The Bridal Path: Danielle (2 page)

Now, for the very first time in her life, she understood what Sara and Ashley had been talking about when they’d described that pit-of-the-stomach excitement that they’d felt when they’d met their respective mates. It was a sensation she’d been virtually certain less than an hour ago that she would never experience.

She was so lost in thought, so caught up in the new sensations dazzling her that it took some time before she realized that Slade Watkins was talking to her.

“The boys will pay for the pies,” he assured her, scowling at the two offenders.

His expression was daunting enough that any other child would have quivered with dread. Not these two, Dani noted with a measure of admiration.

Timmy straightened his shoulders with a touch of defiance. Despite his berry blue face and the accusations and counteraccusations being hurled only moments before, Kevin physically aligned himself with his brother. Side by side, they presented a united front.

“Why should we?” Timmy demanded, no longer nearly as accommodating as he’d been before his father’s untimely arrival. “It’s just some dumb old pies. They shouldn’t have been out here on the porch in the first place. Whoever heard of putting pies outside or baking so many at once, anyway? She was practically begging somebody to take them.”

“You don’t take what’s not yours,” Slade pointed out. “I don’t care where it is. Not only that, Ms. Wilde earns a living from baking these pies.”

Dani was startled by his awareness both of her identity and of the livelihood she made from selling baked goods, jams and canned fruits and vegetables through the nearby general store. Given the indecent prices tourists paid for these homemade, gourmet items, a few wasted pies were going to make very little difference in her overall income for the month. She was about to tell Slade Watkins exactly that when he caught her gaze. There was a grim, steely-eyed warning in his expression that kept her silent.

“What would each pie sell for?” he asked.

“Ten dollars,” she said in a rush. Okay, she was cheating a bit, but she couldn’t charge these children what some tourist would have paid. Even at the cut rate, the two wide-eyed boys stared at her in dismay.

“Ten whole dollars?” Timmy asked incredulously. “For each one?”

“Actually, I think she’s giving you the wholesale price,” Slade Watkins told his son. “The sticker in the store says fifteen.”

“But, Dad, that’s our whole allowance for the next two years, probably,” Kevin protested. “Timmy’s and mine. We won’t even be able to play a video game or rent a movie or anything.”

“You should have thought of that before you walked onto this porch.”

“We just wanted to taste one,” Kevin whispered. “We haven’t had homemade pie since Mama–”

Slade Watkins cut him off as if the mention of their late mother was impossible to bear. “That is not the point. If you wanted pie, you should have told me.”

“Like you can bake,” Timmy muttered.

“I could have bought one of these,” Slade pointed out. “That is, if you hadn’t ruined them all.” His gaze returned to Dani. “How many were there?”

That look on his face demanded the truth, not another of her fibs. “A dozen,” she confessed.

“That’s like a hundred dollars or something,” Timmy said, clearly stunned.

“A hundred and twenty,” his father corrected. “I’d say you’re going to be very busy this summer earning extra money to pay off your debt.”

Shock spread across Kevin’s round face. “But, Dad, we’re just little kids. You can’t make us get jobs.”

“No, but I can give you chores,” he said sternly. “Lots and lots of chores. So many chores that you’ll fall into bed exhausted every single night and won’t have one minute left over for mischief.”

Despite Slade’s forbidding expression and his unspoken warning not to interfere, Dani took pity on the boys. They hadn’t meant any real harm. They couldn’t have known these pies were her livelihood. They’d just missed their mother’s baking. Her heart ached for them.

“Perhaps we could work out an arrangement,” she said as two pairs of hopeful eyes instantly fixed on her. “You could do some chores for me to earn the money.”

Their expressions brightened at once. Clearly they felt that she’d be a far less stern taskmaster than their father. They probably figured they could con her out of a share of baked goods, too.

“Like what?” Timmy asked.

Since she hadn’t actually thought it through before making the impulsive offer, she improvised. “Well, I never seem to have enough time to do what needs doing around here. The porch needs sweeping again right this minute, for one thing. The windows probably should be washed. I never did get to my spring cleaning this year. And somebody has to clean up all these blueberries before they stain the wood.”

They eyed the porch dubiously. There was no mistaking what a daunting task that would be.

“It might even need painting,” Timmy suggested unhappily. “Dad doesn’t let us paint.”

“Not since you spray-painted the dog,” he agreed. He gazed at Dani. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I really don’t think this is such a good idea. You can’t possibly know what you’re–”

Dani cut him off before he could say another discouraging word. “Of course I do, and it’s a wonderful idea,” she said. “Extra pairs of hands are always welcome.”

“I think these hands will be more of a hindrance than a help,” he said.

“Let me worry about that,” she insisted. “I think Timmy, Kevin and I understand each other. I’ll enjoy having them here.” She glanced at the dog. “Pirate, too, of course.”

Slade Watkins actually gaped at that.

Dani returned his startled expression with an amused look of her own. She doubted anyone in Riverton had volunteered to spend so much as a second more than necessary with his boys. Left unspoken was the fact that she craved the noise and confusion these two imps would bring into her too-quiet house. How could she explain a thing like that to this man who seemed totally bemused by that very same mischief?

“Dad, would that be okay?” Timmy asked. “
Please.
We’d do whatever she says. You were going to have to find somebody to baby-sit us soon, anyway. You said so yourself. You said we couldn’t be left to our own devices one more minute.”

He was clearly echoing his father’s precise words. Slade Watkins looked too chagrined not to have said exactly that, and quite recently.

“I’m sure you would be very helpful,” Dani said, cheerfully agreeing with Timmy. “Really, Mr. Watkins, they’d be just fine with me.”

“I’m less concerned with their welfare than yours,” he said.

“No need to worry about that,” she assured him. “I adore children.”

“They’re something of a handful,” he added, as if she needed reminding of that.

Talk about an understatement! Yet he sounded so weary that Dani immediately wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him everything would be all right.

This was the role she’d been born to play–mother, wife, nurturer. Never before had she seen a man or children so in need of what she had to offer. Never had she felt this quickened pace of her pulse just gazing into a man’s eyes or hearing his voice. She wasn’t going to let the three of them disappear from her life so easily.

Even as the implication of those thoughts registered, an outrageous idea began to take shape. As bold as anything Sara or Ashley had ever considered, she was sure, the idea began to blossom.

Pure happenstance had caused their paths to cross, though in a town the size of Riverton that would have happened eventually, she supposed. But this particular set of circumstances, which suggested that these boys desperately needed more supervision than their widower father could give them, struck her as fortuitous.

She didn’t have to be smacked over the head to recognize that perhaps Slade Watkins and his two boys were the opportunity she’d been waiting for practically forever, it seemed. Maybe everyone who had known her her whole life long had tucked her into a quiet, boring niche, but she hadn’t spent all those years around sassy Sara and bold Ashley without learning a few things. Reaching out and grabbing on to a dream was at the top of the list.

Her dream–a little messy at the moment and a little intimidating from the looks of the three males before her–finally appeared to be within her grasp.

How, though, could she make that happen? How could she convince a virtual stranger that she was the answer to his prayers?

Well, she didn’t have to do all of her convincing today, she concluded. She just had to get Slade Watkins to agree to this first step.

“You won’t find anyone in town who’ll take better care of the boys,” she promised him.

He eyed her warily, clearly not convinced. “How did we go from them working off their debt to you taking care of them? You’re volunteering to do what I would be paying an arm and a leg to someone else to do. As it is, I already owe you for all those pies.”

She waved off the transition as if it were of no consequence, a mere matter of semantics. Stepping off the porch, she deliberately reached for two berry-stained hands. With Timmy on one side of her and Kevin on the other, they gazed into Slade Watkins’s grim face.

“It will be just fine,” she promised him one more time. “All the work Timmy and Kevin will do around here will more than make up for the pies.”

Slade looked doubtful, but Timmy and Kevin nodded solemnly. Even Pirate seemed to approve of the plan. He nosed his way between Dani and Kevin for a united front. Slade wiped his hand across his eyes, then sighed heavily.

“If you’re sure…”

“I am,” she said staunchly.

Relief and worry warred in his expression, but relief won. He held out his hand.

“I appreciate your taking this so well,” he said solemnly. “Some people, well, a lot of people wouldn’t have been so understanding.”

Dani couldn’t think of anything to say at all. She was too busy wondering why she’d never known that a man’s touch could set off fireworks more glorious than any the town had ever shot off on the Fourth of July.

“Will eight o’clock tomorrow morning be okay?” he asked.

She had to shake herself before she could imagine what on earth he was talking about.

“Oh, yes,” she said, fighting the breathless sensation washing over her. In fact, she thought, eight o’clock couldn’t possibly come soon enough.

Chapter Two

“I
heard the terrors of Riverton struck,” Sara said, settling down at Dani’s kitchen table to watch as Dani started a fresh batch of pies later that afternoon. “How could any descendents of Seth and Wilma be such brats?”

“Don’t call them that,” Dani retorted sharply as she scooped blueberries into the crusts. “People live up–or down–to what’s expected of them.”

Sara’s perceptive gaze narrowed. “You sound awfully defensive about two kids who destroyed an entire morning’s work. What’s that all about?”

Before Dani could respond, her sister’s expression shifted from bemusement to sudden understanding. “Wait, wait, I get it. They’re kids, right? Your huge, soft heart went pitter-pat just at the sight of them, even though they were covered from head to toe in your blueberries.”

Dani winced at the all-too-accurate assessment. “So, kill me. I’m a sucker for children. There are worse traits. How did you hear about this, anyway?”

“Myrtle Kellogg next door saw the whole thing. After that, she had lunch at Stella’s.” Sara shrugged. “It’s only a short hop from there to the entire universe. I heard about it from Ashley, who had heard every detail by twelve-fifteen from Dillon, who’d stopped for coffee at Stella’s. He couldn’t wait to call home and fill in our baby sister.”

“The Riverton grapevine lives,” Dani muttered, uncertain why she’d thought for a minute the incident would go unnoted. At least no one knew about the plan she intended to set into motion to make those darling boys–and their father–her own.

“So, what’s he like?” Sara asked.

Dani stared at her blankly. “Who?”

“Slade Watkins, of course. I barely remember him visiting. I heard he grew up to be a hunk, even if he does let his children run wild. According to our dear brother-in-law, poor old Myrtle could hardly catch her breath, she was so overcome by the sight of him.” She regarded Dani speculatively. “What about you? Were you overcome, too?”

Denying that she’d noticed anything at all about Slade Watkins would be about as believable as saying she could hardly wait to go hunting for moose. “He is rather nice-looking,” she admitted, praying that she’d struck just the right balance between truth and nonchalance.

“Nice-looking,”
Sara mimicked. “Gracious, Dani, if you can’t tell the difference between gorgeous and nice-looking, maybe you ought to take that free eye examination the doc is offering.”

Dani sighed. “Okay, he’s gorgeous. Satisfied?”

Sara grinned. “Then you did notice. Good.” She propped her elbows on the table and leaned forward intently. “Does he meet the Danielle Wilde daddy-factor test?”

The probing personal question was irksome, but unavoidable. Her sisters had been on the lookout for someone just like Slade Watkins for her for years. “Shouldn’t you be home chasing cattle around the range or something?” Dani grumbled.

“Ah, an evasive answer. I love it!” Sara gloated. “Maybe Jake and I ought to be neighborly and invite Slade Watkins to a family dinner at the ranch so he can get reacquainted with Daddy and Ashley and Dillon.”

The very thought made Dani shudder. She leaned down and peered directly into her sister’s sneaky, laughing eyes. “You do and you’re a dead woman.”

Sara’s expression turned innocent. “Of course, you could come, too, if you’re interested.”

“I’m warning you,” Dani said. “No cozy little dinners. No getting-to-know-you chats. No one really remembers Slade anyway and you know it. Stay out of this.”

“Out of what? I’m just trying to be friendly.”

“Fiddle-faddle,” Dani retorted succinctly. “You’re meddling. You’re turning out to be worse than Daddy. Ever since you and Jake got hitched, you’ve been blissfully determined to see the rest of us settled down, too. Be satisfied that Ashley and Dillon are married and let it go at that.”