The Danforths: Toby, Lea and Adam. Anne Marie Winston

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 Toby home. He scooped each of them up in his arms, promising them a special present from his luggage as soon as he unpacked. After collecting their bags they proceeded to a waiting limousine where Heather took a deep, cleansing breath and embraced the sudden sound of silence.

      “To Crofthaven,” Toby told the driver.

      No more directions were necessary than the name of the Danforth family estate where Toby promised “kith and kin galore.” He either chose to ignore the look of panic that flitted across Heather’s face at that pronouncement or simply missed it in the middle of fretting about Dylan.

      “I was surprised he went to Genie so easily,” he admitted.

      “And that he wanted to stay with her at the airport,” Heather added. A dear friend was flying in on a commercial flight arriving any minute, and Genie offered to bring Dylan back to Crofthaven in her personal car. “Your sister seems very nice.”

      “She is,” Toby assured her with typical big brother pride. “Actually all my relatives are. The worst thing about living so far away is missing out on family functions—and,” he added with a wry grin, “maybe the best thing, too.”

      When Heather gave him an odd look, he hastened to explain. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my family. It’s just that I’m not much for black-tie functions like the big party Uncle Abe is throwing on the Fourth to launch his political campaign. I wouldn’t have agreed to come home if Dad hadn’t specifically asked me to. That man’s sense of family obligation doesn’t stop at the state line. Nor Uncle Abe’s—hence the private jet that flew us here—although I suspect his motives are less pure than my father’s.”

      Heather nodded her head in empathy. She had endured more than her share of the kind of black- tie events to which Toby referred, not to mention undue family influence about what she wanted to do with her own life.

      “How were you able to strike out on your own without severing the family ties completely?” she asked.

      Having done everything in her power to avoid being alone with Toby in his home for the three short days that she had been working for him, this was the first time they had actually been together without Dylan present. Given the state of her hormones whenever Toby was near, it was far less awkward than Heather would have imagined. Like the TV dinner they had shared in front of the television that first night of her employment, it was amazingly cozy. If she wasn’t careful, Heather knew she might start feeling like a real part of Toby’s family. She was both flattered and flummoxed that her boss treated her more like a friend than an employee.

      “My family accepts me for who and what I am. Luckily, they don’t feel the need to mold me into something that I’m not. They just reel me in once in a while and remind me that I’m one of their own.”

      “That must be nice,” Heather said. Unable to come up with a better adjective, the wistful tone of her voice gave away the pain of her own family situation.

      “It certainly makes me appreciate family all the more when I get the chance to come home. It’s good for Dylan, too. A child needs to know that he’s part of a tree with roots, СКАЧАТЬ