Rain fell in thick sheets that drenched Rebecca’s riding habit within a minute of leaving the livery, but she would not turn back. Her heart thundered and her thoughts flashed like lightning bolts through her mind. Would Adam be there? Why hadn’t he given her father a message? Did he still love her? Or had she hurt him too deeply and completely broken his heart?
On and on her thoughts struck with searing pain as she rode toward the willow tree.
Despite the downpour the rocky creek bed was low as Star picked her way along its loamy shore. The rain was as necessary as the summer sunshine that was scorching the grass. Rebecca needed Adam like the willow and the creek needed the rain. If he didn’t come home... if he wouldn’t meet her... She shook her head unable to bear the pain of that outcome.
“Adam, please be there,” she whispered.
But he wasn’t there when she arrived at the willow.
“Adam?” she called, hoping he was just hidden inside the umbrella of drooping, dripping branches.
Not a word or a wave hello or the sight of his handsome face welcomed her.
“Oh, Adam...” Her whispered heartbreak seemed to speak to her mare.
Star walked to the tree, pushed through the long dangling branches and stopped inside as she’d apparently done many times before. Rain poured down through the tree, splattering across the sodden ground.
Unmindful of the deluge, Rebecca leaned forward and draped herself over her mare’s neck. “You remember, don’t you, my beauty? You’re telling me we’ve been here before.” Pressing her face to the horses’ wet coat, Rebecca choked back a hard sob. “He’s not coming home...”
Star shifted her hooved feet, sinking in the saturated earth beneath the tree. She shuddered her shoulders, blowing out a gruff whinny as if to tell Rebecca to get off and stand on her own two feet.
Swallowing hard, Rebecca gathered her sodden skirt and dismounted. Her boots sank deep into the fecund earth. For a few minutes she stood in the rainfall uncaring about her clothes. She removed her hat and raised her face to the rain. “Dear God, please wash away this pain. I can’t bear it...”
She didn’t know how long she stood there thinking about Adam and all she’d lost or when exactly the urge came over her to search for whatever it was she felt she’d lost beneath the tree, but she found herself pacing off six steps from the trunk of the willow. There, she sank to her knees unmindful of the mud and runnels of water pooling around her skirt. She took up the closest sizable stone and began scraping the soggy earth, turning up decayed leaves and small sticks and pebbles. Something important was here. She didn’t know it—she felt it. And so she dug until she had scraped an area several inches wide.
Rain splattered across her head and shoulders, tumbling her hair down her back in a sodden mess. Soaked to the skin, she methodically dragged her fingers through the earth letting the rain wash over her as she dug up leaves and twigs and pebbled earth.
She knew the instant her fingers rolled over the stone what she’d been looking for.
The stone in her skirt pocket was a worry stone. Adam’s stone was in her muddy hand. He’d left it here along with his heartache for the rain to wash clean.
These scraps of memory tortured her as if her mind were a prisoner being fed just enough to keep her alive. A sob burst from her throat and she wept hard and deep. She wanted to remember everything about their stones and the memories they had surely made beneath this tree.
The rain had delayed his trip to Fredonia, but Adam went to the willow tree anyway. Rebecca wouldn’t be out in the deluge, of course. He knew that. But he needed to go there.
He needed to get his legs beneath him. They felt weak and shaky as if they feared the uncertainty of their direction. Should he go see her? Should he turn around and walk away before Rebecca tore out another piece of his heart? His indecision was playing havoc with his body as much as his head.
Rain pounded his shoulders and splattered noisily against the rocks around him. Thick runnels of water streamed across the rocky shore and drained into the creek. Head down to shield his face from the stinging rain drops, he barely looked where he was going. He’d walked the creek so many times he could do it by rote. When he approached the flat rock by the bend in the creek he knew that he’d reached the willow tree. Parting the wet branches, he stepped inside and removed his hat to dump the water off.
Rebecca’s beautiful black mare stood across from him, her coat and saddle wet, her mane sparkling with raindrops.
Beside Star, kneeling on the sodden ground was Rebecca. Rain — and tears? — streamed down her face as she looked up at him. Her hands were covered in mud and she was drenched.
“I remembered our worry stones,” she said. “I remember the baby we delivered and that my mother didn’t give birth to me. During our trip to Crane Landing I was daydreaming as you and Daddy said, but I was actually remembering the trip I took to Buffalo with Grandma when I was nine. She was the lady with red hair that I talked with. I recalled a story my grandfather told me and why we buried our stones here. But there’s one thing I simply must ask you, Adam. I hope for our sake that it’s true, but for your sake it isn’t.”
Finding her here... soaked, digging in the earth and talking in riddles he couldn’t understand, scared him nearly as much as the fall that had stolen her memories. “Rebecca, darling, what’s wrong? You can ask me anything. You know that.”
Her dark tear-filled eyes locked with his. “Was your mother a prostitute?”
Her question hit him like a fist in the stomach, punching his breath out on a gasp. “Is this why you have reservations about marrying me?” he asked. He understood why, but it tore him apart.
“Please, Adam. Forgive me, but I must know.”
“Yes,” was all he said because he couldn’t squeeze another word past the lump in his throat.
A small sob burst from her mouth and she rocked on her knees. “It seems our mothers made the same poor choices.”
“The same choices?”
She nodded, tears slipping from her eyes. “Different circumstances, but the same outcome only my mother has a wealthier sponsor. Oh, Adam, I’m so sorry to ask this of you, but knowing that these thoughts are actual memories and not the result of an unstable mind, is such a...” Her voice broke and she struggled to finish. She opened her clenched fist and showed him the stone he’d buried on a few weeks ago. “These thoughts... these memories are all I might ever get back, but they are real memories and not the thoughts of a madwoman. Adam, if this is enough for you, I’d like to... I want...” She bit her lip as tears flowed from her eyes. As he stood in stunned surprise, a hard sob burst from her and she wept as she gazed up at him. “I miss you so deeply, Adam...”
He fell to his knees and pulled her into his arms. “Rebecca... my darling... my beautiful wonderful lifelong sweetheart, what is happening?” he asked, rocking her in his arms.
“I don’t remember our love, Adam. I feel it.” She leaned back and met his eyes, her own dark and filled with pain. “I feel it.” She pressed her muddy fist to her chest. “I know our love, Adam—in my heart. Everything is in my heart and it’s tearing me apart.”
Another sob broke her confession.
He held her as the rain poured over the tree and splattered down upon them. It plastered their clothing to their bodies and their hair to their heads. And there was nowhere else he could have wanted to be in that moment. He could barely believe that Rebecca was in his arms sharing her memories and acknowledging their love.
She loved him.
Her feelings were honest and true and from the woman she’d become through the years and heartaches and hardships of her life. She hadn’t fallen in love because of her memories of him or their teen love. They were moving forward instead of backward. Adam had been going back for so long; back to Fredonia... back to Rebecca... back to the dream of a young boy that he’d never considered another direction. Rebecca had no choice but to move forward from where she was right now. She was doing her best to “grow where she was planted.” And he hadn’t seen it. He hadn’t heard Rebecca. He hadn’t allowed a single other possibility into his mind for fear of losing everything that had kept him going during his years away. Ironically, his desperate need to cling to his past had nearly ruined his future and he’d almost lost the only thing that had ever mattered to him—Rebecca.
Rain streamed over her head and off the ends of her hair. “To know you were willing to sacrifice everything you’d dreamed of rather than force me into something I wasn’t ready for is...” — she pressed her hand to her chest — “it takes my breath away,” she whispered. “You’re such a noble and selfless man and I’m deeply honored by your love.”
Shaken to his core, Adam cupped her wet face in his palms. “I’m sorry I pushed you. It’s just... I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. If you need more time, Rebecca, I’ll wait for you. Whatever you need, I’ll respect your wishes.”
"I don’t need time, Adam. I just had to know I wasn’t losing my mind. The only thing I need is you.”
They both reached for each other, clinging to one another as their need for each other consumed them. Adam finally held the girl he’d been missing and the woman he’d fallen in love with.
Rebecca clung to the man she adored and the sweet boy she had recognized in his letters.
There in the sacred space beneath their willow they found each other again. Rain poured over them, washing away the pain they had carried for so long. The storm in their life was passing, and in its wake came sunshine. The broken limbs would heal and life would flourish again.
One week later, holding her father’s sturdy loving arm, Rebecca stood beside him on their porch where she and Adam had shared so many childhood secrets and spent years flirting and falling in love and dreaming of their future.
She didn’t remember it all, yet, and it no longer mattered.
Adam’s longtime friend, Leo, stood as his best man and in some unspoken way represented their past.
Rebecca’s maid of honor, Mary Crane, who had traveled to Fredonia with her family and Leo, stood beneath the oak tree with them awaiting a new, healthy Rebecca who was beginning to remember moments in her life—small nearly insignificant moments like sewing curtains or braiding her sisters’ hair to big events like receiving Star for her sixteenth birthday and dancing in Adam’s arms for the very first time.
“Are you ready, sprite?” her father asked, his eyes perhaps a bit misty and shining with love.
She was ready. “Yes, Daddy. I’ve been waiting a very long time for this day,” she said, not because she remembered waiting, but because she felt the years of longing. She knew the love she and Adam had shared and cherished for a decade. It filled her now and she embraced it with her whole being.
As her father walked her down the porch stairs and across the lawn to where Adam and the others waited, Rebecca glanced at her family and friends who were gathered together to witness and celebrate her day.
Dawson Crane stood at her grandmother’s side—in friendship? In love? Definitely in support and that’s all that mattered to Rebecca.
Her mother and siblings were beside them, smiles on their faces, love in their eyes. Rebecca’s heart surged with emotion. Oh, how she loved them with all the differences that made them each unique and the similarities that made them... family. Her family.
Her aunts and uncles and their children were spit shined in their Sunday best. Close friends of the family, some Rebecca remembered meeting like Aunt Tansy, Leo’s mother who was beside herself to have her beloved Leo home again, and Aunt Aster who was married to Doc Milton, were there. A slew of other aunts and uncles were there with their children. Family friends, like Helen Fiske, whom Rebecca didn’t remember, but would happily reacquaint herself with after the ceremony, completed the gathering of over forty people.
Rebecca’s smile shone for every person there whose lives had touched hers in some way or another. She wrapped them in thoughts of love and gratitude and hoped she would someday remember how their lives intertwined. For now, it was enough to know they were there because her parents and Adam loved them.
Adam...
Her heart and her eyes turned to the man waiting beneath the oak tree. To think that this tall, handsome man in his perfectly cut, three-piece black suit was waiting for her took her breath away. He’d waited for ten years. He’d educated himself and apprenticed and made himself into a worldly man capable of taking care of her. He’d done all of that for her. When she was lost in the darkness of her own mind he brought her back into the safe, comforting light of their love.
She knew this man—and she loved him.
With great joy she walked to him on her father’s arm.
Adam’s heart pounded as Pastor Ainsley asked, “Who gives this beautiful young lady to this special young man?”
Rebecca’s father said, “I do—and with great honor.” With Rebecca still on his strong arm, he turned to their guests. “I have never seen a man work so hard or give so much of himself in the name of love as this young man has done. In the ten years I’ve known Adam, he has taught me more about humility and honor—and love—than most folks learn in a lifetime. He believes he needs to live up to the Grayson name, but it is I who feels privileged to have him carry on the Grayson family name.” He turned to Adam, who stood in stunned surprise. “I haven’t been easy on you, Adam, and I’ve asked a lot, not because I doubted you but because I knew the caliber of your character and that you deserved to reach the goals you’d set for yourself. You’ve surpassed my expectations at every turn. I’m pleased and honored you chose my daughter as your lifelong companion, Adam, and I wish you both every happiness. I know you will love her and protect her and be a good father to your children. This day... this moment, I give my daughter into your safekeeping.” With those words, Radford lifted his daughter’s hand, once so tiny she could barely circle his finger with her own, and placed that precious hand in the palm of a man who would move a mountain for her.
It was time for him to let go.
And time for Adam and Rebecca to realize their dream.
In that moment Adam knew the journey had been worthwhile.
Time seemed to slow, as if this moment they had anticipated for ten long years was theirs and would be lived breath by breath.
Rebecca passed her bouquet—a small sprig of wildflowers tied to Princess Cecily’s mirror with a pink satin ribbon—to Mary. “This belongs to you and your family. Thank you for being my true friend.”
Mary’s mouth parted and her eyes welled up, but she managed a small nod and a wobbly smile.
When Rebecca turned back to Adam, her face shone with love and certainty. He could see in her eyes that she wanted this moment, this love, and their marriage as deeply as he did.
He slipped his hands around hers and gave them a gentle squeeze. Her eyes, dark as the earth beneath their feet, drank him in.
As Adam stood in the midst of family and friends with his beautiful bride, he realized he had reached manhood with the traits of a Grayson man. He loved his wife and family. He respected and helped his neighbors. He valued honor above all and would always live his life with integrity. Looking into Rebecca’s beautiful eyes, he knew there was nothing he wanted more than what was in front of him. He didn’t need the past because Rebecca was here, now, ready to become his wife.
Emotion tightened his throat, but his hands were steady and his heart beat solid and strong as he spoke his vows. “It’s taken us a long time to get here, Rebecca, but this is our moment,” he said, rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles. “I promise to always honor the spirit of the girl who loves skipping stones, climbing the rocky walls of the gorge, and driving our Sleigh of Hope each year as we help our neighbors. I promise to respect and cherish the woman who loves barn dances and fireworks and riding like the wind on her beautiful mare. All you are and all you’ll ever become is precious to me, Rebecca. I admire your passion for life, your tremendous courage, and the joyful spirit in which you greet each day. Wherever our journey takes us I will walk beside you solid and certain in my love for you. I pledge my heart to you and will love and protect you and our children all the days of my life.”
Tears brimmed Rebecca’s eyes and her hands trembled in his. “I know our path to marriage has been a winding road, Adam. But no matter what we find along the way I’ll always recognize the warmth of your spirit and the sense of homecoming I feel in your arms,” she said. “I’m deeply honored to be marrying a man who would sacrifice his life to save another.” She gave a small nod to indicate she knew the truth about Micah Crane’s rescue and why the Crane family was moved to give him such a precious heirloom. “I promise not to taunt you when I win at croquet and to let you occasionally beat me when we skip stones.” The laughter—hers and Adam’s and their guests—was laced with tears. When Rebecca got hold of her emotions and wiped her wet cheeks, she continued. “I want our love to soar like the seagulls at Crane Landing, to expand and fill our lives as the wind filled those beautiful sails when the schooners sailed out of the harbor. I will cross oceans and climb rickety lighthouse stairs with you, Adam, but we don’t have to because...” She swallowed and inhaled as if she needed to make way for the word “... because the only place I truly need to be is in your arms. So wherever our lives may lead us let our path be filled with joy and love and... and babies.”
Another wave of laughter and sniffling surrounded them.
As they gazed at each other with love-filled eyes, Pastor Ainsely pronounced them married and nodded for Adam to kiss his bride.
Finally, in a moment Adam had waited years to experience, he cupped Rebecca’s face in his palms and kissed his wife with tender adoration.
Rebecca’s eyes flooded but her smile shone light and love on all.
They exchanged hugs with Leo and Mary. Then together they turned to their family and guests as Mr. and Mrs. Adam Grayson.
As their guests surged forward with joyful hearts to hug and congratulate them, Rebecca stepped into her father’s waiting arms. He rocked her as if she were still his little girl. In some way she knew she would always be his little girl, and that knowledge warmed her heart.
Her proud, strong uncles hugged her to their hard chests where she felt the solid beat of their loving hearts as they wished her great happiness. They turned her loose with a kiss on her cheek, and then, one-by-one they gave her husband, Adam Dearborn Grayson, a hearty backslapping hug and a lot of good-natured ribbing that made his face and ears red. Laughing, Rebecca turned to their other guests and embraced Helen Fiske, the longtime friend she couldn’t remember but knew in her heart.
With his face burning from his uncles’ private heckling, Adam was still laughing when Boyd shoved a glass into his hand.
“I need another lemonade, young blood.”
“Oh, boy,” Kyle said, stepping back with his hands up as if to distance himself from a potential wrestling match. Radford and Adam’s father just laughed and shook their heads.
Adam simply tucked the glass between Boyd’s arm and ribs. “Sorry Uncle, you’ll need to get that lemonade yourself.”
Amidst their combined laughter, Boyd snatched the glass and hooked his arm around Adam’s shoulder. “That a boy, Adam. I knew you’d pull through this!”
And so it went while Adam stood among the Grayson men, his uncles and father and business partners who had lifted him up into a world he had once only dreamed of.
His dad pulled him into a fierce hug that would have made a lesser man wince. “You’ve had a long, hard road, son, but by the look on your face I’d say the journey was worth the struggle.”
“It was, sir,” Adam said with a half-laugh. “But I would have been content with a much shorter and less eventful trek.”
His father nodded. “Yes, but you would be half the man you are now, Adam. It’s through our darkest times and most challenging struggles that our real character emerges. Count your blessings, son. Some men never get the opportunity to find out what they’re made of. Now you know.”
He did know—and he could easily face that man in the mirror.
“Thank you for holding me to a higher standard and helping me become a man worthy of Rebecca and the Grayson name,” Adam said, trying to find the words to express the depth of his love and appreciation for the great man who had made him his son. “To become even half the man you are is probably impossible, but I’ll happily spend my life trying.”
Duke shook his head. “Adam, all I’ve given you is guidance. Becoming the man you are today was your own doing, and I couldn’t be more proud of you, son.”
Son. The meaning of that word still created a thrill in Adam’s chest. He was Duke Grayson’s son. “It would have been a lot harder to get here without your belief in me and those side-armed hugs you give that make me feel ten feet tall.”
Duke laughed. “You give me too much credit, Adam.” He clapped his hand on Adam’s shoulder. “I failed to protect you from my brothers’ bad influence,” he said, shooting a glance at Kyle and Radford who were in a fit of laughter over something Boyd was saying. “I’m beginning to see a marked resemblance between you and your uncles. Looking at you is like looking at one of them.”
Stunned and deeply honored by his father’s words, even in jest, left Adam speechless. To resemble any of the Grayson men was an achievement he’d only ever dreamed of. And yet in that moment, he knew he was his own man. He was Adam Dearborn Grayson, a blend of names and life experiences that had molded him into the man he was today. He was living up to the Grayson name and bringing pride to the Dearborn name. That knowledge settled in his gut like a truth he would protect with his life.
“Mind if I shake this young man’s hand?” Stephen Cuvier, the man who had sired Adam, asked.
Adam welcomed him with a warm hug.
“I’m filled with pride and happiness for you, Adam,” Cuvier said.
Adam had been thirteen years old the first time he met Stephen Cuvier, and though Adam considered Duke Grayson his real father, he deeply admired Cuvier. The man hadn’t known about his children until ten years ago. But once he’d learned the truth he’d spent every day of his life getting to know his children, Adam and Faith, and his grandchildren and extended Grayson family. He was a good man that Adam liked and admired.
“Thank you, sir.” Adam said, realizing in that moment that it was Stephen Cuvier who had planted the seed of Adam’s character. That man loved his children so much that he let Duke Grayson adopt his only son. Duke Grayson nourished that seed and helped Adam grow into a Grayson man.
As Adam stood between the men who had loved and raised him, he was honored to carry the traits of both men.
He hooked his arms around the mighty shoulders of his two fathers and said, “Thank you both for... everything.”
Faith cried as she watched them.
Adam took her in his arms, quietly thanking her again for finding the courage to lead them out of a life of pain. “You remind me of Princess Cecily,” he said.
Sniffing, she asked, “Who is that?”
“I’ll ask Elias Crane to share her story while we eat,” he said, reaching out to link hands with Rebecca. “Right now, I need to hold my beautiful bride and assure myself this is real.”
Rebecca smiled and pecked him on the cheek. “It’s real, my darling husband.”
He looked down into her radiant face and understood why he’d never wavered in his love for her. She was his stunning bride... his life-mate... his beautiful Rebecca—and he’d known it the minute he’d first laid eyes on her.