The Bridal Path: Danielle (19 page)

Curious, she opened the back door and saw a denim-covered bottom trying to disappear behind her hedge. She was pretty sure she’d seen that backside before.

She walked out onto the porch. “Timmy?”

Timmy didn’t reply, but Pirate bounded out of the bushes at the sound of her voice. Tail wagging, he eagerly brushed up against her, covering her robe with streaks of mud. She sighed heavily and patted his head anyway.

“Timmy, I know you’re here. You might as well come out of there.”

With an obvious show of reluctance, he crawled back into view. Wide blue woebegone eyes regarded her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“About?”

“I ran away from Three-Stars and Dad is going to kill me.”

Dani fought the desire to sweep him into her arms for a comforting hug. She just nodded. “He may, at that. Why did you run away?”

The frantic words tumbled out in a rush. “Because I didn’t want to be at the ranch. I wanted to be with you, but Dad said I couldn’t and he wouldn’t tell me where he was going or anything. I don’t even know where he is or if he’s ever coming back. I’m sorry if you’re mad at me.”

Dani let her instincts take over. She opened her arms and gathered him close. “Oh, sweetie, I could never be mad at you, not for long, anyway.”

“But Dad is going to kill me, isn’t he?”

Before Dani could reply, the very man in question appeared in the doorway. His expression reflected a mix of incredulity and fury. “Timothy Watkins, what are you doing here? And why is that blasted dog getting mud all over everything? Pirate, sit!”

Pirate obediently trotted to his side and sat, panting. Slade didn’t appear mollified by the response. He was still scowling.

Timmy’s eyes were wide as saucers. “Dad, you’re here? Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be here?”

“I’m the one asking the questions,” Slade countered sternly. “I left you twenty miles away. What the devil are you doing here?”

He looked as if he might keep on going, getting himself more riled up with every word, but Dani cut him off.

“I’m just getting the details,” she said firmly enough to silence whatever explosion was on the tip of Slade’s tongue. Apparently he realized that losing his temper wouldn’t accomplish anything, because he just folded his arms across his chest and glared at his son. He didn’t look especially pleased with her, either, Dani decided.

Timmy clung to Dani even more tightly. She loosened his hold and knelt to face him. “You’re going to have to deal with what you’ve done. Jake and Sara are probably worried sick.”

He darted a quick glance at his father before admitting, “They don’t even know I’m gone. They went on a picnic hours and hours ago, but I stayed at the house with Annie. I told her I was going to watch TV in Jake’s office, but as soon as she went back to the kitchen, I ran away.”

Dani could just imagine how frantic the housekeeper would be by now. Chances were Jake and Sara were back and freaking out, as well. “Sweetie, you know what you did was wrong. You’ll have upset Annie terribly. She’ll blame herself for not watching you more closely.”

Timmy’s expression turned pleading. “But it’s not her fault,” he insisted.

“No, it’s not, but you were her responsibility. Annie takes that kind of thing very seriously. Go and call her right this second. Push number one on the speed dial,” Dani said, giving him a push toward the door. “I’ll talk to your father.”

Timmy darted a fearful look at his father’s stony expression, then regarded Dani gratefully. “Would you?”

He seemed to think that she could get him off the hook. Judging from Slade’s tight-lipped fury, Dani had her doubts about that. “Oh, you’re not going to be out of the woods, I promise you, but I think maybe I can persuade your father not to kill you.”

Timmy ran inside without waiting to find out how successful she was.

“You’re going to have to talk awfully fast,” Slade warned her. “What he did was wrong. He openly defied me.”

Dani searched for some way to mediate, but this entire episode was beyond her frame of reference. Besides, Slade was right. Running away had been wrong. And dangerous.

“Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re right,” she began.

“I am right!”

She scowled at him. “Isn’t the real issue here Timmy’s safety?”

“That’s one of them,” he agreed. “How the hell did he get here, anyway?”

“He didn’t say, but he is here and he is safe. Pirate came with him.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring,” Slade said sarcastically. “That dog would be about as much protection as a pet gerbil.” He stared at her incredulously. “Didn’t you even ask how they got here?”

“It wasn’t the first thing out of my mouth, no. I just wanted to be sure your son was okay. I figured he had to be pretty desperate to pull a stunt like this.”

Slade didn’t appear to be appeased. “Desperate? What does a ten-year-old know about desperation?”

“Enough, if he’s just lost his mother and thinks his father is about to disappear.”

“I told him–”

“You told him you wanted him to stay at the ranch. You didn’t explain anything about your plan to spend the day with me, did you?”

“No,” he said irritably. “I figured that was none of his business.”

“Maybe not the details,” Dani agreed. “But he obviously needed to know you’d still be close by, that he could reach you if he needed to.”

Slade scowled at her. “Who the hell are you to tell me how to raise my son?” he lashed out at her.

Dani reacted as if he’d slapped her. Hearing Timmy declare a few days earlier that she was not his mother had hurt, but this was worse. Timmy was a child, who had no notion that words could cut deeply. Slade was old enough to know the precise damage they could do. He had entrusted Timmy to her care because it was convenient apparently, not because he respected her or trusted her.

How could she have been so wrong? She had been so sure that Slade thought of her as a partner of sorts, at least where his sons were concerned.

“I care about them, too,” she reminded him, her voice barely above a whisper.

“That doesn’t mean you get to jump in and defend them when they’ve done something wrong.” His complexion turned ashen. “My God, Dani, he could have been killed getting here. He could have been hit by a car or kidnapped.”

She shivered at the fury in his eyes. She recognized that much of his anger stemmed from horror at what might have happened. But since nothing had happened, it seemed to her there were more important issues to be addressed.

“Isn’t why he felt the need to do something so drastic more important?” she asked quietly, trying to overcome his justifiable emotion with logic and reason.

“No,” he insisted stubbornly. “It is not. Sometimes all that matters is that he learn there are certain things he absolutely, positively cannot do.”

“What does that mean? Are you planning to beat the daylights out of him?”

He impatiently waved off the suggestion. “Of course not. I don’t beat my kids, but they do learn there are consequences when they misbehave.”

“Such as?”

“I may ground him for the rest of his life.”

“Oh, that would be productive,” she retorted.

“Well, I’m so sorry you don’t approve, but the bottom line here is that these are my kids we’re talking about and it’s up to me to do whatever the hell it takes to protect them.”

“And I have no say in this?”

“No,” he said with lethal calm. “You do not.”

Dani simply stared at him. How could she have made such a dreadful mistake? How could she have gotten the crazy idea that she would ever be anything more to Slade and his sons than a glorified baby-sitter with no real authority at all? Heck, she wasn’t even a paid baby-sitter, and she threw in sex as a bonus. How stupid did that make her?

She wrapped her arms around her middle, but that wasn’t nearly enough to ward off the sudden chill that swept over her.

“I think you’d better get Timmy and go,” she said, suddenly exhausted.

“Gladly,” he snapped back.

“And I think perhaps it’s time you made other arrangements for their care during the day,” she added impulsively. “Obviously you don’t trust my instincts where they’re concerned.”

He looked slightly guilty at that. “I never said–”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “In so many words, that is exactly what you said. Now, I would appreciate it if you would just get the hell out of my house.”

Slade appeared stunned by the display of temper, but he stalked off to get Timmy without another word. When he exited with the boy in tow, he seemed slightly calmer, but by now Dani was so furious herself that there was no room for any sort of rational conversation.

“Dani?” Timmy whispered, his face pale. “What’s going on?”

Though his obvious dismay nearly broke her heart, she forced herself to remain impassive. “I’m sure your father will fill you in.”

“But–”

“Come on, son. Dragging your heels is only postponing the inevitable.”

The caution only seemed to make Timmy more determined to linger. “I don’t want to go with you,” he said, his chin tilted defiantly. “I want to stay here with Dani.”

“Well, you can’t, and that’s final.”

“I hate you,” Timmy shouted.

Slade flinched, but said firmly, “Get in the car.”

“Dani?” Timmy whispered plaintively.

There was nothing she could do. With tears stinging her eyes, she had to stand by and let them both leave–the boy and the man she loved. Watching Timmy’s forlorn face staring at her as they drove away was heartbreaking. Dani tried to blink back the flow of tears, but in the end they rolled down her cheeks unchecked. She forced herself not to respond to Timmy until the car was out of sight.

“Goodbye, sweetie,” she called after him softly.

* * *

Slade had never been so terrified and so furious in his entire life. Every time he considered what might have happened to Timmy when he wandered away from Three-Stars, panic turned his skin cold and clammy.

And Dani had defended the boy, mouthing a bunch of psychobabble about his motivations. Hell, Slade knew exactly what had sent Timmy off on that journey back into town. No one understood better than Slade the trauma Timmy had been through when Amanda died.

But that was beside the point. The point was Timmy could have gotten himself killed or kidnapped. There were plenty of nuts in the world today. That he had arrived at Dani’s safe and sound was pure good fortune. He now knew that a neighbor of Jake’s had spotted Timmy practically the minute he’d stepped onto the highway and had given him a lift right to Dani’s door.

Why hadn’t Dani been able to see that his fury grew out of love and concern? He wasn’t an ogre. He didn’t lack compassion. But she had looked at him as if he’d just torn the wings off a delicate butterfly, or something equally horrendous.

Well, it didn’t matter now. He’d taken a stance and she had disagreed with him vehemently. She had had the audacity to accuse him of being unreasonable.

In the fast and furious flurry of words that had followed, he was sure he had said plenty that was unfair, but she was the one who’d booted the boys out permanently. Naturally, though, they blamed him for the fact that they wouldn’t be spending any more time with her.

He winced when he thought of their dismay. Their shock when he had kept them home with him this morning had been visible. No explanation he could come up with had cut through their fierce disappointment. It was worse, in some ways, for Kevin because he had done nothing wrong. He felt betrayed by his father, his brother and Dani.

Maybe it had been a thoroughly impulsive decision on Dani’s part, but now that she’d made it, he doubted she would back down. Not that he could blame her for that. Everything had gotten wildly out of hand the day before. He had been unintentionally cruel and insulting. He could see that now. No one loved those boys or took better care of them than she did. She loved them as if they were her own.

But even recognizing that, he couldn’t back down, no matter how much Timmy pleaded and Kevin cried. He knew they missed Dani. Hell, he missed her, too. That didn’t matter. All that mattered was protecting Kevin and Timmy from harm.

Sara and Jake had tried to intercede the night before when they’d dropped off Kevin, but Slade had told them he was handling the matter the best way he knew how. He could see from Sara’s expression that she blamed herself for everything that had happened. He had told her she wasn’t at fault, that no one could have foreseen Timmy’s determination and resourcefulness, but he doubted he’d managed to put much sincerity into his voice. Timmy’s little escapade had happened on her watch.

Slade wasn’t sure exactly when he realized that the house was entirely too quiet. He had been assuming that both boys had retreated to their rooms to play games on their computers. He should have known that since they’d made new friends, the computers and isolation no longer held the same appeal.

He tapped on Timmy’s door, then opened it. There was no sign of the boy.

Only mildly alarmed, he checked Kevin’s room. When he found that empty as well, he thundered downstairs and systematically checked every room in the house. There was no way to avoid the obvious: now they had both run away.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out where they’d gone, either. Slade sighed and grabbed his car keys.

All the way to Dani’s he tried to formulate a way of handling this latest escapade without another debacle. He still hadn’t come up with one when he reached her porch.

The back door was standing open and she was visible through the screen door. Sitting at the table, surrounded by bowls and eggshells and bags of sugar and flour, she was perfectly still. It was that uncharacteristic stillness that made him pause before knocking.

She looked thoroughly lost, as if nothing mattered to her anymore. Slade was all too familiar with that kind of depression. The fact that he was responsible for Dani’s anguish filled him with guilt.

Then he remembered why he had driven over here in the first place. He’d come for Timmy and Kevin, and Dani was no doubt hiding them. With his temper revived over this latest interference, he knocked.