“Merry Christmas.” He cleared his throat then, and from inside his jacket pocket he withdrew a small unwrapped case and handed it to her. “I want you to have this.”

She opened it. Inside was a cameo brooch, simple, beautiful. She couldn’t speak. Looking at MacGregor Stevens, she saw the slight but distinct tremble in his hands.

“It...it was my mother’s,” he said. “Your grandmother’s. I had planned to give it to your mother. Somehow it seemed wrong, after she died, to give it to Elaine. I want you to have it.”

Tears welled in Ashley’s eyes, and she had to lay the case in her lap. Her hands were shaking. She looked up at MacGregor Stevens. “Thank you...Father.”

Epilogue

Bartholomew Wakefield didn’t return from Hungary until late that winter. The moment he arrived, he walked up to the barn and looked out across the snow-covered fields. Hungary was a different country now. This place was home. He could tell Iggy had been minding the farm: nothing was as clean as it should be. But that would change in time. He was back now.

Soon there would be planting to do, he thought. Spring would come.

He had talked to Ashley and David from Budapest, telling them he thought it was good they had separated from the farm. They were adults now; they had their own lives to lead. His faith in them remained firm. Ashley would be marrying Jeremy Carruthers in May, in the side yard, she’d said, when the apple trees were in blossom. That was good, Barky thought. And she wanted him to stand on one side of her and MacGregor Stevens on the other. That had touched him, and for the first time in many years, he had let the tears stream down his leathery old cheeks.

And David. David had his land. In time, he would find love...and if he were smart, he would recognize it when it came. And seize it. And never let go. That was David. He wouldn’t let happiness slip through his fingers.

Not like the man who had raised him had, so long ago.

But that was all right, he thought. He had his chickens, his pigs, his sheep, his fields. There was always work to be done.

As he turned back to the house, he noticed the thin line of pale gray smoke coming from the chimney, and he swore to himself. Iggy was irresponsible; he’d gone off and left the fire in the wood stove burning. Shaking his head in disgust, Barky stumped down to the house.

But there was a woman in his kitchen. She was wearing one of his sweaters, the shoulder seams drooping halfway to her elbows, and expensive corduroy pants, but her eyes were as clear and turquoise as he remembered.

“Lillian.” The door shut hard behind him and he found that he couldn’t move. His voice caught. “Lil.”

She was standing over the cook stove, and she turned and smiled nervously at him, as she had thirty years ago in the old stone church, only now there were lines in her face, around her eyes, but her hair was still that arresting shade of auburn. He had dreamed about it many times over the years.