Epilogue Liv
“Why can’t I know where we’re going?” I demand for the hundredth time, holding my hands out in front of me as my men lead me through the airport.
“It’s a big surprise. Telling you where we are going would ruin it,” Aiden says.
“Where are the kids?” I demand, trying to look around.
“Stop freaking out,” Connor tells me. “Dimitri has them.”
“Okay, that makes me worry more, not less,” I insist, trying to tug at the blindfold. Dimitri is like a big kid when it comes to time alone with our sons. They get into more trouble than they could ever manage to dream up without his influence.
“Come on, just a little further,” Aiden tells me. I can feel the change in flooring beneath my feet as we step onto the walkway to the plane.
Aiden finally pulls off my blindfold and I shake my head to get my bearings. I glare at him with my hands on my hips.
“You can’t just kidnap me, even in the name of a good surprise,” I scold him.
He nods and shoos me down the walkway. “I know, but this is going to be amazing.”
We find our seats in First Class, setting up the twins with toys and coloring kits. I look around, trying to figure out where we’re going.
Finally, the crew announces that they are preparing for takeoff and begin talking about the details of our flight.
“Your cabin crew on today’s flight to Scotland will be…” the male flight attendant begins and my eyes go wide.
“What the…”I manage to cough out. “Are we going to see my parents?”
Aiden, who took the seat next to me, nods eagerly, and I throw myself at him and kiss him, hard.
Dimitri leans over the seat, squeezes my shoulders, and presses a kiss to my ear. Connor, who is sitting next to him, reaches through the seats and mimes, placing a kiss from his lips to my cheek with his fingers.
“Oh my god, you guys!” I say, bouncing excitedly on the seat. “Oh my gosh, what a great surprise.”
“This is cool, Mamma,” Alexei says to me from across the aisle.
I look at the men all around me, my expression stern. “Tell me that you thought about entertaining those two for such a long flight,” I say to them threateningly.
Connor holds up their two little backpacks which are clearly overflowing with toys and things to do.
I sag against the seat in relief. “Thank god,” I say.
“Relax,” Aiden tells me, passing me a mimosa that a flight attendant brought over. “We’ve got this.”
“I am really tired of being told not to look where I’m going,” I say the next day.
My mother is tugging me along behind her, reminding me over and over not to peek. We have slept in a little to recover from our jetlag, and the littles have been spending the morning with their grandfather in the cute little Scottish town that’s right down the road from their house.
My mother woke me up, took me out for breakfast, and then drove in the other direction of the little town near their home. When we got into the city, she told me to close my eyes and she’s been dragging me with her ever since we parked.
“Okay, now you can open your eyes,” she says as the sound of a tinkling bell sounds out.
I realize that the sound of the bell was because she was opening and closing the door of a shop. I look around, confused for a moment, then realize it’s a bridal store.
“Mom, is this?” I ask, feeling a bit lost.
She nods excitedly. “We have everything all planned out. We just need you to find the right dress for you.”
“You guys planned me a surprise wedding?” I manage to say around the lump in my throat.
She nods again.
I lean forward and hug my mother, who is a lot shorter than me, the first tears of gratitude slipping down my cheeks.
“Come on, let’s find the right dress for you to wear tomorrow,” she says.
I smooth down the sleek, shiny skirt of the minimalistic wedding dress that I selected for my special day. The bridal store owner had praised me over and over again for being such a natural fit for her gowns. She kept asking if I wanted to model dresses for her someday, and I had been tempted to say yes.
“You look gorgeous, baby,” my mother says to me, reaching up to gently touch my cheek.
I blow out a nervous breath. “Thank you for setting this all up, Mom,” I tell her. I look at the little Scottish church in front of us. I feel like I’m getting married in some kind of time travel romance book. Which is perfect, since I love those kinds of stories.
“The boys did all the heavy lifting,” she says to me. “They are so thoughtful.”
I smile. “They really are the best,” I say. I look at my mom for a moment, then ask,” You’re really okay with our…arrangement?”
She smiles in a lopsided way. “I mean…I’m older than you and it feels really unconventional to me, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be happy in ways that would not work for me. I just want you to be happy and have the help that you need with the kids.”
“I have everything I ever wanted and more,” I reassure her.
“I’m so glad that they have made it so easy for you to get to keep working,” she tells me, patting my hand. “That’s not something I wanted after I had kids, but you are so good at your job. You deserve to keep working.”
I think about my recent move to a senior presenter role at my job and smile. I do love my job, and the boys have been so helpful about ensuring that they take care of the kids or we have a nanny in place to help me out when I need to be at work.
Really, the last step has been getting married, but there just hasn’t been time for anything other than working, hockey, and caring for the twins. I probably would never have been able to find time in my busy schedule for this if they boys hadn’t taken matters into their own hands.
“That’s our cue,” my mom says as the sounds of the wedding march filter from the little church outside. My dad opens the church doors from the inside and stands with his arms crossed, smiling at me as Mom and I walk toward him.
“You look beautiful, baby,” he says to me, his eyes shining with tears as he kisses my cheek. “Ready?” he offers up his elbow, and I slip my hand into it, allowing him to tug me down the aisle gently.
The twins happily caper ahead of us down the aisle, scattering confetti that seems to be shaped like pucks, hockey sticks, and hockey jerseys. I smile at them as they cavort, then lift my eyes to the end of the aisle.
I suck in my breath as tears clog my throat. All three of my men are standing by the officiant in dark navy suits. They look amazingly handsome, even through the haze of tears clouding my eyes.
I see Dimitri swipe at his cheeks and blink and I smile in a watery way as my dad brings me to a stop before them. I take Aiden’s hands and my dad presses a kiss to my cheek.
“Take care of her, you hear?” he says to the three men standing by me.
They all nod and Aiden says, “I promise to do my very best every day, sir.”
The officiant steps forward and starts the wedding ceremony for Aiden and I. As I stare at him with love overflowing in my heart, I still feel a pang of sadness that Connor and Dimitri cannot marry me as well. I know that’s just the way the law works, but it makes me sad to think about them feeling left out.
Plus, I want our children to know that we are all married in our own eyes, even if the law doesn’t recognize such a thing as a four-way marriage.
I swallow past the lump in my throat, and then my ears perk up as the officiant says, “And because we have a very special kind of love present with us today, we need to take care of two more details before I allow the bride and groom to kiss.”
I look around in confusion at the little gaggle of my family and the children sitting in the pews watching us quietly. My mother grins at me, and I swing back to look at the officiant as he brings out two old-fashioned brooms.
“In Scotland,” he says, “we have a very ancient tradition about marriage that has long co-existed with more traditional weddings. This style of wedding is what was observed in the day before there were clergy members and other officiants to reach far flung places in the Highlands and remote corners of Scotland.”
He offers one end of a broom to my father, who dutifully holds it down close to the floor in front of Connor.
“In this tradition,” he goes on, “the groom and bride will jump over a broom to be considered married in the eyes of the old gods, and the law here in Scotland. While this is not the same kind of marriage as your marriage to Aiden, this is marriage that the old Scots would have recognized as just as legal and binding as a church wedding in the present day.”
I look at Aiden and feel a tear slip down my cheek. I glance over his shoulder at Connor and Dimitri, who are grinning from ear to ear.
“Go ahead,” Aiden tells me, pulling me to the side with his left hand.
I grin at him, and carefully step around him to go to stand beside Connor. I lean back and gather up my train with the help of Dimitri, and then I clasp Connor’s hand.
“Ready?” the officiant says. “One-two-three!”
We awkwardly hop over the broom and I stumble against Connor with a giggle.
“You are considered married in the eyes of old Scottish law!” he announces, then waves me around to repeat the process with Dimitri.
“The Russian Romany has a similar tradition,” Dimitri whispers to me just before we also hop over the broom. “So you are now married in Russia as well as here in Scotland.”
“You are considered married in the eyes of old Scottish law!” the officiant says again.
I hold hands with both Connor and Dimitri, and then I kiss them each on the lips.
“Congratulations!” the officiant says. “Now, shall we complete our first wedding?”
“Yes, please,” I say. I hear my children roughhousing in the pews, and I give them a quelling look that instantly makes them settle down.
“Do you, Olivia Winters, take Aiden Campbell to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do,” I say, my voice thick with emotion.
“Do you, Aiden Campbell, take Olivia Winters to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do,” he says, his eyes still shining with emotion.
“You may kiss the bride,” the officiant says, and Aiden immediately grabs me to him and gives me a kiss.
I hear the twins shouting, “Ew!” as we kiss, and we break apart, laughing.
“Now, you are all married and may go forth and live happily ever after,” the officiant says to us with a little duck of his head.
“Happily ever after,” Aiden says to me. “That sounds pretty good.”
“It sounds pretty good to me, too,” I say.