Chapter 39 Matty #2
I had no idea if he’d heard me because he had already disappeared into the back. With a sigh, I hitched Ivy up higher on my hip and walked out of the flower shop.
Knot Your Average Wedding gleamed half a block down, fairy lights twinkling in the windows. Hudson was already inside, arms folded, head bent.
“Look!” Ivy squealed, kicking in my arms. “Other Daddy!”
We pushed through the door, and she cried, “Daddy, we got you woses!”
Hudson turned, and the whole room seemed to soften around him. The way his smile spread, slow and stunned, made my chest ache. Why had I never thought to buy him roses before?
He bent, pressing a kiss to her forehead, then his lips hard on mine, and took the flowers. “Why’d you buy me flowers?”
“Because.”
The look in his eyes was so warm, like he understood without me having to expound. “Thank you. I love them. Now I see why you’re late.”
“Daddy was talking to the pretty man,” Ivy piped up.
Hudson narrowed his eyes. “The what now?”
I nearly choked. “Ivy—”
She nodded solemnly. “The pwetty man, Daddy. He and other Daddy talked for hours.”
Hudson’s gaze cut back to me, sharp as a branding iron. “What pretty man did you talk to?”
I opened my mouth, then closed again. “It’s not important.”
“The hell it isn’t.” His voice dropped into that low, dangerous rumble that gave away his jealousy. “Who?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Hudson—”
“Who, Matty?”
I sighed. “Todd. Okay? It was Todd. He wanted to apologize, that’s all. Nothing happened. He’s over it, moving on, and he wanted me to know.” I tickled Ivy’s side. “Jeez, Bug, you got me in trouble with other Daddy. Now he’s going to put me in the naughty corner.”
Hudson’s nostrils flared like a bull about to charge.
He grabbed my hand, bouquet of roses still clutched in the other, and marched me straight across the room.
“That’s it. Rowan!” he barked, rapping on the office door hard enough to make Ivy squeal in giggles.
“You think you can put on a wedding in a week?”
I sputtered a laugh, stumbling after him. “A week? You told me a month was too short!”
“Yeah, well, apparently I need to get you to the altar before someone gets any ideas that you’re available,” he said darkly.
I leaned into him, grinning like a fool. “Jealous looks real good on you, Daddy.”
He shot me a glare over his shoulder, but his ears were pink.
Rowan opened the office door, the sequins on his jacket catching the light. “Well, well, the happy couple is finally ready. Late, but bearing roses.” He fanned his hands. “How romantic. Come in, darlings, come in.”
Rowan’s desk was a chaos of swatches, binders, and what looked like three different clipboards. The minute I sat down, Ivy scrambled toward Rowan’s desk, attracted to the colorful swatches. “Woow.”
He let out a noise halfway between a gasp and a squeak.
“Oh my stars. That ring is gorgeous. A three-year-old wearing a diamond before me.” He staggered back, clutching his chest like he’d been mortally wounded, then threw his other hand across his forehead in a swooning arc.
“I can’t bear it. Betrayed by the gods of matrimony themselves! ”
With a theatrical sigh, he collapsed backward onto the nearest tufted chair, legs sprawled, head lolled to the side as if he’d fainted dead away. Ivy burst out into giggles.
“Ivy, honey, come here to Daddy.” Hudson waved her over, and I braced myself for what was to come.
Ivy ran over, and Hudson took her hand. “Matt, you didn’t.” He fiddled with the tiny diamond in Ivy’s ring. “Please don’t tell me you bought our three-year-old an actual diamond ring. This is fake, right? Because I expected you to get her a dollar ring!”
I kissed his cheek before he could work up a steam. “She’s happy. Isn’t that the most important thing?”
Hudson groaned. “Is it real, Matt?”
Rowan picked up one of the binders on his desk. “Honey, that stone is cleaner than half the engagements I’ve seen this year. It’s definitely real.”
“Matt, you can’t buy a three-year-old a diamond ring. Ask her where the last ring pop is that you bought her?”
“She promised she would be really careful with it,” I said. “Didn’t you, Ivy?”
“I’ll be weally careful, Daddy.” Ivy patted Hudson’s cheek, pouting. “You don’t wuv my ring, Daddy?”
The room fell silent, all eyes on him. Ivy had just let me off the hook by asking the one question he couldn’t answer in the negative because he would never hurt his daughter’s feelings.
“I love it, but Daddy Matt spent a lot on that ring to show how much he loves you, so you must be really careful with it. Okay?”
“Okay, Daddy. I be weally careful with it. I pwomise.”
Rowan all but melted. “And that, gentlemen, is why I kill myself for clients like you.” He snapped his fingers. “So, tell me? Have you picked a date yet?”
“On the twenty-first,” I said.
“Of?”
“Next month.”
“Next month?” His voice cracked. “You want me to pull off a full wedding in four weeks?”
“Not full.” I squeezed Hudson’s hand when he looked ready to argue. “Ceremony small, private. Just us, Ivy, and family. But afterward, we want the whole town fed. A feast. Everyone’s welcome.”
Rowan’s expression shifted from horror to challenge, and then a slow, wicked grin spread. “Oh, darling. You just lit my fire. This will cost you, mind, but I’m sure we can make it happen if we get started right away.”
“Money isn’t an object.”
Hudson huffed beside me. “If we follow your spending habits, we’ll be broke before the end of the wedding.”
I grinned, nudging him in the side. “What? You can love me for richer but not poorer?”
“Don’t joke about that, Matty. I need you to stay rich, not because I want your money, but because the ranch needs it to keep running.
That’s the place where I got a second chance.
Where I met you. The place you said we would build a home.
It’s where Ivy is going to grow up and learn to love the land as much as we do. So yes, I do mind the poorer.”
The words hit me square in the chest, solid as the fence posts sunk deep into Magnuson soil.
He said it like every nail, every blade of grass out there was bound up in who he’d become.
And I knew then—down to the marrow—that this man wasn’t going anywhere.
Not from me. Not from Ivy. Not from Bristle M.
My throat closed, too tight for words. All I could do was slide my hand into his and hold on, hard enough that maybe he’d feel what I couldn’t yet say out loud: You’re it. You’ve always been it.