Her Wedding Wish (12 page)

“My news. Well, Jack’s and mine and Hayden’s. I had another ultrasound and this time I couldn’t resist. I had to know. We’re having a little boy.”

“A boy.” Danielle sighed the words. “Congratulations. That is good news.”

“The best. Jack’s about fit to burst, he’s so proud, and Hayden can’t wait for him to get here. I’ve been home in bed for only a few days and I’m going nuts. I miss work. I miss puttering in my roses. I miss fixing dinner with Jack now that he’s gone to day shift.”

“I can come over and keep you company whenever you want.”

“I’m counting on it. I’ll let you go back to your handsome husband and kids. This is time you don’t want to waste with them.”

“Yes. I know how quickly it can change.”

“It changes anyway. Time passes, there’s no stopping it. So, just enjoy your family. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“That’s a promise. Call anytime if you need me.” After Katherine promised to, they said goodbye. Danielle hung up and unwound the knot in the cord. The kids were at the far side of the fenced yard, trying to convince Lucky to give up the tennis ball, but he was having none of it. His tail wagged furiously as he ran a few feet, then stopped so both kids would wrap their arms around him and squeeze him with hugs, laughing the whole while. Jonas limped a few feet closer, watching over them. Awash in sunlight with his dark hair tousled by the hot puff of wind, he looked like more than the man she’d fallen in love with—iron-strong and twice as good at heart.

She tried to tell herself it didn’t hurt that he couldn’t yet love her back, but it did hurt. Very much. She longed for him to sense her gaze, the way he used to. They were so in tune to one another, but that was mostly gone now. She was content watching her husband playing with the kids. Love and laughter shaped his chiseled, granite face.

At least he loves them. Lord, I am deeply grateful for that.
They were good kids, and easy to love. Already the dog was smitten with them, too, as he finally dropped the ball to give Tyler a big kiss on the top of his head.

Madison squealed, “E-eeew!” but raced up, wanting the same treatment and laughed when Lucky obliged.

Jonas went down on his knees next to the kids and put his arms around the dog’s neck. The Dalmatian wiggled and pranced, as if happy beyond bearing.

Danielle lifted the camera, flipped off the lens cover and framed the shot. She saw raw emotion in Jonas’s face. She saw gratitude. She snapped and caught the image forever of the protective dad laughing with his kids, his heart in his eyes.

It wasn’t fair that her love went on. Every day growing a little bigger and deepening a little more. But love was like that—beyond all reason and more than what made a person feel safe.

Since there was enough juice in the battery to last for a little while, she took it with her on the way to the sliding door. Standing in the shadows beneath the overhead deck and watching her family, she felt alone. Tyler had turned on the water, and it arced from the sprinkler set in the middle of the lawn.

“Wroor! Wroor!” Lucky’s bark was one of sheer joy as he leaped headfirst into the spray, thereby winning Tyler’s heart forever. The little boy joined him. They stood in the middle of the sprinkler, battered by the sparkling rainbows of water until they were both drenched.

Madison watched on the sidelines, hanging on to her daddy’s hand, alternating between taking one step toward them and back, shouting, “Wait! Tyler!”

Tyler took off on the far side of the lawn. “Come on, Lucky. Follow me.”

Madison’s irritation flared. “Tyler! You wait!”

Jonas knelt to whisper something in his daughter’s ear, and she gazed up at him adoringly. The red temper eased from her face. Side by side, it was easy to see how much she resembled her daddy, too. She had his dimpled chin and cowlick at the crown of her head. She had his smile. Without thinking, Danielle lifted the camera to capture the image of father and daughter, hand in hand.

“Dani!” Jonas spotted her. He bent to say something else to Madison and put something in her hand.

What was going on? Danielle could tell by the mischief on the little girl’s face as she ran around the spray of water on her pretty new pink sandals—perhaps the reason she wasn’t running circles through the sprinkler.

“Mommy.” She held out a small white envelope. “Here.”

“Is this from Daddy?”

“Yip. Tyler was s’posed to give it to you, but I git to.” She preened, adorable.

“Thank you. You are the best girl ever.”

“Yip.” As if she’d heard that one too many times, Madison gave a beleaguered sigh. It was hard being the best girl ever, apparently. “Mommy, I wanna sprinkle, too!”

“All right.” She set the camera aside and unbuckled the new shoes. The straps were still a little too stiff for Madison’s fingers, so she helped her out of them.

Madison raced off, bare feet pattering against the cement patio and then muffled in the lush grass. She shouted after Tyler. Lucky leaped and frolicked when she joined them.

Jonas was watching her over the heads of the children and the sparkling sprinkler water. His gaze was steady and watchful and tender—impossibly tender.

Her hands trembled as she opened the flap and pulled out the note written on lined notebook paper.

Jonas had written,
Six o’clock Friday. Prepare to be lifted off your feet.

She had to read it twice, her heart pounding. Friday. Their anniversary. He’d remembered. She only had to look up and see the answer on his face. He was coming her way, the metal of his cane glinting in the sunlight and his step more sure. His nearness was a blessing that bridged the emotional distance between them.

“Who told you this time?” she asked, unable to hide her pleasure or, she supposed, her excitement.

“Between your mom, Katherine and Ava, I think I got the real scoop.” He gave her his full-fledged, all-out-dimpled grin, the one that had always charmed her.

Oh, he had her, heart and soul. She did her best to hide it. He was under enough pressure as it was. “You mean you grilled Katherine, when she was just home from the hospital?”

“Guilty. She seemed awfully happy to tell me what she knew about our third date. So did your mom.”

“Mom? Poor Mom. I don’t know what she could contribute, since I kept her in the dark a lot. You know, I was afraid it wouldn’t work out.”

“You mean you were afraid because you doubted me?”

“Doubt you?” Her heart would stop beating before that ever happened. “No. I doubted myself. I was afraid to believe that this could work out. You were so w-wonderful. You are.”

How could she be flustered like this after almost eight years of marriage? How could it feel the same as it did when they were dating? Her palms were damp, her skin itchy with nerves, her pulse quivering, and beneath all that hope was a terrible dark well of fear. Love, she knew, didn’t always work out.

Sometimes, even happy marriages failed.

Jonas took her hand, the paper she held crinkled, but it was his soul she saw in the dark intensity of his eyes. “I’m not the wonderful one. You blow me away, Dani. I’m not the man you married. I’m not taking care of you or providing for my family—”

“You did those things when you were well, Jonas.”

“I know. And I will do them again. What I’m saying is a lot of women would be resentful or angry. Some women might take a look at their husband leaning on a cane with his hand gnarled up and bail. But not you.”

“You are making me into something I’m not. I love you. That’s what love is.”

“I see that.” He reached out with his hand, his fingertips grazing her cheek. It was not only tenderness in his touch as he caressed her skin. “Do you remember when I first came out of the coma? When I opened my eyes?”

“Do I. That was everything I had been praying for.”

“I was thinking, wow, who is that gorgeous woman and how did I get so blessed to have her sitting at my side?”

“You, sir, are fibbing.”

“No, I’m telling the honest truth.”

“I was a mess. I sat day and night with you. Who knows the last time I had brushed my hair. I had horrible bruises beneath my eyes. It was a wonder that I didn’t scare you back into that coma.”

She doesn’t know, Jonas realized, dumbfounded and touched all at once. After all their years together, she did not know exactly what he saw when he looked at her. His chest tightened with regret. With disappointment in himself. What had been wrong with him that he had hadn’t made sure she knew that every single day of their marriage? “You are my wife. You are the most beautiful sight in the world to me.”

“Oh, Jonas.” She waved away his compliment, blushing, uncomfortable.

He could see that, too. Humility was a good thing, but a wife should believe in her husband’s commitment to her. “The next best are those kids right there. You are, like they are, my world, Dani. Now, more than ever.”

There were no words to tell her she was the reason he stood before her, trying to bare his heart, trying to be the man she loved. Hoping there was a chance she could love the man he was now even more.

Her hand covered his, as soft as warm silk, as welcome as the rarest grace. His heart caught like an engine roaring to life. His soul filled with rare, powerful tenderness he could not quantify. He didn’t need to. Love was filling him up, and it was because of her. Danielle was doing this to him. She was bringing his heart to life.

“Hey!” a man’s voice called out over the sound of the kids and the running water.

The dog yapped with crazy excitement, racing over to the open gate where Spence stood in a grass-stained pair of shorts and a T-shirt. He reached out to rub the dog’s head. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you, buddy?”

The rare moment was broken, but not gone. Jonas twined his fingers with Dani’s and turned to welcome his brother-in-law, who was already surrounded by the dog and the kids.

“We’d better go rescue Spence,” Dani said, moving away from him, her hand leaving his.

It was amazing how she took his heart with her, as if she’d owned it all along.

A
s it turned out, Spence wasn’t alone. Rebecca had come with him driving Jonas’s truck, which sat sparkling clean and waxed in the driveway. They had stayed for supper, and the men were outside with the kids and the dog, while she and Rebecca were doing the cleanup.

Now that she was finally alone with her little sister, Danielle rinsed the sponge at the sink and asked what had been troubling her. “Something is wrong. Spence hasn’t said anything and neither have you, but I can tell. It’s not like you spend a lot of time hanging with Spence.”

“He, ah, thought I shouldn’t sit home alone.” Rebecca was busy stacking the dishwasher and didn’t look up.

She seemed alone and somehow fragile. Danielle left the sponge on the counter and laid a hand on her sister’s shoulder. Something was definitely wrong. “More trouble with Chris?”

“Trouble? No. Not anymore.”

There was nothing but tension in the girl’s shoulder. Nothing but misery in her voice. Danielle’s stomach bunched up tight. Something wasn’t just wrong; it was
really
wrong. “What happened, Becca?”

“I didn’t know how to tell anyone this, but Chris showed up again.”

Maybe it was the tremor in her little sister’s voice that kept her silent, and she waited, not daring to say a thing. She dearly hoped this didn’t mean things were back on with the boyfriend. “Did he want to get back together with you?”

“He did, but I d-didn’t. He got pretty angry. Real angry. I d-didn’t think he would take it so h-hard.”

There were a thousand things Danielle wanted to say—mostly that Rebecca deserved a great man, a perfect man, one who would see all the lovely qualities and gifts in her. But she again kept silent. She searched for the understanding her baby sister needed. “He seems like a man who has a lot of personal problems.”

The happy sounds from the backyard drifted through the open windows. The joyful Ruff! Ruff! of the dog. The kids’ high voices and musical giggles. The low rumble as Jonas laughed along with them.

Rebecca took a shaky breath. “It’s over now. Spence made sure of that for me.”

“Do you mean Chris got violent?”

“I don’t know if it would have come to that. He was pretty enraged. I called Spence and he came over and settled it. The next time he shows up, I’m pressing charges.”

“And why didn’t you do it this time?”

“Because everyone deserves a chance to put their lives together, and he didn’t hurt me. He just yelled.”

As if that wasn’t abusive enough. Danielle hated this. She hated what her sister was going through. “Are you safe?”

“I’m fine. See? This is why I shouldn’t have told you. You’re going to worry. You’re going to confide in everyone else in the family, and the next thing everyone will know what a f-fool I’d been. Believing in something I wanted so badly, and it wasn’t true.”

“Maybe it was what Chris wanted for himself, but wasn’t man enough to stand up for.” Danielle thought of Jonas. No matter what, he had always been the kind of man who stood for what was right, no matter how tough that was. He was a man she could put all her trust in—always had and always would.

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.