Well, they would find out. She hoped so. She wanted him to see that he wasn’t as alone as he had to feel. She leaned her shoulder against the archway to watch as Jonas talked with her father, someone else he didn’t remember. But within moments they were both smiling and talking like old friends.
Great. She blew out a breath of relief and went back to her carrots. The men’s voices rumbled pleasantly as she finished peeling and dug the pitcher of iced tea out of the refrigerator.
The house was relatively quiet without the little ones—Mom had taken them with her on her grocery run. She missed Tyler’s constant motion and Madison’s constant chatter underfoot. And thinking of the kids made her remember how it used to be—how Jonas would always hang around the kitchen and help her, grazing on whatever was handy to snack on.
Hard to imagine, since Jonas and her dad had once been close.
There was a knock at the front door, a few quick, no-nonsense raps and then a key turned in the lock. Spence, the oldest of the clan, poked his head in. “Hit the garage door opener for me, would ya? I’ll get the front yard mowed before Dad thinks of it.”
“Thank you, Spence.”
“Don’t mention it.” He shut the door firmly.
The oven timer chose that moment to beep. She hit the off button, snagged an oven mitt from the closest drawer. She knelt to lift the casserole pot of baked beans from the oven and onto a trivet on the counter. While she heard Dad and Jonas talking, she tried not to focus on her husband’s halting words—that halting was worse when he was tired, she’d learned. She ached for him.
This was not fair. She had to lay aside her anger at the desperate gunman who had fired that shot. Jonas hadn’t deserved that, and yet it had happened just the same. She rushed around to the inside garage door and caught sight of him on the couch—struggling to find the right words while Dad waited patiently.
No, she thought, her heart heavy. This was not fair. Surely there was some good that would come out of this—some good the Lord would find in all this hardship. But for the life of her Danielle couldn’t figure out what. She yanked open the inside door and hit the button.
The churn of the opener’s engine drowned out the sound of her husband’s voice. As the door lifted, there was Spence, in T-shirt and denims, storming into the garage like a hulk. His grimace was hardly a grimace at all, which meant he must be in a very good mood. He grabbed the lawn mower and wheeled it out into the driveway. The roar of the engine coming to life echoed in the garage.
Talk about a reliable guy. Danielle loved her brother. She couldn’t have a better one—or a better family, and she thanked the Lord for them every day. She’d just hoped there would be less need for their help after Jonas’s homecoming. They’d done so much. They had to be exhausted, too.
She heard the air conditioner click on and felt the swirl of cooled air against her ankles and shut the door, leaving it unlocked so Spence could find his way in after his mowing. She remembered the kitchen work awaiting her. She wanted to get it done so that her mom didn’t have any choice; she couldn’t help with dinner because it would already be done. Mom had done more than her share already.
It was Jonas’s voice, low and sonorous, that made her stop halfway to the kitchen. Seeing him so changed still hit her hard every time.
“Is that right, John? Yellowstone, you say?”
“Yep,” Dad was saying. Always brief on words but long on heart. “You said the RV drove real fine. Yep, real fine.”
“I’m sure it did. Don’t remember it.”
“Well, it did.”
Jonas noticed her standing there and it was hard to tell by the look on his face if he was glad to see her or not. When he looked at her, he had to feel more pressure to remember. And that was the last thing she wanted. He had pressure enough.
“Dani.” Dad turned in the chair and winked at her. “I’m gonna take Jonas with me.”
“What? Where?” Jonas looked confused. Maybe a little panicked.
He might not remember that she was always on his side. That she would never forsake him, even when it came to her own family. “Dad, Jonas might not be up to working with tools yet.”
“Tools?” Jonas’s eyes widened in surprise.
He could not know that it was a family thing, he and Dad and Spence, always eager to fix what was broken. He would not remember how it used to be, that when Dad assumed Jonas’s help in all kinds of family construction projects, Jonas would find a moment to come up to her and lean close so that only she could hear. He would say in that affable way of his, “I don’t remember getting my draft notice.”
No, Jonas did not have any idea how they would chuckle quietly together before he would go off to help her dad.
Now, Jonas seemed uncertain, but when he looked down at his hands she realized why. After so much nerve damage, he could not handle carpenter tools. What could she do to reassure him? “Dad, you give Jonas a rest on this one. He’s recuperating. He can watch if he wants to and keep you company, but it might be better if he rests.”
“Yep. Gotcha.” Dad nodded once and rose to his feet as if that were settled. “Well, what do you say, Jonas? You want to come keep an eye on me?”
“You need it.” Humor glinted in his hazel eyes, and his lopsided grin could not be dearer.
Danielle felt hope buoy her. “I’ll bring back some tea for both of you.”
“Thanks, missy.” Dad scooted Jonas’s walker closer within reach. “C’mon, son, we’ve got work to do.”
“Yes, sir.” Jonas struggled to his feet and winked at her over the top of her dad’s head.
Danielle practically floated to the kitchen, full of gratitude that her whole family was together again.
O
ver the noise at the dinner table, Danielle heard her grandmother lean over to Jonas and say, “How is it that you are still so handsome?”
A blush pinkened his cheeks, making him even more good-looking. “Just luck.”
That made Gran chuckle in that light, joyful way of hers.
Danielle looked up from cutting Madison’s hot dog, and her pulse turned heavy, as if she had peanut butter in her veins. Could he be remembering? Just luck. That was what Jonas always used to say whenever Gran would ask that question. Wouldn’t that be perfect if he did remember? If he did defy the doctors’ dim prognoses for his memory loss, too?
“Mommy?” Madison tugged on her sleeve to get her attention. “I wanna biiig piece of cake. Pleeeease?”
“No, not yet and you know it, princess.” Danielle scooped a generous spoonful of the potatoes au gratin that Katherine had brought. “I know you want these.”
“Taters!” The little girl agreed cheerfully and flashed her dimples, confident that she was adorable and had more than one person’s attention at the table.
Katherine peered around Madison’s head on her other side. “Let me take over for you. I would love to
and
I’m closer to the taters.”
“Thanks.” Danielle handed over the cartoon character, child-sized fork.
It was wonderful to see her sister so happy. Marriage suited her, and Jack was the right kind of husband—good, strong and loving, a man who always did the right thing. It was another of her prayers answered. And as she scanned the table, she saw nothing but a testimony to that wondrous power. Katherine wasn’t the only newlywed sister at the table.
There were her younger twin sisters. Ava had Brice at her side, chattering away to him and to Tyler. Amusement and love mixed together as Brice watched her with a besotted grin on his face. They’d married in the spring, and Ava was always the happy sort, but she practically shone like the sun these days. Love and married life had transformed her.
Aubrey, although identical to Ava, couldn’t have been more different. She was quieter, and so was her husband-to-be, William. Their love was a tacit statement that still waters ran deep. Their wedding was coming up soon, and they had included the kids in their wedding party.
Lauren, home now from California, was finishing her master’s in business at the local campus. She and Caleb had married last month in a sweet May ceremony that had been as low-key and as lovely as Lauren herself.
“Mommy! Guess what?” Tyler called out across the table.
She blinked, drawn out of her thoughts. She focused on her little boy’s face and recognized that wide-eyed excited expression. Ava and Brice had been talking about their dog to him. “What?”
“If I had a dog, do you know what? Then Rex wouldn’t be lonesome when he came over here.”
Rex, the mentioned golden retriever, popped his head up from beneath the table to shine his puppy dog eyes on her.
Help, she wanted to plead silently to Jonas, but that bond between them was no longer there. She couldn’t look at her husband and have him know instinctively what she needed. He would not be coming to her rescue. She sighed, lonely. How could she be otherwise? She missed her husband. “We’ll talk about a dog later, cutie.”
“Yeah, but…I gotta lot of reasons why we should get a dog.” Tyler looked so hopeful.
“I know. You keep making that list, okay?”
“Yeah.” He breathed out a long sigh. It was hard being a kid and dogless.
Across the table, Spence nodded to her, as if in agreement. He was not fond of dogs, especially near the table. Poor Spence. He had a good heart but had a hard time letting it show. It was no surprise to his family or anyone who knew him that he hadn’t found a woman who could look past the gruffness to the sweet man inside. And, if he kept going, she was afraid he never would.
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, Every 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.”