think I could just drop Danny off and go back to New York as if nothing ever happened?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Well I can’t. He’s been part of my life since the day Mattie moved into my apartment. You might as well ask me to give up my own child.”
“Are you married?” Gabe asked.
“No.”
“Engaged?”
“No.”
“Anybody on the horizon?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“As far as taking care of Danny is concerned, you’re no different from me.”
“Not true. I know him. You don’t.”
“I’ll learn.”
“In how many years?”
Gabe laughed. “I promise to figure it out before he graduates high school.”
“I don’t know how you can take this so lightly. We’re talking about a child’s life here, not some…some piece of furniture. You don’t put it together, polish it up and hand it over to somebody else.”
Apparently she’d finally succeeded in angering him. His brows lowered and puckered. Any hint of a smile disappeared.
“Danny is all my mother and I have left of Mattie. Making sure we do everything right for him is just about the most important thing in our lives. Now call him in from the porch. We can take his things over to the house and settle him in. You ought to be able to start back to New York tonight.”
Dana couldn’t believe her ears. Hadn’t he heard anything she’d said? “I have no intention of turning Danny over to you this afternoon. Or tomorrow afternoon, for that matter. Mattie gave me equal custody. That means I have equal right to approve all arrangements.”
“Satisfying you could take days,” Gabe said.
“I’m sure it will. That’s why I’ve taken two weeks vacation.”
Gabe stared at her very much in the manner she would have expected if she’d grown a second head right before his eyes.
Marshall returned to the room in this interval of silence.
“She’s not going to leave,” Gabe said to his lawyer. “She’s going to stay here for two weeks, sticking her nose into everything I do, complaining and demanding.”
“You’ve got more important things to worry about than Dana,” Marshall said.
“If you think—”
Gabe interrupted Dana. “What are you talking about?”
Being cut off angered Dana, but Marshall’s expression caused her to choke off her outburst.
“That was Lucius Abernathy, Danny’s natural father, on the phone.”
Dana had been looking over her shoulder ever since Mattie’s death, afraid he would show up again demanding Danny.
“His lawyer is flying to Washington tomorrow,” Marshall said. “He plans to rent a car and drive to Iron Springs.”
“What does he want?” Gabe asked.
“Danny,” Marshall answered.
“Mattie’s will specifically says we’re to be his guardians,” Dana said.
“An uncle and a friend won’t stand much of a chance against the natural father.”
“Is there anything we can do to stop him?” Gabe asked.
“Maybe.”
“What?”
“I’ll do anything,” Dana added.
“Gabe’s best chance to keep Danny is to get married before the lawyer gets here.”
“But he said he didn’t have anybody in mind,” Dana pointed out.
Marshall looked straight at her. “I know. So since you’re willing to do anything to make sure Danny’s natural father doesn’t get him, I suggest you marry Gabe.”
Chapter Two
Marshall couldn’t have stunned Gabe more completely if he’d suggested he have a public drawing to choose his wife. Even if he were foolish enough to consider remarriage, Dana Marsh would be the last woman he’d choose.
Not that she was hard to look at.
He remembered her as a skinny kid with huge brown eyes, sun-browned arms and legs, honey-brown hair that was always getting in her face. As often as not, she had a tear in her clothes and dirt on her chin. She could assume a look of doll-like innocence or change to a pixie-full-of-mischief in the blink of an eye. Despite the hard feelings some locals still harbored against her mother, she could charm nearly anyone into a sunny mood.
But he could see nothing of that innocence in Dana now.
She had turned into a New York siren with a body to die for. Dressed and accessorized with understated but expensive taste, she represented nearly everything he had come to distrust in a woman. At thirty-six years old, mature and experienced, he should have been beyond the impressionable age. Then why did his heart beat as if he’d just run the four hundred? He should be shouting down Marshall’s impossible suggestion that he marry Dana, but all that blood flooding his brain made it impossible to think.
“You’re crazy,” Dana said, finding her tongue before Gabe. “I wouldn’t marry Gabe if he were the last man in the world.”
“You both want to keep Danny,” Marshall said. “Gabe has to get married to have a chance. It’s the obvious solution.”
“There must be another way.”
“Maybe, but you’ve got less than twenty-four hours to find it.”
“You’re the lawyer,” Gabe said. “You’re supposed to find the solution.”
“I have,” Marshall replied.
“You can’t seriously expect us to get married just like that,” Gabe said, snapping his fingers. “We haven’t seen each other in more than fourteen years.”
“And we can’t stand each other,” Dana added.
That was going too far for Gabe. Dana might figure in his mind as the human embodiment of everything that had gone wrong in his life, but a man would have to be a misogynist to have any difficulty standing a woman like Dana.
“We have some differences of opinion,” Gabe said.
“I’m not saying you have to love each other,” Marshall said.
