"What are you doing, gorgeous?" Danny leaned on the doorframe.
"What does it look like? I'm hanging this curtain rod." She gave a monstrous whack with the hammer and sent a nail straight into the wall, a bracket clanking, but holding in place. "There. I just have to do the other silver thingy, and I think I can click the rod into it. The directions were crap in English. I read the French version, and it made so much more sense."
"Well, good." Danny looked around the room. He had to admit it looked pretty damn cute. Brady's butterflies flittered across two walls and disappeared behind the window. Grass was painted around the perimeter of the whole room, and the comforter was cheerful and bright. It was a totally different room, one that Piper could call her own.
All for a couple of hundred bucks. He was impressed. "It looks great in here."
"It damn well better. I've slaved away in here for over a week."
"I appreciate it." Danny came up behind her, drawn to that spot on her back where her shirt was pulling up. It had been so long since he'd been able to touch her, and then it had just been such a quick burst of passion. There had been no time to taste and explore her nooks and crannies.
Lifting her shirt, he kissed her back.
"Danny!"
"Yeah?" He moved his lips across her warm skin.
"I'm going to fall off this chair." She tried to move away from him. "And we're not supposed to be carrying on in front of Piper."
He held her so she didn't get away from him or fall off the chair. "Carrying on? That doesn't seem like an Amanda expression. And Piper is in the other room glued to the TV."
Danny dipped his tongue into her belly button. He loved these shirts she wore, tight and always shifting up and up.
"I'm in the middle of something here. Big hammer right above your head. Woman not used to using tools potentially dropping it. Does that sound more like me?"
It did. Plus, she had a good point. Danny stepped back and assessed her progress. He saw the rod with the curtain already on it sitting on the bed. As Amanda drove another nail into the wall, he picked up the rod. Then he handed it to her so she could click it in place.
"This looks so awesome." Amanda hopped off the chair and looked around the room with a grin. "I rock."
"Yes, you do." But Danny wasn't looking at the room. He couldn't take his eyes off Amanda. She had pulled her hair back into a funny little pony tail. There was blue eyeshadow dusted across her lids and bubblegum-pink shiny stuff on her lips. Her shorts were white, her shirt sky blue.
She looked like blue cotton candy from the county fair.
He wanted to eat her. He wanted to keep her here with him.
"Don't leave, Amanda." He spoke before he could get further distracted by her body. He wanted to make love to her, but he wanted to tell her how he felt first. "Stay with me, here."
The grin fell off her face. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, stay in Cuttersville. Past the first day of school. Stop being Piper's baby-sitter and start being my girlfriend. You'd have to live in your house still, so we wouldn't be setting a bad example for Piper, but we would… date." Danny stuck his hands in his pocket and trailed off in embarrassment.
What the hell had he been thinking? Why would Amanda Del-mar, who could do whatever she wanted, wherever she wanted, choose to stay in a pissant town just for him? But since he'd already made a fool out of himself, might as well go whole-hog.
He took a deep breath and went for it. "I think you're really amazing, and I don't want to see you walk out of my life. I love you."
Amanda thought she could count on one hand the number of people who had spoken those words to her. And only half of them had meant it. If even. The only person Amanda was completely positive about was her grandmother. Her parents had never told her they loved her.
Danny Tucker was telling her he loved her, and she believed him.
Which was why she said so very eloquently, "Oh, my God."
Emotions threatened to overwhelm her. He had no idea what that meant to her, to know that he, a guy with such integrity and honesty, could see enough of value in her to love her.
She had come to Cuttersville bored, aimless, and searching for the answers when she didn't even know the questions.
Instead of easy solutions, she had found a man who loved her, with no strings attached. And she didn't deserve it.
"Is that all you're going to say?" Danny stuck his fingernail between his teeth and bit it. His cheeks started to turn the color of a tomato.
"No." She closed the distance between them and cupped his cheek, tears threatening. "I love you too, Danny." It was easy to say, because it was the truth. She hadn't thought it could be that simple, and she knew in her head that it wasn't, but her heart didn't give a crap right at the moment. "And just to drive the point home, I have never said that to a man. Ever."
The last word was barely out of her mouth when Danny covered her lips with his. With a kiss so sweet, so tender, she swore she could hear violins. Pachabel's "Cannon," the wedding song. Oh, yikes. That was bad.
Struggling for composure, she pulled back, desperate for space. If she didn't stay strong, rational, she was going to find herself on the way to Chapel of Love for a Vegas wedding.
"Danny, we have to talk."
"Okay." He reached for her and kissed her forehead, her temple, her eyelid. "I love you. I love you. I love yo"u. You're beautiful, you're wonderful, I want to marry you." Those strong arms of his pulled her back easily. "See? We're talking."
Tears sprang into her eyes. He wasn't going to make this easy. Her vision blurred, her heart ached, her body betrayed her by bending toward Danny.
But she had to get this out before she let her emotions rush her downstream, and ultimately to a crash that would hurt Danny. And Piper. And her. She didn't care what happened to her in the end, but she couldn't live with the idea of hurting Danny or his daughter.
"Don't say that. We can't be together."
He stiffened. "Why not? And I'm talking about marriage, you know, not anything casual. I know it's soon now, but maybe in a year or two…"
Damn it, she wasn't doing this right. Amanda rubbed her forehead and tried to extract herself from his arms. He wouldn't let her leave. Not that she was trying all that hard. That was the whole flipping problem. She wanted to marry Danny. She wanted to think that love could conquer all and all that happy bullshit.
But she knew better.
She knew in real life the spoiled rich girl would drive the good farmer out of his freaking mind in about twelve months.