Dear Reader,

      This book has truly been a labor of love for me. Numerous hurdles had to be overcome before it ever reached your hands. Know that I am honored that it has found a home with you. The theme of redemption explored in these pages gives meaning to my own life, and I dearly hope to yours, as well. May your sojourn with the characters who are such a part of my heart touch you as deeply as they have me. God bless you and keep you ever close to your dreams.

      With sincere appreciation,

      Cathleen Connors

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Epilogue

      Chapter One

      The sound of snow crunching beneath Melodie Coleman’s boots echoed in the empty caverns of her heart. Details that accompanied each step along the familiar pathway seemed to leap out at her. It felt so surreal that had she happened past a mirror she wouldn’t have been much surprised to see herself as she looked at twelve years of age. A toothy tomboy clad in jeans, her twin blond braids slung carelessly over her shoulders. Eyes bright with hope. An irrepressible spirit as yet untouched by the perversity of fate.

      Blinking against the spitting snow, she wondered how many snowmen she had erected in this same front yard only to see them dissolve into puddles over time.

      Like her dreams.

      Bending down as if to attend to one of the struggling flowers her mother insisted on planting along this pathway every spring, Melodie brushed at her eyes with the back of her hand. There were no blossoms, of course. It was snowing in the high country, and her mother would be planting no more seeds. Bulbs separated and nurtured by those gentle, hardworking hands lay as dormant beneath the frozen ground as Melodie’s faith in herself. And in God, for that matter.

      Melodie! Melodie Anne Fremont! You get in here this instant. Your dinner’s getting cold.

      Straightening at the sound of her mother’s voice echoing in her memory, she could almost see Grace Fremont standing in the doorway waiting for her. Despite the scolding tone of her voice, there was a smile upon her weathered face as wide as the open expanse of the wilderness abutting their property.

      Oh, how Melodie longed to drop the vestiges of time and run headlong into that blithe memory, to bury herself in her mother’s forgiving arms and breathe deeply of the spices that always surrounded her. Instead she stood rooted to her spot, wishing only happy ghosts awaited her behind that closed door.

      She forced herself to move forward. Each step was as leaden as her frame of mind. Fingering the key in her pocket, she halted on the front porch and contemplated the old brass knocker screwed into the front door. How strange it was to stand here wondering whether to knock or not. After all, the home in which she had been raised belonged to her now. Yet after so many years away, it felt presumptuous to barge right in.

      What is the proper way to greet specters of the past?

      I’m home, Mom, she wanted to call out. Like the prodigal son, she yearned to openly admit her mistakes and beg forgiveness. You were right all along. Marrying Randall Coleman was the biggest mistake of my life. I’m sorry for hurting you. For disappointing you. So very sorry…

      Unlike the fortunate lad in the Bible, it was too late for Melodie to make amends. Too late to tell her mother how much she loved her. Too late to ask forgiveness for cutting off all but the most superficial of contact during her terrible bout with cancer. Too late for self-redemption.

      Instead of the joyous reunion she had envisioned, Melodie was here to lay her mother to rest.

      Snow on April Fools’ Day seemed truly fitting. Fool that she was, the wide-eyed girl who had left home so long ago to find a destiny broader than the piece of land that was her heritage stood upon her own stoop a bona fide failure. Failing not only in her marriage but also in her obligation to her widowed mother. Taking the cold, smooth metal of the knocker into her hand, she rapped twice upon the door certain that nothing in her life could ever be harder than facing her mother’s memory.

      Nothing except being greeted by the man she jilted so long ago.

      And had regretted losing every day since.

      The door to her past swung open without so much as a creak.

      “I’ve been expecting you,” he drawled in a way that haunted Melodie’s dreams to this day. “For quite some time.”

      The