LITMIR.BIZ

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gaze turned to a dining room she glimpsed through pocket doors. It contained a huge mahogany table surrounded by six chairs. A sideboard stood against the far wall next to a china cabinet. She crossed the hall into the living room. Tables, corner cabinets and a table-model grandfather clock offered mute proof of Gabe’s considerable skill. She wondered if he had any idea how much all of this would be worth on the New York market. She doubted he knew or cared.

      “Come on,” he called. “You can poke around in corners later.”

      A porcelain-topped kitchen table with pull-out leaves restored her feeling of how Iron Springs ought to be—old-fashioned, out of date, comfortable. She immediately found the paper towels. She tore off several pieces, dampened them under the faucet and washed Danny’s face and hands.

      “Me, too,” Gabe said, holding out his hands just like Danny.

      Marshall’s preposterous suggestion came crashing back with the force of an exploding bomb, and paralysis held Dana still for a moment. She jerked herself back into reality. She didn’t intend for Gabe to see how badly his joke had shaken her. “Sure. What’s one more grubby little boy?”

      But touching him, holding his hands while she washed away the nonexistent ice cream, caused a recurrence of the agitation that had attacked her earlier. “Can you cook?” she asked, hoping to distract herself from the uncomfortably disturbing feeling.

      “Sure. I’ve been cooking for myself since my divorce.”

      She’d been expecting him to say he ate at his mother’s house. “Show me Danny’s bedroom.”

      She followed Gabe up a staircase that curved along three sides of the front hall. The windows on the upper landing offered wide views of the front and back yards as well as provided a cool breeze.

      “You ought to air condition the place,” Dana said, pushing aside the thought that living in this house could be very pleasant.

      “I have, but the trees keep it cool most of the time.”

      “How many bedrooms do you have?”

      “Five.”

      “Why so many?”

      “That’s how many came with the house.”

      She didn’t appreciate his sense of humor. “Danny will feel lost.”

      “I bought it when I still expected to have a large family.” He said it as though his shattered dreams didn’t matter anymore. He opened the door to one of the rooms on the front. “This will be Danny’s.”

      Dana stepped into a room at least twice the size of Danny’s bedroom in her apartment. Gabe had furnished it with a bed, a chair and table, two chests of drawers, an armoire and two boxes spilling over with toys. Danny wiggled past her.

      “Where did all of these toys come from?” Dana asked.

      “All over. Everybody wanted to help when they heard Danny was coming home.”

      Danny bypassed the boxes of toys for a hobbyhorse in the corner. Dana didn’t think anybody had such a toy anymore. She instinctively knew Gabe had made it.

      “Horsey,” Danny said, pointing at the hobbyhorse.

      “Do you want to ride?” Gabe asked.

      “Yes.”

      “Say please,” Dana added without thinking.

      “Pease,” Danny said.

      Gabe moved to lift Danny onto the horse, but Danny ran to Dana. “Want Danie,” he said.

      Danny still loved her, wanted her, trusted her. Right now that meant more than anything in the world.

      If you marry Gabe, you can have Danny with you forever.

      The voice lied. They’d both demand a divorce the moment Gabe got permanent custody of Danny.

      “He’s still nervous about all the changes and new people,” Dana said as she lifted Danny onto the hobbyhorse.

      “That’s understandable.”

      Dana could tell Danny’s reaction hurt Gabe. But if his family was so important to him, he shouldn’t have let his father close Mattie out of their lives.

      If you marry Gabe, neither of you has to be hurt.

      Before the voice had the chance to drive her mad, they heard footsteps downstairs.

      “Gabe, are you here?” a voice called out.

      “Up here, Ma. We’re in Danny’s room.”

      In less than a minute a tall, matronly woman with iron-gray hair, glasses and a busy print dress that nearly gave Dana hives entered the room. Mrs. Purvis looked extremely nervous about finding herself face-to-face with Dana.

      “I was sorry to hear about your husband,” Dana said.

      “Thank you,” Mrs. Purvis responded. An awkward silence followed. “Thank you for bringing Danny,” she finally said. She waited, looking even more uncomfortable. “And for taking care of Mattie. We…Gabe and I…”

      “She was my best friend,” Dana said. “I would have done anything for her.” She still couldn’t understand how any mother could allow herself to be cut off from her child.

      She sensed Mrs. Purvis had suffered terribly, suffered still. The older woman smiled sadly, as though accepting the implied guilt, but when she turned her gaze to Danny her entire countenance was transformed.

      “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?” she demanded of Gabe, planting a kiss on Danny’s head and rocking the hobbyhorse so vigorously Dana was afraid Danny might fall off.

      “Because I knew you’d take him away the minute you saw him,” Gabe said, smiling fondly at his mother, “just as you’re doing now.”

      Mother and son bent over the child, making over him like doting parents. Dana stifled an urge to elbow them aside.

      “We need to think about dinner,” she said. She’d planned to eat at a restaurant or up at the hotel.

      “You’re eating at my house,” Mrs. Purvis said.

      “She’s been planning what to cook for days,” Gabe said. “She’s changed her mind three times already. We can’t stay too late,” he warned. “Danny needs to get to bed early.”

      “I don’t think he ought to sleep in this room tonight,” Mrs. Purvis said.

      “Why not?”

      “It’s too new, and he’s too far away from you.”

      “He could sleep in my room.”

      They were talking as if she wasn’t there, as if she didn’t matter.

      “You don’t have to worry about Danny being alone,” Dana said. “He’s staying with me.”

      “I don’t want him staying at the hotel,” Gabe protested.

      “He won’t be,” Dana replied. “We’ll be staying at my grandmother’s farmhouse.”

      Chapter Three

      “You didn’t have to come with me,” Dana said to Gabe. “I still remember the way.”

      “Nobody goes to that house anymore. No telling what you’ll find there.”

      Dana appreciated his company. The farm lay ten miles out of town.

      “Nothing more intimidating than a fox or two,” she said.

      “More likely a raccoon or an opossum.”

      Dana didn’t like the sound of that. She should have thought before she left New York to call the real estate agent and have her check over the house. But trying to

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