Married By High Noon

Marry Gabe and you can be with Danny forever.

She didn’t know where that little voice in her head came from, but it might as well go away. Nothing could convince her to consider Marshall’s ridiculous suggestion.

Thank goodness Gabe hadn’t pushed it. She couldn’t believe Marshall had had the nerve to suggest it. She wanted nothing to do with Gabe or Iron Springs. She told herself the instantaneous attraction when she walked into Marshall’s kitchen represented nothing more than a healthy woman’s response to a handsome and virile man.

The tiny voice somewhere deep inside her head kept whispering that this might be her only chance to get what she’d always wanted. She couldn’t convince that tiny voice she didn’t want it anymore.

Even though she had passed her thirtieth birthday and could practically hear her biological clock ticking, she didn’t feel desperate to find a husband. The fact that all the men she dated seemed to be like her father—obsessed with business, short on time for her, unwilling to commit and uninterested in a family—didn’t discourage her. Older women had more trouble getting pregnant and delivering a healthy baby, but New York doctors could do wonders these days.

Still, she couldn’t put the idea of marrying Gabe out of her mind. She was a partner in a business that dealt in very pricey antiques. Despite her family’s contacts, it had been difficult to build up a clientele. She had figured out that one way to attract a woman’s attention to a valuable antique was to have a handsome man sit or lean on it. In five years, she had worked with virtually every top male model in New York. Put up against them, there wasn’t a woman in her right mind who wouldn’t choose Gabe.

It was impossible not to be attracted to him. His smile, when he bothered to smile, was devastatingly sexy. It was a little crooked, one side of his mouth a little higher than the other. He tilted his head ever so slightly, and his eyes sparkled. His lips—those full, wonderful, sexy lips—parted to reveal a set of teeth worthy of any toothpaste commercial. The women in this place must be blind not to have hauled him off to some dark cave long before now. She had known he was something special from the first moment she saw him twenty-five years ago.

She had been a nervous five-year-old visiting her grandmother for the first time. He’d been behind the counter in Hannah’s store. He was eleven. He looked so big and handsome and confident when he winked and gave her an extra big scoop. After that she’d gone for an ice cream cone every afternoon—for the next eleven summers.

Dana pushed the memories from her mind. She couldn’t afford to turn nostalgic. At this rate she’d soon want to marry him. That thought caused a tiny pool of heat to coil in her belly.

“I keam,” Danny cried, as he burst out of Hannah’s store, his double scoop of vanilla leaning perilously to one side of the cone. Some of the ice cream dripped on her blouse when he threw himself into her arms, but she didn’t care. Having him run straight to her meant more than a dozen blouses.

“Don’t blame me for the double scoop,” Gabe said. “That was Hannah’s idea.”

She looked up to see Gabe holding two cones. “Your favorite, butter pecan,” he said as he held one out to her.

“I didn’t want one.”

“Hannah remembered how you could never come to the store without begging your grandmother for a cone. She figured you might still like it.”

Smiling, Dana accepted the cone. “It’s still my favorite.”

Hannah came out of the store. “That’s a fine looking boy,” she said, “the spitting image of Mattie. You staying long?”

“Long enough to help settle Danny in,” Dana said. “We’re going to see his room now.”

“Gabe’s got a beautiful place,” Hannah said before going back inside.

Dana headed off at a rapid pace. Danny ran alongside.

“Don’t be in such a rush,” Gabe said, sauntering along behind her. “It’s too hot to hurry.”

“From what Mattie said, you never come out of your shop long enough to know the season, much less the weather.”

“Mattie exaggerates. Exaggerated.”

He tried not to show it, but she saw the lines of pain in his face. She wanted to let him know she understood, but she didn’t know how.

They walked down the middle of the street, eating their ice cream. She couldn’t imagine such a scene in New York. She kept veering toward the sidewalk, but Gabe continued down the middle of the road. After a while she gave up. She hadn’t see a car since she arrived. “Where is everybody?” she asked.

“Probably napping. We’re between sessions at the camp and the hotel. The new campers and a group of folk dancers will come in tomorrow afternoon. Until then we’ve got the place to ourselves. Isn’t it wonderful?”

It would be if there were any reason to live here, but she didn’t say that to Gabe. He loved this town. He crossed the street and started up a short sidewalk.

“I thought old Mr. Wadsworth lived here,” she said.

“He did. But his children didn’t want the house after he died, so I bought it.”

Dana couldn’t imagine why Gabe should want such a large house. She walked inside and came face-to-face with an enormous grandfather clock. The hand work was incredibly intricate.

“I’m surprised one of the Wadsworth children didn’t want this,” she said.

“They did, but I wouldn’t sell it.”

“Why would their father sell it to you instead of leaving it to one of them?”

“It wasn’t his to leave. It’s mine. I made it.”

Dana had always known Gabe handcrafted furniture, but she’d never expected anything like this.

“Did you make any of these tables?” she asked. There were four in the hall, all with ball-and-claw feet. The carving alone must have taken days.

“I made all the furniture in this house,” Gabe said, waiting for her to follow him.

Dana’s gaze turned to a dining room she glimpsed through pocket doors. It contained a huge mahogany table surrounded by six chairs. A sideboard stood against the far wall next to a china cabinet. She crossed the hall into the living room. Tables, corner cabinets and a table-model grandfather clock offered mute proof of Gabe’s considerable skill. She wondered if he had any idea how much all of this would be worth on the New York market. She doubted he knew or cared.

“Come on,” he called. “You can poke around in corners later.”

A porcelain-topped kitchen table with pull-out leaves restored her feeling of how Iron Springs ought to be—old-fashioned, out of date, comfortable. She immediately found the paper towels. She tore off several pieces, dampened them under the faucet and washed Danny’s face and hands.

“Me, too,” Gabe said, holding out his hands just like Danny.

Marshall’s preposterous suggestion came crashing back with the force of an exploding bomb, and paralysis held Dana still for a moment. She jerked herself back into reality. She didn’t intend for Gabe to see how badly his joke had shaken her. “Sure. What’s one more grubby little boy?”

But touching him, holding his hands while she washed away the nonexistent ice cream, caused a recurrence of the agitation that had attacked her earlier. “Can you cook?” she asked, hoping to distract herself from the uncomfortably disturbing feeling.

“Sure. I’ve been cooking for myself since my divorce.”

She’d been expecting him to say he ate at his mother’s house. “Show me Danny’s bedroom.”

She followed Gabe up a staircase that curved along three sides of the front hall. The windows on the upper landing offered wide views of the front and back yards as well as provided a cool breeze.

“You ought to air condition the place,” Dana said, pushing aside the thought that living in this house could be very pleasant.

“I have, but the trees keep it cool most of the time.”

“How many bedrooms do you have?”

“Five.”

“Why so many?”