The house smelled of evergreen boughs and baking apple pie, of hollyberry candles and a newly stoked fire. Mikaela paused in the doorway, breathing in the welcoming scent of home. She could see her mother in the kitchen, alone, wiping down the tile countertops. Rose looked up suddenly. Mikaela pressed a finger to her lips and moved silently forward. As she passed the living room, she saw Liam sitting at the piano. Last year’s Sasquatch costume lay heaped on the floor by his feet.

“Where are the kids?” Mike whispered to her mother.

Rosa pointed upstairs. “They are cleaning their bedrooms for you.”

Mike nodded. She could imagine how their bedrooms must look. No doubt Bret had at least a thousand chewy-bar wrappers strung across his desk. He’d probably talked Rosa into buying him Twinkies and Ding Dongs. “Keep them busy for a few minutes, will you?”

“Si.” Rosa started to turn away.

Mikaela touched her mother’s arm. “Gracias, Mama. For everything.”

“De nada, mi hija.” With a quick smile, Rosa headed out of the kitchen and hurried upstairs.

Mikaela took a deep breath. It disconcerted her to see Liam at the piano, with his hands in his lap. She’d missed his music. She hadn’t realized until this moment how much a part of her it had become. Every moment and memory in her life seemed to be accompanied by some piece of music drawn from her husband’s heart.

She tiptoed into the living room. A brightly lit Christmas tree stood in the corner, a thousand sparkling lights reflected in the black picture window. It was the first year ever that she hadn’t chosen the tree and directed the placement of each ornament; it saddened her, this evidence that somehow her family had … gone on.

When she was directly behind Liam, she paused and closed her eyes. Please, God, don’t let it be too late.

“Liam?”

He spun around so fast his knees cracked into the piano bench. When he saw her, he frowned, running a hand through his too-long hair. “You should be at the hospital,” he said, looking awkward and uncertain.

“Tell me it’s not too late.”

He looked confused. “What do you mean?”

She sat down beside him, laid her hand on his forearm. She needed to be touching him, and yet she was afraid to do more. “I wish I were smarter. I know there are words I need right now and I can’t find them. For twelve years, you loved the woman I wanted to be. I used to look at you sometimes, especially when you were with the kids, and the ache in my heart … I wanted to be the kind of wife you deserved. I just … couldn’t.”

He stroked her hair, and she knew that the tenderness of his touch was as natural as breathing. “I know that, Mike, but—”

“I love you.” She flung the words at him, wincing at the high, tinny edge of desperation in her voice.

He yanked his hand back. “Mike, please …”

“I love you,” she said, softer this time. “I want to grow old with you, Liam Campbell. I want to sit on our porch and sip lemonade and watch our children grow up and go on and have children of their own. I want to fix holiday dinners for all of us, and watch our grandchildren learn to walk and talk and have them fall asleep in our arms.” She gazed up at him.

For the first time, she knew it was in her eyes, all the bits and pieces and scraps of love she’d collected over the years. Love, as pure and clean as rainwater, as complex as memories themselves. It was all for him, for this gentle, steady man who’d always been there for her, whose heart she had so carelessly broken in a thousand little ways, in the things she hadn’t said. Hadn’t felt.

“What about Julian?” he asked quietly.

For once, the beloved name hit the hard shell of her rib cage and clattered away. No piece of it reached the tender walls of her heart. “He will always be a part of me … but now, I can put him where he belongs—in the past. Part of my wayward youth that was lived too hard and too fast and in a world that wasn’t real.” She caressed his cheek; it was a soft, fleeting touch. She hadn’t the courage for more. “It was real, what I felt for Jules; I’ll never deny that. No more lying to myself or to you or the kids. I loved Julian True. But it was a fragile love that didn’t pass the test of time. When it broke apart, I never let it go. I held the pieces together, thinking—dreaming—that they’d magically fuse again. I was so busy holding them, I never noticed the emptiness in my hands.” Tears stung her eyes. “I was a fool, Liam. And it took a smack upside the head to make me see the truth. You’re the one I love, and if you’ll give me another chance, I’ll love you until the day I die. You’ll never, ever wonder again.”

“I’ve always loved you, Mike,” he said simply.

Tears blurred her vision. “I know.”

Slowly he smiled, and now it was in his eyes, too, that love they’d built together over all these years. She could see it, feel it warming her. “I missed you. God, for twelve years, I missed you.”

How was it that the profound simplicity of those words had the power to rock her world? Never again would she lose sight of what mattered, not for a day or an hour or even a minute. She would treasure every instant of her life from now on, for she knew something now, a deep truth that had eluded her all of her life. Love wasn’t a great, burning brushfire that swept across your soul and charred you beyond recognition. It was being there, simply that. It was a few people, standing together in a living room, trimming a Christmas tree with the decorations that represented the sum total of who they were, where they’d been, what they believed in.

It was simple, everyday moments that laid like bricks, one atop another, until they formed a foundation so solid that nothing could make them fall. Not wind, not rain … not even the faded, watercolor memories of a once-brushfire passion.

Nothing.

“Play me a song.”

Something passed through his eyes; it almost looked like fear. Then, slowly, he faced the piano and lifted his hands. For a split second, his fingers floated hesitantly above the keys, and absurdly, she thought he doesn’t play anymore—

Gently, he began to play. He chose their song, “A Time for Us,” and the sweet, familiar music filled the room. She thought she heard him breathe a soft sigh, as if in relief, and when he finished the song, he turned to her.

“Hey, piano man,” she said in a throaty voice, “take your wife to bed.”

He laughed and stood up, drawing her up alongside him. “I know, I know, or lose my chance.”

She held onto him, unable to stop touching him, even for a moment. “You already lost your chance, Liam Campbell. You should have run when I was in a coma. Now you’re stuck with me.” She pressed up onto her tiptoes and kissed him with fifteen years of pent-up passion. When she drew back, she whispered the word that had brought her through the darkness: “Forever.”