The expression that crossed his face was comical, a mixture of insult and disbelief. She did not have to hear his voice to know his ego was stung by the question. Dan lifted his arm and did a quick bicep curl, a purely male response that almost made her want to smile.
“What do you think?” There was a teasing gleam in his eyes.
“I guess a silly question deserves a silly answer.”
His shotgun laugh startled her with its intensity; she felt it all the way to the soles of her feet.
He cocked his head to the side. “I’m going to win you over if it’s the last thing I do, Ashby Templeton.”
The entire incident flustered Ashby so badly she was certain he could see she wasn’t as immune to him as she wanted to be. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she suddenly felt.
Of course, he winked at her. Which should have reminded her that this was a game to him.
But it didn’t matter to her. And that was the scary part. “Can I help you?” she asked. Needing a distraction, she reached for one handle of the chest.
“Sure. I would say tell me how to win you over. But actually, I like the challenge of figuring you out.”
Despite her frustration, her lips twitched. “You never give up, do you?”
He turned serious in a flash. “I think for the first time since I’ve known you, you finally got something right about me, Ash. I never give up.”
It was said with such conviction that she believed him. After a heartbeat, he winked again, picked up the loaded ice chest as if it were a five-pound bag of sugar and strode out the door.
She stood where he’d left her, in the middle of the roomy kitchen, heart thundering in her chest, her stomach bottomless. Excitement. Anticipation. Danger…that’s what she was feeling.
And she’d be lying if she said she didn’t like it.
“You look a little flustered,” Rose said as Ashby came to stand beside her. “I saw Dan bring out the cooler of drinks. Does he have anything to do with those pink cheeks?”
“The man completely baffles me. It’s frustrating.”
“You know, girlfriend, that’s not a bad thing,” Lacy interjected. She laughed when Ashby appeared less than convinced. “Keeping your sweetie on his toes, and vice versa, keeps the sparks flying.”
“Okay, enough of that. I want to fall in love and have children, but I want it to be long-term, and Dan is a short-term kinda man. Believe me, I know. That’s what those sparks are all about.”
Rose and Lacy each laid a hand on her arm. Rose spoke. “I know what you mean. I had dreams just as strong as yours, and I understand where you are coming from. But I think you’re reading this wrong. I think Dan is a forever man. I think he’s the type of guy who falls once, hard, and hangs on without letting go. He’s a good man, Ashby. If you watch him, really watch the way he interacts with women and children, you might see more to him than you think. He’s never been anything but respectful to me.”
Ashby found him in the middle of the crowd of boys, playing football. He was running across the field with three of them hanging off him, laughing as he went. The admiration on the boys’ adolescent faces was apparent. He wasn’t letting them win easily, and Ashby realized the boys were eating it up.
“Dan is in no hurry to fall in love. It could be years before he wants a family. I’m ready now. Believe me, I’ve wasted enough years of my life on men who aren’t ready to commit. I don’t have time to get mixed up with another man like that.” She didn’t feel like elaborating.
Steven had been just as charming, just as carefree and just as openly flirtatious as Dan. She’d fallen in love with him against her better judgment, and look where it got her. In the end, he’d found he couldn’t be a one-woman man, which left Ashby out in the cold. She couldn’t go through that again. It wasn’t just Steven—almost every guy she’d dated had the Peter Pan syndrome. They were completely content to remain in Never-Never Land for eternity. Like Dan. He was happy with the way he was. She had to wonder if he would ever grow up and take on the responsibility of a family. Despite what Lacy and Rose thought about him, she couldn’t trust him.
“I’m looking for a man more like Lance Yates.”
Lacy’s mouth fell open. “Lance Yates? Give me a break. He’s nice and all, but I saw you two talking at the last potluck dinner—there wasn’t so much as a flicker in your eye when you looked at him. Not the case with our man Dan. You should see your eyes fire up when you look at that man. Pretty telling, if you ask me. And anyway, men fall when they fall. When that love bug hits, girl, there’s not one thing you can do about it.”
Ashby wasn’t so sure about that—sparks in her eyes or men suddenly falling in love and everything changing. No, men like Steven didn’t change. She’d stay away from his kind. Because to do otherwise meant a broken heart.
She watched Dan as he went down beneath his tenacious assailants. They all landed hard, a pile of tangled legs and arms, with Dan on the bottom. It hit her that the man would be good with children.
“Max loves it when Dan comes out here,” Rose said, as if reading her thoughts.
Ashby smoothed her slacks and tried to look as if that bit of information didn’t surprise her. She also had to fight off asking why and when. She spent at least three or four evenings a month here babysitting, and she’d never seen him.
She felt eyes on her and looked up to find both Rose and Lacy smiling at her like hyenas.
Ashby fumbled for a topic, any topic other than the one they so obviously were dying to discuss as they continued to study her. She felt like a lab rat. “Oh, what’s the use? I guess you both already know he’s moving in next door to me.”
They both laughed out loud. “We’ve been wondering when you were going to say something,” Lacy said.
“We didn’t want to push too hard,” Rose admitted.
“For some reason I find that hard to believe.” Ashby smiled, despite the turmoil inside her. “Please don’t give the ladies false hope.”
“Ashby,” Lacy huffed. “They aren’t listening to us.”
She knew it was true. Still, she hoped if no one else made a big deal out of it, they’d let it go. She was going to have a hard enough time dealing with Dan himself, without worrying about anyone else pushing them together. And she was afraid that if she didn’t keep up her guard she might give in and go out with him. She hated to admit it, but she was already weakening. She was going to have to do a lot of praying on this. God had a plan for her life, she knew He did. She just had to be patient. But that was exactly the problem. She’d lost her patience a long time ago. She wanted a family. And she was terrified God might tell her no.
Because of that fear, she’d made some wrong choices when it came to men. Steven hadn’t been her first mistake. She’d been trying not to disappoint her mother when she’d wasted time dating Carlton and Brad. She hadn’t liked either of them in the first place, but knew they were the type of affluent men her mother wanted her to marry. Men with blood so blue it sparkled. Or so her mother thought. Their rejections had been a blessing, because she realized if she’d married either of them it wouldn’t have been right. Of course, it had taken her a few rejections to find it in herself to stop trying to please her mother. Her mother would have been happy with either marriage, but Ashby would have been miserable. Still, even this understanding hadn’t prevented the damage caused to her self-esteem over their rejection. For a girl who’d been brought up to think keeping up with the Joneses was everything, being told twice in a row you didn’t was hard.
And that was when Steven had shown up. No, fear of not pleasing her mother and fear of the Lord not giving her the family she so desperately wanted had cost her dearly. She wasn’t going to let anything sidetrack her from finding the right man this time. She might feel completely desperate, but she would make herself be patient. That required discipline. It required her not to let Dan Dawson’s boyish charm through the chinks in her armor.
The women’s shelter was in what had been Brady’s home, which he’d donated when he’d moved to a smaller place on the family property. It gave him and Dottie some privacy, as opposed to living at the shelter full-time. It also freed up space for women in need.
As the campfire flickered, Dan watched the boys listening intently to Clint tell about his run-in with a group of cattle rustlers.
Dan thought about Stacy. She had started coming out of her shell. Talking to people was getting easier for her. She had even looked him in the eye earlier that afternoon. It happened more and more frequently. When those crystal-clear gray eyes met his and held, even if only for two seconds, he wanted to shout “Hallelujah!” It had taken him months of diligent, steady work and countless trips to the candy store to gain her trust. Regaining trust took time. It wasn’t anything he took lightly. It had been the same way for his mother all those years ago after she’d braved the wrath of her husband by escaping with Dan to a safe house. Dan remembered the beatings as if they were yesterday, and knew he probably owed his life to his mother.
She’d broken the cycle of violence and given him a chance to become a man whose life wasn’t ruled by violence, but by compassion. Still, he was deeply aware of the statistic that boys raised in abusive homes had a greater risk of becoming abusive themselves. It was always at the back of his mind. Looking at Max, a healthy, happy kid, Dan wondered how desperate the situation had been for him and Rose before they’d gotten out. Though Rose was doing a great job, he prayed for Max to one day have a new dad.
He also prayed for Stacy. She was just as heavy on his heart. With God’s help and guidance, one day she would be able to hold her head high with confidence. Dan’s heart was burdened with an urge to help the residents of No Place Like Home.
His thoughts turned to his new neighbor. She didn’t trust him. She truly thought he was a no-good flirt. He was a flirt—guilty as charged. But that was a tool to plant friendship and trust with the ladies at No Place Like Home.
It was a part of him that he would never change, yet never explain, either. And it was part of the problem with Ashby.
Not just because the idea of revealing something so personal didn’t set well with him. It went deeper than that. Became more complicated. He was who he was, and Ashby, like everyone else he’d ever met, would have to take him or leave him based on what they saw in him.
In his view, people who didn’t look past their prejudices and preconceived notions didn’t deserve an explanation of who he was at his core.
Besides, his actions involving women and children who’d been hurt were deliberate, prayed-up actions with a mission. They were his ministry.
He believed everyone had a path. A heaven-ordained path where every good thing and every bad thing a person went through would be used for the benefit of God’s kingdom. He’d strayed and stumbled along the way trying to completely separate himself from his past. Hoping to rid himself of haunting memories that he’d thought lingered because of his volunteering at the shelters. After all, with his mother’s guidance, they’d been volunteering at them for years. So his thinking had been that some distance would help lay the past to rest. During that time, he’d moved to Mule Hollow, a quiet little town out in the middle of nowhere. Of course, God had opened his eyes when No Place Like Home relocated out here beside him. This time his involvement was wholehearted.
He just didn’t feel compelled to share that. It was almost as if sharing it would diminish it….
He’d been a kid with a no-good dad and an extraordinary mother. Looking back over his life, Dan saw that God’s hand was clearly visible in the events that had happened to him. But if he opened up, revealed that, it would seem as if he were trying to take the focus off God and put it on himself.
People who looked closely enough would see a pattern, but if he talked about it, the element of humility would disappear.
And though he didn’t think anyone would believe it about him, being humble was what he liked the best.
Chapter Nine
Things were not good. On Saturday morning Ashby’s mother called. Her unhappy mother. Ashby’s picture was on the Internet….
In conjunction with her weekly newspaper column, Molly Jacobs had a Web site that attracted a good number of avid readers who enjoyed hearing about small-town life in Mule Hollow. Molly was able to share far more on the Web site than she was in the paper. And it was there Molly had posted her pictures of the pig scramble.
“You look horrid! Just horrid!” her mother exclaimed the instant Ashby said hello.
It was a phrase Ashby had heard too many times through the years to recount. She’d come to realize it meant her mother was nervous, and not that Ashby necessarily looked horrid.
Lydia had obviously been to Molly’s Web site and seen photos of her daughter’s run-in with the pig. So today when she used the word horrid, she meant it.
Ashby had actually thought about doing bodily harm to Molly when she’d realized the photos had been uploaded. She’d checked them out before going to bed last night and had been mortified. Thankfully, her mug shot was in a collage with several others. Harmless, right? That was what she’d told herself as she’d tried to go to sleep.
Until this moment, though, listening to her mother’s hysterics on the phone, she hadn’t been sure that Lydia was actually keeping up with what went on in Mule Hollow. It wasn’t as if Ashby made the papers all that much.
“Calm down, Mother.”
“How can you expect me to calm down when all my friends will be seeing this!”
The rebellious side of Ashby wanted to remind her that a lady did not screech, scream or raise her voice. Nor did she surf the Web looking for compromising images of her daughter. But Ashby didn’t. At times like this, she felt like the little girl in the pink taffeta party dress who’d just embarrassed her mother at Agatha Hathaway’s seventh birthday party. Even at six years old, Ashby had recognized the humiliation in her mother’s eyes…and hated knowing she’d put it there. Despite the fact that she’d purposefully poured the red punch down her dress, knowing it would bother her mother. She just hadn’t expected how ashamed it would make her. That was the day Ashby started denying the rebellious child inside her and began trying to make her mother proud of her.
It had taken years to realize that was an unattainable goal. Lydia loved her in her own complicated way, and that had to be enough.
“Your friends in Pacific Heights won’t even know it’s me,” Ashby said now, happy that Molly hadn’t tagged names to individual photos. The entire grouping bore the label “A fun time at the pig scramble for the ladies of Mule Hollow.” Thank goodness for small blessings.
“I can only hope that’s true. However, a pig scramble—Ashby, that’s pushing the limits of good taste. From the picture, it’s obvious you were wallowing in the dirt with that animal. Surely, even you can see my point in this.”
The acid in her stomach churning, Ashby closed her eyes and prayed the Lord would give her patience. “Yes, Mother, I understand completely. I apologize for any embarrassment I may have caused you.” She knew there was nothing else that would appease her mother.
“Very well. I must go. I’m presenting at the garden club this afternoon and I have much to do.”
“Enjoy yourself, Mother.” Ashby’s fingers tightened around the handset. There was a brief pause before the line went dead. Holding the silent phone, Ashby fought to regain her footing, longing for a closeness with her mom that she knew she would never have.
One day she would have her own child…and things would be different. Her arms ached to hold her baby, and her heart longed to show it the love sh
e’d always craved for herself.
She blinked hard against the threat of tears. God must let her have a child.
By the time Ashby made it out to Dan’s place, cleanup was in full swing. It looked like anyone who didn’t have to work was here offering a helping hand. As she got out of her car, she shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun and tried to decide where she should start. Esther Mae, Adela and a few of the younger ladies had formed an assembly line of sorts. They were taking items such as flatware from a pile of salvaged goods and scrubbing them down. Ashby saw overalls-clad Norma Sue poking around in the ruins with a hoe. Several cowboys were doing the same, trying to see if anything of value survived in the ashes.
Her gaze settled on Dan, who was walking around with Will Sutton. Will had a business creating beautiful, artistic iron gates, but he also happened to be an architect. Ashby surveyed the damage. Most of the outer walls were a combination of brick and limestone and they were still standing, but the majority of the wood framework was either charred or completely burned. Many interior walls were gone, the roof was missing and rubble covered the concrete foundation. It was a disaster.
The good news was that Dan had insurance. Though items with sentimental value were a loss, he would come out of this with a new home. At least that was how the local grapevine had it. Ashby hadn’t talked with him personally about it beyond their brief conversation the day before.
Dan seemed to have his head on straight when it came to material possessions. She couldn’t really say whether, if her place burned, there would be much she would be heartbroken about losing. Still, Ashby suspected there would be emotional effects from the ordeal. Then again, as Dan had said, the crucial thing would be that no one was hurt in the fire.
They might have their differences, but she loved his perspective on what was important in life.
Her Baby Dreams Page 7