Epilogue
The sand iswarm between my toes. The day is clear, bright and beautiful. The ocean is the color of Paisley’s eyes.
Her face, wet with tears, shines up at me. “I do,” she says, the strength in her tone slipping into the crevices around the letters, filling them out.
“By the power vested in me by the state of North Carolina, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Klein, you may kiss your bride.”
I kiss Paisley well. I dip her backward. I hold her as tight as she holds me.
When I’d proposed eight months ago after asking for her father’s blessing, we’d known immediately where we wanted to say our vows.
Bald Head Island is where we fell in love, so it was natural we’d return. There wasn’t an itinerary, or a week full of activities. “On the beach,” Paisley had said when we started planning. “Small, attended by our family and closest friends. In fact, nobody has to be there at all. I only need you.”
“And cake,” I amended.
Paisley laughed. “And cake.”
I take a moment to myself during the reception, watching Paisley from the sidelines. She’s a stunner in that white dress, but it’s the soul I see in her eyes that gets me. A soul that calls for me, reaches for me, yearns for me. What a gift it is to have been given this woman to walk beside. She has been my biggest cheerleader, my advocate, proudly telling everybody she knows about my book.
Thanks to Paisley and her team, my debut novel was well-received. So much so that we are due in New York next week for a meeting with my publisher about my next book idea: a fake dating murder mystery set on a beach. Spoiler alert: the conniving fiancé is the first to meet his maker.
After that meeting, Paisley and I will fly to Europe, where we will see the real Lake Geneva on the first stop of our honeymoon.
As I watch, Paisley’s dad approaches her. He holds out a hand, asking her for a dance. It has been a journey not without difficulty for Paisley and her dad these past two years. She is open to his love, but he struggles to give it. He is working through that, and I suppose that’s the most you can ask of a person. To recognize flaws, and work on them.
When I get Paisley back in my arms, I lean down and breathe in her sweet smell.
Sighing contentedly against me, she says, “Klein the husband.”
“Paisley the wife.”
She rises on tiptoe, delivering a kiss.
I am the luckiest man alive.
***