The Bridal Path: Danielle (14 page)

* * *

There was something different about Dani. Slade noticed it the minute he strolled into the kitchen where she was dishing up a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies for his two eager sons.

After what had happened between them Saturday night, Slade hadn’t been especially eager to stop by on Monday. In fact, he’d actually dropped the boys off first thing in the morning without so much as tooting the car’s horn by way of a friendly greeting.

He’d spent the rest of the day telling himself that he was a cowardly fool. One part of him might be totally terrified of seeing her again, but another part was as anxious as a teenager caught up in the wonder of hormonal overdrive.

He struggled with his conscience–which was screaming loudly for him to get out before somebody got hurt–and his libido, which was demanding he find out if Saturday night had been some sort of lust-driven fluke.

Ignoring her was no solution at all. She was there in his head, anyway, plaguing him with that damned marriage proposal. It was the thought of the probable hurt in those huge brown eyes if he were to suddenly change his daily pattern of visiting that eventually drew him inside.

He hadn’t known exactly what sort of reaction to expect from her. Certainly it had not been her casual, friendly greeting that was no different from the way she’d greeted him on any other occasion. She acted as if she’d never uttered that impetuous, potentially life-altering proposition.

But there was something different about her. He could feel it, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He checked out the obvious–her hairstyle, her makeup, her clothes–and still couldn’t account for it. He looked for more subtle changes in mood or attitude, but those eluded him, as well. Obviously he wasn’t nearly as perceptive as he’d wanted to credit himself with being.

He perched on a kitchen chair, distractedly accepted the warm cookie she offered, and prepared to conduct a more thorough survey.

“Dad, why are you staring at Dani?” Kevin asked. “Staring’s not polite.”

It wasn’t getting him the answers he wanted, either, Slade decided ruefully. He shot a look at his son and wondered what perversity caused Kevin to recall such admonitions only when he could use them to embarrass his father.

“No, it is not polite,” he conceded. “I’m glad you remember that.”

“So, why are you?” Kevin persisted.

Slade glanced at Dani and noticed that she, too, seemed fascinated with Kevin’s query or, more likely, with his yet-to-be-spoken reply. He could see he wasn’t likely to wriggle off the hook on this one.

“Okay, here’s the truth,” he said. “When I walked in, it seemed to me there was something different about Dani. I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

He deliberately winked at her, throwing her composure into a bit of a tailspin. It was no fair that he was the only one feeling so totally off-kilter here. She blushed prettily.

Satisfied, he added, “Now, you can’t very well compliment a lady without being specific, can you? She’ll think you’re just trying to flatter her.”

With the color still high in her cheeks, she grinned. “Let me see if I get this. Compliments are good. Flattery is bad. Is that your code?”

He nodded. “Pretty much.”

Timmy had taken in the conversation thus far in silence, but now he shook his head in disgust. “Grown-ups,” he muttered. He grabbed a fistful of cookies and headed for the back door. “Come on, Kevin. Let’s go play.”

“Can we, Dad? We aren’t going to leave right away, are we?”

Slade couldn’t have left now if he’d wanted to. He was too intrigued with what had gone on here since he’d left late Saturday night.

“Don’t go far,” he warned the boys. “And come when I call you.”

“We will,” Timmy promised. “Let’s go, squirt.”

When the boys were gone, Slade linked his hands behind his head and tilted his chair back on two legs, prepared to do another, even more thorough survey. Dani allowed the scrutiny without comment.

Thoroughly disgruntled that he couldn’t put his finger on the change, he finally demanded, “So, what is it? Your hair?”

“Same as always,” she replied, fluffing out the soft, chin-length curls.

“New makeup?”

“Same old blush and lipstick.”

“New blouse?”

Amusement danced in her eyes. “Nope. Had it for years.”

“You aren’t going to help me out here, are you?”

“Afraid not.”

Slade gathered that was her last word on the subject. It didn’t stop him, though, from spending the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening studying her intently. If his thorough survey disconcerted her in the slightest, she never let on.

Nor did she try to rush him out the door or beg him to stay. She seemed perfectly content to let him make his own choices. In fact, she just went about her merry business, chopping and stirring and tasting some savory-smelling concoction until he was ready to go crazy.

He told himself that it was the aroma of the dinner she was preparing that had him hinting around for an invitation to stay, but the truth was far more complicated than that. He didn’t like not being able to figure out the solution to any puzzle. Until he understood what had changed with Dani, it would torment him.

Another couple of hours and a good dinner and he was sure he’d be able to pinpoint the difference. She looked confident, but then she always did. She looked at home, but this kitchen was her territory. It was where she made culinary magic every day.

He watched her hands as she briskly kneaded dough for biscuits, then cut them out with deft precision and put them into the oven.

“That’s a lot of biscuits for just one person,” he observed.

She smiled. “I assumed you and the boys were staying. Was I wrong?”

Slade sighed. “We’re staying.”

“You don’t have to look so enthusiastic about it. If you’d rather go home and pop a couple of frozen dinners in the oven, I won’t be offended.”

“Nothing much offends you, does it?” he inquired, not entirely sure why he found that so blasted annoying.

“Sure,” she said at once. “Cruelty, for one thing. Not being thankful for the blessings we’ve been given. Actually, the list goes on and on.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Oh, you were referring to the sort of things you do?” she said blithely. “Such as staring.”

“For starters.”

“I can’t imagine any woman who’d mind having you take so much interest in them.”

“What about the fact that I haven’t so much as mentioned what went on here Saturday night?”

He thought he detected a certain tension in her shoulders, but she faced him squarely.

“Oh?” she said, looking innocent. “Did you want to dissect it? I’d heard most men preferred not to talk things like that to death.”

“And most women do not propose marriage the first time they hop into the sack with a man,” he snapped right back. “You are not most women and I am not most men. What the hell is going on with you?”

She ignored his testiness and offered up that same exasperating, knowing smile. “Not a thing,” she assured him. “Cross my heart.”

“Dani, this isn’t natural,” Slade protested, feeling thoroughly out of his depth. “You can’t just throw an important question like that onto the table and then act as if nothing happened.”

“Sure I can,” she said blithely. “You said your answer was maybe, and I accepted that. You’ll tell me when you’ve decided one way or the other. Or would you prefer that I nag you to death until you give me a yes or no?”

He stared at her in disbelief. “So until then you’ll just let things go on as they were before?”

“Do I have a choice? Will you make your decision any more quickly if I pester you about it?”

“No.”

“Well, then, there’s no point in my trying, is there?” she asked reasonably.

Slade wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her complacent little body until her head rattled. He settled for hauling her into his arms and delivering a bruising kiss that snagged their breath and left them both weak-kneed and trembling. It might not have answered any of the questions he’d been asking, but it did clarify one thing. The attraction that had swept them both away on Saturday was as powerful as ever.

“Oh, my,” she murmured, still clinging to his shoulders, her eyes a little dazed.

At least she wasn’t looking so damned complacent anymore, he decided with satisfaction.

Unfortunately, the only thing that kiss had done for him was to stir his hormones into a frenzy. He wanted her with a ferocity that scared the daylights out of him. No woman had ever mixed him up so badly. No woman had ever tempted him beyond endurance.

And no woman had ever walked out of his arms and calmly checked on a tray of biscuits as if nothing of consequence had just gone on.

Pride or desperation or just plain desire kicked in and had him reaching for her again. This time the heat in the kitchen had nothing at all to do with the oven and everything to do with the way their bodies melted together to create a steamy union that might have gotten totally, thoroughly out of control had it not been for the thunder of two pairs of sneakers pounding onto the back porch. Slade wasn’t quite quick enough to release Dani.

“Oh, jeez,” Timmy muttered, skidding to a halt just inside the screen door. “That is absolutely gross.”

“What?” Kevin demanded from behind him. “I can’t see.”

Slade touched a finger to Dani’s kiss-swollen lips and smiled. Whatever was different about Dani no longer seemed quite so important. One thing was clearly the same. She wanted him just as desperately as he wanted her.

Unfortunately, at the moment there wasn’t a darned thing either one of them could do about it.

“Are you going to kiss her again?” Timmy demanded. “If you are, I’m going back outside.”

“Dad kissed Dani?” Kevin whispered. “Wow!”

Wow,
indeed, Slade thought, but said only, “You might as well stay. Dinner is almost ready.”

“We’re staying? All right!” Kevin said enthusiastically.

“Wash your hands,” Dani told the boys.

Kevin ran off at once, but to Slade’s astonishment, Timmy just glared at her. “You’re not our mother. You can’t tell us what to do,” he practically shouted, then tore back outside. Pirate chased after him, barking furiously.

Dani stared after him, frozen. She looked so hurt that Slade could have paddled his son on the spot.

“Go and find him,” she whispered. “He needs you.”

“So do you,” Slade told her. “What he said was rude and cruel. He didn’t really mean it.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I think he did. And it’s understandable, too. I’m not his mother.”

“That’s not the point,” Slade argued.

“To him it is. Please, Slade. Go talk to him. He’s hurting.”

Only because he sensed that she would run after Timmy herself and risk more hurt, he left her and went in search of his son. He found him halfway home, plodding along as if he felt totally and completely alone. Pirate was right at his heels, head hanging dejectedly.

Fighting his own annoyance with Timmy’s behavior, Slade fell into step beside him and forced himself to try to understand what had brought on his son’s outburst.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Do you even care?”

Shocked, Slade just stared at him. “Of course I care. How could you even ask such a thing?”

“Because you’re going to ruin everything.”

Bemused, Slade tried to figure out what Timmy meant, but it eluded him. “Ruin what?”

“Dani is our friend, Kevin’s and mine. You’re going to spoil it.”

“How am I going to do that?”

“You kissed her, didn’t you? Pretty soon she’ll get mad at you, just like Mom did, and then she’ll go away and never come back.”

Tears were streaming down his cheeks as he said it. Slade gathered him close and, for once, Timmy didn’t fight him.

Slade was flabbergasted at the workings of his son’s mind. If Timmy’s pain hadn’t been so obvious, if he hadn’t believed so clearly what he was saying, Slade would have dismissed it as nothing more than the overly active imagination of a ten-year-old.

How much had Timmy really been aware of when he and Amanda had been fighting? Had he realized how troubled his parents’ marriage was? Slade had been so sure that both boys were too young to understand any of the anguish he and Amanda had been going through. Obviously he’d been wrong. On some level, Timmy had been attuned to it.

“You miss your mom, don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” Timmy admitted. “Do you?”

“Sometimes,” Slade said truthfully. He missed the woman she had been when he’d married her, and he was more sorry than he could say that she was dead. She hadn’t deserved that.

“Sometimes I get real scared,” Timmy admitted.

“Of what?”

“That you’ll die.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Slade said. “I promise.”

A world-weary expression settled on Timmy’s face. “You can’t promise. Mom didn’t mean to get killed, either. What if something happened? Who would we live with?”

Slade cursed himself for not realizing that it was exactly the sort of question that would plague a child in the aftermath of the unexpected loss of a parent. He’d deprived his children of an extended family. No wonder Timmy felt as if he might one day find himself completely alone.

“Would you like to go to Texas so you can meet your grandparents?” he asked impulsively. “Would it help to know that you have more family?”

To his surprise, Timmy didn’t seem nearly as eager as he had when he’d first discovered their existence.

“You said you didn’t like them.”

“I said my father and I didn’t always get along.”

“Then I’ll bet I wouldn’t get along with him, either,” Timmy declared loyally. “I’d rather live with Dani. I know I told her she wasn’t our mom, but I wish she was.”

The reply wasn’t unexpected, but Slade’s heart clenched anyway. The web drawing him and Dani together was getting tighter and tighter. First, though, he had to banish the ghosts from the past that he’d always believed would haunt him forever.

“Will you ask her to keep us?” Timmy asked.

“Not just yet,” Slade said. “But you and I will talk about it some more.”

“You promise?”