by Jillian Hart
But it was the empty chair next to Spence that troubled her. Rebecca—the youngest—was late. Again. And, as experience had taught them all, that could only mean one thing—trouble with that boyfriend of hers, Chris. What if this serious relationship took a more serious turn? It was something that turned Danielle’s stomach cold. Chris was the kind of young man who seemed nice—there was never anything specifically he’d done that made her dislike him. Except for the fact he was not entirely nice to Rebecca.
Rebecca, who saw only the good in everyone, couldn’t see it.
Gran’s merry voice broke into her thoughts. “Jonas, they tell me you aren’t remembering things so well. You’re not alone, boy. It happens to the best of us. Do you remember me?”
“Nope. Not a thing.”
“Then you don’t know how you and Dani met.”
“N-no. I do not.”
Danielle plainly read the shame on her husband’s face. She placed her hand on his shoulder, still so wide and strong. “Gran likes to think she’s the reason we’re together.”
Jonas quirked his brow. “That so, Gran?”
The elderly woman, so rosy and dear, chuckled warmly. “Your marriage is a testimony to the power of prayer. My husband was still with me back then, and one night, when we were just back from snowbirding in Scottsdale, we met with Ann and Silas Donovan, Brice’s grandparents. We were all in the same boat. We had grandchildren but no great-grandchildren. I saw this as a totally unacceptable situation, so I decided to take it to the good Lord and start praying.”
“Is that so?” Jonas didn’t seem to understand that it was their marriage, and their firstborn son, who’d been that long-awaited great-grandchild.
“You’d just moved into the rental house on Caleb’s grandparents’ property just down the road,” Danielle explained, remembering that sweet summer they’d met.
“That so?” He grinned. “I lived down the road from Gran?”
“You did.” He’d always called “Gran” by her first name, Mary, but she didn’t correct him. She reached for his knife and began to cut into his barbecued chicken. “It was this nice little two-bedroom house with a perfect view of Gran’s horse pastures, where I rode with Aubrey every morning.”
“I see.” He still couldn’t tell the twins apart, and looked at Ava, who was giggling away at something Tyler was saying. “It’s my guess I took one look at you and decided to take you to dinner.”
“And you were awfully confident about it, too.” Danielle felt the cold places within her warm like that June morning. She wished he could remember how that day had changed both of their lives for the better.
“Confident? What did I do?” He watched her blankly, his gaze searching her face. A stranger’s gaze.
But he was no stranger to her. Gone was the memory they shared of how she’d first set eyes on the young, strapping twenty-two-year-old Jonas, so handsome and friendly and good. She’d been afraid to trust him. Repeating the heartbreak of her mother’s first marriage had been her fear back then—her natural father had been violent to her.
Did she tell him how nervous he’d made her? Or how secretly wonderful she thought he was, even at first glance? “I’ll never forget how you strolled up to the fence one morning after Aubrey and I were back from a long ride, and you had your arms braced on the top rail and a cowboy hat shading your face. Just the impression you gave made me turn my horse around and avoid you entirely.”
“No, you didn’t. That’s a good one. A good joke.”
“It’s no joke, handsome. I thought you were trouble spelled with a capital T.” She had to laugh at herself, fighting against the pull of sadness. How could he not remember? How could so much love and life be wiped clean like images off a blackboard? “Okay, so I was wrong.”
“Am I trouble?” Jonas asked, as if he had no clue what that meant.
“Big-time,” she assured him. She wished he could see how blue the sky was and how vibrant and stalwart he had looked with the mountains behind him.
“How long did you stay away from me?”
Now he had the wrong impression. She should have said that she’d wanted to avoid him because she was scared. Sometimes when you looked your dream in the face, nothing was more terrifying.
Before she could answer, Gran did. “Didn’t I mention that I had to resort to prayer?”
“She didn’t like me that much?”
“In my defense—” Danielle set down his knife and then reached for her own “—I was looking for a nice guy to marry. Someone as wonderful as Dad.”
“We’re a rare bunch,” Dad called out from across the table.
Jonas looked puzzled. “I’m a nice guy. Right?”
“The nicest,” she reassured him. “But I didn’t know you. And a handsome, self-assured man who had too much charm for his own good didn’t fit with what I was searching for.”
“I’ve got charm, huh?” He gave her that lopsided grin.
“A tad.” Danielle smiled, unable to find the words to describe how deeply he had charmed her.
“A smidgen,” Ava called from across the table.
“Just a pinch,” Aubrey chimed in. “I told Dani at the time that she ought to go for it, to go talk to you, but she whispered back to me that you probably weren’t a Christian, so forget it.”
“Did I look like I wasn’t a Christian?” Jonas sounded even more puzzled, although his eyes twinkled.
So, he was teasing her. She deserved it. “I was afraid that you weren’t, and that meant I wasn’t going to let you charm me into accepting a dinner date.”
“Good thing I did.”
“Yes, you did charm me. Eventually, but I made you work for it.”
Gran finished the story for him. “Son, you had to come by the pasture every morning for a week until you got smart and met her at the gate on my property that led to the stable. She had to talk to you because you were in her way. I remember you held the gate open for the girls and their horses. When you showed up at church the next morning, then she stopped avoiding you as much.”
“As much? She didn’t like me.”
“I just thought you were too good to be true, Jonas.” She laid her hand on his. Gone was the connection she’d once felt to him—that emotional bond between their hearts. They were strangers again. “As soon as I figured out, I let you talk me into going out with you.”
“Lucky me.”
Jonas. She didn’t know how to tell him how wrong he was. That she had been the lucky one—and still was.
“All that time,” Gran went on to say, “I was praying you two kids would take a liking to one another. I figured prayer was my only hope with the rate you two were going.”
“But I won her.” Jonas looked at her with a touch of pride and a dash of wonder.
“Yes, handsome, you won me.” She ached remembering the excitement of that time, of getting ready for her first date with him, of being carried away with—and afraid of—the possibilities. She’d been both thrilled and terrified that he was The One.
“No-ooo. I kin do it!” Madison’s declaration rose above everyone’s table conversations.
“She reminds me of someone,” Mom commented across the table. “Hmm, let me think of who that could be—”
Everyone laughed—everyone but Jonas. He was still looking at her, watching her as if seeing her for the first time.
She slipped her hand in his under the table. He held on to her so tight.
“Cake! Coming through!” With two dessert plates in hand, Ava sauntered through the maze of the living room.
Danielle recognized the deep chocolate cake—Ava’s to-die-for triple-chocolate dream cake. She knew it was pointless to resist. Her waistline was going to take a hit. “Thanks, Ava. I love the pink frosting.”
“I made it in honor of the princess. Sorry, Jonas.” Ava set the plates on the coffee table. Her blond hair was still tied back in a ponytail and she wore her work clothes—jeans and a bright yellow T-shirt that advertised, Ev
ery Kind of Heaven Bakery. “But I did save the best pieces for you, Jonas. It has lots of frosting. Rebecca still hasn’t made it yet, so you don’t have to fight her for it.”
Danielle scooted closer, keeping her voice low. “Is that the call Mom took?”
“Yep. Rebecca said she might not make it, but not to worry. Everything is okeydokey, but I don’t believe her. Do you?”
Danielle worried; she couldn’t help it. She would say extra prayers for Rebecca tonight.
“Do you know what you two need?” Ava squinted at her and then at Jonas.
Uh-oh. Danielle recognized that look. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
“You two need a date night. I mean big-time huge. How long has it been?”
“Since before Jonas was injured.” It was hard to think back that far, past the fog of the last difficult year, to when life had been normal. Crazy and busy and hectic, but normal.
“Face it, you both deserve a break. One of us will babysit, right, Aubrey?”
“Sure, because I have all this free time with the wedding coming up,” Aubrey gently joked from across the room. “But, Dani, if I can squeeze out some time, it’s yours.”
Her sisters, always there for her. She loved them for it.
“I know,” Ava argued back cheerfully. “We’ll get Rebecca to do it. She’s not here to argue.”
“Exactly,” Aubrey agreed with a wink. “I’ll have to give her a call later and tell her we volunteered her.”
Those two. Danielle caught the amused expression on her husband’s face. She might not know what he was thinking, but he was clearly getting a kick out of the twins. Most people did. She also saw something else on his face. Did that gleam in his eyes mean he was happy?
He leaned closer to her and his arm bumped her shoulder. “Go on a date? But we’re married.”
“Yes, but we used to go out, just you and me, without the kids. For some alone time.” A date night. Maybe it would help his memory. Hope rose up within her. “We could go to your favorite restaurant.”
“My favorite restaurant.” Trouble—humor—flashed in Jonas’s dark eyes. “Now, pretty lady, I don’t know what my favorite restaurant is. You could tell me anyplace.”
“And you’d never know?” Danielle nodded, feeling lighter and lighter. She winked. “It didn’t occur to me, but thanks for mentioning that. I think I can use this to my advantage.”
“Yep. I need to keep a—what is it?—my eyes on you.” He winked. “A real hardship.”
Had he just paid her a compliment? Was he flirting with her? Her heart sweetly fluttered. She felt for a moment the way she had for their first date—all sugary anticipation and pie-in-the-sky hope.
Over at the table with Aubrey, Madison’s shout of glee rose across the living room and above the rest of the conversations in the living room, and Tyler’s laughter joined his sister’s. It had been a long time since such happy sounds rang loud in this house, without a note of sadness to weigh them down.
That had to be another sign from the Lord, Danielle decided, determined and resolute. She believed hard enough to make everything all right. It was going to be. Really. She was going to have her husband back again. And the children their father.
If a tiny niggling of doubt existed beneath her resolve, she did her best to rub it out and cling to her faith. It had to be okay. She didn’t know if her heart could take more hardship.
“That settles it, Dani.” Dorrie set two plates of cake on the TV trays in front of Gran and Dad. “I’m babysitting next Friday night so you two kids can have a night out together, just like you always used to do.”
“We did?” Jonas turned to her for confirmation.
“Nearly every week, thanks to our very generous family. There’s always someone to watch the kids for us.”
Jonas seemed satisfied at that and turned to his plate and fumbled awkwardly with the fork.
She wasn’t going to focus on all that he couldn’t remember. That those loving, fun, close evenings they’d spent together, just the two of them, were gone to him. They were not gone to her. No, her love and her memories of their marriage were strong enough for the two of them.
Later, after everyone was gone, leaving the house in some semblance of order, the kids were bathed and asleep—finally—in their beds, she was alone with Jonas. He was still awake on the couch, the TV’s glow making a soft light, but it wasn’t the TV he was watching. He had the photo album open on his knees.
“We went to Yellowstone,” he said when she entered the room. “My parents took me there when I was ten. We went on vacation every summer until their car accident.” He paused, as if searching for the word. “This vacation was my favorite. Good memories.”
“We have good memories of there, too, as a family. I wish you could remember.”
“Maybe one day.”
“Maybe.” Danielle studied the picture they’d taken of the four of them crowded around the Yellowstone sign at the entrance to the park. They had laughed a lot that day.
“Did you really not like me?”
His question surprised her. She eased onto the edge of the coffee table to face him. “I don’t think I’ve ever not liked you.”
“Gran said—” He paused, his forehead crinkling in thought. “You didn’t like me.”
“Do you mean when I would avoid you in the horse pasture?” She waited for him to nod, realizing how that must seem to him. “It wasn’t that I didn’t like you. I took one look at you and liked you.”
“You did?” He lit up at that, grinning lopsidedly at her.
Okay, that felt like old times, too, the blessed way things used to be. “I wasn’t joking when I said you looked too good to be true.”
In a blink, the memory came back to her with all its feelings, colors and life. How sweet the field smelled with the gentle morning breezes stirring it. The whoosh of the wind in her ears and the feel of the horse beneath her. The cheerful joy of the meadowlarks and pheasants faded to silence.
She would never forget how the crisp brightness of the newly rising sun faded when she first glimpsed the tall, wide-shouldered man at the fence line. Even with his face shaded by a Stetson, her heart had taken a plunge from her chest all the way down to her toes. It was as if she’d known, soul-deep, that this man would change her life.
“I was being cautious,” she told him, remembering the feeling of falling, as if Muffin, her horse, had sent her tumbling. “What I felt for you was so strong, although I didn’t even know you. I was afraid of making a mistake and of getting hurt.”
“Love at first sight?”
She looked into the innocent question of his eyes and realized how hard this had to be for him. To be bereft of all the memories that had made up his life, which had gotten him here, which made him—and them—who they were. She laid her hand on his, and the deep connection they’d built together by loving one another every day of their marriage was not there. Not even with her memories and all the love she held in her heart for him. Sadness filled her.
“Yes,” she answered patiently. “It was love at first sight. That’s a frightening thing, because love can make you blind. You don’t remember all that I’ve told you over the years about my real father.”
“No,” Jonas answered sadly, gently.
Making it easy to face the dreaded past again. “He was not good to my mom or to me. Rebecca was just a toddler when he left, so she doesn’t remember how bad it was. How miserable we all were. And my mom, she did everything she could to protect us from his anger. He was a very angry and self-centered man, and she took the brunt of it. His leaving was one of the best blessings of my young life, at the time. Gaining John as a stepdad was even better. I—”
She closed her eyes against the bleak memories, willing them to vanish forever. “I didn’t want to make my mother’s mistakes. There’s good in everyone, even those who behave badly, just as my biological father did, and I was afraid I would only see the good. Until it was too late.”
/> Jonas nodded, seeming thoughtful. “When did you—decide I wasn’t so b-bad?”
“When I saw you in church that next Sunday, I ran out of excuses.” She could remember the cool feel of the smooth wooden pew as she wrapped her fingers around the edge of the seat, holding on so tightly when she saw handsome Jonas Lowell stride into the church. It had been a good thing that she was sitting down because her knees would have given out.
The sunshine had chosen that moment to brighten, spilling through the stained glass windows in rich, jeweled tones, spilling over him. Standing in those noble colors, Jonas was like the answer to her prayers. She had been asking the Lord for a good, wonderful man to love her for so long that she’d grown accustomed to waiting, to being safe without having to risk her heart. Without having to get so close to someone who could stop loving her the way her first dad had.
But she’d also had the influence of her stepdad—John McKaslin—in her life, so she knew, too, that there were men who stayed, who loved with all their hearts, who stood for what was right.
“Sitting there in the sanctuary surrounded by people I loved and trusted, it came to me that I was afraid. It went beyond being cautious, so I asked for the Lord’s help. I gave up my fears to Him and vowed to try to follow where my answered prayers would lead me.”
“I wasn’t so bad.” While his grin was back, his eyes remained sad for her. “Did I t-talk to you?”
“Yes. You came up after the service and when Dad invited you out to brunch with us, I took it as confirmation. You sat beside me in the restaurant and we just clicked. We talked as if we’d been friends all our lives, and there was something there, something rare that scared me. I think it was what I felt from the very start, when I first spotted you leaning up against the rail fence. It was like finding part of myself, the better half, and finding that I had come home. It’s so frightening to accept, because it is so very much to lose. You are so very much to lose.”