Leigh Greenwood - Married By High Noon

But she couldn’t let Lucius get Danny. She’d promised Mattie she’d do anything she could to prevent it. When she made that promise, she hadn’t expected the solution to be so drastic. Improbable. Impossible. Insane.

Marriage should be forever. Despite the large number of divorces and separations among her friends, Dana had always been certain it would be different for her. She would know Mr. Right when she saw him, and he’d know her just as certainly. They wouldn’t be anything like her own parents. They would come home to the same house every night, eat dinner together, go out together, vacation together, raise their children together. Dana wanted at least three children. Being the only child of absentee parents had been very lonely.

She looked out the window and saw Gabe pushing Danny in the swing. Even though a tangle of weeds and vines ringed the yard, the scene touched her deeply. It seemed right. Much to her surprise, some of the tension seemed to leave her. She supposed Danny’s laughter and Gabe’s happiness had communicated itself to her.

But there was something else going on between those two, something she could only partially understand. Gabe was obviously working hard to win Danny’s trust, talking to him, laughing with him, helping him experience something new. But there was a look on Gabe’s face Dana hadn’t seen before. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said Gabe was acting like a proud and loving father on an outing with his son.

Danny looked different, too. Though he laughed like any little boy laughed when having a good time, he looked up in wonder at the big man who was devoting his entire attention to him. His look seemed to say he wanted that very much but feared it a little at the same time.

Dana shook her head. All this intense emotion was causing her to imagine things. She lived in the real world, not in a fairy tale where everything always had a happy ending.

But even though she focused her mind on inspecting the house thoroughly—even the room she’d called her own for so many summers—the image of Danny and Gabe together wouldn’t leave her mind. Maybe she wasn’t imagining things. Maybe even stories in the real world could have fairy-tale endings.

When she came outside again, she didn’t see Danny or Gabe anywhere. For a moment panic caused her heart to race. Then she told herself not to be foolish. Gabe wouldn’t let Danny out of his sight, wouldn’t let anything happen to him. But her heart climbed into her throat once more when she walked around the side of the house and still didn’t see them. Hearing voices coming from the side yard in the vicinity of a huge white pine, she worked to regain her calm as she walked across the coarse grass.

She bent down to pass beneath the branches of the pine. But they weren’t under that tree. The sounds came from the old maple just beyond. They sounded as though they were coming from somewhere above her. She looked up, and a scream nearly ripped from her.

Gabe sat perched on a limb at least ten feet off the ground. Danny was seated on a branch above him.

“Don’t you think that’s a little too high?” She didn’t know how she managed to sound so calm. She wanted to scream that Gabe was an idiot and order him to bring Danny to the ground this very minute.

“We were looking for a break in the trees so Danny can see the mountain on the other side of Iron Springs,” Gabe explained.

Under other circumstances Dana might have been intrigued by the possibility of seeing Iron Springs from her grandmother’s maple tree. “Maybe you should wait until the leaves fall,” she said to Gabe. “Then you won’t have to climb so high.”

“Climbing high is half the fun,” Gabe called down.

“Wait until he’s a teenager.”

“Tree,” Danny called to her, pointing to the surrounding branches.

“I see it, darling, but it’s time to come down now.”

“Stay in tree,” Danny said.

“We’d better come down for now,” Gabe said. “I’ve got a bigger tree at my house. Would you like to climb that with me?”

“Me climb big tree,” Danny said.

Dana made a silent vow to cut that tree down herself before she’d let Danny climb it.

Gabe dropped to the ground. When he held his hands up, Danny jumped into them without a moment’s hesitation. The second Gabe set him in the ground, he came running to Dana.

“Me climb tree,” he announced as he threw himself into Dana’s arms.

She grabbed him up and held him tight, relieved to have him safely on the ground. If Gabe thought she was going to leave Danny here just so he could risk his precious little neck by letting him climb every tree in Iron Springs, he had another think coming. She’d take Danny back to New York and fight Lucius herself. If she didn’t win, she could seek refuge in her parents’ apartment in Paris. She could always sell antiques in France. The country was full of them.

“How did things look inside?” Gabe asked.

She didn’t want to talk about the house. She wanted to talk about his callous disregard for Danny’s safety.

“Except for a thick layer of dust, it looks very much the way I remember it.”

“It’s still in no condition for you to occupy.”

“I realize that. I’ll just have to say in your house. You can go to a motel.”

She hadn’t meant to say that. It just popped out of her mouth. From his expression, she guessed it surprised him as much as it did her.

“It’s important for Danny to start getting used to your house. It would be better if he could do it with me close by.”

If you marry Gabe, Danny will always be close by.

She shook her head vigorously, hoping to fling the maddening little voice into the grass where she devoutly hoped it would be nibbled to death by voracious ants.

She managed to get her racing thoughts under control. “I didn’t mean to commandeer your house like that. I was just thinking out loud.”

“No problem,” Gabe said, but he looked as though it were anything but all right. “I can spend the night with Ma.”

“Maybe Danny and I should go to your mother’s house.”

“No. The sooner Danny gets used to his bedroom, the better.”

But he won’t be able to spend many nights in it if you don’t marry Gabe.

Dana began to wonder what part of her mind could take such sadistic enjoyment in torturing her. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Why should it be happening now when she was at her most defenseless?

“We’d better head back to town,” Gabe said.

“Why?”

“Mother’s expecting us for dinner. She’ll worry herself into a fit if we’re a minute late. What did you decide to do about the house?”

“I’m going to keep it.”

“What for? You haven’t used it in fourteen years.”

“I’m going to fix it up for myself. I can stay there when I visit Danny.”

An uncomfortable silence fell. She could practically read his thoughts, but right now she couldn’t take the blame for Lucius getting Danny. She’d had too much to endure these past weeks. One more thing just might be too much.

“Why did you stay in Iron Springs?” she asked.

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