She shook her head no.
“He wants another chance with you,” Ben told her.
Danni lifted her head and looked him in the eye. “Seriously?”
Ben nodded. “We both told him it was too late. We loved him, but he only got one chance with you,” Ben told her.
She laid her head against her brother’s chest again and he squeezed her shoulders before planting a kiss against her head. “Dan, you can’t do this again. You almost didn’t make it the first time when he left. He’s only here for a few months.”
She nodded then she tucked her legs up to her chest and Ben rocked them on the swing. “You need to date someone.” She almost laughed at him. What if she told him the one man she was interested in didn’t want her.
“You need to date someone,” she countered.
He laughed. “Why me?”
“Because you would make somebody a great boyfriend,” she informed him.
He scoffed at that notion. “What about when I want to go hunting or fishing?”
“Find someone who is understanding or wants to hunt or fish with you,” she told him.
He shook his head. “That’s Elijah’s role in my life.” She shook her head at him. She could feel the movement of his head against hers. “What happens if Elijah meets someone? He’s twenty-nine,” she declared. “Neither of you are getting any younger.”
Ben snorted at his younger sister. “Elijah stands about a snowball’s chance in hell of finding a woman before me and no woman understands hunting or wants to trudge through wet fields in the early morning hours waiting for deer to poke their head out of the woods or wants to see them get shot. They see deer and think Bambi, not food.”
She eyed her brother so maybe he was a little rough around the edges, but he had a big heart. He had to be lonely. He spent all his time with their brothers. “You going to grow old with our brothers?” She asked him.
“Maybe,” he declared not committing to an answer one way or another.
Danni laughed at him.
“What about you?” He asked.
“I just didn’t feel it with Andy. Somebody will come along,” she told him believing that love had to find you and he was usually asleep in her barn or her shed depending on which one of them you asked.
“Jackson?” He asked.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Been there, done that, got nothing to show for it but a broken heart and an inability to trust the opposite sex. No thank you.”
He kissed her temple. “You have to work in the morning at Grandad’s. You need to get some sleep.” He rose from the swing. She didn’t follow him. Ben looked back at his sister. “Aren’t you going inside to go to bed?” He asked.
“Soon,” Danni replied.
He shook his head and walked across the porch. At the bottom of the steps, he hesitated. “Dan, I know it was hard seeing him again but don’t let him get under your skin.”
“Sure, Benny.”
She watched her brother’s broad back as he retreated to his truck. He waved at the door before he slipped inside and backed out of the drive onto the street in front of her house. He just lived down the road, a mile or so in a double-wide, trailer with her other brother, Elijah. Danni wondered where Elijah was tonight. Usually the two of them were together, so much so that Danni was beginning to think they were attached at the hip but not tonight. Strange?
She headed to the front door at three-thirty, not sure that she would be able to sleep but she had to try. Grandad’s garage opened at ten in the morning. She needed some sleep. She heard a rustle in the bushes and hesitated. Then she walked to the end of the porch. “Walker,” she said his name.
“Mind if I sleep in your barn tonight?” His deep voice was low and had a sexy quality that sent a shiver up her spine.
“The sofa is still made up. Come inside,” she told him. It was chilly tonight. The barn would be cold.
He shook his head no. “Barn’s okay.” He hesitated halfway across the yard. Danni could barely see him in the shadows. Then she heard the barn door shut and she knew that he was inside.
Danni walked across the porch. She really should go to bed. She wanted to see him though. She walked to the edge of the porch and glanced at the barn again. She turned away though and headed inside.