Anne Winston - The Danforths - Toby, Lea and Adam

The girl gave her head an apologetic shake, and the lady in white choked on a dry, painful laugh as she reached first for her silver handbag and then for the doorknob.

“I doubt anyone will be able to miss them,” she said cryptically before disappearing into the waiting throng outside.

Heather wished she had thought to ask for her name.

Six

Surrounded by a bevy of single women doused in warring fragrances, Toby studied his son’s nanny from a distance. His worries that the shy little thing might not fit in at such an ostentatious gathering were proving completely needless. Heather looked so cool and sexy in that stunning dress that one might be inclined to think she was born to rule over these kinds of parties. The kinds of parties that his ex-wife had lived for. And ultimately left him for.

Toby washed away the bile that rose in his throat with a second glass of champagne. It lacked the bite of good, old-fashioned whiskey. But he doubted that even Johnnie Walker would make the sight of Heather laughing at something one of his old classmates murmured in her ear go down any smoother. Freddie Prowell was from old money, and though his childhood acquaintance had always been a bit of a prig, Toby had never felt any kind of hatred toward him before tonight. The sight of Freddie leading Heather onto the dance floor caused his shoulders to bunch beneath his suit jacket.

Where had she gotten that dress? Toby wondered. It certainly didn’t look like something one would pick up off the rack for a special occasion. As Freddie’s hand dropped to the small of her back, Toby’s fingers tightened on the stem of his champagne flute. He imagined it would be as easy to snap the other man’s neck as the glassware in his hands.

Did Heather know that a backless gown could be even more intriguing to the male population than a plunging neckline. Toby’s imagination kicked into overdrive at the sight of all that creamy skin and the realization that she wasn’t wearing a bra. For all her aloofness toward him over the past few days, Heather didn’t appear to mind a stranger groping her in public. Not that it was any business of his. As a free woman, she was welcome to dance the night away with any number of drooling idiots lined up to ask for the pleasure of her company.

For that matter, Heather could damn well return to Wyoming wearing another man’s engagement ring if that was what she wanted to do—just so long as she didn’t leave him… er… he meant Dylan, high and dry without any advance notice.

Toby swore softly under his breath. He didn’t bother waiting for the song to end before breaking free of the circle of women holding court around him. He simply left them to speculate on his rudeness and the certain direction his steps took him.

He tapped too firmly on Freddie’s shoulder to be ignored. “Mind if I cut in?”

Considering that he managed to step between the two of them and wrap an arm around Heather’s waist in one fluid motion, the question was purely rhetorical. As such, it required no answer but for Freddie to step aside. He did so reluctantly.

“My, but don’t you look lovely tonight,” Toby said, drawing Heather close and breathing her in. Her fragrance was a subtle mixture of daisies and the devil herself.

Batting her eyes at him, Heather donned an exaggerated drawl that mimicked Marcie Mae’s. “I do declare, Mr. Danforth, such flattery could turn a girl’s head completely around.”

A smile played with the corners of Toby’s mouth. Was it possible she was as bored with this party as he?

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” he remarked dryly, moving her toward the French doors lest anyone dare try cutting in on him like he had Freddie.

Heather turned the conversation to a safer subject as the music switched to a slow, dreamy waltz. “The band is amazing.”

Unable to take her eyes off the handsome man who held her, she wasn’t quite sure when they left the ballroom floor and began dancing beneath a canopy of stars. It was less crowded in the courtyard and far quieter than inside. Beneath a night sky redolent with magnolia blossoms, a tender melody was carried on a breeze that did absolutely nothing to cool Heather off. She was on fire in Toby’s arms. Overhead a meteor flashed across the sky reminding her of what happened to stars that burned too hot.

As tempting as it was to think they were alone, Heather knew that eyes would always be upon the likes of Tobias Danforth. Whether he cared for it or not, no matter how far he roamed from his childhood home, family ties cast him in the light of celebrity. His sister, Genie, had already warned her about the paparazzi. Heather had little desire to be featured in some scandalous rag bent on pumping up its subscription with innuendo and compromising photos. For all she knew, the full moon might as well have been a spotlight cast upon them.

Nevertheless, Heather turned her face up to Toby, and for a blissful moment allowed herself the luxury of floating away in the arms of a strong man. Toby defined his own life his own way, yet he was wise enough to preserve ties with a family that obviously loved him. She wished he would share his secret with her. Instead of asking outright how he managed such a complicated feat, she merely ventured an observation.

“You prefer marching to the beat of your own drum, don’t you?”

Sensuous lips twitched beneath his mustache. “I know it’s been a while, but I hate to think my dancing is so bad that I make you feel like you’re in the infantry.”

Heather shook her head. He was a marvelous dancer, moving with a grace that defied time spent in the saddle. Her body fit nicely against his like a pair of nestled spoons. There was no need to think about her own feet as he swung her to the periphery of the concrete pad and steered her onto the grass. She supposed his mother had forced him into dance lessons at an early age and imagined he had resisted mightily any attempts to mold a would-be cowboy into a proper gentleman.

“You know what I mean.”

“One could say the same for you,” he replied, searching her face in the moonlight for an explanation of how someone who moved so easily in high society would want a position as a nanny in the backwoods of Wyoming.

He had no doubt that a woman like Heather would soon grow tired of the simple ranch life that he so loved. His ex-wife claimed the isolation made her crazy. Once Sheila realized that she would never be able to cajole or badger him into resuming his rightful place in society, she couldn’t renounce her wedding vows fast enough. One of the nasty rumors going around tonight’s little soiree was that she was off in Rio with some European playboy and the two of them were spending Toby’s generous alimony as if it were an endlessly renewable resource.

When the music stopped, he paused to consider a tendril of Heather’s hair. Holding it between his thumb and fingertips, he studied each strand as if they were filaments of pure gold.

When the back of his hand brushed against Heather’s cheek, the spark that had been teasing her imagination all night long burst into full flame. Although every instinct told her to pull away, to run away and not bother to look back, she remained rooted to her spot on the dewy grass. She fought to draw air into lungs that had forgotten how to breathe.

The fact that she and Toby were no longer moving did not lessen the feeling that the world was spinning out of control. A deft twist of Toby’s wrist loosened the pin from her hair and sent it spilling around her shoulders in a shimmer of light that caught and held the moonlight. She might have protested against the injury done to her sophisticated hairstyle had it not been for a Roman candle exploding overhead, signaling the beginning of what was to prove a spectacular fireworks display.