Chapter 1
TAKE A SNAPSHOT FOR YOU
It’s easy to forget the brutal cold of the winter wind that rolls down from the mountains of Rubble Ridge until it hits me. The bite is harsh against the skin of my face as I slam the door of my truck.
I fucking hate being back here.
I hate that my reason for being here is so tragic.
I hate that he never stopped trying—and I never forgave him.
I hate that now he’s dead.
I can’t even cry. I’m too fucking mad. I’m mad at him for what he did. Even more, I’m mad at him for having the nerve to fucking die. For hurting her. For leaving her.
I took an emergency leave, but I can’t be gone for long. It’s the dead middle of the season and my team depends on me. Still, here I am in the dead of winter back in my hometown.
Snow crunches beneath my feet as I make my way across the street and down the sidewalk. I’d tried to find a parking space, but the lot of the funeral home is full to bursting. A sea of people moves through the double doors, held open for the grieving. The ones left behind.
Even as I cursed myself for it, I searched for her as I drove past. I wanted to beat the piss out of my steering wheel as I parked against the curb, already lined with vehicles that spill from the overfull parking lot.
The guy was loved. A lot.
Bitter wind bites at my skin. Shrugging my shoulders, I pull the collar of my jacket up to shield my neck. The cold here is different from Vancouver. This cold is dry and violent. It’s the kind of cold that’ll crack the skin of your fingertips and chap your lips. There’s no escaping it.
I move through the doors and tuck myself into a bench at the back. My vision lands on the blown-up picture and the cherry wood casket. A prickly heat coils around my spine, spreading to my neck. For a moment, I can’t breathe. Can’t swallow. Nearly choke around the swell of grief.
He’s not in the coffin. Mom told me they couldn’t recover his body. They’ll try again in the spring when everything thaws.
Salt stings my eyes. Emotion needles my nose.
Fuck. I’m going to cry.
Dipping my head between my shoulders, my vision burns and blurs as I focus on my boots. My hands are shoved into my pockets, so I don’t have to worry about someone seeing my white-knuckled fists.
Murmured apologies somehow blare like horns. I have to fight the flinch of every single one.
I’m not sure how much time passes as people shuffle around me, finding their seats. There’s a war raging inside me. Anger battling loss. I hate that I loved him so god damned much. That I hated him in the same breath that I loved him.
Someone begins to speak. I don’t lift my head as the man sings the praise of the dead. There’s a buzzing between my ears that only grows louder and louder. Until I hear a woman speak.
I lift my head for the first time. It’s like a sucker punch to the gut.
A hot blade to the heart.
Even ravaged by grief, I can see that time has been good to her. I’m an asshole for thinking that as she blinks those pretty, honey-colored eyes rimmed in red and swollen with the exhaustion that comes hand in hand with loss.
“Hi.” Her voice cracks. She swallows hard.
My muscles coil with an instinct to go to her. To save her.
It’s an instinct that should have died ten years ago. When she betrayed me.
When they betrayed me.
“Thank you all for coming.” Another crack. Her hands tremble. “I—I don’t know how to do this.” She flashes a brittle smile at a crowd who doesn’t laugh. She dips her chin. “My husband was the best man. He was the best father.” A tear slips out and she pauses, warring for control over her grief.
I fucking hate this.
“My husband was the kind of man who showed up. For everything. He was the kind of man you could count on. He was honest and so, so good.”
“Mommy!” A small, high-pitched voice shrieks into the quiet. There’s a murmuring of gentle shushes, but the little girl with hair spun from the sun wrestles free of the arms that hold her, and she runs for her mom.
The sober black of her little dress hits me harder than the empty casket. A child so full of life and color should never wear black. Not like this.
This little girl—this child—will grow up without a father.
Without him.
Another knock of grief bludgeons my abused heart. Needles of sharp emotion prick my nose, and I pull my fist from my pocket to swipe at it.
She bends to swoop the little girl into her arms, but she doesn’t position her on her hip. She holds her chest to chest, the girls’ little legs wrapping around her mother’s waist. One arm rests under the child’s butt, but her other trembling hand lifts to caress the back of the child’s head.
It’s the way she hugs her little body to her, as though the tiny child might be enough to keep her insides from spilling out onto the podium where she stands, that ruins something inside me.
She clears her throat and mutters an apology to the crowd.
“My husband was a father. A present, devoted father. He spent time with his kids. He taught them manners and hope and the value of never, never quitting. He taught them wonder and fed the flame of their curiosity. He lived life every day to the fullest, with love and laughter. He was a friend, a son, a father, a husband and a lover. My husband was the very best man, and I loved him—so much. He should have had more time.” Her glassy eyes shutter closed as she murmurs into the little girl’s hair, “I wasn’t finished loving him. ”
The sob that follows her words cuts through the crowd. The grief in the silence is painfully loud.
A boy stands. I recognize him from the pictures his father sent me over the years.
There’d been so many, I practically watched the boy grow in snapshots.
I have hundreds on my phone. He’d been so proud of him.
He’d been unable to keep from sharing every accomplishment the boy made.
From birth, to crawling, to his first steps.
Then it was first words and first taste of ice cream—a video of his puckered face when he got a little over eager to try the first lemon wedge.
First days of school, Christmas concerts, soccer games…
He'd been so proud of his talent for soccer. He was just like his dad in that.
And he looked like his dad, too. If it weren’t for those brown eyes, darker than his mothers. Definitely Wilder eyes. Inherited from my dad, and Grandpa before him. The same dark eyes I have.
“Mom.” The boy, he’d be eleven now—twelve in March—loops his arm around his mom’s waist.
The little girl lifts her head from her mom’s shoulder to blink shocking green eyes at the boy with those stiff shoulders, as though he’s trying to carry the weight of his family now that his dad is gone forever.
Setting his jaw, he lifts his arms to pull the girl from his mom’s hold. He carries the girl to her grandmother before he helps his mom settle into her seat on the bench, front row.
Then he straightens those shoulders again and starts for the podium. His chin quivers but he clears his throat.
I take a mental snapshot to add to the hundreds of photos his father sent me over the years. Because every photo was taken in a moment of pride.
His father would have been proud of him now. So proud.
Owen leans into the microphone. “All my life, I wanted to be just like my dad. Tall and handsome. Brave and strong. He loved soccer, just like me. He liked strawberry ice-cream, though…so he wasn’t perfect.
” This time, the crowd does laugh. Broken and filled with the sorrow of loss.
“But he was the best dad I could have asked for.” His dark brown eyes harden with the determination of a man.
I take another mental snapshot for his dad, hoping he can see them wherever he is.
“One day, I’m going to grow up to be just like Tatum Wilder. Just like my dad.”