That was it. The fight against tears was a battle she could no longer win. “I love you,” she choked out before burying her face against his neck.
The family reacted like usual, going on about their business as if there wasn’t a blubbering woman in their midst. It gave Becky time to pull herself together.
Somewhere in there, Arabella got passed around to be greeted by everyone in the family. Kisses from cousins, aunts and uncles, and her adoring Grandma and Grampa, Kate snapping pictures.
Becky thought about the Coleman memory book that was being put together and wondered how to wrap up something as rich and full as what she felt at that moment and put it into words.
Impossible.
And yet, out there, waiting for more conversation, was a man she had known for a brief time who had impacted her world beyond imagining. Mark was a memory, but so much more.
Maybe family memories weren’t only a snapshot of this moment or that. Perhaps it was somehow about how each tiny bit of family built on what had come before.
Becky’s gaze met Trevor’s across the room as he finished taking Arabella back from his father.
The bed dipped beside her, and Becky glanced over to discover Rachel resting on an elbow, smiling like the Cheshire cat. “You done good, sweetie. I’m looking forward to raising our babies together.”
Becky nodded, smiling through the tears. “That’s the best part of this. The love’s just going to keep growing and growing, isn’t it?”
Rachel blinked back a few tears of her own. “Pretty much. And we wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Coleman Memory Book
~Lee & Rachel (Moonshine) Coleman~
~Lee~
Winter in Alberta triggers a million memories all by itself. Snow caves, ATVs stuck in the drifts. Freezing cold fingers. Hot Chinook winds that unexpectedly melted the snow base and left our skidoos stranded. It took forever to walk home, our feet soggy messes by the end of it. The Coleman land is pretty big, and there’s a lot of nooks and crannies to get lost in.
But the winter memory that hits the deepest is from when I was about ten. Mom had made us drinks, and all of us sat by the fire, the wind howling outside the windows. We were trapped for three days. Other than chores in the nearest barn, we didn’t leave the house. Didn’t see or hear from anyone.
Trevor cheated at Monopoly every time Anna didn’t watch close enough. Steve practiced the same damn song over and over on the guitar. I’m sure I did something annoying in retaliation.
Mom and Dad sat in the love seat and held hands as they stared at the storm whirling outside. They were so connected that, as a kid, it made me feel safe. The world might disappear, but they would never change or leave us.
I learned a lot watching them. I’m still learning from them.
[Images of snowy winter scenes. A snow drift piled higher than the man door of the barn. Four children in snowsuits, grinning. Three lopsided snowmen with two adults standing between them and pretending to also be snowmen. The man wore a top hat, the woman a scarf, both with arms held out as if they were branches, carrots poking forward from their mouths.]
~Rachel~
I guess I have a winter memory as well.
Getting stuck in a cabin with Lee was a game changer. It’s funny, because I went there alone to put aside a bunch of sadness in my life, but if I’d had that cabin all to myself, I don’t think it really would’ve happened.
I learned that sad memories aren’t things that you can burn up, or drink away, or shove aside and not deal with. Sometimes you need to face them, but I think mostly you need to have something new to fill the aching hole in your soul.
That’s the biggest memory I have regarding coming into the Coleman family. Sometimes love comes when you don’t expect, from the direction you least expect.
From whom you least expect.
11
They’d made good time. Dana Coleman smiled as her daughter-in-law Laurel pulled into the yard outside Becky and Trevor’s house.
“There’s a big truck in the yard,” Laurel noted. “But not Trevor’s. I wonder if he’s home?”
Dana laughed. “You know that doesn’t mean anything. That boy still offers his truck to everyone and anyone.”
“True.”
Dana pointed toward the open spot with a cleared path through the snow to the front door. “If Becky’s here, she can tell us where to put things. If she’s not, we’ll do what we can to unpack the groceries we brought her so things are out of the way.”
“If you get the door, I’ll grab the first bags,” Laurel offered.
It was slick underfoot, but Dana made her way to the front porch with no problem. Her other daughter-in-law, Allison, had given her a new pair of boots with some magical material on the sole that made her footing solid enough Dana could skip over ice if she wanted to.
Not that she wanted to. In fact, this year’s winter could be over sooner than later, Dana decided. Although she knew better than to voice that opinion out loud, in March, in Alberta. If history was anything to go by, they could have snow all the way up until June, especially if anybody complained that it had been a long, hard winter.
She cracked open the door and offered a cheery hello, not really expecting a response. “Becky? It’s Auntie Dana. We’ve got the stuff you asked for from the Costco run.”
When nothing but silence echoed back, Dana slipped off her boots and got ready to transfer the bags from the front door into the kitchen.
“Dana?”
She jerked to attention so hard, one sock-covered foot slid to the side, sending her off-balance.
A moment later, strong arms caught her before she could lose her dignity and land on the floor in a heap. Strong, masculine arms—not ones that belonged to her nephew.
She glanced up into blue eyes, and the world stuttered to a stop.
An older man cradled her carefully, her age or thereabouts, his features declaring he was Coleman plain as day. Each of the brothers had the unique twist of them. Kate had always teased it was their personalities coming out—
Mike was serious yet kind. The type of man you willingly told your troubles to, and if he couldn’t solve them immediately, he’d sympathize and do his damnedest to make things right.
Randy was the Coleman peacemaker, with laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and scars on his knuckles, because if he couldn’t jokingly convince others he was right, he’d pick a fight and convince them that way.
Ben—the Coleman brother who’d been hers—had been grumpy around everyone else, but in the early days, he’d had a sharp wit and a clever eye and a wry way of saying things that always made her laugh.
The man standing in front of her now, the brother she hadn’t seen in too many years to count, was the one with mystery in his expression. Even when they’d been friends at school, he’d always seemed to have something he wasn’t quite saying.
“Mark?”
He was tall—taller than she remembered to be honest. The years that had passed had written themselves onto his face the same as changes had come to her. Lines at the corners of his eyes, but still a strong jaw, firm lips.
Strong muscles flexed under his shirt as he helped her find her balance then stepped away.