by Jillian Hart
If only she wasn’t so lonesome for Jonas’s glance across a room, for that secret smile they would share when they knew they had the same thought. For the strengthening comfort of his touch.
“You shouldn’t go back to your place tonight.” Danielle thought of the spare bedroom downstairs. “Why don’t you stay over? You can stick around and see exactly how house-trained Lucky is.”
“No, I’ll leave that special joy to you.” Rebecca swiped her eyes, trying to make light of things. “He seems so gentle. Do you know his background?”
“He had too much energy for the working couple who had him, at least that was according to his paperwork at the shelter. He’s been known to chew furniture, so I’ve got my eye on him. We’ll see what other surprises come with him.”
“Good ones, I think. He’s so good with the kids.”
“His saving grace, whatever he does to the rest of the house.” Danielle didn’t add that she was already a little smitten with the big lovable guy. Anyone who was so sweet to her children had an in with her. She went back to wiping down the counter, keeping an eye on her sister. “Don’t worry. The right man will come along, you just wait. Then you’ll see that God had a better path in mind for you all along.”
“No, I’m firmly sticking to my No Man policy. Although if I ever break it, I hope I wind up as lucky as you and Jonas.”
Jonas. Simply at the thought of him, love filled her with radiance. Longing filled her, too—for his closeness, his love. She was lonely for him. She was afraid that would never change. That they’d come as far as they could toward one another.
“Dani? You look so pale all of a sudden.” Becca looked up from loading the last of the cups. Worry lined her dear face. “Do you need to sit down?”
“No, I’m fine.” On the outside, anyway. Maybe that was why she felt as if she were going down for the third time—because she had had the most wonderful day with her husband and kids. They’d had a good day, just like they used to always have.
But at the end of this day, there would be no snuggling with Jonas on the couch. No loving glances over the children’s heads. No waiting until Madison finally gave in to sleep, for their time alone.
This isn’t helping, Danielle. She blew out a breath, resolving to think of the good in this day. This wonderful, precious day the Lord had given them. She should not fill it with regret.
“You don’t look all right.” Rebecca abandoned the dishwasher to come closer. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“Pregnant? No. I’m not.” She gripped the edge of the counter, feeling the wave take her over and wash her away. Painful loneliness left her without breath. She felt lost, so desperately lost. She might have his support and his concern, but she did not have his love as her anchor.
Rebecca was watching her with such hopeful anticipation, as if she’d guessed a new secret. Danielle faltered. How could she admit that her husband hadn’t so much as kissed her? That every night he’d fallen asleep before she had finished brushing her teeth? How could she find the strength to say the truth: that her beloved Jonas did not want her? That he did not love her in return?
“Dani, are you sure? Then you’ve got to be really tired. You’re worn-out. You’ve pushed yourself so hard over the last year. Maybe it’s time to take it a little easier. Go sit down, put your feet up. I’ll finish here. Go on.”
“I’m not leaving you with my work.”
“It’s the least I can do for feeding me.” She snatched the dishrag from the counter and continued on with the wiping down.
That Rebecca. She had a stubborn streak. Bless her.
Jonas’s uneven gait rang in the hallway, the sounds from outside of laughing children and Lucky’s occasional woof drifting after him. Jonas was drenched, as if he’d taken a few turns in the sprinkler, too, and it looked as if it had done him good.
“I let the kids talk me into getting them a Popsicle each.” His grin was wide and captivating.
Riveted, she could not look away. Why hadn’t she noticed before how his smile was no longer as lopsided? Laughter lifted him up, and he stood tall and substantial as if nothing could ever hurt him again. Just when she thought she couldn’t adore him any more, her heart swelled a little more.
“A Popsicle?” Her feet took her closer to him without thought. Her spirit leaned toward his without intention. “I suppose I could deliver them. What would be in it for me?”
“Besides my eternal gratitude? Well, let’s see. I suppose you could keep a Popsicle for yourself.”
“As if that’s motivation enough?”
“Two Popsicle treats?”
She shook her head. “I think seeing my husband and kids so happy is more than enough. I’ll hit the freezer and be right down.”
“I’ll wait for you. You might need a bodyguard. Popsicle treats are valuable, and I wouldn’t want you to be waylaid. Nope, I’d best stick close to you, just in case.”
“I suppose that’s a good idea.” Bliss lifted her right off the ground. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to the Popsicle treats. I’ll go get them.”
After Spence and Rebecca left, it had taken quite a bit of effort to get the kids settled down, bathed and in bed for the night. Madison had finally drifted off over one of her favorite storybooks, and there had been cleanup and laundry to do. The kids had used every towel in the house, or so it seemed. And since Jonas was reading to Tyler, she’d taken the chance to sit down at the table with a cup of tea and catch up on her devotional reading.
She focused on the page, going over one of her favorite verses—okay, she had many favorite verses. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.
See? She might be lonely for Jonas, but she had to have more patience and give God more time to work in their lives. Already He had done so much for them.
Danielle leaned back in the chair, knowing she had been so busy that she hadn’t done as much as she could for the Lord. She regretted that. Now that life was settling down, maybe she and Jonas could start going back to their regular Bible study. Maybe she would speak with Spence about volunteering for one of his many committees. He was so active in the church charities.
“You and Rebecca sure looked serious.” Jonas’s baritone came out of the darkness. He eased into sight through the kitchen toward the light. There was something in his eyes—something intimate and caring—which made her heart stall.
Jonas had something in his arms—it looked like books. No, more picture albums. She set aside her Bible, her devotional reading done, sitting straighter in her chair. “Rebecca has not been as fortunate as I was with her first boyfriend.”
Jonas’s eyebrow quirked as he approached the table. “I was your first boyfriend.”
“Yes, you were, handsome. I’ll always be grateful to you that you made sure I didn’t push you away.”
“Because I frightened you.” He nodded slowly, his voice falling a note. “You were afraid of getting hurt.”
“I was afraid of losing you.” I still am. She held that back, too, another secret between them. “Think of what would have happened that day we met if you made a different decision about me.”
“Seems to me you were the one who accepted me.” He slid the books on the edge of the table, looking thoughtful and somber in the meager fall of light. “I can’t imagine where I would be if you hadn’t let me come into your life. I wish I could remember that day, the day everything changed. It was the day that has brought me here, right here, with you.”
Jonas, her dear Jonas. Emotion gathered behind her eyes, hurting and sweet all at once. She was overwhelmed by this man, as she had been so many times before. By his kindness, his honesty and his depth of feeling. She wished he would come closer and draw her into his arms. Let her lean against him. She needed his love.
“I hope your sister’s going to be all right.” He settled into the chair across from her, the table separating them. “Tyler’s finally asleep. He had a hard time settling down, what
with the dog in his room.”
“That dog.” Danielle shook her head, fondly going over the events of the evening. The dog had pranced around the barbecue grill, so excited by the thought of those hamburgers and hot dogs grilling away. He’d sat down on the bench at the picnic table, as if he were a little boy and not a dog. Then he sat on the ground beside the picnic table with his own plate—yes, he got his own hot dog—on the floor in front of him. The plate had been Madison’s idea. “Something tells me we might be the lucky ones.”
“He’s a good guy, and we can trust him with the kids.” Jonas opened one album cover. “He’ll be a good friend to Tyler.”
“Especially since he loves to play in water, too.” The backyard was probably still an inch deep in pooled water from the kids playing all through the evening. “Is that Tyler’s book?”
“Right now I’m looking at pre-Tyler.” Jonas blushed a little.
Danielle leaned in her chair to get a glimpse. “I was eight and a half months pregnant right there. See those new sandals? I couldn’t see my feet.”
Jonas tapped the snapshot. “I took this.”
“Yes,” she agreed. She had been caught in the act of smiling at her beloved husband as he’d snapped the picture. “We were at Gran’s house for Tyler’s baby shower. I remember Ava made a cake in the shape of a baby bassinet and dozens of colorful iced cookies shaped like baby rattles and shoes. If you turn the page, you’ll see them.”
“What I see is you.” Jonas tapped another picture.
“I was pretty big then. I was hard to miss.” She was joking.
He was not. “You’re beautiful.”
“You have to say that. You’re my husband.”
“No. It’s the truth.” To him, it was more than the truth. She looked radiant, luminous, and she’d been his. His bride, his wife, the woman carrying his unborn child. Rare tenderness tore him up like a blade, took him down and left him in pieces.
I wish I remembered. A prayer lifted up from the depths of his soul. Please, Lord, show me the way back to her.
It seemed just a short distance, after all, since she was across the table from him, within reach. All he had to do was to touch her hand with his to close the physical distance.
It was the emotional distance he did not know how to cross. They had a bond, him and Dani, as plain to see as the images before him. How every look she sent him in those pictures held a message, a secret that only the old Jonas could decipher. Every smile that touched her lips had meaning, one he used to understand, for the same smile would be mirrored on his face.
How did they that find that closeness again? Maybe, he thought, when he was whole again. He sure longed for it. He could see the way they leaned toward one another, whether they were across a room or next to one another on the couch. It was in the link of their gazes, as if they only saw each other, as if the entire world had ceased to exist for that moment, that touch, that kiss.
Jonas turned the page, transfixed by the look of love on his own face. By his arm lying easily across her shoulders, hugging her to him. By the way she tilted her head back to gaze up at him in a long, still look. Adoration, devotion, he didn’t know what to call it, but it made Danielle beyond beautiful. It made her his.
How did he get there from here? He did not know.
Her soft alto drew him away from his thoughts.
“I was having a terrible hair day then, kind of like today.” Self-conscious, she ran a hand over her rich brown locks that curled every which way at the ends. “Turn the page. That’s when Dad and Spence helped you haul everything into the nursery. Look at all of that! We had so many friends and family—including the huge shower our church group had for us. We hardly had any space left in the room.”
So many friends and family. Church friends and family he could not remember, either. These were the people who came up to him whenever he was out—Lucy at the bookstore. Mark at the restaurant. And others when he had been getting out of the van at the animal shelter. At the physical therapy office. Before and after Sunday morning service. These people were the ones Dani and her family talked about who had brought by casseroles when she’d been at the hospital for the kids, who had put on car washes and bake sales and fund-raisers to raise money on his behalf—Dani had donated the proceeds to the troopers’ widows and orphans fund.
Overwhelmed, he tried to concentrate on the pictures in front of him, but it was tough. How many people had he forgotten? Not only his wife and kids, but his friends? People who had mattered to him? It was as if he’d only just realized he’d lost more than half of his memories.
He’d lost half of his life. It was gone, forever out of his reach. He was glad to be here, he was glad for God’s grace in allowing him to live, but how could one bullet steal so much from a man?
“And here—” Dani reached over to turn the page. “Look at this. The look on your face as you were driving me to the hospital. My water had broken and you were in a total panic. I had to get a picture of you, and you didn’t think I was one bit funny, buster.”
There was no mistaking the expression of panic on his own younger face. A face unmarked by nerve damage. It wasn’t hard to see why he had been so afraid. Sometimes things went wrong, and Danielle—his heart stalled—she would have been a lot to lose. “I was scared for you.”
“I know, handsome. But everything went like clockwork—very slow clockwork—but without a single complication.” Her soft eyes searched his face lovingly. “You stayed with me the whole time. You were my rock. We decided on a name while I was waiting to dilate, which took forever. Look.”
He turned the page and there he was, holding newborn Tyler in the delivery room. His son. His soul sighed, and without a single memory he felt it all over again. The surge of undying devotion. A wave of love so strong it rendered him helpless and powerful all at once. He would forge any stream, leap any mountain, do anything for his son. For his wife. His family.
With every turn of the page, his affection grew. Pictures of the family visiting Dani and Tyler in the hospital. Snapshots of them heading home. Of them arriving with tiny baby Tyler. Of the exhaustion on their faces as they each took turns rocking the baby, praying he would fall asleep. Priceless images of Tyler’s wee button face asleep, his little hands relaxed, utter perfection. Love blazed anew for his son. This was more than a lifetime commitment—it was for an eternity and a day.
He closed the book and saw the woman across from him in a new light.
“Jonas,” she said softly. “It’s after eleven. Way past our bedtime. Come with me.”
He heard the love in her voice and felt it in the air between them. He longed to take her hand and to start where they’d left off. Except he was afraid.
“Later,” he said, reaching for the next book. A pink one, with Madison’s picture on the front cover. “You look exhausted, Dani. Go on to bed. I’ll be there in a while.”
She withdrew her hand, quietly as always, impossible to read as she set her chin. She smiled at him—was it a little sad?—and said in that gentle way of hers, “Don’t stay up too late.”
“Not too late,” he agreed. He’d said the wrong thing, he realized. But what?
“You need your rest to keep healing, Jonas.”
True, but he had so much work to do. So much to prove and to come back from. He had to be the man she needed. The man she loved. There was nothing on earth he wanted more than to be that man for her. He could not risk her rejecting him. If he reached for her now, what if she turned away from him?
He couldn’t lose her. No, it was best to wait. His gaze roamed her lovely face, so dear to him for all the loving ways she’d looked at him, and his heart slid helplessly right out of his chest. It was no longer his.
His heart was hers.
“Good night.” She looked as though she had more to say but seemed to change her mind as she pushed away from the table, taking her Bible and devotional with her.
She moved like beauty, like poetry, like grace. H
e watched her, even when the shadows at the far end of the kitchen deepened, hiding all but the faintest trace of her. Even after she’d turned the corner and was gone from his sight, he kept listening to the faint pad of her gait. To the faint hush of their bedroom door closing. To the faint rush of water in the bathroom sink.
Love, like faith, was a strange and wonderful thing. There was nothing tangible to both, no shape or color or texture. But the feel of love was more real than anything he could see with his eyes or touch with his hands.
His heart was aching with a kind of tenderness that hurt even as it uplifted him. He blew out a shaky breath and drew in determination. All of it he could muster. He couldn’t lose her. He had to keep working harder.
Much harder. He slid the next photo album squarely in front of him. The picture on the cover—Madison’s sweet button face—blinked up at him.
He hunkered down, turned the page and let the hours pass.
Chapter Thirteen
Friday afternoon was crazy, of course. She should have anticipated that, Danielle chided herself as she grabbed the phone on the run. “Hello?”
“It’s Spence. Got a moment?” Typical Spence, barking out what sounded like an order when it should have been a polite question.
“I’ve got half a moment,” she admitted as she ran out of her bedroom and down the hallway as fast as her sandals would let her, following the trail of Madison, the escapee. “Come back here, young lady!”
Madison was only a flash of pink rounding the corner and zip! out of sight.
Great. Danielle raced around the corner. “Talk fast, Spence. I’m listening.”
“Want a full-time job?”
A job? Her foot missed the stair and she stumbled. Her hand flew out and snagged the handrail, saving her from a tumble down the rest of the stairs. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly. Since you don’t sound thrilled, how about this? You set your own hours into the schedule. How’s that?”