Chapter 20
JOY
Morning came softly.
Not the sharp, demanding kind that dragged you back into yourself whether you were ready or not—but a pale, filtered light that slipped through the hotel curtains and settled across the bed like a suggestion.
I woke slowly, aware of warmth before thought.
Micah lay behind me, his arm heavy across my waist, his breath steady against the back of my neck. In sleep, the sharp edges of him eased again. He didn’t look like a man who ran. He looked like a man who stayed.
That realization did something dangerous to my chest.
I lay still for a moment, listening to the muted sounds of Charleston waking outside the window—traffic somewhere distant, a gull calling, the low hum of life moving forward whether anyone was ready or not.
Last night replayed in fragments. The pier. His father’s name in my mouth. The way Micah had folded inward like a wounded animal and then—slowly, carefully—let me close enough to touch the hurt.
I didn’t regret it.
Not the chase.
Not the way I’d chosen him when everything inside him screamed to be alone.
If anything, the clarity was unsettling.
Because once you chose someone that deliberately, pretending you hadn’t changed was impossible.
Micah shifted behind me, his arm tightening reflexively, pulling me closer. Possessive—not in the performative way I’d seen men use before, but instinctive.
“You’re awake,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
I turned in his arms, facing him. Up close, I could see the fatigue under his eyes, the lines tension carved into his face when he wasn’t guarding them. He watched me like he was cataloging something fragile and necessary all at once.
“You don’t have to fix anything today,” I said quietly.
“I know.”
But he didn’t look convinced.
We stayed like that for a while, the quiet doing what it always did—making room for thoughts that refused to stay contained.
Eventually, reality intruded.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
I groaned softly. “I should take that.”
He nodded, rolling onto his back but keeping a hand on my hip, anchoring me even as he let go.
It was Portia.
I hesitated before answering, suddenly aware of how much had shifted since the last time we spoke.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, Joy,” she said smoothly. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“No,” I said. “Just waking up.”
“Good. Then I’ll be brief.” A pause. “We need to talk more about Montana.”
My pulse kicked. “Yes, we do.”
She chuckled softly. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
We arranged to meet later that morning at Dominion Hall—strictly business, she assured me. Logistics. Timelines. Details.
When I hung up, Micah was leaning against the window, arms folded, gaze angled toward the street below like he was keeping watch even when there was nothing specific to guard against.
He turned when he felt me looking at him.
“Portia,” I said. “She wants to meet about the flowers.”
His mouth tightened slightly. “Today?”
“Yes.” I hesitated, choosing my words carefully. “It’s … detailed. Logistical.”
He studied my face, searching for something I wasn’t entirely sure I knew how to name yet. Since the pier, since last night, he’d been watching me differently. Like he was alert for shifts in the ground beneath us.
“Do you want me there?” he asked.
The question surprised me—not because of the offer, but because of the way he said it.
Protective.
But I knew, with quiet certainty, that bringing him into that room—into Dominion Hall again, into Portia’s orbit—would be wrong. Not dangerous, exactly. Premature.
“I think,” I said slowly, “this one’s better if I go alone.”
He didn’t argue. That mattered more than I expected.
“All right,” he said after a beat. “Call me when you’re done.”
“I will.”
His hand brushed my hip as he passed me, grounding, familiar. “Be careful.”
I smiled faintly. “I always am.”
But as the words left my mouth, I wasn’t sure they were true anymore.
I went back to my condo first—showered, changed, let the hot water rinse away the night before, even though the weight of it all stayed lodged beneath my skin. By the time I dressed and headed back out, the city had fully shifted into day, sunlight sharpening everything into focus.
And when I arrived, Dominion Hall felt different this time.
Not because of the light—I’d seen it in full daylight before, had walked the path and met Micah outside under an open sky that made the place look almost benign. Almost like a very expensive home instead of a fortress.
This was something else.
Familiarity had stripped away the illusion.
I knew now that daylight didn’t soften Dominion Hall so much as disguise it. The pale stone and manicured lawns weren’t gentler in the sun—they were more deliberate. Every line intentional. Every window placed to see without being seen.
The moment I stepped inside, it returned.
That low, steady hum beneath everything. Not sound exactly—awareness. As if the house took inventory when you crossed the threshold, quietly noting who you were and what you might cost.
Dominion Hall didn’t watch.
It measured.
Portia met me in a sitting room flooded with natural light, a tablet already in her hands. She looked perfectly composed, as always. Not welcoming. Not cold.
Prepared.
“I’m glad you came,” she said. “I know this is a lot.”
“That seems to be a theme lately,” I replied.
The corner of her mouth curved. “You’re adapting.”
“I don’t have much choice. But truly, I’m happy to be here, discussing this wedding with you.”
She gestured for me to sit, then turned the tablet toward me.
The first image stole my breath.
Open land. Mountains rising in the distance. A wide stretch of sky that felt endless even through a screen.
“Montana,” I murmured.
“Yes,” Portia said. “Specifically, outside Bozeman. Private land.”
She swiped to the next image—an old ranch house. Weathered wood. Broad porch. The kind of place that looked like it had held generations inside its walls.
“This will be the primary location,” she continued. “Ceremony, reception, accommodations.”
“Accommodations?” I echoed.
She smiled then, just slightly. “It’s not a small affair.”
She tapped the screen again.
A layout appeared. Rows. Multiple aisles.
I frowned. “This isn’t structured like a single wedding.”
“No,” Portia said calmly. “It isn’t.”
She let the silence stretch just long enough to make me uneasy.
“There will be six brides,” she said. “One ceremony.”
My brain stalled. “Six.”
“Yes.”
I stared at the screen, then up at her. “You’re planning a joint wedding.”
“I am,” she confirmed. “And it will be a surprise.”
I let out a breath that was half laugh, half disbelief. “For whom?”
“For the men,” she said simply.
That landed with weight.
“They know planning is happening,” she continued. “They don’t know how. Or where. Or together.”
“That’s …” I searched for the word. “Ambitious.”
Portia inclined her head. “Necessary.”
I didn’t argue, though a dozen questions crowded my mind. Instead, I did what I always did when faced with something enormous.
I focused on the details.
“And the flowers,” I said, gesturing to the tablet. “You still want them flown in. Like we talked about.”
“Yes. From Charleston.”
“From my family’s farm,” I clarified.
“From Wadmalaw,” she agreed. “Your parents grow what we need. As we discussed, the quantities will be substantial. Are you still sure you can accommodate?”
“Yes.”
She moved through the detailed logistics with precision—timelines, climate considerations, preservation strategies. Not sterile. Organic. Untamed. Florals that looked like they belonged to the land instead of imposed on it.
As she spoke, something tugged at the back of my mind.
Montana.
Ranch land.
Men who valued privacy, control, loyalty.
And Micah.
I had questions, but I kept them to myself.
“This place,” I said slowly, pointing to the image of the ranch. “It matters to them.”
“Yes,” Portia said. “It does.”
The way she said it made my skin prickle.
“Did they grow up there?” I asked carefully.
She paused. Just a fraction of a second.
“Yes,” she said.
That was all.
No elaboration. No names. No invitations to connect dots.
Message received.
We continued for another hour, fine-tuning concepts, quantities, contingencies. Much of it wasn’t new—I’d already been working on the Montana order, already looped my family in, already walked through the realities of scale and timing back on Wadmalaw. This wasn’t the beginning.
But it felt like one.
Because now there was Micah.
And with him, the work carried weight it hadn’t before. The same numbers. The same flowers. The same careful planning I’d always thrived on. Yet everything felt subtly altered, as if the job had shifted from something I was executing to something I was being drawn into.
By the time we finished, my head was spinning—not just with logistics, but with the quiet, unsettling sense that I’d stepped into something far larger than flowers.
Something rooted.
Something personal.
When I stood to leave, Portia met my gaze directly.
“You’re very good at what you do,” she said. “But more than that—you notice things.”
“I don’t always mean to.”
“That’s all right,” she replied. “Just be mindful of which conclusions you reach out loud.”
I nodded, understanding perfectly.
Not as a warning—but as an acknowledgment of the world I was standing in now. One where information was currency, silence was leverage, and seeing clearly didn’t always mean speaking freely.
I’d built my life on observation. On reading rooms, seasons, people. It was how I’d learned when to cut a stem shorter, when to let something open on its own, when to intervene and when to trust the process.
But this felt different.
Okay.
I called my parents on the drive home, more out of habit than necessity.
Momma answered on the second ring. “Joy, honey.”
“Hey,” I said, smiling despite myself. “I just finished another meeting about Montana.”
“Perfect timing,” she said warmly. “Your daddy was asking if we’d heard anything new.”
I gave her the broad strokes—updated quantities, tighter timelines, a few tweaks to what would need to be cut closer to shipping. Nothing surprising. Nothing alarming. Just the steady forward motion of a job we’d already committed to together.
“And,” I added, then hesitated, “I’ll probably need to come out to the farm again soon. Just to walk it all through in person.”
“That’s fine,” she said easily. “You always do better when you’ve seen everything with your own eyes.”
I smiled. “I know.”
There was a pause—comfortable, familiar—and then, without quite meaning to, I said, “There’s … someone I’ve been seeing.”
The words felt strange out loud. New. Like trying on a shape I wasn’t used to yet.
Momma didn’t gasp or pry. She never did. She just let the silence breathe for a second longer than usual.
“Oh,” she said gently. “All right.”
Not surprised. Not alarmed. Just present.
“It’s nothing I need help with,” I added quickly, embarrassment creeping up my neck. “He’s just—been supportive.”
“That matters,” she said simply.
The warmth in her voice made my throat tighten.
I swallowed and rushed on, needing to regain my footing. “Anyway. I’ll keep you posted on Montana. Tell Daddy I’ll call him soon.”
“All right, sweetheart,” she said. “I’m glad you’re not doing everything alone.”
I ended the call with my chest feeling oddly light—and a little exposed—like I’d just opened a door I hadn’t realized I’d been guarding so closely.
“Be safe.”
“I will.”
When I hung up, I let out a quiet breath and shook my head at myself. I hadn’t meant to bring him up. Or maybe I had, and just hadn’t admitted it yet.
By the time I made it back to the hotel, the day had caught up with me all at once. That deep, satisfying exhaustion that came from momentum instead of panic.
Micah was in the room, sleeves rolled up, phone in hand, the window cracked open to let in the evening air.
He looked up when he heard me. “How’d it go?”
“Productive,” I said. Then, “Complicated, but manageable.”
He studied my face like he was reading between lines I hadn’t spoken aloud.
He crossed the room and pulled me into his arms without another word, holding me in that steady way that didn’t ask for explanations or solutions. Just presence.
I rested my head against his chest, listening to the familiar rhythm of his breathing, and let my thoughts drift.
Back to Montana.
To land that remembered men.
To weddings being planned in quiet corners and careful conversations.
And to the unsettling, growing sense that Micah was threaded through all of it in ways I couldn’t yet explain—connections forming just beyond the edge of understanding.
But that was a truth for later.
For now, I let him hold me.