“I hope you like whiskey,” he told her, passing her a tall tumbler. “You strike me more as the type who’d prefer an umbrella and a cherry bobbing in a fancy drink. But since I’m not much of a bartender, this is the best I could manage before the pilot announces it’s time to fasten our seat belts.”
Such instructions were unnecessary on her behalf. Heather had securely buckled her safety device across her lap the instant she sat down—and read every word of the informational materials provided in the back of the seat in front of her. Just in case an ocean happened to materialize between Wyoming and Georgia, she was prepared to use her seat cushion as a floatation device.
The ice cubes floating in her drink offered more immediate comfort. Heather took a tentative sip. As its dark amber color suggested, Toby made it plenty stiff.
“I hope your relatives don’t mind if I’m not able to stand up once we get there,” she murmured with a diminutive little cough.
His responding grin was enough to melt those ice cubes clinking against her glass. Heather wasn’t sure whether the warmth spreading through her body was due to her hormones or the alcohol hitting her bloodstream.
“Don’t worry,” Toby told her. “As far as I know, my uncle isn’t basing his campaign on any protemperance stance. Which is a good thing, considering his own past.”
Heather raised a slender eyebrow.
“My family isn’t exactly without blemish,” he warned.
“Whose is?”
She took another dainty sip of her drink to steady her nerves as they began the long roll down the runway. Not one to pry, Heather was nonetheless curious. Local gossip connected Toby to a glossy layout of some fabulous mansion touted in a magazine last summer. Much of what had been said regarding the article was mean-spirited and envious in nature. She supposed such a well-known family would have to expect to have every flaw magnified in the press. She wondered if that was part of the reason Toby deliberately put such distance between them.
Since her own family relished any media attention and rushed to put their daughter in the limelight every chance they could, it was a stance she could uniquely appreciate.
“What’s your family like?” Toby asked.
Not sure whether he asked the question out of courtesy or as a way to distract her from their impending takeoff, she responded tersely.
“Quiet.”
Squeezing her eyes shut as the engines growled and the airplane strained to lift off, she hoped Toby wasn’t angry at her brusqueness. Her stomach leaped as they became airborne and hovered somewhere between her head and her heart. Tiny beads of sweat popped out above her lip.
“Take another swallow,” Toby commanded, squeezing her hand. His voice was far more reassuring than the remedy he offered.
Unfortunately, his touch counteracted that effect. Warm and strong, it suggested an intimacy that was not at all appropriate between an employee and employer. Heather fought to remember that she was hired to look after Dylan, not to engage in foolish romantic fantasies that left one feeling used and forlorn in their aftermath.
No matter how much Heather wanted to let go of Toby’s hand, she could no more have done so than she could slow her racing pulse. In so small an airplane, one felt every air pocket and bump right in the seat of the pants. Looking out the window only intensified the feeling of dizziness that swept over her. The landscape below, parched by drought, may well have been the surface of the moon for what little comfort its familiarity brought.
“Turn around,” Toby told her.
“What?”
He touched her nape with his free hand. She flinched, and her already stiff shoulders bunched up around her ears as he began kneading the muscles on either side of her neck.
“Let me give you a massage. Trust me, it’ll help you relax.”
Although Heather started to protest, the sensation of his masterful fingers stroking her skin was too heavenly to forgo, even for the sake of pride. Toby took his other hand from hers and began to massage her knotted muscles in earnest. Heather expelled a deep breath of air and felt every muscle in her body relax. Suddenly the sensation of floating high above the world didn’t seem nearly so frightening. She arched against his touch and tried to keep from sliding out of her seat. Her eyelids fluttered shut.
“That is nice,” she admitted.
The sound of giggling in the seat behind her so startled Heather that she almost spilled her drink into her lap. Dylan apparently did not share her aversion to air travel. His reaction to hitting an air pocket was to pretend he was on a roller coaster. Toby looked pleased. While his son had yet to speak again since that first day when Heather arrived, laughter was definitely a step in the right direction.
“I’m afraid the only quiet one you’re likely to find in my family is Dylan,” Toby told her. “And with your help, I think we might be well on the way to curing that.”
Indeed he was right on that account. There was a small army waiting on the ground in Savannah to meet them. As delighted as Heather was to be back on earth in one piece, she found the rush of people surrounding them with hugs and squeals of welcome almost as oppressive as the humidity making the air heavy and redolent with expensive perfume. Her knees were wobbly beneath her, partly from the effect of the miraculous concoction Toby had mixed up for her on the plane—and partly from a sense that she was being suffocated.
Dylan threw his arms around one of her legs. Oblivious to that fact, Toby took her firmly by the elbow. Heather felt like a wishbone being pulled apart. Caught in a throng of some of the most beautiful people she had ever seen, she reached down and pulled Dylan up into her arms. He clutched her neck as if it were a life preserver.
“And this darling angel must be my nephew,” cooed a Southern voice so balmy Heather thought it warranted a fan.
A stunning blonde stepped out from behind that voice to hold her arms out to Dylan. Her eyes immediately gave her away as Toby’s sister. The exact same shape, they were as vivid green as his were blue—with equal shades of compassion glimmering in their depths. Heather held her breath when Dylan hesitated. Already protective of him, she didn’t want anyone rushing him too soon.
When he leaned into his Aunt Imogene’s arms, Heather heard Toby expel his breath at the exact same time that she did. The tightness in her shoulders returned with a vengeance. It wasn’t that anyone went out of his or her way to make her feel unwelcome as much as the fact that there were so many Danforths to try to keep straight in her mind at once.
“I’d like you to meet my sister Imogene and my brother Jacob. His wife Larissa. My cousin Reid, his wife Tina.”
Toby’s sister gave him a scathing look and corrected him almost the instant her name rolled off his tongue. “The last time anyone in this family called me Imogene, it was followed by both my middle and last name. I believe it was a code signaling that I was in big trouble, more often than not because of something my ornery big brother instigated.”
Toby’s embrace may have encompassed both his son and his charming sister without putting any strain on those big arms of his, but his laugh pulled on Heather’s heart. She imagined the sound of that robust laughter mingling with that of a host of other Danforths, raising the rafters of a fancy mansion profiled in magazines that touted the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Heather’s first impression of this prestigious family was far less stuffy than what she had anticipated. And while that was a relief in some ways, it complicated her relationship as Dylan’s nanny.
As far as she knew, servants weren’t expected to like their superiors.
Although Toby’s introduction accounted for all the adults present, a couple of children had tagged along to watch the planes land and take off as well as to welcome