Chapter Forty-Two
Nora
For one sharp, impossible second, fear hit me. It was clean and sudden. This was the moment everything changed, the moment we went from living together to promising each other forever.
Evan cleared his throat, and the microphone carried the small sound across Main Street like a secret. “Let me go first. I’m so damn grateful to be a part of this town,” he said, his voice roughening as he turned to me. “To be a part of you.”
He cupped my cheek with a hand that was gentle and reverent.
“Nora,” he said, and my name in his mouth still felt like sunlight finally breaking through weeks of gray.
“Although we gathered to honor our fathers and to celebrate the Harvest Glow, there’s another reason why everyone we love is here.
” With that he dropped down to one knee and pulled out a box, holding it up before me.
It was a moment that should have had me swooning, but instead I burst out laughing, half in disbelief and half in pure, aching joy.
“Evan,” I managed, my voice cracking. “I bought a ring with the intention of asking you to marry me. So now I’m not sure how this is supposed to work.”
He froze and blinked. Then that slow, crooked smile curved his mouth. “Hold on. I arranged this entire festival for the sole purpose of asking you.”
I stared at him, then I laughed again, louder and brighter. “Oh really? Then how is it that I worked with half the town to make tonight special so I could ask you?”
He rose to his feet, and we both turned at the same instant, looking out over the crowd. Every single person was smiling, some biting their lips and others not even trying to hide their amusement. Palila had her hands over her mouth. Mabel’s shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.
“Mabel!” I called over the sudden hush. “Who knew you could keep a secret?”
She threw her head back and laughed, giving off that full, rich sound that had anchored me since I was six. Tim’s voice boomed from the cider stand. “For God’s sake, could one of you ask the other so we can eat?”
The crowd erupted in whistles and cheers, and Evan’s crew started a chant of “Ask her. Ask her.”
While Emma and Pallia counter chanted: “Ask him. Ask him.”
Evan and I looked at each other and lost it in helpless, stomach-hurting laughter.
“Okay,” he said when he could breathe. “New plan. We both ask.”
I reached into the pocket of my sweater, my fingers closing around the velvet box.
I pulled the box free. Inside were the rings I had chosen: the sapphire for me, deep storm-blue and steady, and beside it, a wide hammered gold band for him.
It had the same braided texture as the leather cuff he had made me when I was little.
“My version of an engagement ring,” I said softly. “A talisman for you. I guess you’d wear it until we replace it with our actual wedding band.”
“Once I put that on, I’m never taking it off.” His voice was rough, wrecked, and perfect. He held out his own box. The engagement ring he’d chosen for me was an oval sapphire the exact color of mine.
Mabel called out. “No one is getting younger.”
Evan and I laughed again. I said, “We ask on three. Ready?”
“One,” he said.
“Two,” I added.
“Three,” the crowd called out.
“Will you marry me?” we said at the same time.
“Yes,” he said, his voice breaking. “God, yes. Every forever I imagine has you in it.”
“Yes,” I echoed. “My every forever has you in it too.”
I pulled out a third box, the sapphire solitaire I had originally bought for myself and tossed it toward Emma. “Did we keep the receipt?”
Emma caught it one-handed. “Sure did!”
“Then let us return it,” I called, “and donate the proceeds to greenhouse upkeep!”
Evan pushed my sleeve back. The old leather cuff was still there, worn butter-soft. His hands were not steady, and that did something to me. Seeing the man who never hesitated finally do so for me was a revelation.
He took my left hand and slid the sapphire ring onto my finger. I curled my fingers around his for just a second, memorizing the feel of him. In this moment everything in my life finally clicked into place.
I took his hand and slid the hammered gold band onto his finger and prayed it would protect him the way the leather band he’d given me had always kept me safe. Then he pulled me in.
Our mouths met, salty with tears and sweet with cider, ten years of almosts finally collapsing into now. I buried my face in his neck and felt him shudder. When we eased apart, the crowd surged closer. Mabel was crying openly. Drew and Bella were near us, hands linked.
My father stood at the edge of the crowd, rigid but refusing to look away.
Gabe wasn’t smiling, but he had not left either. Beth hovered near him.
Evan pressed his forehead to mine. “I love you,” he whispered. “I’ve loved you since you sat on that log by the river and told me you didn’t like lightning.”
“I love you,” I whispered back. “Ever since you told me I could make my own sunshine.”
He kissed me again, slow, deep, and claiming. The fiddle started up behind us, joining with the cheers. Firebrook Valley glowed.
Storms do not disappear; they just lose the power to keep you indoors when you have someone to face them with. I turned my hand so the sapphire caught the light, feeling the leather cuff warm against my skin as well. Sunshine and storm. Both were true. Both ours.
We stepped down into the crowd together, hand in hand with rings glistening and hearts wide open.
Above us, the string lights hummed, steady and warm, unshaken by the mountain shadows.
All around us were people who saw us not as the children of billionaires who spent summers visiting, but as one of them and part of their family.