After spending the day with Isabella, Daniel drove back to the house as the sky began to soften into evening.
The sun was dipping low, painting the horizon in muted golds and bruised purples, the kind of quiet beauty that only appeared after a long day had wrung everything out of you. Traffic hummed around him, but his mind was elsewhere—still lingering on small hands wrapped around his neck, on questions no child should have learned how to ask, on promises he intended to keep.
The house greeted him with silence when he stepped inside.
Not the lonely kind.
The expectant kind.
Daniel set his keys down slowly, rolling his shoulders as if shedding the weight of the day. Marian would be back soon—he knew in the way he always know her rhythms. Wedding dress shopping with Katherine meant lo
