Epilogue
Emma
“ Who’s this one going to?” Garrett asks, holding up a sapphire blue cocktail dress.
I take my foot off the pedal of my sewing machine and glance over at my order list. “Chelsea Gordon in Bellevue, Washington.”
Garrett scans the shipping labels I printed out earlier and plucks one from the batch. “Got it.”
He folds the dress carefully, wrapping it in tissue paper just the way I taught him before tucking it into a box and applying the label. My heart swells with appreciation as I watch him.
“You’re a pretty good assistant,” I tell him.
“I learned from the best,” he says, shooting me a smile from across the room.
When I came back to Denver, Garrett and I took a big chance on moving in together. The day I moved in, Garrett surprised me by clearing out the largest spare bedroom for me to use as a sewing room. He said that if I was on board with his new business, he wanted to do anything he could to support my business as well. He’s stayed true to his word, staying up late with me to help pack orders or help in whatever way I need. He even learned to sew on buttons for me. I came home one day to find him watching a YouTube tutorial about it and practicing. He’d sewn about twenty random buttons to a scrap of fabric.
“My fingers are rough, so I don’t even need one of those little metal cups,” he told me.
I asked if he meant a thimble, and he just shrugged.
Right now, we’re in a mad dash to finish up all my pending orders. Tomorrow morning, I’m taking a break from my store so we can go on our first big trip with our new company – a series of wilderness excursions in New Zealand. I’m nervous, but mostly, I’m just excited to see Garrett finally doing what he really loves.
“All done,” I tell him as I put the finishing touches on a red pin-up style dress.
I join him at the packing station to help finish boxing up the orders. Once we’re both done, Garrett stacks the boxes neatly in a crate.
“I’ll run these to the post office,” he says.
“Okay, I’ll keep packing for the trip.” I rise up onto my tiptoes and give him a quick kiss before he leaves.
If packing for a three-week trip was challenging, packing for this trip feels impossible. I tried to get a head start weeks ago by tossing random things from around the house that I thought we might need in our bags. Before long, the bags were overflowing. I had to dump it all out and pare back – way back. Since then, it’s been an ongoing game of Jenga to fit everything in our hiking bags. Just when I think I’m finally done, something else that we need for the trip mysteriously appears.
I walk through the house slowly, taking inventory of anything I might have missed. In the first-floor powder room, a small sewing kit on the counter catches my eye. Garrett insisted on buying me a better hiking pack for this trip. The price tag nearly made my eyes pop out of my skull, so it better not fall apart. But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared, so I grab the sewing kit off the counter and make my way back to our bedroom.
I drop to my knees in front of our bags. They’re both so overstuffed that I have to pat them down to find a pocket that isn’t completely full. A small pouch on the side of Garrett’s bag has some room to spare. I unzip it and find myself staring at a small black box.
A ring box.
My eyes go wide and my heart stalls in my chest.
I should zip it back up and pretend that I saw nothing, but my fingers are already reaching for it. I stare at the smooth black box for a solid minute before opening it.
I gasp.
A huge diamond gleams up at me.
“What are you doing?” a deep voice asks.
I jump and turn my head to find Garrett leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed. A smile tugs at his lips.
“Is this…?” I start to ask.
He nods and pushes off the doorframe. “It is.”
“Are you…”
“Well, I had a whole, big thing planned during our trip, but if you’d rather I do it now…”
I snap the box closed and hand it to him, shaking my head. “No, later please. I can’t wait to see what you have planned.”
Garrett takes the ring, tucking it away in his pocket before helping me up. He wraps his arms around me and gives me a soft, sweet kiss. “I can’t wait to show you.”
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING