Her Wedding Wish

“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.