Chapter 24
MAGGIE
My heels had started their slow torture before we even reached the aisle, but I kept smiling.
The man whose arm I held was a friend of Dean’s, and I’d only met him yesterday. He was polite enough, though the liquor on his breath made me wonder how deep into the bottle Dean and his groomsmen had gotten before the ceremony.
The runner stretched out ahead of us, white and seemingly endless. Almost every seat was filled with people I didn’t recognize, and I wondered if they were thinking the same about me.
Because I wasn’t the same girl who’d left this place behind, and I would leave it behind again after today.
Tennessee was waiting for me and so was Hunter.
The last two weeks had stripped me down to the bone, and Hunter had shown me in every way he could, what I meant to him. I’d learned the shape of his body, the exact sound he made when I told him I loved him, and how impossibly loud he was when he showed up at the bakery unannounced.
He’d walk in the door, lean against the counter in a sweat-stained shirt with his hat tipped low and that dimpled, cocky smile curving his lips, and there wouldn’t be a single shred of willpower in my body to tell him no.
I’d been nervous about what his parents would say, but Hunter had insisted I come to Sunday dinner. Louise and Owen had both smiled when they saw us walk in hand in hand.
“It’s about time,” Louise had said gently as she pulled me in a hug.
But then June had slapped Hunter on the chest and said, “Glad you finally found your balls. I was starting to get worried with how old you are.”
Hunter just grinned, cocky as hell, and reached for a biscuit piled with strawberry jam. He caught my hand under the table and squeezed, rough calluses scraping over my knuckles in a way that shot warmth right up my arm.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like I was borrowing someone else’s place at the table.
I belonged, right there next to him.
My parents’ backyard was thick with white hydrangeas and tulle bows tied to the end of every chair. The sun sat heavy and direct overhead, the kind of heat that had no mercy, and I could feel the back of my neck going damp under my updo.
But it was just a few more steps, a few more hours, and then, I’d go back to him.
I tried to tune out the drone of the music and the heat plastering my dress to my skin.
My mind snagged on Hunter’s voice, quiet and relentless, echoing in my head. “You don’t have to do this, Sunshine. Not for them.”
He wasn’t wrong, but this wasn’t about them.
Whatever had happened between me and Ella, whatever stood between us, it didn’t matter. She was still my sister, and I would have never forgiven myself if I hadn’t come.
So, I’d walked in the front door yesterday, and I’d handed Ella the loan paperwork for the bakery. She’d known it was coming, known Blaire’s signature would replace where hers had been, but watching my dad’s face twist up in disappointment when she pulled it from the envelope still felt good.
He’d said, I still hadn’t figured it out on my own, that I wasn’t capable without someone else’s help, and he was right.
But I no longer wanted to do it on my own.
I found my mark where Ella had made us practice stopping, and my heels immediately sank into the grass as the music shifted.
The back doors to my parents’ house opened, and I watched with everyone else as Ella and my dad appeared arm in arm.
She looked perfect and poised and so damn beautiful, and he looked like a doting father.
A man who was blessed to give his daughter away on her wedding day, and nothing like the man I knew.
He lifted Ella’s hand, kissed the back of it, and I could almost hear the crowd’s collective sigh as they started down the stairs. The photographer leaned in, snapping photos, and I knew when I looked back at them one day, they would show a picture-perfect family.
My pulse raised as I watched them. I used to dream of my wedding day when I was a girl, dream of my father walking me down the aisle just like this, but now all I could feel was the way my skin prickled under the weight of it, the music swelling and fading as Ella and my dad took their first steps onto the runner.
The air was so thick with the scent of florals, and it reminded me of my mother’s perfume, our childhood Sunday school dresses, and that soap my mom kept in her bathroom that she’d used to wash mine and Ella’s mouth out with when we’d talked back.
I let my hands fall to my sides, my bouquet dangling limply in my grip.
Why the hell had I come?
I searched through the faces in the crowd as I forced myself to breathe, to act like I belonged here, and thank God, everyone was looking at Ella.
Everyone but him.
Hunter.
The brim of his black cowboy hat threw a hard line of shadow over his eyes, but it didn’t matter. I could feel his gaze burning over my skin, steady and unflinching, like I was the only thing in the world worth looking at.
My heart skittered in my chest, wild and desperate and loud enough I was certain he could hear it from where he stood in the very last row.
He wasn’t supposed to be here, I would have never had asked, but there he stood watching me.
His gaze didn’t waver. Not once. Not when my father gave Ella away, not when the preacher led the ceremony, and not when everyone cheered as the newly married couple kissed.
I barely registered it when the groomsman I’d walked down the aisle with nudged my arm, signaling that it was our turn to follow after Ella and Dean.
My bouquet hit the grass beside me, and I didn’t look back at the groomsman, didn’t look at Ella, didn’t look at my parents.
The rows of strangers blurred as the distance between me and Hunter collapsed, step by step, until I could clearly make out the dimple on his cheek.
“Hey, Sunshine,” he murmured.
The black suit jacket pulled across his shoulders in a way that made it hard to think, and the first couple buttons of his black shirt were undone as if he couldn’t quite be bothered.
My hands shook as I closed the distance and wrapped them around the back of his neck, where his hair was just long enough to curl against my fingers.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
His eyes moved over my face slowly, as if he were cataloging every little difference he could find.
His thumb traced along my cheek as he smiled. “There’s no way in hell I’d let you face this alone.” He bent low, just enough for his words to graze my ear, and the rough edge of his stubble to make my stomach tighten. “And I missed you.”
I laughed and melted into him. “I missed you too, cowboy.” I tapped my finger against the brim of his hat. “This is a nice touch.”
He grinned slow and easy, that dimple cutting deep as he tilted his hat back with two fingers. “I can wear it for you later too.”
He dipped his head and kissed me. I dug my fingers into the back of his neck and almost let myself forget where we were.
“Maggie.” Ella’s voice hit me, and I slowly pulled away to face my sister.
She looked more ghost than bride, frozen on the grass in her perfect dress, every inch of her so controlled it made my chest ache. Her voice was very quiet. “What the hell are you doing?”
I felt Hunter’s heat at my back as I tried to think about what to say, and Ella’s gaze flicked over my shoulder before coming back to me.
“How dare you?” she breathed, and for a second, it was just her and me, all the noise of the wedding muted out by that quiet shock in her voice.
“How dare I?” I said calmly. “How dare you, Ella.”
Hunter’s arm braced across my waist, a silent warning, but I stepped forward, needing the confrontation with her the way I needed air.
“You want to do this here?” Ella said, her lips barely moving but the words cutting clean. “You want to ruin my wedding?”
“You knew how I felt,” I said, louder now, and I could see the people around us turning in our direction. “You knew, and you didn’t care. You never cared.”
I looked at her, really looked at her, and all the memories of our childhood flickered in the sunlight.
The years of being the little sister, the second-best, the one who was always too much or not enough depending on what the family required in that moment.
The years of Ella letting me tag along, then resenting me for it, then punishing me for daring to want the same things she did or, God forbid, wanting them more.
Her face went deathly still, jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle jump beneath the flawless foundation.
The white bouquet in her hand trembled, petals shivering on the edge of a summer breeze, but Ella never let anything slip for long.
She inhaled slowly, eyes narrowing with the kind of cold composure she’d been perfecting since we were girls stealing lipstick from Mom’s bathroom.
I could see our mom walking up behind her, smiling at the guests before she stopped behind my sister. “Girls. Please,” she hissed quietly. “Let’s not do this here. Ella, honey—” She reached for my sister, but Ella stepped away, nostrils flared.
“Don’t worry, Mom.” Ella’s mask cracked, just for a moment, and I could have sworn I saw regret staring back at me. “Maggie was just leaving.”
My throat tightened, and I reached for Hunter’s hand, letting my fingers curl around his as I steadied myself.
“Yeah,” I said, forcing my voice not to break. “I don’t belong here anymore.”
I started to turn, to reach for Hunter, but then Ella’s voice hit me one more time. “You’ve never belonged here, Maggie.”
She might as well have slapped me.
I stared at my sister, at the one person I thought I could count on above all others, and it was heartbreaking how little I recognized her.
“You’re right,” I said softly as I shook my head. “I never have.”
Of course I’d never belonged here. I’d spent my whole life trying to fit the shape of their expectations, squeezing myself smaller and quieter until I could barely breathe without someone looking at me like I was doing it wrong.
Tennessee had changed me. Willow Grove had let me find all the things about myself that they’d worked so hard to work out of me.
I’d built a life out of nothing but flour and sweat and stubbornness, and I had found my way into a family that wanted me just as I was.
I’d tasted belonging, bone-deep and real, in every callus that scraped my hand when Hunter grabbed me at the bakery, every easy laugh from the Calloway crew when I walked in a room, every moment Blaire looked across the table and trusted me to hold my end of the world up.
I looked at Ella, and I didn’t want to prove her wrong. I just wanted out.
“Sunshine.” Hunter’s voice came from just behind me, and I watched my mom’s and Ella’s eyes lift past my shoulder before I turned.
He reached up and slowly tucked my hair back from my face like we had all the time in the world and none of it mattered except this, except us. His hand stayed there, warm against my jaw.
“You belong with me.” His voice carried, but he wasn’t paying attention to anyone but me. “Let me take you home.”
I stared up at him, and it hit me so hard I nearly stumbled. I’d spent my whole life chasing some version of safety, a place where I could breathe, and the truth of it stared back at me in a black cowboy hat and a gentle smile.
He was it.
He was everything I’d ever tried to pretend I didn’t need. He was rough around the edges, a man who’d burn every bridge behind us just to get me home.
But as long as I was with him, I was already there.
“Alright.” I nodded and wrapped my hands in his. “Take me home.”