if she hadn’t imagined the whole ghastly encounter.

  Seven

  By the time Heather found her way back to the hotel lobby, she was questioning her own sanity. What other explanation could there be for a delusional encounter with the other side? Considering that she had been nursing a glass of ginger ale for most of the night, it certainly couldn’t be attributed to alcohol. Heather supposed it went without saying that a hotel as steeped in history as Twin Oaks was bound to evoke eerie feelings in its guests, especially one overwrought by the prospect of falling in love with her employer.

  That the same sad-fa
ced woman would appear to Heather both at Crofthaven and Twin Oaks seemed further proof that her imagination was playing games with her. All that nonsense about not failing her charge and her heart was probably just her subconscious sorting through her conflicted emotions. Between overloaded hormones and better judgment.

  The only other explanation was one that chilled Heather’s blood and left her visibly shaking as she accepted her first glass of alcohol all evening from a bored-looking waiter. She tossed it back like a seasoned drunk and set the empty glass back on the fellow’s tray in one fluid motion. Scanning the premises, she hoped the fireworks display was coming to an end, marking the official end of a long evening. She, for one, was ready to call it a night.

  A deep masculine voice intruded on her thoughts. “Most everybody’s still outside in case you were wondering.”

  Heather wheeled around and bumped into a solid wall of masculine chest. Craning her neck, she peered into the eyes of a tall, well-built stranger. That his brown eyes beheld her with amusement left her feeling both disadvantaged and tongue-tied. She hoped he wasn’t expecting a response from her.

  “It won’t be long,” he continued, “before Abraham Danforth makes his speech. After that, the party should begin to wind down, except for the diehards, who are certain to be here until the sun comes up.”

  Heather hoped nobody expected her to stick around that long. She was even willing to use Dylan as an excuse if it would get her out of here any sooner. Ever since they had arrived in Savannah, family members had been so eager to spend time with him, and he had been so preoccupied with his cousin Peter, that her services had scarcely been needed. Nonetheless, all Heather wanted to do right now was head back to Harold and Miranda’s house and fall into bed. With any luck, the entire night would seem like a bad dream by morning.

  Her voice was as shaky as the hands she hid behind her back. “Will you be among them?” she ventured to ask. “The diehards, that is?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the man said in a strong, slow drawl. “I expect I will.”

  He didn’t strike Heather as someone inclined to excessive partying. Yet he had just admitted that he would remain at the fund-raiser with the last of the diehards. She couldn’t help but wonder why he was there. Alert as he was in scanning the premises without drawing attention to the fact, the man’s emotions appeared as tightly coiled as her own. Feeling an odd sense of kinship with him, she offered him her hand along with her name.

  “Michael Whittaker,” he rejoined, growing suddenly solemn. “Good Lord, your hand is as cold as ice. Are you all right? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  “Funny you should put it that way…”

  Heather’s bones suddenly turned gelatinous. Michael reached out to grab her by the elbow. Concern illuminated his dark eyes as he led her to the nearest love seat and positioned himself next to her.

  “What happened?”

  Heather shook her head. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “I doubt that.”

  The hard look that accompanied those terse words provided Heather a strange sense of comfort. Still, she hesitated to relay the vision that congealed her blood and left her babbling to herself. Thinking back to that dark, haunted hallway, she took necessary precautions before baring her soul.

  “You aren’t by any chance a reporter, are you?”

  The smile that broke across the man’s distinctive features assured her that he found the very idea preposterous.

  “A security specialist. Who better to trust?”

  Indeed. What harm could there be in sharing a ghost story with a stranger at this late hour? What difference would it make even if he thought her mad? In a few short days, she would be a thousand miles away from here, well on her way to ridiculing herself for being frightened by a figment of her imagination.

  Heather let her breath out slowly and took a chance on a stranger’s seemingly benevolent curiosity.

  “As a matter of fact, I think I did just see a ghost—if that’s what you’d call it.”

  Seeing no sign of derision in Michael’s manner, she continued haltingly.

  “She was a young woman. Dark but not particularly menacing. And she was intent on delivering a message to me.”

  Michael leaned forward. “What message?”

  Bolstered by the intensity of his interest, Heather described the strange clothing the woman was wearing and relayed her message word for word.

  “I can’t exactly say that I saw her speak those words, but I distinctly heard each one conveyed loudly and clearly in my mind. It’s the second time I’ve seen her,” she admitted. “First from a distance standing beneath a huge tree on the outskirts of Crofthaven, and right here at Twin Oaks not ten minutes ago.”

  “Miss Carlisle,” he declared without hesitation.

  It was Heather’s turn to look startled.

  “You know her?”

  “Not exactly,” Michael assured her with a crooked smile. “But the woman you described sounds exactly like the same mysterious lady who accosted me a few days ago asking me for directions to Crofthaven. I was several miles away from there at the time. After pointing her in the right direction, I thought I heard her mutter the single word father before she simply faded away.”

  Since Heather discerned neither malice nor ridicule in his words, she asked him to elaborate. The circumstances and settings of the appearances were sharply different, but the details regarding the specter herself were chillingly similar—right down to the gold locket worn on a chain about the ghost’s long, white neck.

  Giving her a reassuring hug, Michael apologized for having pressing business that he had to attend to.

  “Are you sure you’ll be all right?” he asked before he excused himself.

  Heather gave him a wobbly smile. “I’ll be just fine as soon as I get some fresh air to clear my head.”

  Toby was sorry Heather had run off before he’d been able to catch up with the reporter who made the mistake of interrupting the most romantic moment of his life. Undoubtedly she would have enjoyed seeing him grab the man by the strap around his neck and rip the film from his camera.

  “Get lost, you disgusting little parasite,” Toby told him before giving the fellow a kick in the pants for good measure as he slunk away into the shadows muttering about inquiring minds having “the right to know.”

  By the time Toby turned around to assure Heather that she need not worry about appearing in print any time soon, she was long gone, leaving him to search the crowd, all the while cursing the notoriety of the Danforth name.

  He was unprepared for the surge of jealousy that exploded in his heart and flowed like molten lava through his veins at the sight of Heather enveloped in another man’s arms. That Michael Whittaker looked nothing like wimpy Freddie Prowell did little to dampen the urge to ram a fist right through the other man’s dark, handsome face. Toby had heard rumors that the man was ruthless, but he hadn’t thought that reputation extended to the opposite sex. Years of hard physical labor outside a fancy gym would more than make up for the difference in their size. Toby might not be as big as his uncle’s bodyguard, but he damn sure was a match for anybody when his testosterone kicked in.

  He was just about to take his tuxedo jacket off and roll up his shirtsleeves when Michael Whittaker saved him the trouble by abruptly leaving. Heather wandered off in the opposite direction. Toby was familiar enough with Twin Oaks to know that a secluded terrace lay outside the very door through which she left. Perhaps it had been an innocent embrace explainable by any number of simple circumstances, he thought.

  He curbed his impulse to make a scene. If Heather had been so distraught by the thought of their kiss gracing the pages of some sleazy tabloid, he imagined photographs of him involved in fisticuffs over her wouldn’t set well with her, either. Nor with the rest of the Danforth clan for that matter.

  Toby had no desire to ruin Uncle Abe’s big night any more than he wanted to probe the intense feelings that his son’s nann
y evoked in him. Having openly professed to be done with women forever, he couldn’t understand his own volatile reaction to seeing Heather with someone else, especially considering what a short time he had known her. Envy wasn’t something that often came calling on Toby. His ex-wife bitterly claimed he didn’t have a jealous bone in his body. Sheila’s outrageous attempts to goad him into a green-eyed fit, intended to affirm her desirability more often than not, left her looking foolish in public and incensed in private.

  Even now, news of Sheila’s involvement with an international playboy only made him thankful that he and Dylan had escaped her exploits relatively unscathed. Unscathed, that is, if one didn’t count his little boy losing his speech and his heart.

  As desperately as Toby wanted to believe that it was merely gratitude he felt for Heather for helping his son, the kiss they shared beneath the fireworks shattered that illusion once and for all.

  What had he done by initiating such a kiss?

  Toby no more wanted a long-term relationship with a woman than he wanted to be tied to a life of leisure in Savannah. And yet the likelihood of being able to ignore his feelings for Heather once they returned to Wyoming was slim to none. Going back to a look-but-don’t-touch relationship would tax all his powers of self-control. Hell, he’d nearly taken both Freddie and Michael’s heads off this evening for just having the audacity to talk to Heather, dance with her and hold her momentarily in their arms. Considering that he prided himself on being level-headed and generally unruffled, it didn’t bode well for his willpower.

  He and Heather definitely needed to talk. The relative privacy of the terrace where she had retreated was as good as any place to initiate a conversation that was bound to be awkward at best—a conversation that could well pry the lid off Pandora’s box. Toby wavered.

  “There you are!”

  Marcie Mae’s voice rang out over the growing din in the room. Grabbing him by the arm, she tugged him in the opposite direction of the terrace demanding nothing less from him than his undivided attention.