Page 210 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

They all know it, as it happens. I never even got my big teary announcement — Sawyer took one look at me over a plate of pancakes weeks ago and simplyknew,the way Sawyer knows everything, and by the time I worked up the nerve to tell the other two, Beckett had already started sneaking baby books he thinks I haven't noticed and August had quietly claimed a sunny corner of the new house for a nursery.

"I knew," Sawyer goes on, and his composure finally starts to go, his eyes brimming, "the second I walked into your ridiculous, beautiful little town and laid eyes on you across a soundproof room, that you were the Omega I was going to marry. I'm a manof my oath, Amber. I don't say a thing I don't mean, and I don't make a promise I won't die keeping." He lifts the engagement ring from the box. "So I vow this ring will announce to the whole watching world exactly what you are — chosen, claimed, adored. And I vow it'll sit on your hand every day for the rest of your life, reminding you of a thing you spent too long doubting. You are worthy of commitment. You always were."

My vision swims.

I can barely see the ring for the tears.

Then Sawyer looks to either side of him.

August and Beckett step in close, reaching out together to lay their hands over his — three sets of fingers steadying the tiny gold thing between them — and Sawyer lifts my trembling left hand.

All four of us slide the engagement ring on first, the wedding band behind it. It's the four of us doing it, all at once.

I lose the last of my composure entirely.

"I HAVE THE BOY RINGS!"

The shriek comes from the back of the tent, and the whole room breaks into startled, delighted laughter.

Little George —four years old, Priya's nephew, drowning in a tiny gray suit with the sleeves rolled twice— comes barreling down the ivory runner at a dead waddle, a satin pillow clutched to his chest with both arms and three men's rings wobbling dangerously on top of it.

He does not slow down. He does not care about pacing. He hits the bottom stair and stops dead, breathing hard, and thrusts the pillow up over his head toward me like an offering to a very small, very serious god.

"You did such a good job, George," I manage, laughing through the tears, and he beams like I've knighted him.

I lift the three rings off the pillow. I look at each of my men, and I understand that this is the part that's mine.

This is my moment.

Nobody planned this bit for me. I could still run. Some cornered animal part of me, the part that spent five and a half years learning that love is a thing that leaves, whispers that I could call it off right now, refuse it, let the whole beautiful trap of it snap shut on empty air as some final proof that I was right not to hope.

But that stone is gone from my chest.

It dissolved on the walk up here.

What's left in its place is so light it feels like I could float clean out of this heavy dress.

I turn to August first.

"August," I say, and my voice cracks. I let it. I take his left hand. His iris-and-pear-blossom scent has gone thick and wet with emotion, and there are tears sliding down the florist's calm face. "You spent five years apologizing to me with your silence. And then one day you finally stopped smoothing and startedsaying,and the man you'd been hiding under all that careful quiet…the one I always knew was in there…he bloomed right out in front of me. Watching you become who you already were has been one of the great privileges of my life." I slide the ring home. "I choose him. I choose you."

I move to Beckett, and the mountain of him is trembling.

"Beckett," I tell him, taking his big scarred hand in both of mine, "carried a love so fierce for so long that it curdled into fear. You let the fear run the show, and it cost us both everything." Cedar and smoked vanilla wash over me, gone soft. "But I watched you fall in love with me all over again this year — on your knees, of all places, a man who swore he'd never bend — and I have never seen anything so much like a sunrise. Thank you for stopping running. Thank you for staying." His hand shakes so hard I can barely get the band on. I get it on.

Finally, Sawyer.

"And Sawyer." I take his hand last and hold his magnolia-and-bourbon gaze. I don't try to keep my voice steady anymore. "You walked into Honeybell Harbor a stranger in a nice suit, and you turned out to be the blessing I didn't have the first idea I needed. You saw me. You championed me. You stood your ground in rooms full of men bigger than you and never once flinched, all for a woman you barely knew, because something in you decided I was worth the fight before I'd given you a single reason." I slide the ring onto his finger, and it fits like it was always going. "I don't know what I did to deserve a man who fights for me like the sun comes up. But I'm keeping you. All three of you. Forever."

The three of them are wrecked.

Beckett is crying openly now, unashamed, this enormous ranch-raised mountain of a man with tears cutting clean tracks down his face.

August has both hands pressed flat over his heart.

Sawyer, who has talked his way out of every corner life ever backed him into, has finally run all the way out of words.

I did that. Me.