Bonus Epilogue
BONUS EPILOGUE
KAYLA
I hate my engagement ring.
Am I allowed to say that?
I’m with my fiancé at a wedding for an old college friend, and instead of us staring at each other with moony eyes on the dance floor, he’s staring at me—I can feel his eyes—while I stare at my very shiny, very gaudy ring.
The bride’s ring is stunning . It’s a five carat round brilliant cut, pure, simple, and unadorned. The ring speaks for itself, bold but not overbearing, confident yet not cocky.
It will age as beautifully as their love for each other.
“What are you thinking about, Beautiful?” Aldridge asks me. He tucks my auburn hair behind my ear, and I’m reminded forcibly of a gnat I want to swat at.
What is wrong with me?
I tear my eyes from my ring and smile at my fiancé’s handsome face. “This will be us soon,” I say.
“I can’t wait,” he says, putting his arm around me as he watches Nate and Juliet dance. After six years together, I’ve memorized his every micro-expression. Unlike a favorite book, though, I’m tired of reading these expressions. The boredom in his eyes, the judgment in his lips.
That’s not boredom , I chide myself. That’s contentment. You know the difference.
His boredom comes with a sneer, and he’s not sneering. He’s smiling .
And that’s even worse.
Aldridge loves me. He loves me so much, I’m suffocating on his attention. The more he dotes, the more I feel myself pushing away. He’s the exact same man he’s always been, though, so these feelings aren’t an indictment on him but on me.
I want an excuse. I want an out.
No! I’m being absurd.
After six years, never has he given me reason to doubt his commitment. We’re getting married in less than a month!
This is simply cold feet.
Even if said feet are sweating in these heels.
“Hey, cuz,” a low Southern voice says. I look up and smile at my hulking cousin, Tripp. “Mind if I steal her, Aldridge?”
Tripp and Aldridge shake hands, and Aldridge goes the extra step of patting Tripp’s hand with his free one. “What are you two going to talk about?” Aldridge asks.
I smile at my fiancé, hoping it hides the irritation making my cheeks quiver. “Nothing exciting, sweetheart,” I say. “Unless you care about agricultural distribution as much as we do.”
“Can’t say that I do,” Aldridge says, but the uncertainty in his brow makes him look like a little kid worried everyone is having fun but him. Except to Aldridge, “everyone” is a party of one:
Me.
The feeling of slowly suffocating hits me anew as I look at him, and it isn’t until Tripp pulls me to my feet that I can take a real breath.
“You okay?” Tripp asks as we walk through the gorgeous wedding grounds on his farm. It used to be our grandfather’s farm, but when he passed, he split his massive holdings into the original family farm, which went to Tripp, and Carville Industries, which went to my father and our family. Tripp has more of a passion for agriculture than I do, but I love business and enjoy working for my dad and with my brothers.
Oh, and owning a baseball team. I’ve thrown myself into learning the sport over the last several weeks, and the challenge has become almost exciting. Something to look forward to after work. Something to think about instead of wedding planning.
Or marriage.
“I’m doing better than you are,” I tell my cousin. The twinkling lights overhead illuminate a red stain on his dress shirt. “You spilled cocktail sauce.”
He clicks his tongue and directs us over to the open bar. “Sean,” Tripp says to a man with a thick black beard and slick hair, “could you get me a club soda and a cloth?”
The bartender nods and ducks his head behind the long wrap-around counter. A moment later, he pops up, and I flush when his blue eyes land on me for a split second before they move to Tripp. My reaction isn’t because he’s an attractive man—although he is—but because of how deeply his eyes peer. If I were the type to hide things, I wouldn’t want this man near me.
“Here you go,” the bartender says, handing Tripp the cloth and club soda. Tripp pours the liquid onto the stain, dabbing at it.
“Can I get you anything?” the man asks me in a low voice I probably shouldn’t be able to hear over the music. His face matches his build—broad, strong, and a bit imposing, with just a hint of softness to his lips that catches me off guard. I tuck my hair behind my ear.
“Nothing, but thank you.”
“Wow,” he says, looking at my hand and leaning back a few inches. “That is a statement.”
I follow his gaze to my ring, and I find myself sticking my hand behind my back with a shake of my head. “Oh, that. I know. It’s silly.”
“I don’t think silly is the word I’d use.”
Tripp snorts.
“Oh, stop,” I say to my cousin. “Like Jane’s wedding ring isn’t big?” It’s also a tasteful three carat princess cut that isn’t trying too hard to prove itself to the world.
“I’m not sayin’ anything,” Tripp says. He looks at Sean. “But her fiancé is, ain’t he?”
The bartender—Sean—nods, his thick brown eyebrows raising. I can’t disagree, so I shrug and plant my elbows on the counter beside Tripp.
“Kayla, this is Sean. Sean owns a bar with his brother and is the captain of the local minor league hockey team. Sean, this is my cousin, Kayla, the new owner of the Mudflaps.”
“Pleasure,” Sean says, taking my hand in his thick one and shaking it. His hands are so thick and muscled, I look down at our clasped hands. I don’t know why his hands throw me. It’s not like Aldridge’s hands are dainty. “So, Kayla, what’s your vision for the Mudflaps?” he asks me, his blue eyes steady and piercing. “Are you sticking with the playbook or fixin’ to go off script Savannah Bananas style?”
I smile. “It’s adorable that you think I have any idea what you’re talking about.”
This earns a laugh from Sean and Tripp. “Don’t listen to her,” Tripp says. “She may still be learnin’, but Kayla has a business sense to rival Elon Musk.”
“It’s adorable that you think I have any idea what you’re talking about,” Sean says, and it’s my turn to laugh.
“What are you doin’ here tonight, anyway?” Tripp asks Sean. “Shouldn’t you be on the road?”
“We have a homestand,” Sean says in the same accent as Tripp. I grew up in Atlanta, but I have no accent to speak of. “I could have asked another bartender to come, but your wife and the women running this wedding insisted they needed the best.” With that, he grabs an open bottle, flips it behind his back without spilling a drop, and then pours a glass for a nearby guest.
I clap, and Tripp elbows me. “You really need to get out more if you think this is impressive. You should see what this guy used to do on the ice.”
“Used to do?” Sean asks.
Tripp grins. “You’re getting old, man.”
Sean shakes his head and moves on to help another wedding guest.
Tripp and I turn around to look at the dance floor. His wife and a few of her friends are dancing with Juliet and my new friend, Liesel. I’m not sure how they all know each other, but they have an easy camaraderie that makes me smile. Female friendships can be hard to develop, and seeing so many women come together makes my heart sing.
“That’s the first time I’ve seen you actually smile tonight,” Tripp says.
“Stop,” I say.
“I’m serious. Your smile throughout the wedding looked like it was recycled.”
“How dare you?” I tease. “I have a fabulous smile. It’s a universal fact about me.”
Behind me, I hear a soft snort, and I turn my head and raise an eyebrow at Tripp’s bartender friend, who’s pouring a Coke for a guest. “You disagree?”
“Don’t mind me,” he says. “I wouldn’t know.”
I unleash my full Julia Roberts smile on him and then drop it just as fast. “See?”
Sean looks at Tripp. “It’s a pretty good smile.”
Tripp and I go back to looking at the guests. “I know you can smile. But you haven’t smiled like that all night. What’s goin’ on with you and Aldridge?”
“Nothing,” I say truthfully. “We’re the exact same as we’ve always been.”
“I think you two are missin’ the ‘growing’ part of ‘growing old together.’”
I roll my lips together in thought. “We’ve been together for a long time. We never fight. We like most of the same things. Everything about us makes sense. What is there to grow into?”
“If you ain’t growing together, you’re growing apart,” Tripp says.
“Is this an intervention or a Ted Talk? I can’t remember which one I requested when I RSVP’d.”
I hear another soft laugh behind me, but I purposefully do not look at Sean. He’s probably drying a wine glass or buffing the counter while he laughs at me.
No, with me. The timing of that quiet laugh was definitely in my favor, not Tripp’s.
“I want to make sure you know what you’re doing, that’s all.”
“With the team?” I ask, purposefully misunderstanding him. “Not at all. Who would have thought finding a coach would be so hard? Also, when did you start talking like Grandpa Tag? You sound like an old man.”
“You’re two years older than me.”
“Yes, but I make it sound so much cooler.”
Sean fully laughs this time, and the warm, easy rumble makes me grin.
I love laughing. I love funny people who can get the humor in a situation or comment without it becoming mean. With my eyes on the dance floor, I see plenty of laughter. Cooper and Liesel are dancing together, and judging by their gleaming eyes, they’re engaged in their unique brand of playful banter. Nate and Juliet are dancing again, and I can tell she’s teasing him about something based on her wide, batting eyes and the way he’s trying not to laugh.
What would it be like to tease and be teased? To have the man I love say something that makes me throw my head back so my laugh reaches all the way up to the stars? To love so fervently that just looking away from the object of my affection is painful? To love so confidently that dancing with friends isn’t a sign of escape but of empowerment?
I can only imagine.
Tripp’s wife, Jane, is beckoning to him from the dance floor. She’s giving her husband a come hither look I’ve never made to Aldridge.
“Go dance with your wife. We’ll catch up later.”
Tripp eyes me uncertainly, but I wave him away.
“We’ll talk later,” I tell Tripp. “Go dance with your wife while she can still put up with you.”
“I’ll be back,” he says before heading out to dance with his wife.
I turn away from the dance floor toward the bar. I close my eyes and take a slow, deep breath.
“You okay?” My eyes open to see Sean standing opposite me, his hands on the counter, his expression as open as it is nonjudgmental.
“What do people usually say when the answer is no but they don’t want to say no?” I ask.
“Not that.”
I chuckle and then sigh. “You know the old cliché of a girl finding out that her fiancé is having an affair days before the wedding?”
Sean’s demeanor shifts in an instant. The muscles all over his body seem to go on high alert. Tendons pop out in his forearms when he balls his hands into fists. Veins pop out in his neck. Even his beard shifts when he flexes his jaw. It’s so menacing . “Is that what happened to you?”
“Only in my dreams.”
His head snaps back. “You’re saying you wish he’d cheated?”
“Not in so many words.”
Sean laughs to himself. “Sounds like you’re looking for a reason to leave him.”
I shrug my thin shoulders.
He pours someone a drink but manages to keep talking to me. “The way I see it, wishing you had a reason to leave him is all the reason you need.”
I lean forward. The bass of the dance song playing over the speakers thumps hard in my heart. “We make so much sense on paper.”
“That’s a relief for future readers, I guess. Not sure it works too well for you, though.”
I laugh. “That’s a clever way of putting it.”
“What do you want to happen?” Sean asks.
“That wasn’t clear from my wish? You’d make a terrible genie.”
Sean’s mouth spreads in a wry smile. “Let me rephrase: what are you going to make happen?”
It’s at that moment I turn my head and spot Aldridge staring at me.
How long has he been watching me? I stifle a groan. “I guess we’ll find out,” I say, because Aldridge is making his way over.
Plenty of women stare at him as he saunters toward me. He’s a beautiful man, and he knows how to captivate a room. If only I’d realized before we got engaged that he doesn’t captivate me .
“Good luck,” Sean says quietly moments before Aldridge holds his hand out to me.
I put my hand in his but turn back to Sean. “Thanks for the chat.”
Sean holds Tripp’s club soda toward me in salute. And, if I’m not mistaken, in support.
Aldridge leads me to the dance floor, and soon, we’re dancing to a pretty slow song about a woman who doesn’t want to live with regret.
It’s a little on the nose for my taste.
“Did you two have a good talk?” Aldridge asks. His lips are near my ear, and I feel like it should make me shiver, not itch.
“The bartender?” I ask. Does he think something was going on there?
Because there absolutely was. Nothing flirty or untoward, but I told the guy I wished my fiancé would cheat on me so I could get out of marrying him! That’s some top shelf bartender therapy.
“No, Tripp,” Aldridge says.
“Yes, catching up with him was nice. He and Jane seem so happy together.”
“That will be us soon enough,” he murmurs against my cheek. He wraps his hands more firmly around me, and our bodies press together.
And I feel nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
My body doesn’t care that he’s acting like the hero of a romance novel. The night is cool enough that I should feel goosebumps from the light breeze, if not from the way his breath stirs the tiny hairs on my cheek and neck.
But I feel nothing.
“You know,” he continues, “I didn’t like letting go of you tonight even for a few minutes. I can’t wait until you’re all mine.”
“I know.”
I should say more. I should agree with him, at the very least. I can’t, though. Because Sean’s question is like a shot through my heart.
What are you going to make happen?
I might be bold, but I’m not brave. I can navigate a boardroom or negotiation with my eyes closed. There’s a code in how to act in business. There are expectations and rules of engagement.
There are no rules when it comes to the heart.
I look back at the bartender and watch him maneuver with that casual ease he showed when talking to me. His gaze drifts to mine, and I see the question that lingers there.
What are you going to make happen?
The words have an edge to them now. Not a sharp, cutting edge; more like the edge of a puzzle—the last piece snapping into place, the picture complete. The question is what to do with that finished puzzle. Do I frame it and display it somewhere, the mystery and thrill completely gone, but the picture-perfect image preserved for all to admire?
Or do I put it in a box and try my hand at a new puzzle? A harder one—one that doesn’t come with a reference image, one I get to make all on my own.
What are you going to make happen?
His question should cause panic in me, but it doesn’t, because this sense of doubt means something. Until tonight, my path has been set, my course determined. If I don’t know what comes next, that means, for the first time in years, I’m confronting the possibility of possibility .
What are you going to make happen?
I have no idea.
And that exhilarates me.
Kayla and Sean’s story is coming soon, but in the meantime, check out Tripp and Jane’s sizzling enemies-to-lovers banter in Strawberry Fields for Never .