Before she could say anything, Mark rose to his feet and held out a hand. “I have something to show you. I was going to wait, but I couldn’t resist seeing how it looked in its new home.”
She walked with him, curiosity rising as he led her across the great room toward the master bedroom.
The cozy, rustic farmhouse where she had lived for over thirty-five years had been built with love. She’d raised her children there. Buried lost ones there. Spent time with her son and daughter-in-law, and began to live again.
This new house set amongst the wild roses, with a view of the mountains, was dreamily perfect. Everything shiny, everything glowing, and the room Mark led her into was nearly the size of the living room in her old place.
Yet what made her lips curl upward wasn’t the spectacular luxury but the air mattress on the floor, a quilt and pillows neatly in place. “Mark Coleman. That’s the fanciest bed I’ve ever seen.”
He looked confused for a moment then laughed. “Honestly, that’s not what I wanted to show you.”
She was laughing as well, amusement tickling so hard, she couldn’t stop. “Sure.”
He spun her as if they were on the dance floor, ending with her back against his chest, arms crossed in front of her as he twisted her toward the wall that divided the bedroom from the master bathroom suite.
An enormous picture hung on the unpainted drywall, and she gasped. “Mark.”
“It seems Ashley was inspired. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen,” he said, softly pressing a kiss to the side of Dana’s neck.
Ashley had painted an eerily familiar scene. A woman stood surrounded by verdant-green bushes, pale-pink roses blooming exuberantly everywhere.
It was her—Dana. Only it wasn’t identical to the image that had been in the photographs her daughter-in-law had brought home at the start of the year, sending memories dancing that had hurt and yet been bitterly sweet.
She remembered the day so long ago—the one in the picture. They’d been taking photographs for a family album, and Mark had been there. He’d taken the camera from Ben, supposedly clicking shots of them as a couple, but when the film had been developed, nearly half the roll had been Dana by herself. Dancing in the rose bushes, daydreaming about what the future would bring.
Turning to discover Mark staring at her, a sensation in her gut jumping furiously. He was her friend, not her boyfriend. She wasn’t supposed to feel that way about him.
And so in the end, Dana had pushed the feelings away and focused on what she needed to, convincing herself the emotions had simply been a momentary glitch.
Never once over the years had she done anything she needed to feel guilty about. But this one thing—this one truth? She needed to tell him.
She turned from the image, her heart pounding. “Mark—”
He pressed a finger over her lips. “I have something else to show you.”
Her eyes shone, and after what she’d jokingly said earlier about moving in with him, he was already hopeful.
But he needed her to know everything.
He pulled his wallet from his pocket and slipped out the picture he’d had for so many years. “You’ve been with me forever,” he said.
She took the tattered photograph, breathing uneasily. “You carried this all those years?”
“I couldn’t let go,” he confessed.
Dana lifted the photograph toward the painting.
Then it was easy to see how brilliantly Ashley had brought new life to the image. Oh, she’d used a little artistic license when it came to making the rose bushes. Her style leaned toward three-dimensional, paint on paint, that looked a whole lot better when the viewer stood back instead of looking at it from inches away.
But the real magic was she had taken the image of Dana in her twenties and turned it into a current portrait. Just as beautiful, but her smile somehow more. The lines of her face, especially at the corners of her eyes and her mouth, showed life had not always been easy, but also that Dana was still young at heart. Still smiling, still hopeful.
She was still dancing.
Vibrant and glowing, the Dana in the painting held her arms out and embraced the beauty around her.
Mark pulled Dana’s hand down, turning the woman toward him. “I don’t need the photograph anymore,” he said softly. “Or even the painting, because I’ve got you. The real thing.”
She nodded, a series of sharp little head bobs that made him smile. Then