Married By High Noon

“That’s how many came with the house.”

She didn’t appreciate his sense of humor. “Danny will feel lost.”

“I bought it when I still expected to have a large family.” He said it as though his shattered dreams didn’t matter anymore. He opened the door to one of the rooms on the front. “This will be Danny’s.”

Dana stepped into a room at least twice the size of Danny’s bedroom in her apartment. Gabe had furnished it with a bed, a chair and table, two chests of drawers, an armoire and two boxes spilling over with toys. Danny wiggled past her.

“Where did all of these toys come from?” Dana asked.

“All over. Everybody wanted to help when they heard Danny was coming home.”

Danny bypassed the boxes of toys for a hobbyhorse in the corner. Dana didn’t think anybody had such a toy anymore. She instinctively knew Gabe had made it.

“Horsey,” Danny said, pointing at the hobbyhorse.

“Do you want to ride?” Gabe asked.

“Yes.”

“Say please,” Dana added without thinking.

“Pease,” Danny said.

Gabe moved to lift Danny onto the horse, but Danny ran to Dana. “Want Danie,” he said.

Danny still loved her, wanted her, trusted her. Right now that meant more than anything in the world.

If you marry Gabe, you can have Danny with you forever.

The voice lied. They’d both demand a divorce the moment Gabe got permanent custody of Danny.

“He’s still nervous about all the changes and new people,” Dana said as she lifted Danny onto the hobbyhorse.

“That’s understandable.”

Dana could tell Danny’s reaction hurt Gabe. But if his family was so important to him, he shouldn’t have let his father close Mattie out of their lives.

If you marry Gabe, neither of you has to be hurt.

Before the voice had the chance to drive her mad, they heard footsteps downstairs.

“Gabe, are you here?” a voice called out.

“Up here, Ma. We’re in Danny’s room.”

In less than a minute a tall, matronly woman with iron-gray hair, glasses and a busy print dress that nearly gave Dana hives entered the room. Mrs. Purvis looked extremely nervous about finding herself face-to-face with Dana.

“I was sorry to hear about your husband,” Dana said.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Purvis responded. An awkward silence followed. “Thank you for bringing Danny,” she finally said. She waited, looking even more uncomfortable. “And for taking care of Mattie. We…Gabe and I…”

“She was my best friend,” Dana said. “I would have done anything for her.” She still couldn’t understand how any mother could allow herself to be cut off from her child.

She sensed Mrs. Purvis had suffered terribly, suffered still. The older woman smiled sadly, as though accepting the implied guilt, but when she turned her gaze to Danny her entire countenance was transformed.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was here?” she demanded of Gabe, planting a kiss on Danny’s head and rocking the hobbyhorse so vigorously Dana was afraid Danny might fall off.

“Because I knew you’d take him away the minute you saw him,” Gabe said, smiling fondly at his mother, “just as you’re doing now.”

Mother and son bent over the child, making over him like doting parents. Dana stifled an urge to elbow them aside.

“We need to think about dinner,” she said. She’d planned to eat at a restaurant or up at the hotel.

“You’re eating at my house,” Mrs. Purvis said.

“She’s been planning what to cook for days,” Gabe said. “She’s changed her mind three times already. We can’t stay too late,” he warned. “Danny needs to get to bed early.”

“I don’t think he ought to sleep in this room tonight,” Mrs. Purvis said.

“Why not?”

“It’s too new, and he’s too far away from you.”

“He could sleep in my room.”

They were talking as if she wasn’t there, as if she didn’t matter.

“You don’t have to worry about Danny being alone,” Dana said. “He’s staying with me.”

“I don’t want him staying at the hotel,” Gabe protested.

“He won’t be,” Dana replied. “We’ll be staying at my grandmother’s farmhouse.”

Chapter Three

“You didn’t have to come with me,” Dana said to Gabe. “I still remember the way.”

“Nobody goes to that house anymore. No telling what you’ll find there.”

Dana appreciated his company. The farm lay ten miles out of town.

“Nothing more intimidating than a fox or two,” she said.

“More likely a raccoon or an opossum.”

Dana didn’t like the sound of that. She should have thought before she left New York to call the real estate agent and have her check over the house. But trying to figure out how to keep from losing Danny had filled her mind to the exclusion of everything else.

“Do you want me to drive?” Gabe asked.