pregnancy and Danny’s birth. And during Mattie’s illness, according to Mattie’s last letter, Dana had virtually abandoned her job. Now she watched over Danny with the ferocity of a mother bear. Maybe Danny and Mattie had changed Dana more than either of them realized.
The more he thought about that idea, the more it intrigued him. Maybe finding the answer would help him keep his mind off her body for the few weeks they would be married—if she agreed to marry him.
He glanced to his left again. No, nothing short of unconsciousness could do that. A woman with Dana’s figure should never be seen in profile. It had the power to send the juices churning through his body in a matter of seconds. And she should certainly, absolutely, positively never wear a short skirt when driving. A good look at those long, slim legs could send any red-blooded male over the edge. He didn’t know a thing about hosiery, but Dana’s made her legs look as smooth as silk. The impulse to reach out and trail his fingertips along their length was nearly impossible to resist.
Her skirt was too short. It ought to extend half way down her calf. Or, just to be on the safe side, down to her ankles. And it shouldn’t be tight-fitting. The sight of her slim hips so cleanly outlined wasn’t good for his concentration. Maybe one of those things with elastic at the waist and lots of thick, gathered material.
And that didn’t take into consideration a blouse so filmy he could practically see her breasts. He knew he couldn’t, but the material made him think he could. He wondered how much they paid designers to create that effect. It ought to be millions.
“Everything looks so green,” Dana said.
“We’ve had a lot of rain.”
“It ought to help prevent fires.”
A hurricane couldn’t have doused the fire building inside him. “We almost never have fires up here.”
“I was thinking of the hay at my grandmother’s farm.”
“Get someone to cut it.”
“I don’t know anyone.”
“I do.”
“Will you take care of it for me?”
She turned toward him for a moment—not long enough to affect her driving, but long enough to endanger his self-control. There ought to be warning labels sown into every piece of her outfit saying Wearer subject to attack by sex-starved males.
Not that a man needed to be sex starved to want Dana. Even the perfume she wore tugged seductively at his senses. Half the time he couldn’t catch the scent. But when he did, it acted on him like a hypnotic drug, one that a man became aware of only after it had him firmly in its coils.
Everything about this woman seemed designed to eat away at his self-control. He’d better rectify that. No matter what arrangement they reached, city-bred Dana Marsh wouldn’t want anything to do with a country boy who made furniture and lived in a Podunk mountain town in Virginia.
“What time would you like to leave for Ma’s house?” Gabe asked, determined to get his mind off Dana’s body. She cast him a quick glance before turning her gaze back to the road. She didn’t look too happy about that idea, but he hadn’t expected she would.
“I’d been thinking of picking up something and spending the evening letting Danny get used to your house.”
He turned to look in the back seat. Danny had gone to sleep in his car seat, his head tilted to one side. There was something about the child asleep that reached out and grabbed Gabe like nothing ever had. He couldn’t decide whether it was that he was such an angelic-looking child, his complete trust that they would take care of him, or the sweet innocence of his expression. He just knew he was more determined than ever to be the one who would rear his sister’s child.
“If you want to continue to be part of Danny’s life, you’re going to have to get to know the people in his life.”
“Nobody in Iron Springs likes me.”
“Maybe a few of them haven’t forgotten the things your mother said when she left—she badmouthed just about everybody and everything in Iron Springs—but the rest like you just fine.”
“No, they don’t. You might not have seen it, but I felt it. I asked my grandmother about it.”
“What did she say?”
“She said to pretend it didn’t exist.”
“Sounds like good advice to me.”
“It’s not good enough for me now.”
“Then you’ll have to figure out a way to change their minds.”
“Would marrying you do that?”
Until he married Ellen, he’d always taken belonging for granted. She looked down on everybody, and they sensed it right way.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I supposed you’d have to like Iron Springs, want to live here, want the people to be your friends.”
“They’d have to want me, too. I was always that kid from New York.”
“They probably felt you were just visiting, that you had no more intention than your mother did of having anything to do with Iron Springs after you grew up.”
“Why should they think that?”
“You were always telling us about your big plans to become a famous businesswoman and make millions of dollars.”
Back then he’d never heard of a million dollars. That figure had been a constant reminder of the great distance between their two worlds.
“Little girls always dream big.”
“A little too big for people around here.”
“It shouldn’t be.” She sounded short, a little defensive. “You could have half a dozen millionaires in town if a few people decided to sell off a mountain or two. Even if they couldn’t be used for ski slopes, they could be turned into retirement communities.”
“We don’t want things to change,” Gabe said.
Bringing that many people and that kind of business into the area would destroy most of what he loved about Iron Springs. He knew Dana wouldn’t see it that way—she’d probably think it would be the salvation of the place—but she didn’t see the real value, the most precious resource of Iron Springs.
The people.
“It won’t matter,” Dana said. “If I agree to marry you, I won’t be here long enough for anybody to notice.”
Gabe thought Dana was mistaken about many things. But in no instance was she further from the truth than in believing she could be anywhere without being noticed.
Dana approached Mrs. Purvis’s house with trepidation. She had been the only mother to make Dana welcome when she first visited her grandmother. Even after Mattie decided to defy her father and go to college, Mrs. Purvis had never said an angry or accusing word. Still Dana felt like she was stepping into the enemy camp.
