“I told you he’d talk when he was ready. And without having to be bribed with cookies, either,” Heather told Toby a tad too smugly a short while later as she cinched the seat belt around her.
She prepared for takeoff by staring straight ahead and doing her best not to hyperventilate. Dylan was still enthusiastically waving out the window to his family as their plane began to taxi down the runway.
“Give me your hand,” Toby commanded, peeling Heather’s fingers off the armrest.
His touch was at once both reassuring and unsettling. She found that she already missed Toby’s family. That she liked them was really no surprise. They were as charming and gregarious a clan as anyone could ever hope to meet. What really surprised Heather was that they seemed to genuinely like her back. So naturally shy that she was often mistaken as being aloof, Heather was touched that Genie would actually broach the subject of marriage to her brother.
Given the baggage that both she and Toby carried from past relationships, the odds were not good that either one would be making a commitment any time soon.
Yet the calluses on the hand that held Heather’s comforted her during takeoff. Her own hands, once unused to traveling over nothing rougher than ivory keys, would have to adapt to soapy water and pulling weeds in rocky flowerbeds and kneading homemade bread. Such working hands longed for the touch of a good man at the end of a day’s work.
“It’s going to be all right.”
She knew Toby was referring to many things—Dylan’s speech, the flight to Wyoming and the fact that his family’s teary goodbye had affected him. Tears had been shed the last time Heather had spoken to her own parents, but they were the hot, angry tears of deep disappointment.
“If you renounce your music, you can renounce your name as well. And any monetary help from us, too,” James Burroughs shouted. “You will be as good as dead to me.”
Recalling how her father predicted she would either come crawling back, ready to live her life on his terms, or wind up as trailer trash with a half- dozen rug rats to support on a waitress’s income, Heather wished there was some way she could adopt Toby’s parents. The thought prompted her to ask, “Why would anyone leave such a family?”
“It’s not like I’m disowning them,” Toby protested. “I’m just following my own dream. They respect that and wish me well.”
He sounded so defensive that it made Heather wonder if he practiced that particular speech for the benefit of other family members or to convince himself. She wished she could somehow convey how lucky he was to have such a supportive family.
“I’m glad,” she told him. “Not all parents are as understanding as yours. It would break my heart to see either you or Dylan estranged from such good people.”
Toby gave her a long and searching look in response. He started to say something but seemed to think the better of it. Instead, he drew her attention to the fact that the plane had reached cruising altitude and suggested that she could relax now.
Heather was surprised that their conversation had so completely distracted her. Still, she was glad that Toby didn’t let go of her hand as her fear abated. Looking out the window at the clouds, she pondered the fact that life in the South seemed to proceed at a more leisurely pace than what she was used to. The weather didn’t necessitate that residents scurry from place to place in an attempt to escape the elements. That Toby deliberately chose to abandon the life of ease into which he’d been born mirrored Heather’s own inclination to take a road less traveled. As beautiful as she found Georgia, the harsh climate of Wyoming suited her better. The weather there reflected her tendency to run alternately hot and cold on issues of the heart. Both extremes were potentially dangerous.
Only time would tell whether fire or ice would dominate.
Nine
Away from the glamour of Savannah and his family’s resolve to marry him off, Toby Danforth was convinced he would be better able to resist Heather’s allure. After all, few social events in Wyoming would require anything as glitzy as the dress she wore for his uncle’s fund-raiser. Not that he would ever be able to get the vision of her in that slinky gown out of his head.
Or the memory of her lips upon his.
Toby was counting on the physical demands and grueling routine of ranch work to settle his libido so that he could do what was in the best interest of his son—and his pretty nanny. Namely, to leave her the hell alone. The last thing Heather needed interfering with Dylan’s progress was him ogling her every time she turned around. The last thing Toby needed was for Heather to pack her bags in indignation and leave him in the lurch.
Deciding that his best course of action was to simply forget the impulsive kiss they shared beneath a shower of fireworks, he did not follow up on the conversation he’d initiated on the way to the airport. It was time for Toby to reestablish a professional working relationship with Heather and put aside any romantic notions once and for all.
The only trouble with that plan was that it might be easier to wipe the faces off Mount Rushmore than to erase the memory of their kiss. Despite his best efforts, Toby doubted whether things would ever be the same between them again.
Relieved that Toby hadn’t decided to fire her, Heather did her best to cooperate with his unspoken plan. Back at the Double D, she went out of her way to avoid him as much as she could without being rude. First thing in the morning she fixed breakfast, which he wolfed down, and did not lay eyes on him again until the sun went down. Then he hurriedly ate the warmed-up leftovers from the dinner that she and Dylan had eaten at an earlier hour. Dylan hadn’t spoken another word since his breakthrough at the airfield, but he made his feelings known by casting wounded glances in his daddy’s direction whenever he stumbled in looking like he was single-handedly attempting to run a ten-thousand-acre ranch without the benefit of any of the hired hands on his payroll.
Secretly offended that Toby would go to such lengths to steer clear of her, Heather poured her energies into taking care of Dylan. Despite his continued reticence to speak, the boy was delightful to be around. His affinity for music matched Heather’s own at his age and gave them a common bond on which to base a genuine friendship. Although his father’s absence around the house left a void in Dylan’s life that no nanny could fill, Heather used the time alone well. She worked with him on expressing himself the best way he knew how—through his music.
Watching his progress was gratifying. Reclusive by nature, Heather lost herself in the vast beauty of the Double D and in the sticky hands of a boy who she feared was coming to love her as a mother. She knew it was a slippery slope that she was treading but didn’t know what to do about it. Heather could no more withhold her affection for the child than she could change the way her pulse skipped a beat whenever Toby was near. Just because they hadn’t spoken about their feelings didn’t make it any easier to deal with them.
In fact, it had the exact opposite effect.
Heather’s determination to put her passion aside was becoming harder with each passing day. Having turned her back on her music and not having any close friends nearby, she didn’t know how to deal with her complicated feelings. The joy Dylan derived from the melodies he produced on the keyboard took her back to a simpler time when she was able to express herself through her music. Unable to convey her own emotions, she did everything in her power to encourage Dylan to find his voice in his own way.
When she and Toby spoke, more often than not it was to argue over an adherence to the speech therapist’s stringent behavior-modification plan to make Dylan talk. Heather had only met the woman once, but that was enough for her to know she didn’t like her much. In her opinion, Miss Rillouso spent more of her time casting bedroom eyes in Toby’s direction than in actually working with Dylan. As far as Heather could tell, the most the therapist had been able to coax from Dylan with her overly detailed plans was a grunt or two, and that was on the promise of some sugary treat to follow.
“If you earn at least twenty stickers on the chart I’m leaving with