Anne Winston - The Danforths - Toby, Lea and Adam

Something jumped in his belly at the mere memory of Heather whirling into his living room like a tiny tornado. In a pair of tennis shoes and worn jeans, with her blond hair falling loosely about her shoulders, she’d looked more like a popular rockand- roll diva intent on smashing a guitar over his head than the classical pianist he’d been led to believe was refined and aloof by nature. The fire he’d seen in those smoky-gray eyes left him wondering if the right man might be able to spark an even hotter blaze behind that wall of ice.

Toby didn’t like the direction his thoughts were taking. This sparsely populated region of the West was not known for its liberal attitude, and Toby didn’t like the idea of compromising this pretty young woman by placing her in a situation that might cause loose tongues to wag. Living under the same roof with a single man in such a remote area couldn’t be good for a lady’s reputation. Nor for his own standing in a community he claimed by choice as his own.

Nor for a man’s libido, for that matter.

Especially a man who was so lonesome at night that he preferred falling asleep rocking his son than facing the demons that tormented his own empty bedroom.

The immediate necessity of hiring somebody to replace Mrs. Cremins overshadowed Toby’s apprehension. The possibility that Heather might get his son to speak again gave him a sense of hope that had been missing in his life since Sheila walked out. While it was probably just coincidental that Dylan chose to speak when Heather arrived, Toby couldn’t overlook the possibility that she was in fact the catalyst for that momentous event. He was willing to cater to Heather’s needs if she proved to be a miracle worker.

Only time and patience would tell.

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Dylan.”

Heather extended her hand to the little boy who was looking up at her with a skeptical expression on his face. His father had left them alone to take care of pressing ranch business. Clearly hesitant to leave Dylan with a stranger, Toby promised to be back in time for dinner, one Heather expected she would have to rustle up after getting herself settled. The sound of the front door closing behind him echoed through the house.

“You can call me Heather,” she told the boy, “or anything else you’d like.”

She took his dimpled hand into her own and gave it a grown-up shake. When the woman at the employment agency told her that Dylan was developmentally delayed, she had made it sound as if the child was mentally handicapped. After meeting Dylan herself, Heather was convinced that there was nothing at all wrong with his mind. Behind those bright-blue eyes, she could see the cogs of his brain spinning, sizing her up.

“What are you thinking?” she said, touching a finger to his forehead.

A clever little monkey, Dylan mimicked the gesture by tapping softly on Heather’s brow.

“Me?” she said, supplying the words for him. “Oh, I’m thinking that since you and I are so very much alike, the two of us are going to get along famously.”

Heather didn’t let the serious expression on his face deter her from holding forth on the subject. Dylan’s special needs had drawn her to this job, rather than deterred her from it. Having made the decision to put her musical training behind her and embark upon a new career in the field of education, she was eager to test herself in a real-life situation. That way, if her father and mother were right and she truly was making “the biggest mistake of her life,” she wouldn’t have wasted any time and money at the university. Heather certainly hoped no professor would ask her to subscribe to the kind of degrading motivational theory that Dylan’s speech therapist sold his father. Heather believed that such techniques were as counterproductive as the blistering lectures her teachers gave their pupils for “their own good.”

Threatening to drown her, memories of Heather’s own difficult childhood came flooding back. A musically gifted youngster, her early years were filled with unbalanced adult expectations and a grueling practice schedule interspersed with high-stakes performances that inevitably left her feeling just short of ever being good enough. Valued more for the prestige and potential income she would someday generate for her own ambitious parents rather than as an individual with a will of her own, Heather was shuffled off to an exclusive music conservatory at the tender age of seven. Hundreds of miles away from home, she grew up under constant pressure with little consideration given to her emotional wellbeing. By the age of seventeen, she was a weary veteran of the recital circuit and talent shows….

“Again…” Mr. Marion demanded over a pair of owlish glasses that intensified his disapproving scowl. “And don’t bother sniffling like some urchin who stumbled in here off the street. Your parents are paying a hefty sum for me to discipline you. Let me assure you, tears are wasted on me. You will play that piece again until it is right. Until it is perfect…”

Heather preferred beginning her training with a challenging student who knew his own mind rather than a compliant one who accepted the scripts other people had written for him without so much as questioning their motives. Like she herself had done until so very recently. She had firsthand knowledge of just how much easier it was to beat the vitality out of a pup than to put it back in once its spirit was broken.

“Don’t worry, Dylan. I won’t try to make you talk if you don’t want to,” she said with a gentle smile, assuring him that it would be far easier learning the rudiments of housekeeping and cooking without a little chatterbox demanding all her attention.

“For what it’s worth, I’m not much of a talker myself. That’s one thing we have in common. You know, I wasn’t much older than you when I was separated from my parents. Whenever I was lonely, I used to let music do my talking for me.”

At that, Dylan cocked his head showing the first real sign of interest in what she had to say. He gestured toward the piano in the corner of the room.

“Would you like to play a song for me?” Heather asked.

He responded by bouncing a wooden block off the hardwood floor where he had halfheartedly stacked them. Heather bent down to pick it up and aimed it at the base of his crooked-looking chimney. Not even the tiniest hint of a smile toyed with Dylan’s lips as the structure toppled and blocks scattered in all directions.

“So much for the Learning Tower of Pisa,” she said, amusing herself with word play that was lost upon her charge.

Sighing, she rose to her feet and approached the grand piano with an air of confidence that belied her true feelings. Having come to associate music with her broken heart, it took an effort to lift the lid from the keys and drag a hand absently along the keyboard. Just as Dylan was drawn to that melodic sound in spite of himself, Heather couldn’t help appreciating the quality of the instrument at her fingertips. She didn’t know whether Tobias Danforth was a musician himself, but the man obviously placed a high value on providing his son with the best money could buy.

She played a couple of scales and was not at all surprised to discover the piano was perfectly in tune. With her back ramrod-straight and her hands poised over the ivory keys in the posture of a venerate pianist, she gave the impression that she was going to treat Dylan to some classic rendition intended to soothe the heart of the most savage beast.

“‘Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn’t keep her.”’

The melody that she played on those polished keys was universally familiar. A voice more suited to compositions by the masters rose to meet the exposed log beams overhead.