A Family Forever by Helen Scott Taylor Page B

too distant future, I hope you and Sophie will live here too."
    He pointed back at the new wooden shed. "I've even built a hedgehog hospital for you. In case the lure of being with me wasn't enough, I thought the hedgehog facilities might tip the balance in my favor."
    "Oh, Adam. It looks wonderful." Victoria hugged him tightly, a silly grin on her face.
    "Do you want to go and check out the hedgehog shed first?"
    Victoria took his face between her hands and stared into the warm brown eyes of the man she loved, her heart overflowing with emotion. For the first time in years, the hedgehogs were going to have to take a backseat. She had more important things in her life now.
    "I'd rather look inside the house first." The place she and Adam and Sophie and Harry would call home.
    Adam led her through a lovely tiled back porch and into a huge empty room with a beamed ceiling. "Ta da," Adam said. "Your kitchen. You'll need to get together with the designer and choose the layout and the style of cabinets. Then we can think about appliances."
    The room was as large as the downstairs floor of her cottage. Victoria blinked, her eyes watery.
    "Don't you like it?" Adam's fingers grazed across her cheek, wiping away a tear.
    "I love it. I'm just…overwhelmed."
    The kids had dashed on ahead to explore together. Their laughter echoed back along the hall. Victoria bit her lip, pleased for a moment alone with Adam.
    "I sense a 'but' coming," he said.
    "You say this is to be my kitchen, but…well…"
    He smiled and raised her hand to his lips, kissing her fingers. "I love you, darling. Marry me. Make me the happiest man alive."
    "Yes, oh, yes." The words tripped straight off her tongue. She didn't need to think before she gave him her answer. She loved him, had from the moment he went down on his knees in the dirt in his dress slacks to see her hedgehogs. She leaned into the warm strength of his embrace, this man who had cared enough to make her problems his own and become so much a part of her life.
    Adam stroked loose strands of hair back from her face and kissed her. "Willowbrook Farm will be the family home Harry needs, the family home I never had. Together the four of us will be happier than I ever dreamed possible."

Epilogue
    The bells pealed in celebration of their wedding as Victoria and Adam stepped out of the church, surrounded by smiling faces.
    Adam pulled Victoria close for a kiss. "Love you, Mrs. Cantrell," he whispered.
    "I love you too, darling." She had to pinch herself sometimes to believe this wonderful man belonged to her.
    "Dad, you need to stand over here by the tree with the flowers on it," Harry instructed. Dressed in a stylish navy suit, the boy had his camera in his hand and a serious expression on his face. He was taking his job as wedding photographer very seriously.
    "We're coming, pal. Give us a moment." Adam took Victoria's hand. She picked her way across the grass in her cream satin pumps, around the clumps of daffodils and crocuses pushing their heads up to find the spring sunshine.
    "Sophie, love, it's time for the photos." Her daughter was in the middle of a group of friends, in her pretty yellow bridesmaid's dress, enjoying all the attention. She skipped up beside Victoria, waving her bouquet.
    They stood beneath a flowering cherry tree and Harry snapped away, giving directions on how they should pose. After a few minutes, Victoria beckoned her mother and father to join them. Her mum parked her dad's wheelchair. Victoria hugged her mother for the hundredth time and bent to kiss her dad's cheek.
    Her mum wiped away a tear. "You look so beautiful, love. Adam's one of the good guys. You make sure to hold on tight to him."
    "I will."
    Next, Adam asked his parents to join them. Drifting between the other guests, they were there with everyone else, but somehow still apart, like exotic beings from another world—and in some ways they were. Corinne and Gregory Cantrell had arrived in a helicopter that landed in