Page 102 of The One You Want

Epilogue

Hold your horses,” I muttered, spooning a serving of cat food into the dish while Ernie howled at my feet. “I’m literally doing it as quickly as Ican.”

Apparently it wasn’t quickly enough for Mittens, either, because he threw himself to the ground in front of his water bowl, giving me the most pathetic look in hisarsenal.

I laughed as I placed the food on the ground. “Drama queens,” I told the boys. “Both of you.” No doubt having heard the soft sound of the bowl being set down with her super cat hearing, Lady came skidding into the kitchen, nearly crashing into Mittens in the process. “You too,” I told her. “You’d think you were allstarving.”

I administered a few ear scratches while they attacked their bowls then stood up and stretched. It was still early, the sky only just beginning to turn pink, but there was a lot to get done today. Grant had already been up and out of bed when I woke up and he hadn’t been insideyet.

I filled his favorite mug with coffee, slipped a pair of muddy Wellingtons over my pajama pants, and went out through the back door to find him. It wasn’t a difficult search—there was a light on in theworkshop.

I trudged out into the dim early morning light. We’d been getting a fair amount of rain so far this spring, leaving most of the back yard muddy, but Grant insisted the rain was good for his spring bulbs so I tried not to complain about it toomuch.

I slipped into the stone workshop, pausing in the doorway, like I usually did, to take him in. For once he wasn’t in a flannel shirt—but only because he was still in the sweat pants he usually slept in. I shook my head, then picked up the soft sounds of himmurmuring.

“It’s a big day, but there’s no reason to be nervous,” he was saying, and I wasn’t sure if the pep talk was for the hydrangea in his hand or for himself. “You know you look gorgeous, so just do your thing,okay?”

I grinned, heart swelling with love for this man who woke up at the crack of dawn to come talk to his flowers. I knew he was nervous about the day, and was determined that everything be perfect, so his early morning fussing didn’t surprise me in theleast.

It still cracked me up to hear him telling a bunch of hydrangeas that they looked gorgeous,though.

“I can hear you back there, you know,” he said loudly. “I know you’re laughing atme.”

“Of course I’m laughing at you,” I told him, pushing off from the doorway to join him at the table. I handed him the mug of coffee than gasped when I looked down at the table. “Oh, Grant,” I murmured. “These are beautiful,babe.”

“Yeah?” he asked, sounding hopeful—it was adorable. “I just want everything to beokay.”

I kissed his cheek. “It will be. Jerry and Sadie are going to bethrilled.”

“I hope so,” he said, adjusting some baby’s breath. Jerry had become quite a good friend to both of us. He was actually Grant’s closest neighbor, and we’d taken to stopping by a few times a week at each others’ houses to say hello, usually staying for a quick cup of coffee. When we were getting the chicken coop set up last November, he was here every day—sometimes several times a day—making sure we had everything undercontrol.

Speaking of the chickens—“I’m going to go let the girls out,” I told Grant, kissing hischeek.

He gave me a sheepish smile. “I meant to do that so you could sleep in. But then I came inhere—”

“And got caught up in the flowers,” I finished for him. “Of course youdid.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? I’mhopeless.”

I laughed. “You sure are.” I clomped over to the door in my muddy boots, calling over my shoulder. “Stop fussing. They lookgreat.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, and I grinned as I stepped back out into the still chilly yard. I wasn’t actually at all upset that Grant hadn’t made it over to the coop yet that morning. Greeting the chickens was one of the best parts of my day, to be honest. It was hard to believe I had ever found Jerry’s birds to be frightening. The six hens we kept were some of the most beautiful animals I had everseen.

“Good morning, ladies,” I called as I opened the door to their coop. They all came streaming down the ramp just like clockwork, the way they did every morning, eager to get out and stretch their legs and scrounge up some juicy bugs. While they pecked around the enclosure, I took care of the business of cleaning out the coop and filling up their feed bowls. As soon as they heard the first drop hit the ground, they all came scurrying over to me, squawking around by my feet, not so different than the cats,really.

Yup, it was official. I was an animal personnow.

Once I had the birds squared away, I went back inside, relieved to see Grant at the counter making us toast. I would have had to drag him inside if he fussed too much longer. We both still needed showers and we had a hell of a lot of flowers to packup.

We weren’t the first people to make it to the green of Town Square. David Jenkins and Owen Nichols were already there, setting up chairs. Andrew and his twin brother were up at the front of the aisle, fiddling with a wooden arch that would soon be covered in Grant’sflowers.

A buzz of anticipation went through me. This wasn’t the first of his weddings that I helped with—that had been a gorgeous winter themed event on the mainland a few months ago—but it was the most personal. People I cared about were going to stand under that arch in a matter of hours, pledging the rest of their lives to each other. I fully understood why Grant was so nervous about making it allperfect.

We worked pretty much straight up until the guests started to arrive. Not that we needed to—we had all the flowers arranged within two hours of getting there. But Grant was a perfectionist—which meant he was sometimes a pain in the ass—and he fussed over everything until he was sure it was justright.

The wedding was simple and beautiful. Sadie Taylor wore a bright yellow dress when she walked down the aisle to where Jerry stood, his adult son at his side, tears in his eyes. I may have shed a few tears myself—I was becoming pretty sappy these days. And there was something so wonderful about the idea that true love had been such a powerful force to bring these two together, in what was undeniably their twilight years, after they’d both spent so long alone and mourning the loss of their firstspouses.

After the couple read their vows and exchanged their rings, the entire wedding party headed over to Cora’s. She must have been a lot sweeter than she usually let on because she’d shut the entire place down in honor of Jerry’s wedding. I saw him patting her hand as she served him a celebratory beer, apologizing that he hadn’t been able to marry her after all thoseproposals.