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“Dad, you’ve made it nearly impossible for me now and—”

“Let me finish, because there’s more to tell you.” But after silencing her, he went strangely quiet himself.

“Go on,” she urged, clenching her jaw.

“I’m just trying to think of a way to tell you this without annoying you even more. I told Charles something you didn’t want me to tell him.”

“The dream?” The question came out a whisper. “But you said you hadn’t told Charles anything I wouldn’t want you to. And before—you promised you wouldn’t mention marriage!”

“No, Princess, I never did promise. I took it under consideration, but not once did I actually say I wouldn’t discuss this with Charles. Now don’t look so worried. I didn’t tell him a thing about talking to your mother or about the three precious children the two of you are going to have someday.”

“What did Charles say? No,” she amended quickly, “tell me exactly what you said first.”

“Well, like I already told you, we were chatting—”

“Get to the part where you brought up marriage.”

“All right, all right. But I want you to know I didn’t say anything about the dream. Not because you didn’t want me to, but because when it came right down to it, I didn’t think he’d believe me. You three girls are having trouble enough, so I can hardly expect someone outside the family to listen.”

“You told Colby about it.”

“Of course I did. He’s my doctor. He had a right to know.”

“Great. In other words you blurted out that you expected Charles to marry me—because you didn’t want him trifling with my heart?” Spoken aloud, it sounded so ludicrous. Not to mention insulting. No wonder Charles was cool toward her.

“Not exactly. I asked his intentions. He said that was between the two of you. As I already explained.”

“Good.” Steffie relaxed a little. “And that was the end of it?” she murmured hopefully.

“Not entirely.”

“What else is there?”

“I told him you were anticipating a proposal of marriage, and for that matter so was I.”

Steffie ground her teeth to keep from screaming. It was worse than she’d feared. Sagging against the pillar, she covered her face with both hands. It would’ve been far better had he told Charles about the dream. That way, Charles might have understood that she’d had nothing to do with this. Instead, her father had made everything ten times worse by not mentioning it.

Charles was angry with her; that was obvious from their telephone conversation. He’d refused to discuss it in any detail, just repeating that he was “disappointed.” He seemed to believe she’d manipulated her father into approaching him with this marriage business. He wasn’t likely to change his mind unless she could convince him of the truth.

“Where are you going?” her father asked when she left him and returned a moment later with her purse and a sweater.

“To talk to Charles—to explain things, if I can.”

“Good.” David’s grin was full. “All that boy needs is a bit of prompting. You’ll see. Once you get back, you’ll thank me for taking matters into my own hands. There’s something about making a commitment to the right woman that fixes everything.”

Steffie was drained from the emotion. She found she couldn’t remain angry with her father. He’d talked to Charles with the best of motives. And he didn’t know what had gone on between her and Charles in the past—the tricks she’d played. So he couldn’t possibly understand why Charles would react with such anger to being pressed on the issue of marriage.

“I’ll wait up for you and when you get home we’ll celebrate together,” he suggested.

Steffie grinned weakly and nodded, but she doubted there’d be anything to celebrate.

* * *

She took her time driving into town, using those minutes to organize her thoughts. She hoped Charles would be open-minded enough to accept her explanation. Mostly, she wanted to reassure him that she hadn’t talked her father into interrogating him about marriage. They’d come so far in the past few weeks, she and Charles, and Steffie didn’t want anything to spoil that.

Charles was waiting for her, or he seemed to be. She’d barely rung his doorbell when he answered.

“Hello.” His immediate appearance took her by surprise. “I—I thought it might be a good idea if the two of us sat down and talked.”