Dan dropped to his knees beside the playpen to get closer to the three little people who had been instrumental in getting him to finally come home. Something stirred within him as he watched them for a moment.
“Hi, kids.”
Again he received an uneven chorus echoing the greeting. Kate pulled herself up to her feet and made her way over to him. She offered him a sunny smile and just like that, she took him prisoner.
Dan ran his hand along her silky hair. “She’s going to be a charmer,” he told Jamie.
“What do you mean ‘going to be’?” Jamie asked. “She already is one.”
“You’re right,” Dan laughed, unable to take his eyes off the little girl. “My mistake.”
* * *
Dan spent the next hour getting to know his brother’s children as well as his brother’s wife. It was the best hour he could remember spending in the last twelve years.
But then it was time to put the triplets down for a nap.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave the room now,” Fallon told him, apologizing. “I’ll never get them down for their naps if you’re in eyesight.”
“I understand,” Dan said. He was already at the bedroom door, although he did pause for one last backward glance.
“They’re something else, aren’t they?” Jamie said with pride.
“They’re beautiful kids,” Dan agreed. And then he thought of the circumstances that Jamie had been forced to go through shortly after the triplets’ birth. “You must have had a really hard time coping right after Paula’s death,” Dan said with immense sympathy. Again, he fervently wished he could have been there for Jamie.
“It was hard,” Jamie admitted. “But Fallon wasn’t kidding. It felt like the whole town pitched in to help. Otherwise, quite honestly, I don’t know what would have happened or what I would have done. When you have just two hands and three kids, the numbers aren’t exactly in your favor,” he told his brother, his words underscored with a good-natured laugh.
Dan had been under the impression that Fallon had really meant a few people at best. But there was no reason for Jamie to exaggerate. That hadn’t been in the nature of the boy he’d known.
“The whole town?” Dan asked in amazement, just to be sure.
“Yeah, the whole town.” Jamie paused for a moment before adding, “Anne helped, too.”
The mere mention of her name was like a fissure in the dam. The crack split open, spewing forth a deluge of memories upon Daniel.
“Have you been by to see Anne since you got back?” Jamie asked, breaking into his thoughts.
Not a day had gone by in the last twelve years that Dan hadn’t wanted to see Anne Lattimore. That he hadn’t wanted to pack up his meager belongings and find Annie. But he had staunchly never given in to that desire.
Mainly because he was convinced that she was far better off without him.
And even now, as he stood in his brother’s house, battling the urge to ride up and see the woman he had loved practically from the first moment he’d drawn breath, a part of him still felt that she would be better off if he just left well enough alone.
“No,” Dan answered quietly, “I haven’t. When I came into town, I didn’t stop anywhere else. I came straight to your place.”
“I appreciate that, I really do,” Jamie told him. “But if you ask me, I think that you really should go see her.”
Jamie was tempted to say more, but he stopped himself. He pressed his lips together, as if physically blocking the words that had risen to his tongue.
“Maybe later,” Dan demurred.
“There’s already been too much ‘later,’ Danny. Twelve years of ‘later.’ You need to go see her. Now. Before any more time is lost. You can’t get that time back. And the more you drag your feet, the more time you lose,” Jamie insisted.
“When did you get this philosophical bent?” Dan asked, amused.
“Right about the time that I realized that I’d been in love with Fallon for a long time and needed to make her aware of it. Now, no more talk. It’s still early. Go!” He opened the front door and all but pushed his brother out. “And when you’ve seen Anne and talked to her,” he told Dan, “you can come back here—to your home.”
She missed him.
After all this time, she still missed him. Not every minute of every day the way she once had. Sometimes, Anne Lattimore could go a whole week without feeling that awful, painful hollowness boring a gaping hole into the pit of her stomach and working its way out to her soul. And then, suddenly, without giving her any warning, the feeling would be back, descending on her with its full weight, making her ache.
Making her remember.
And then she would have to struggle to fight her way back out of the oppressive pit. Back into the light of day. Back into her life as a single mother and a full-time receptionist at Dr. Brooks Smith’s Veterinary Clinic.
Heaven knew there was enough in her life to keep her busy and most of the time, she was. Very busy. It was only during those evenings when Hank, her ex, would pick up Janie to have her stay overnight with him and the house was extra quiet that her mind would unearth images of Danny Stockton. That was when she would feel tormented.
Tormented, because even now she couldn’t make peace with the fact that he had left town without saying anything.
Left her without saying anything.
After everything they had meant to one another...
No, Anne upbraided herself, she had only thought that they had meant so much to one another. Obviously, she hadn’t meant to Danny nearly as much as he had meant to her.
She knew all the facts by now, having ferreted them out over the years. She knew that Danny’s grandparents had refused to be responsible for him and his older brothers. Knew that they had all but told him and his brothers to leave. But if she had meant something to him, if Danny had loved her the way she loved him, he would have found a way to stay.
And if he couldn’t abide staying in Rust Creek Falls, if he wanted to go somewhere else, she would have gone anywhere in the world with him. All he would have had to do was say that he wanted her to come with him and she would have left in a heartbeat. Left town, left her family, left her dreams of going to college. Left it all for Danny.
All he would have had to do was ask.
But he didn’t ask.
Instead, he just disappeared without a trace, like some magician’s big trick.
Even so, her pride badly wounded, she’d still tried to find him. But no one knew where Danny and his two brothers had gone. It was like they had vanished into thin air. Eventually, she gave up trying to find him, decided to go on with her life and went off to college.
And then Hank Harlow had happened in her life. It wasn’t long after they met that Hank, clearly smitten, asked her to marry him. Ten years her senior, Hank wouldn’t allow the age difference to get in the way. He told her that all he wanted to do was to make her happy.
Anne turned him down as gently as possible.
But Hank wouldn’t be deterred. He kept after her, always the well-mannered gentleman, but at the same time, completely determined.
Eventually, he wore her down.
Or more to the point, Anne’s