Epilogue - Jude
I leaned my shoulder against the red body of my truck and called out to where Harlow was reading on our porch. I’d set up a rocking chair out there for her in the spring and I loved seeing her curled up in front of our house.
“Can I borrow you?”
I watched her mark her place in her book with a pen—it looked like one of the smutty fantasy novels she’d been reading for book club—and she peeled her blanket away.
I bit back a groan of satisfaction at the sight.
A little white dress with lacy details and a red cardigan falling off her shoulder. She sauntered over to me after slipping on her brown boots, which now had the perfect amount of country dust on them. The breeze blew, brushing over her skirt, revealing a few inches more of her curvy thighs.
“I missed you today,” I said with a lovestruck smile.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and I pulled her in for a kiss. I held on tightly, trying to keep her hands where they were. I didn’t need them to wander and to find anything in my pocket.
“I missed you, too,” she replied, peering up at me with her big brown eyes.
“I’m here now, sweetheart.” I reached for a hand and began walking us past the ciderhouse. “Busy day?”
“Yeah, Kasey’s barista called in sick so they got me all dolled up as a stand-in for the photoshoot at Sweater Weather.
” I nodded along as she ran a hand over her lightly curled hair.
Then she wiggled her hand in front of us.
“They did my nails and everything. I’m sure it’ll look good on their socials. ”
“Yeah, you will.” I gave her hand a squeeze and turned us into the orchard.
I’d been here all day, setting up an oak barrel table among the trees.
I’d made sure to fill a bucket with ice and cider bottles, a thermos with hot cider sat there, too.
Beside it was some focaccia from Bianchi’s and a few beeswax candles.
Colt has his head stuck into work around the farm and some filming he had going on here. He was even busier than last harvest season. But luckily he was happy to pick up the slack while I took today off after I told him my plans.
“So, I’ve been working on a new cider, and the weather’s so nice today. I thought we could sit out here, maybe you could tell me what you think?” I tried to swallow down the lump in my throat as I asked.
It wasn’t unheard of at Bramley Farm, for us to drink and brainstorm ideas for our new recipes. But this setting was a little more intimate than when we all drunkenly piled around Colt’s kitchen table.
“Of course.” Harlow wandered forward, dragging her fingers over the table. “Is this just for us? It’s beautiful.”
I didn’t let myself hesitate. I knew what to say to that. I’d been planning this for a while. “I’m practicing for an event set-up. I thought we may as well enjoy it.” I shot her a wink.
“Let’s do it then.” She reached for a glass bottle and twisted the top, I took it from her with a kiss on the cheek and gestured for her to sit. My girl obliged, kicking out her legs as I poured us each a glass.
“So, tell me about this one,” she requested as I sat down beside her.
“It’s a bit on the sweeter side. Sparkling, with some honey notes.”
She hummed in agreement, savouring each sip.
I was a little too distracted to focus on all the tasting notes I’d been preparing.
Instead, my eyes were locked on the cider sheen on Harlow’s lips.
I knew that if I kissed her right now she’d taste like sweet apples.
I was locked onto the way her lips looked, pressed to her glass, and then how they formed into a bright smile. They consumed my every thought.
Well, maybe not every thought, because there was also her dark hair falling over the back of the seat, and the golden hour sun lighting up her glowing skin. And the way she was looking right back at me with a sparkle in her eyes.
“You’re staring.” She laughed.
I hoped she could see everything I felt, in the way I looked at her. But at the same time, I also hoped my gaze wasn’t giving away all my secrets.
“Sorry.” I shook my head with a chuckle. “You’re too beautiful,” I continued. “It’s made of apples from last year’s harvest, from the fall when I met you. Sweetheart, I can’t believe it’s only been a year. You’ve been proving how well we fit together from the moment I first saw you.”
I cleared my throat. I was getting swept away.
“I love you, Jude.” She reached out over the small table and brushed her fingers over the back of my hand.
I looked away, my eyes laser focused on the back of the ciderhouse, because if I looked into hers right now, I was going to spill my guts with sweet nothings about how much I loved and needed her. And how she felt like home, and how I wanted her to be m—
I cut myself off.
“This cider tastes great hot. Do you want to try it?”
She polished off her tasting glass and nodded. I reached for the thermos and poured the steaming contents into one of our signature red-lidded Bramley cups.
“Any name ideas coming to mind?” I asked, as I slipped a paper sleeve from my pocket onto the drink and slid it across the table.
Harlow didn’t see it just yet, she was looking away, biting her lip softly as her incredible mind went to work brainstorming. “Maybe something to do with the honey notes. Bees, ambrosia, golden…” She reached out for the hot cider and her eyes caught on what I had written.
On one side of the sleeve was our classic ink-stamped apple, and on the other was my handwriting.
Her lips parted as she read it again.
And when she looked up to find me, I was in front of her. On the grass. Kneeling.
I’d gone over so many ways to ask, but in the end I wanted it to be just her and me, by each other’s side. We worked well like that.
So, I simply wrote Will you marry me?
“How does Bramley Bridal sound for a name?”
“Jude!” She exclaimed with a shocked grin.
“Harlow Spencer.” I reached for the ring in my pocket and opened the red box. “I think you are the missing piece that fits perfectly with me. And I didn’t know I even had one until I met you. Will you be mine, forever? Because I don’t think I could live life in any other way.”
She leaped forward, and I stood up to meet her as she closed the short distance between us. My hands met her waist as hers tangled in my hair. I spun us around under the early autumn sunset.
When I finally put her down, Harlow grasped the collar of my shirt and said, “Yes!” Then she kissed me. She kept repeating the word, punctuating it with kisses. “I want you, Jude.”
I smiled against her lips, pressing her back against the trunk of a nearby apple tree. “By your side?”
“Forever.”