Chapter 1

The Doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," she said.

She opened the door to see a face she hadn't seen in four long years.

"Danny, you're home!"

"Yeah, squirt ... I am! Man, I would have never recognized you. You've gotten so pretty."

She grinned at him and said, "You're just saying that because you're my brother, and you have to!"

"No, do I have to do this," he said, picking her up and giving her a kiss ... right on the lips.

She was so taken by this new and improved version of her older brother. They didn't notice their parents walking into the room.

"Danny, Sandy ... what the hell are you doing?" their father said.

She pulled away long enough to say, "It's Danny, daddy ... he's home from college. Isn't that great?"

"Yeah, it is ... but I don't want to kiss him on the mouth, like I just walked in seeing you do."

"Danny," his mother said, "It's so good to see you. Are you home for the summer, or for good?"

"Well, Dad promised I had a job, if I came home in four years with a Degree in my pocket!" he said, reaching inside the jacket he was wearing, "Here it is! When do I start?"

"DAMN!" This is a real degree? You didn't copy somebody else's, and insert your name?"

"That was the old Daniel Olson, Pop ... troublemaker extraordinaire. I guess I deserved that. What with all the crap I made you guys put up with all the while I was in high school. I turned over a new leaf, was top of my class. I got an accumulative GPA of 4.21, all in four years, on a track scholarship no less."

"Well, I never got a call from you asking for money, so welcome home!" Daniel Senior said.

Later, up in his room...

"So, big brother, did you break a bunch of hearts at college?" his adorable sister said to him.

"What?"

"I said, did you have a lot of girls ... following you around?"

"Not a single one, Sandy. Why have a girlfriend at college, when I had you here at home to come home to?"

"What's that supposed to mean ... you're my brother?" she said, sighing at the thought of what he had just said.

"Didn't Mom and Dad ever tell you?"

"Tell me what?" she answered as he took her hand in his.

He sat on his bed, and put her on his lap, "I'm adopted, that means we can be a couple, forever ... if you'd like. They told me, as I left for college and said they would tell you while I was gone. I told Dad, when he explained it all to me that I was already in love with someone, but college was first."

"And you told him, you were in love... with me?" she said so quietly, only he could've heard it.

In an instant, they were kissing again, this time ... she had a reason to kiss him back.

"KIDS, come down stairs please?" they heard their mother yell.

They walked downstairs holding hands. Dad noticed and said something to his wife.

"Because Danny's home, we're going OUT to dinner. Your father is paying," Olivia said.

They all got in their father's Mercedes E63 AMG Sedan; he got only four months earlier. Danny was a gentleman, opening the door for his sister, and getting in the other side.

"Apparently, your brother has told you what Olivia and I have neglected to tell you, these past four years. I'm sorry we kept that from you, Sandra. We had planned to talk to you that same day, but I got a call from work, and since then ... it's been easy to keep procrastinating until today."

"Sandra," her mom added, "We really did plan to tell you, and we're so very sorry that it came as such a surprise this afternoon."

"How old was I when y-you got him?" Sandy said, frustrated over this long-overdue secret.

"We've had him since he was three and a half years old, three months later I was pregnant with you. We had the perfect nuclear family, until Danny's biological parents died five years ago. They left him some money and their home. He's sat on all of that, waiting for you. He wanted to have his schooling done..."