Married By High Noon

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.

“Why?” The road curved abruptly as it wound its way through the hills.

“You’re not used to driving in the mountains.”

Dana laughed. “I spend at least a month each summer in the Adirondacks. Sometimes, after driving a particularly mountainous stretch of highway, I feel as though I never want to go back to flat roads. The sense of freedom is intoxicating.”

But that’s not how she felt about these mountains. They gave her an empty feeling. She couldn’t understand why Mattie had insisted her son be raised in the very place Mattie had been determined to leave behind. There was nothing for anybody to do here except work, talk and take naps. Dana didn’t understand why such a handsome, intelligent man as Gabe hadn’t left years ago. Surely he had some ambition.

“It shows,” Gabe said.

“What?” His voice scattered her thoughts.

“Your experience driving in the mountains. You drove that section like you’ve been doing it all your life.”

It was a rather insignificant compliment, but Dana found herself quivering with pleasure. She told herself not to be silly, that she was no longer a little girl desperate for the approval of a handsome older boy.

As they neared the entrance to the lane leading to her grandmother’s house, Dana caught sight of the little red barn mailbox. She felt a lump in her throat. She used to beg her grandmother to let her get the mail just so she could open the sliding door.

“I need to get someone to paint that mailbox,” Dana said, noticing the colors had faded badly.

“Why? There’s nobody here to get mail.”

That wasn’t important. What mattered was that the mailbox look the way it always had. She couldn’t explain that to Gabe because she couldn’t explain it to herself. She had thought she hated Iron Springs, never wanted to see the farmhouse again. Yet one look brought a wealth of memories surging to the surface, good memories she had forgotten.

The mailbox didn’t bother her as much as the neglected appearance of the driveway. Grass and great clumps of weeds grew through the loose gravel. A bank of tall weeds and bushy shrubs leaned into the driveway, seeming to block the entrance to the farm, telling people to stay out. Dana didn’t remember the trees being so tall. Their outflung branches would soon meet overhead.

“It looks deserted,” she said.

“It is deserted. No one’s lived on the place since your grandmother died.”

Her grandmother had died of a heart attack during Dana’s senior year in high school. Dana’s mother had wanted to bring her to New York for burial, but Grandmother Ebberling’s will had been very specific. She was to be buried in the Iron Springs Cemetery alongside her husband.

“I thought someone rented the land.”

“They used to, but it’s hardly worth the effort to farm these days. They wanted to fence the fields and turn them into pastures, but your lawyer wouldn’t authorize the money. Nobody’s used the place for five years.”

Dana had left all arrangements to the family lawyer. “It was supposed to be kept in order,” she said.

“Not according to your rental agent, Sue. She keeps asking for permission to make changes so it can be rented out again, but your attorney refuses to authorize any expenditures beyond making sure the roof doesn’t leak.”

Dana knew she was as much to blame as the lawyer. Her parents wanted her to sell it, but she kept putting off making a decision. Her grandmother’s will had stated that Dana was to have the farm so she would always have a place to call home. Dana hadn’t understood why the daughter of a millionaire father needed a farmhouse in order to have a home.

“A couple of people tried to buy it, but the lawyer said you wouldn’t sell,” Gabe said.

Couldn’t was more accurate. She’d started to several times, but something always stopped her. She prepared herself to see the house surrounded by weeds and vines growing up to the second floor. Surprisingly, the lawn had been recently mowed.

“Who cut the grass?”

“Sue has her son do it once a month. She met her husband at one of the parties your grandmother used to give when your mother was a girl. She got her first kiss under the oak near the back meadow. With all those memories, she said she couldn’t stand to see the place go to ruin.”

Dana made a mental note to repay Sue. She pulled the Jaguar to a stop in front of the house. Danny couldn’t wait to get out of his car seat, but Dana didn’t want him out of her sight.

“This house is in no condition for you to stay here,” Gabe said.

“Probably not,” Dana agreed, “but I won’t know until I look inside.”

Suddenly she knew she wanted to be alone when she entered the house.

“Swing!” Danny cried.

Memories of the swings flooded back poignant and strong. She and Mattie used to swing side by side for hours, talking about anything that came into their minds.

“I’m not sure it’s safe,” Dana said.

“I’ll check,” Gabe said.

“How?”

“I’ll sit in it. If it holds my weight, it’ll hold Danny.”

Danny didn’t draw back when Gabe held out his hand, but he made no move to take it and leave Dana. As much as his clinging to her gratified Dana, she knew her own feelings weren’t the ones that mattered now. She might hate it, but Danny’s future depended on his being able to trust both his guardians, to be happy living with either. If she loved this child as much as she believed, she’d do everything in her power to help him learn to love Gabe.

But having good intentions was easier than living up to them. A part of her hoped Danny would always love her better than Gabe. That made her wonder about her own character. She’d always considered herself a generous person. Being selfish wasn’t good for Danny.

Dana knelt down in front of Danny and forced herself to say, “Why don’t you go play on the swing with Gabe? I have to go inside and see how many spiderwebs have been built since I was here a long time ago.”

Danny continued to cling to Dana, but not so tightly.

“If we go down to the fields, we might see a deer,” Gabe said.

“He doesn’t know what a deer is,” Dana said. She could tell from Gabe’s shocked expression he probably thought she was guilty of criminal neglect in the boy’s education. “Gabe will swing you,” Dana coaxed. The idea seemed to appeal to him. When Gabe reached out and took Danny’s hand, he didn’t pull away.

“Won’t you come with me?” Gabe coxed.

“Go on,” Dana urged. “I’ll be out in a jiffy, then you can push me in the swing.”

Danny’s smile was immediate and brilliant. “Danie not swing.”

“I did, too,” Dana said. “Your mama and I used to swing all the time. We’d have competitions to see who could go higher.”

“Who won?” Gabe asked.

“I did,” Dana replied, suddenly self-conscious.

“I thought so,” Gabe said. He smiled, but Dana had the feeling she’d just confirmed some point in his poor opinion of her.

“Danny swing,” Danny suddenly announced. “Swing high.”

Not too high, Dana mouthed to Gabe.

“We’ll swing you up into the tree,” Gabe said. “Then you can look in all the birds’ nests and see if they have any eggs. Robins lay bright blue eggs. Have you ever seen a robin’s egg?”

“No,” Danny said as he looked over his shoulder to assure himself Dana was still there.

“Have you ever climbed a tree?” Gabe asked.

“People not climb tree,” Danny announced. “Monkey climb tree.”

“Little boys climb trees, too,” Gabe said. “I’ve got a perfect tree at my house for climbing. Tomorrow I’ll show you how to get up in it.”

“Way high?” Danny asked.

“Way high,” Gabe replied.

That bribe melted Danny’s resistance. She guessed that was part of what Mattie meant when she said a little boy had to have a man in the house. Dana wasn’t ready to admit a woman couldn’t do at least as well as a man, but it was clear men had an unfair advantage in some areas. After all, what grown woman wanted to climb a tree?

Dana turned toward the house. When she reached the steps she looked back. She wondered how high Gabe would let Danny climb. She wondered if he’d be able to see across the fields. She didn’t remember that she’d ever climbed a tree when she was a girl. She wondered why not.

The porch ran the full length of the front of the house. At one end the same old swing moved ever so slightly in the stiff breeze that came up from the valley below, but the half dozen chairs where her grandmother had rocked while she visited with her friends had disappeared. So had the flower boxes of petunias, the pots of ferns and baskets of begonias trailing long ropes of vivid red, pink and orange blossoms. Her grandmother had been particularly fond of her flowers. The porch didn’t look right without them.

But Dana was in for an even bigger surprise when she unlocked the door and stepped inside. Though the neglect was obvious, everything looked so much the way she’d last seen it fourteen years ago it gave her a terrific jolt. She could almost expect her grandmother to call from the kitchen to ask if she and Mattie wanted molasses cookies or hot soda biscuits with fresh butter and blackberry jam. The weight of memories was so sudden and so enormous—memories of warmth, happiness, closeness—Dana wondered how she could even think about selling the house that had been a home as much as a haven.

Dana didn’t doubt her parents loved her, but they were always coming home from somewhere, getting ready to leave again. Her father traveled constantly to or from one of several foreign countries to oversee his business interests. Her beautiful, smart and talented mother jetted from one high-profile social or charity event to another. They owned three apartments and two vacation homes, all professionally redecorated every two or three years. Nothing ever became old or familiar. Her grandmother’s house never changed and her grandmother was always there.

Always.

Dana had forgotten how much she looked forward to summers here, how much she had depended on her grandmother for feelings of belonging and permanence, for the show of affection her parents were too busy to give, for the chance to be herself, to not have to measure up to anyone’s wishes or expectations. In the years since her grandmother’s death, she’d gotten so busy trying to build a career successful enough to attract her parents’ attention she’d forgotten what this place had meant to her, what her grandmother had provided for her without her even being aware of it.

It was the only place she’d ever been completely happy. She guessed that was the reason she’d never been able to sell the place.

Now Mattie and her grandmother were gone, and the house was all she had left to remind her of some of the best moments of her life. She couldn’t sell it. Not ever. She would fix it up. It would be a place to stay when she visited Danny.

If you marry Gabe, you won’t need a place to stay.

If Dana could have gotten her hands on that miserable little voice, she’d have strangled the wretch. She had been under too much stress lately to think dispassionately. Coming here had merely added more layers of emotion, many strange and unexpected, all in conflict. She couldn’t possibly marry Gabe, even for a short time. That would throw her entire world into chaos.

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.

Chapter Four

She hadn’t meant to ask that. She resented it when anyone asked her such a personal question.

“Why should I leave?”

She could think of a hundred reasons. “Mattie said you did very well in college, that you had two promising job offers.”

“I discovered I’d rather work with wood than be an engineer.”

“But you could do that anywhere. Why come back here?”

“Why go anywhere else?”

“Mattie couldn’t wait to get out.”

She hadn’t meant to say that. She didn’t know if he knew how his sister felt about Iron Springs, but she figured learning wouldn’t improve his attitude toward her. A glance at his profile—the rigid jaw and pursed lips—told her she’d judged correctly.

“Being with people I know and trust is important to me.” Gabe stared straight ahead. “I met lots of people in college who considered me their friend, but it wasn’t the same as with people around here.”

“Why not?”

“Because they only knew me for a few years, a semester, even a month. The people here have known me since I was born. They knew my parents before that, their parents before that. It’s like a large family. If anything happens to one of us, it happens to everybody.”

Dana could believe that. Her mother had made a lot of people in Iron Springs angry before she left for college. Years later, when Dana visited her grandmother, they still remembered. She’s a Yankee, poor thing. You can’t expect anything better of her.

“I wanted to stay near my family,” Gabe said. “After Mattie went away, Ma and Pa didn’t have anyone but me. I liked being able to walk to my parents’ house before breakfast, or have them visit me.”

“Most people don’t want their parents that close.”

“To me it’s a privilege. There’s nobody more concerned for me, more willing to lend a hand if I need it. I can’t always depend upon friends. I can on family.”

Dana’s life had been entirely different. Even in grade school, her parents had been away from home more often than not. When she went away to boarding school, college, started work, they sent cards, talked on the telephone, kept in touch by e-mail, but they maintained their separate lives. Dana couldn’t think of anything more unlikely than her mother showing up at her apartment before breakfast. Her mother never got out of bed before 10:00 a.m.

“I like familiar places,” Gabe continued. “I can’t go anywhere without being reminded of something I really like doing, somebody important to me. If I left Iron Springs, I’d lose all that.”

Dana opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. Coming back to Iron Springs had brought to the surface many memories she’d forgotten. But stepping into her grandmother’s house had been almost like becoming a different person, someone she used to be but hadn’t been in a long time. She hadn’t expected that, wouldn’t have believed it an hour ago. She had left a great chunk of herself in Iron Springs, and she hadn’t realized it until now.