The Bridal Path: Danielle Read online

  Perhaps, though, the boys would be content enough with a woman like Danielle Wilde in their lives, a surrogate mother who would generously give them all the things he couldn’t. Of course, he was jumping to the conclusion that she would be willing to accept such a role in their lives.

  He reassured himself that the conclusion was based on sound evidence. After all, she had welcomed them into her home without a qualm, even after that abysmal introduction and the destruction of all those pies. In fact, she had seemed so eager to have them around that Slade had almost felt as if he were doing her a favor, instead of the other way around.

  He thought about that off and on all during dinner, as he silently sat back and watched her interaction with Timmy and Kevin. Why did a woman who so obviously adored children have none of her own? How had the men of Riverton missed noticing the way she lit up a room with her smile? Or the way light caught the sparks of red in her brown hair, giving it a rich, burnished sheen?

  Slade shook off the unexpected and very male sensations stirring inside him. Surely this wasn’t the reason he’d issued that impulsive invitation a few hours earlier. Surely he’d done it for his sons, not himself. Danielle Wilde was the last woman a man should consider having a fling with. As briefly as he’d known her, he recognized that she was all about permanence, all about settling down and forever.

  No, she was definitely not the woman for him.

  And yet, he couldn’t deny that there was more laughter that night than he’d heard since they had moved into this beautiful old house. That, he finally realized with a sense of amazement, was what had been missing–the laughter.

  He was stunned when he glanced at his watch and realized it was already after ten, well past the boys’ bedtime and too late for the computer lesson that had been the ostensible reason for the invitation.

  “Okay, you two, bedtime,” he announced amid the expected groans and protests.

  “It’s summer,” Timmy said. “There’s no school tomorrow.”

  “But you do have a job now,” Slade reminded them. “Ms. Wilde will expect you to be alert first thing in the morning.” He glanced over to find her trying to hold back a don’t-blame-this-on-me look.

  “I guess we forgot,” Kevin said. “Don’t worry, Dani. We’ll get all our chores done.”

  “I’m sure you will,” she said complacently.

  “Then will you let us play computer games?” Timmy asked. “We could teach one to you.”

  She looked properly aghast at the suggestion. “Play indoors on a lovely summer day? I don’t think so. I was thinking it might be more fun if I invited some of the children down the street over for a picnic,” she said casually, drawing wary looks from both boys.

  “We don’t know them,” Kevin said, sounding hesitant.

  Slade winced. He’d been so sure that waiting to move until the school year ended was the sensible thing to do. He hadn’t stopped to think that school was where most children met their friends.

  Not that either Timmy or Kevin were social creatures. They were too much like him, content to spend hours engrossed with their computers. Clearly, Dani had guessed that and was intent on changing it. He knew instinctively that she was right, that the boys needed to be encouraged to make new friends.

  “A picnic sounds like a terrific idea to me,” he chimed in. “I envy you guys. I’ll be shut away in here, while you’re outside enjoying the sunshine.”

  “You could join us,” Dani said at once, surprising him by seizing on his support. “I know you have to work and all, but my house is close by. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to get there. You could run over, eat and be back here almost as quickly as you could fix something for yourself.”

  Slade practically never ate lunch. He was usually too caught up in his work to even notice when noon came and went. But suddenly the rigidity of that single-minded focus grated. He pushed aside all thoughts of the impending deadline he faced.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind my eating and running?”

  “Absolutely not,” she assured him with a smile.

  “You’ll really come, Dad?” Timmy said, looking awed.

  “Absolutely. Now run along to bed. I’ll be up to tuck you in in a half hour. Lights had better be out by then.”

  With obvious reluctance they took off, but only after hugging Dani. Kevin had whispered something in her ear that had made her smile.

  After they were gone, Slade said, “You have yourself a couple of huge fans.”

  “They’re wonderful boys.”

  “Even after what they did to you yesterday and to your petunias today, you can still say that? You’re amazingly generous.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sakes, it was a few pies,” she said dismissively, “and a few flowers. It’s not like they burned the house down.”

  “Give them time,” Slade countered.

  She chuckled at that.

  “Hey, I’m serious. Don’t let them out of your sight for a minute.”

  “I’m not worried,” she said, though her expression contradicted it. “There is one thing I was wondering about, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They seemed to be nervous about meeting the other children in my neighborhood. Shouldn’t I have suggested that?”

  “Of course you should. They need to develop friendships. They used to have kids over all the time when they were younger.” He thought back to when that had changed. He’d been blaming it on his own pattern of social ineptness, but he recognized suddenly that that was only a part of the problem.

  “What is it?” Dani asked.

  “I just realized that all that stopped after my wife’s accident. They started sticking closer to home. Because she was in so much pain, we discouraged the boys from having their friends come by. Amanda was at home for nearly two months before she died.” He rubbed his suddenly stinging eyes. “God, how could we have done that to them?”

  The touch of Dani’s hand on his shoulder was so gentle, so comforting that it stunned him to realize that it was also stirring a kind of wild anticipation that he had never expected to find again.

  “You can’t blame yourself,” she said. “You had to do what was best for your wife. It must have been terrible for all of you. Believe me, I’m sure the boys will make friends quickly enough here, especially with their reputations for mischief. Kids their age are always eager for new ways to get into trouble.”

  Slade stared at her. “Is that supposed to reassure me?”

  “Absolutely. The time to start worrying is when they’re too quiet.”

  Her calm in the face of juvenile chaos awed him. Even women with children of their own had been daunted by his sons’ wild behavior. “How did you get to be so smart about kids?” he asked.

  “I surround myself with them as often as I can,” she said with an oddly wistful note in her voice. “I borrow them from any parent who’ll let me.”

  “I’m sure some, like me, are only too eager to turn over their little hellions.”

  “Not nearly as often as I’d like,” she said with candor. “I always wanted a houseful of noise and chaos and laughter.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t have it, then,” he said. “Your family has a reputation for going after what it wants.”

  An odd expression crossed her face at that. Color bloomed in her cheeks, making her look more vulnerable and more desirable than ever. Slade realized then that he was going to be put to the test resisting her.

  “Don’t confuse me with Ashley and Sara,” she reminded him. “I have my own ways of doing things.”

  “Which are just as effective, I’m sure,” he said.

  That odd look returned to her eyes briefly. Then she smiled as if she knew a grand and probably dangerous secret. “I certainly hope so.”

  Something told Slade he was better off not knowing exactly what she meant by that.

  * * *

  Dani had lured half a dozen boys over to the house to meet Timmy and Kevin.
At the moment they were making a deafening racket in the backyard. She was loving every minute of it, though Myrtle Kellogg next door was hardly thrilled. She’d already called twice to complain. Dani had assured her the boys would settle down long before it was time for Myrtle to watch her soaps on TV.

  “Your favorite’s on at two o’clock, right?” She knew perfectly well it was, because the volume control on Myrtle’s television rarely slipped below air-raid-warning decibels. Dani could practically hum the show’s theme song in her sleep, she’d heard it so many times.

  “I wouldn’t like to do it, but I will call the sheriff, if I have to,” Myrtle grumbled.

  Dani thought her neighbor would probably like nothing better than doing exactly that, so she vowed to get the boys inside and silent by two.

  Either that or she’d take them all to the park for an exuberant game of touch football. Maybe Slade would be willing to stick around and captain one team, while she led the other.

  The thought of Slade’s touch, even under such impersonal circumstances, was beginning to pop up so often that Dani wondered whether she’d be able to keep her own hands to herself much longer. She was almost certain that when she’d laid a comforting hand on his shoulder the night before, she’d felt a shuddering response wash through him. That had awakened all sorts of feelings of feminine power she hadn’t experienced before. She was pretty sure that sort of adrenaline rush could become addictive, though.

  “Okay, you guys,” she called from the back door. “Time to help carry the food outside.”

  The immediate response was gratifying. She deposited bowls of potato salad and slaw into eager hands, along with plates of hamburgers ready for the grill, buns, slices of watermelon and a chocolate cake with fudge icing. Kevin carried the last with absolute reverence. She’d never seen him move so slowly or cautiously. He practically held his breath until he set it down on the picnic table in the yard. When Pirate came nosing around to check it out, Kevin pushed him back to a respectful distance and added a warning.

  “You touch it and you’re dead meat,” he told the dog, who was practically quivering with excitement over all that chocolate.

  Slade walked around the side of the house just as Dani placed the hamburgers on the grill. Her heart leapt into her throat at the sight of him. Was there any man on earth who could do for a pair of jeans what he did? It was downright sinful, and all the more fascinating because he seemed totally unaware of the effect.

  “Nice timing,” she said. “There’s not even so much as a napkin left inside for you to carry.”

  He nudged her away from the grill with a bump of his hip. “Then let me take over here. Grilling is just about the only cooking I do with any evidence of talent.”

  “Yeah, if you like your burgers charcoal on the outside and raw meat inside,” Timmy taunted.

  Slade scowled at him. “Traitor.”

  “Dad, you taught us always to be honest,” his older son said piously.

  “Did you have to pick this precise moment to learn that lesson?” Slade grumbled.

  Amused by the apparently familiar father-son bickering, Dani retrieved the spatula from his hand. “Maybe I’d better take over here. There are soft drinks in the cooler and iced tea in the pitcher on the table. If you’d rather have a beer, there’s some in the refrigerator.”

  “Iced tea is fine. Beer would probably put me to sleep in front of the computer this afternoon.”

  Dani waited until he’d returned with his tea before she tossed out the idea she’d had just before his arrival. “Actually, I was wondering exactly how rigid your work schedule is. You are your own boss, right?”

  Something flickered in his eyes, perhaps a reaction to her choice of words, she decided. Rigid. She’d chosen the word deliberately. Few people she knew liked to think of themselves as being inflexible, as being caught in a rut. Reminding him that he was supposed to be in charge of his own life was a nice touch, she thought.

  “Why?” he inquired a little testily, more or less confirming her guess.

  “I was thinking maybe we ought to take the boys to the park after lunch for a touch football game. It would use up a little of that energy.” Then she added the coup de grace. “They might even take naps again this afternoon.”

  She chuckled at his reaction. She doubted he would have looked any more shocked if she’d suggested a rendezvous in a cheap motel.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Shock shifted to apparent fascination. “And you’re going to play?”

  “Of course. I’ll have you know I’m a very good receiver.”

  His gaze promptly fell on her hands. Dani was very glad she’d thought to polish her neatly clipped nails the night before. Usually she spent so much of her time up to her elbows in flour that she didn’t bother. Besides, what was the point of polishing nails that were trimmed nearly down to the quick for practical reasons? That dash of bright pink, however, did add a sexy touch to her workmanlike hands.

  She waited until Slade’s eyes met hers again before adding, “I have very strong hands.”

  His throat worked at that. “Oh, really?”

  Obviously she’d sent his imagination soaring. It was a very gratifying reaction.

  “It’s all that kneading,” she told him, adding to the color climbing up the back of his neck.

  He shook his head as if to rid himself of the image, but his voice was still a little breathless when he asked, “I wonder if the coaches in the NFL ever thought to suggest their receivers ought to practice by making bread?”

  “I doubt it, or some of them would be better than they are.”

  His growing curiosity was unmistakable. “Do you watch a lot of football?”

  “In Trent Wilde’s household, there wasn’t a sport we didn’t follow,” she informed him. “My father’s only regret was that he couldn’t get any of us to turn pro. If he’d thought we were interested, he probably would have challenged the league rules on our behalf. Daddy really, really wanted– and expected–sons. He didn’t cut us much slack for disappointing him by being girls.”

  Slade gestured toward the table and its burden of food. “Is that how you rebelled, by turning into a fabulous cook just to prove how feminine you are?”

  She stared at Slade, surprised by his insight. “Now that you mention it, I suppose it was. I never thought of it that way before.” She grinned. “It does drive him crazy to find me with flour on my nose, instead of camouflage paint or something equally disgusting.”

  “Your father strikes me as a powerful man.”

  “In this state, he is.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I was thinking of the force of his personality.”

  “That, too,” she agreed. “And we all got our share of it. No one messes with a Wilde.”

  He grinned. “I’ll remember that.” He gestured toward the grill. “Now, are you ready for the hamburger buns, or don’t you trust me with those, either?”

  Dani did a slow and deliberate survey of him from head to toe, then nodded in satisfaction. “You look reasonably coordinated to me. You should be able to get them from there to here without any major catastrophes. When you get back, you can give me your answer about that touch football game.”

  A spark of pure mischief that equaled anything she’d seen in Timmy’s or Kevin’s eyes lit their father’s.

  “That’s a foregone conclusion,” he told her, his male pride clearly on the line. “It’s the Watkins men against you and that ragged pickup squad of yours.”

  When Timmy and Kevin heard about the plans for after lunch, they gaped at their father.

  “You’re not going to work this afternoon?” Timmy asked.

  “Nope,” Slade said. “I never could resist a challenge, and Ms. Wilde has made certain that I couldn’t turn her down. She actually thinks she and those other boys can beat the three of us.”

  Kevin stared at Dani, disbelief written all over his face. “You’re going
to play football, too?”

  “Of course.”

  Both boys looked impressed. “I didn’t know girls played football,” Kevin said.

  “Well, this one does,” Dani assured him. “Any objections?”

  “Heck, no,” Timmy said. Suddenly he looked worried. “We don’t have to tackle you, do we?”

  Dani grinned. “I certainly hope you won’t.”

  Slade groaned. “There goes the game.”

  She reached over and patted his cheek consolingly. “The outcome was always a foregone conclusion, anyway.”

  * * *

  Apparently she’d gone a little too far with that taunt. Slade threw himself into the game with such enthusiasm that all of them were exhausted and filthy by the end of the afternoon.

  Judging from the stunned and self-satisfied expression on his face, she gathered that despite all those taunts, he hadn’t actually expected to win. She would never, not in a million years, tell him that she had deliberately dropped the pass that would have tied the score. He was savoring his victory too much.

  “Are you going to gloat?” she inquired when they were on the back porch with fresh glasses of iced tea, while the worn-out boys all lay collapsed on the grass. She hadn’t felt so thoroughly content in a very long time. She could handle a little gloating.

  “It wouldn’t be polite,” he told her.

  She grinned. “No, but you really want to, don’t you?”

  He chuckled. “Yes, I do. I feel guilty as hell about it, but I do.”

  She sat up a little straighter, her expression deliberately stoic. “Go ahead. I can take it.”

  Before she realized that gloating was suddenly the last thing on his mind, he’d moved. His lips were on hers and, in deference to their audience, gone again. That quick brush with temptation was so startling, so thoroughly unexpected and intriguing that Dani’s head reeled.

  Eyes wide, she stared at him. If anything, his expression was more smug than it had been in victory.