issues. To be quite honest, I’m in a real bind. A ranch doesn’t run itself, and taking care of Dylan myself for the past couple of weeks has put me so far behind that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to catch up.”
He looked so overwhelmed by his circumstances, so remarkably vulnerable and strong all at the same time, that Heather couldn’t help but feel the stirrings of empathy. Not to mention the fact that she could no more turn her back on his cute little boy than she could walk away from a stranger bleeding on the street. She understood how difficult it must be for a proud man like Toby to ask for her help. The woman from the employment agency informed her in a conspiratorial whisper that the child refused to speak since his mother had walked away from them both. Heather wasn’t sure if it was possible for three wounded hearts to be healed under the same roof, but she had little recourse but to trust in the infinite possibilities of tomorrow.
“My bags are in the trunk of my car. If you’d be so kind as to show me to my room, I’d like to get settled in and start right away.”
The relief written upon Toby’s face was so genuine that it made Heather grow prickly all over. She hoped in his exuberance that he didn’t attempt to pick her up like he had Dylan and swing her around in the air. She was already feeling far too lightheaded to think straight. Toby’s next statement did nothing to lessen that feeling.
“If you don’t have a couple of nice dresses packed, we can pick some up in town over the weekend. I’m planning on taking Dylan to a family reunion of sorts in the next couple of days, and I’d really like you to come along.”
Heather shook her head as if to rid it of cobwebs. Not the typical slow-moving rancher who drove his pickup down the road at a leisurely pace, Toby Danforth moved fast. Goodness, it was hard to process everything happening at once. She had been fired, rehired and invited to a family gathering all in the course of fifteen minutes.
“That won’t be necessary,” she said, struggling to overcome her innate shyness around large groups of people she didn’t know. “While somewhat limited, my wardrobe should be adequate for any occasion. I don’t suppose it should be too hard to get myself and Dylan ready for a little family get- together.”
As long as it’s no farther than the next county… and it doesn’t involve getting on a plane, she silently amended. Her fear of flying had been the bane of a childhood dependent upon traveling long distances to perform across the country. Whenever possible, Heather made alternate arrangements involving buses or trains.
The tension in Toby’s face was replaced by a smile as wide as the boundaries of his ranch. It was the kind of smile that made Heather want to attribute the accompanying flutters in her stomach to nothing more than first-day-on-the-job jitters. Certainly not to a sharp sense of feminine awareness making her ache deep inside.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Toby said. “I’d suggest you pack light clothes for the trip. My sister says the weather in Savannah is unseasonably warm for this time of year. Did I mention we’ll be flying out this Monday?”
Heather’s mouth fell open in surprise as Dylan clapped his hands in delight.
Two
There was something so regal in the way the new nanny carried herself, it made Toby feel as if he were working for her instead of the other way around. Of course, it went without saying that much in the way of a superior attitude was forgivable as long as she was kind to Dylan. Youth and inexperience, eyes as gray and unpredictable as gathering storm clouds, a luscious figure and even a pair of tempting lips drawn into a thin, disapproving line when she leaped to the conclusion that he was teasing Dylan with that blasted cookie were all imminently forgivable.
And lamentably unforgettable.
Dylan never took to strangers like he had to Heather. He had always been reticent—often even around his own mother. The fact that Heather happened to be the catalyst for Dylan to utter his very first words since Sheila left was more than enough reason for Toby to set aside any reservations he might have about her. Since dear old Mrs. Cremins recently suffered a heart attack, he was desperate to replace her with someone suitable—someone willing to live in what Sheila had dubbed one of the most desolate spots in the entire world. Based on his ex-wife’s decision to abandon country life and her family altogether, Toby seriously doubted whether he could keep such a beautiful, young woman like Heather around for long. He hoped Dylan didn’t get too attached to her before she, like his mother, found her wings and left them to pursue a more exciting life.
Personally, Toby loved the isolation and stark beauty of the Double D Ranch. It was, in fact, the culmination of a lifelong dream to break away from his politically connected and sometimes dysfunctional family to stake out a life for himself and his son. It was a dream based on the American ideal of pride in owning something built with one’s own hands from the ground up. The Danforths had roots so deep in the soil of the Old South that Toby’s decision to relocate to Wyoming had initially been perceived by some of his relatives as an affront to the glorious memory of the Confederacy itself. Indeed, Toby’s choice to make something of himself in a way completely separate from his family’s influence was the equivalent of the Emancipation Proclamation that set an entire nation free.
Nestled against the base of the magnificent Snowy Range, the Double D was Toby’s idea of heaven on earth. It was his belief that a man could think clearly beneath clear, cloudless Wyoming skies that went on forever. Such country had a way of putting technology and politics in their proper place. They challenged a person to rely on his wits and the goodwill of neighbors who still put their stock in a hard day’s work rather than a volatile marketplace run by crooks and thieves—who somehow managed to protect their mansions while their small, unsavvy stockholders were forced to declare bankruptcy.
It was hard to explain why Toby had felt so strangled by the gracious living of Southern gentry. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his family, but rather that he’d somehow felt like a changeling growing up in his own home. Ever since he’d fallen in love with his first cowboy movie as a little boy, Toby knew what kind of life he was cut out for. And it wasn’t one that involved luxurious golf courses and hoitytoity social events requiring black ties invented to choke the life out of a man so some Southern belle could drag him around by the end of it wherever she had a mind to go.
As eager as Toby had been to leave Savannah four years ago, he nevertheless felt it important to keep his family ties strong—if only for Dylan’s sake. Devoted to his own father, Toby would do anything that Harold Danforth asked of him—including returning home to show support for an uncle of whom he’d never been overly fond and enduring the kind of stuffy formal affair that he personally deplored. According to his father, Abraham Danforth was on the verge of making a political bid for the Senate. At Uncle Abe’s behest, Toby’s father had called his own children together for a Fourth of July extravaganza at Crofthaven, the family mansion overlooking Savannah’s harbor. The mansion had been in the Danforth family for over a century, and though it held no special, warm memories for Toby or any of his cousins as far as he knew, it was the perfect spot for an impromptu family reunion. Not to mention a fabulous backdrop to launch the political campaign of a man, who in Toby’s opinion was more devoted to promoting himself than raising his own family.
Toby felt no jealousy for the wealthier side of the family. When his wife died years earlier, Abraham Danforth had promptly rid himself of his children by sending them off to exclusive boarding schools. Busy making a name for himself, Abe farmed them out over school breaks as well. Consequently, Toby’s cousins spent many of their holidays and summers at his own childhood home making happy memories, and eventually coming to regard Harold as a surrogate father in place of the one who had so little time for them.
Toby didn’t mind sharing his father with the cousins who were like brothers and sisters to
