Her Wedding Wish. Jillian Hart

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.