The Danforths: Toby, Lea and Adam. Anne Marie Winston
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couldn’t have looked less bored with that proposition. Heather didn’t take umbrage with the belittling term Miss Rillouso used to put her in her place. She merely tossed the chart in the garbage the minute she left the premises. Toby was furious to discover her treachery.
“If you’re so sold on her stupid technique, you do it,” she challenged, handing him the sheet of stickers that went with the chart that Toby retrieved from the trash. “I refuse to waste my time bribing Dylan when it goes against everything I believe about raising healthy, well-adjusted children.”
When Toby politely pointed out that he was paying her to do whatever he asked in regard to his son’s treatment, Heather issued a dire warning of her own.
“If you’re not careful, you’ll create a monster out of that sweet little boy. A monster who won’t take the trash out for anything less than a dollar or won’t make good grades unless there’s a reward attached to his report card.”
Toby bristled. He’d seen too many children completely hooked on external incentives to disregard her counsel out of hand.
“Helen Rillouso is a professional who came highly recommended,” he protested. If nothing else, the outrageous amount he paid her to drop by the ranch every other week to work with Dylan attested to that reputation.
“I beg you to let him find his own voice in his own way,” Heather countered.
Toby couldn’t argue that her gentle approach seemed far more effective with his son than anything he’d tried in the past. Dylan seemed happier with each passing day. Still, Toby was a man who could afford to couch his bets. Even though Dylan was making progress under Heather’s tutelage, he saw no reason to discontinue the program that Helen Rillouso had so painstakingly set up.
“All I’m asking for is a little support,” he countered. “If you can’t get behind the program yourself, at least promise me you won’t deliberately sabotage the groundwork that’s already been laid.”
Heather thought long and hard before nodding her head.
“Out of respect for you, I’ll do my best not to undermine your authority. I just want you to know that I think forcing the issue of Dylan’s talking is as bad as forcing a relationship before someone is ready for it.”
Toby gave her a searching look. He supposed that was her subtle way of telling him to back off. Short of sleeping outside with the grizzly bears, he didn’t know how he could give her any more distance without compromising his relationship with Dylan. He sorely missed spending time with his son in his attempt to avoid Heather. In all the time he’d been married to Sheila, he’d never had such difficulty controlling his thoughts or his sex drive.
Maybe that was because she pursued him so shamelessly, lying about being on birth control so that she could get pregnant and force him into a marriage that he wasn’t sure he wanted in the first place.
Heather was not like that. Though she had only vaguely alluded to it, her natural introversion had obviously been intensified by a negative experience with the opposite sex. If anything were to come of the attraction between them, Toby would have to be the one to initiate it. A man used to having women fall all over themselves to gain his attention, he found Heather a challenge he couldn’t resist.
The fact that he was feeling more and more inclined to make the first move had little to do with his gratitude for the fine job she was doing. Instead, it had everything to do with the realization that against his better judgment, he was falling in love with her.
Heather would have to be blind not to notice the scorching looks Toby gave her whenever he thought she wasn’t watching. Those looks alone made her blood run hot, her muscles clench and her pulse skitter out of control. Such confusing messages caused her to stumble all over herself whenever Toby entered a room. That the man was a perfect gentleman, always offering to help in any way he could, didn’t make her job any easier. In fact, Heather had never worked so hard in her whole life—to pretend her boss wasn’t getting under her skin during the day and into her subconscious at night.
Falling into bed at the end of the day, Heather was exhausted from rebuilding the crumbling wall that defined their relationship into employer and employee. No matter how high or sturdy she constructed that barrier during the day, by nightfall it lay in pieces at her feet.
Heaven knew she was no saint. After her disastrous fling with Josef, she had given up even considering herself a “good girl.” It was no aversion to sex that kept her from following up on the powerful chemistry pulling her ever closer to Toby. It was fear, pure and simple.
She worried that going to bed with Toby would destroy their relationship altogether. Her experience with Josef had certainly proved that. Heather had little desire to be used and discarded again—especially since she so desperately needed this job. She needed the position not only to provide a sense of security but also a sense of self-worth. If she were totally honest with herself, she knew there was more to it than that. She had come to value her friendship with the man who had hired her to look after his son’s physical and emotional well-being. Aside from the fact that the lingering memory of Toby’s lips upon hers was a constant reminder to Heather that she was in fact a desirable woman, every day he was proving himself a funny, kind and surprisingly insightful friend. When she drew away, he did not push himself upon her like Josef had, either emotionally or physically. Instead Toby stepped back and gave her room to make up her own mind on any given matter without outside pressure. This all but ensured that she move closer to him on her own volition.
Tired as Heather was at the end of every day, sleep eluded her. When she finally did manage to drift off, more often than not her dreams were haunted by Miss Carlise. In the dreams, Heather was Miss Carlisle wearing a dress of black alpaca, and she would finger the golden locket around her throat. Inside was a picture of a man she did not recognize. Instinctively, she understood that this man occupied a special place in the governess’s heart. A heart that demanded that truths be revealed in the lives of this man’s descendants, generations cursed by the sins of a father.
That night, Heather’s dream changed. Horse hooves beat an eerie cadence upon the black drum of night. It drowned out the sound of her own fists pounding upon the carriage door and her pleas for the driver to slow down. Somehow she knew that a dangerous curve lay ahead. A curve destined to end her life over and over again for eternity—unless the past could somehow be rectified by the present.
By an unsuspecting and perhaps even sacrificial soul.
A blur of images and the echo of her own screams woke Heather. She sat up, bathed in sweat. Disoriented, she looked about in confusion to discover herself safe and sound in a bed torn apart by her own thrashing. That a cry for help was still reverberating in her ears caused her to doubt her own sanity. It took her a moment to realize the sound was not in her head but rather emanating from Dylan’s room. Fear grabbed her heart with stone-cold hands.
Springing from bed, Heather rushed to the boy’s bedside. The poor thing was in the grips of a nightmare that appeared to rival her own. Dylan woke with a start to see her silhouetted in his darkened doorway. He called out in terror.
“Mommy!”
Heather was at his side in an instant, holding him against her and soothing him with calming words.
“It’s all right, Dylan. I’m here. I’m here.”
Punctuated with sobs, a voice rusty from lack of use implored, “Don’t leave me.”
Those words ripped Heather’s chest. Dylan wrapped his arms about her neck, clinging to her with a desperation that belied his tender years.
“I won’t, honey. I promise I’m not going anywhere.”
“Don’t say that unless you really mean it.”
The voice that issued that directive came not from the darling boy in her arms but from someplace behind Heather. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she swung her head around to see Toby standing in the very spot in the doorway that she had just vacated. Wearing nothing but a pair of simple white briefs, he