“Look, Grandfather Arthur!” Chloe laughed, her voice ringing out across the bridge. “The water is totally clean! You can see the trout all the way to the bottom!”
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Arthur laughed—a rich, deep, joyful rumble that filled every corner of his chest—and kissed his granddaughter’s forehead.
“The water is clean, Chloe,” Arthur whispered, holding her tight against his heart.
“And the road ahead is ours forever.”
***
Eighteen months later.
The Christmas Eve twilight over Hawthorn Ridge was a breathtaking expanse of crushed violet and liquid amber, washing the snow-draped limestone bluffs in soft, sacred warmth.
The eight-thousand-square-foot fieldstone manor house was no longer an empty monument to memory.
From the wide, open-concept country kitchen in the east wing, the aroma of a thirty-pound heritage bronze turkey roasting with fresh sage, bubbling sweet potato casserole with toasted pecans, and three large cast-iron skillets of buttermilk cornbread drifted through the corridors, mingling with the cheerful sound of three people laughing around a heavy butcher-block island.
