EPILOGUE #2
“I do not snore,” he says, giving my hair a tug as he passes me for the sink. The pipes protest when the water comes on, and he splashes his face. “I just need a minute to wake up. I’m fine.”
“What are you in the mood for?”
He dries his hands on a dish towel and leans against the cabinet. “What if we skip the movie? Have a picnic out back in the barn instead.”
“The barn that looks like it could collapse at any second?”
“The very one.”
I tap my chin like I’m giving it serious thought. “I could eat. What are you thinking?”
“Ahh,” he says, pushing off the counter and opening the small fridge. “I have all the classics: some kind of cheese I can’t pronounce, peaches, a baguette…” He says baguette in an exaggerated French accent, and I tip my head back laughing. “Box of macarons, a bottle of Crémant de Loire…”
“What’s that?”
“Loire Valley’s version of Champagne. I was assured it’s très bien.”
I sit back, arms folded. “You’re down for that after you three tore up the brandy last night?”
He shrugs. “I feel great.”
Probably the McDonald’s he insisted on. Or McDo, as Zack called it.
“I still can’t believe you rode a bicycle into town. Alone. And no one recognized you.”
“Eh, I don’t think they care here.” He spins a chair around and straddles it. “Besides, you guys were gone a while. I got bored. How’d it go? She do okay?”
“It was so great, Holden. I wish you could’ve come, but I kind of love that she just wanted it to be us.”
“I kind of love that too.” He folds his arms on the back of the chair. “Thanks for taking her. I know it meant a lot.” His eyes soften. “She adores you, you know.”
“She’s a special girl,” I say, getting up from the table with my mug. “I adore her too.”
He catches my hand. “Take your time. I’m going to go assess the odds of that barn caving in on us.”
Upstairs, I swap my leggings and tee for a more presentable but just-as-comfy cream maxi dress, light cardigan, and canvas espadrilles. I peek in on Hannah—fast asleep in her room, Gilmore Girls streaming on her tablet—then head out to find Holden.
From a distance, the barn is little more than a ruin, with crumbling walls and a partially collapsed clay-tile roof. But the closer I get, the more its stubborn charm starts to show.
“That was fast,” Holden says as I step through the opening where a door might’ve been.
“This is…kind of romantic.” Sunlight pours in, turning dust motes to glitter. Ivy climbs up from the foundation, while weeds that could pass for wildflowers sprout from the cracks.
“I thought so,” he says, looking down at his phone. His thumbs move across the screen, and something unmistakably French fills the barn.
“You put some effort into this. Boredom suits you.” I wander farther inside, dragging my fingers along the warm stone walls. It smells earthy. Maybe a little sweet. “I checked on Hannah. She’s out cold, poor thing.”
“She’s…out?”
“Dead to the world.”
He pockets his phone and points toward the house. “I, uh…forgot glasses.”
“Go,” I tell him. “I need to try Constance anyway.”
“Be right back.”
I haven’t talked to my best friend since we’ve been here. Between teaching summer school and bartending a few nights a week, she’s hard to pin down. These days, it’s either text or nothing at all—at least until she starts her internship in the fall.
We’re heading back Monday. I want to get together so let me know when you’ll be free. Miss you!
Her response comes fast. Miss you too! Gotta run but I’ll send you my schedule
I peek inside the picnic basket—the macarons are almost too pretty to eat—then spot the Crémant and a bottle of cider chilling in a mop bucket of ice.
Resourceful.
The music sputters as Holden moves farther from the barn, then fades away completely.
Overhead, loose tiles shift in the breeze.
I kick off my sandals and drop onto the blanket he laid out, soaking up what’s left of the 9 p.m. sun.
Several minutes pass before the music starts up again and voices drift in from outside.
“Somebody wants to join us,” Holden says, ruffling Hannah’s hair beside him.
“Perfect timing.” I pat the spot next to me. “Come sit. Have a macaron.”
Holden shakes his head. “See? This is one of the many things I love about you. I tell you my bratty little sister—”
“Hey!” Hannah gives him a playful shove.
“—wants to crash our date, and you’re—”
“Lies,” she says, sighing loudly. “You told me you wanted—”
Holden clamps a hand over her mouth, muffling the rest. “As I was saying, I tell you she wants to crash our date, and you’re genuinely excited about it.”
I laugh. “Of course I am. Hannah’s my girl.”
She wriggles free and grins. “Can you just ask her already? I really want a macaron.”
“Ask me what?”
Holden presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Guess I better, before you do it for me.”
“What’s…going on?” I ask, barely containing a smile.
He gently nudges Hannah aside, then drops to one knee.
Oh, wow. Okay. This is happening.
“Magnolia May”—he pulls a small velvet box out of his pocket—“I love you.”
“We love you,” Hannah says, inching closer.
“And I want to spend the rest of my life feeling exactly like this.”
Hannah nods. “Me too.”
Then he opens it, and my eyes fill. It’s gold, with a magnolia setting, a single diamond at the center.
It’s perfect.
“So will you please marry us—me? Will you marry me?”
I scramble forward across the blanket and fling myself at him.
“Is that a yes?” he asks.
Hannah giggles. “I think it might be.”
“Yes,” I say, tears spilling down my cheeks. “It’s definitely a yes.”
His hands tremble as he slides the ring on my finger. “The diamond was my mother’s, from the ring Dad gave her when she still meant something to him. Before he replaced it with meaningless carats and insisted she wear something flashier.”
The waning light catches the stone, like it waited for this moment to shine.
“I want to give you everything, Maggie. But I wanted this to be something you’d love, not something you’d tolerate.”
“I do love it.”
He wipes my tears with his thumb. “Maggie Shaw,” he says softly, like he’s trying it on for size. “Yeah. I really, really like that.”
My future name hangs in the air as he meets my watery gaze. And just like when we’re dancing, the rest of the world slips away until it’s just the two of us.
“Hey,” Hannah says, crunching on a macaron. “Where’s the sparkling cider?”
Correction: three of us.
I smother a laugh, then raise a brow at Holden. “And the glasses?”
“I didn’t forget the glasses. Just had to wake my sister.” He stands and helps me up. “Cider’s at the house.”
“The cider? It’s in the mop—”
Holden clamps a hand over my mouth this time. “Kitchen. Back of the fridge.”
The second Hannah’s gone, he lets me go.
“I didn’t forget the cider, either,” he says, sliding his fingers into my hair.
“Just wanted a few minutes alone with my fiancée.” His palms linger on my cheeks as he leans in, kissing me like he’s waited a lifetime to do it.
When the music changes, he reaches for my hand, his knuckle skimming the flower on my ring. “Dance with me.”
I smile. Just the thought of dancing used to rattle Holden. Now we dance all the time—but you can’t exactly two-step to French pop.
I narrow my eyes at the speaker. “You know how to dance to this?”
“Of course not,” he says, digging out his phone. Seconds later, the barn goes quiet. “I have a confession. We didn’t drink raw Calvados last night. That was just our cover.”
“Your cover? For what?”
“So your brother could teach me how to dance to something French.” He grins. “Took a while, but we actually found a song we could two-step to.”
“You spent last night two-stepping with my brother?”
“And Zack.”
“And I missed it?”
He shrugs, slipping his phone back in his pocket. “’Fraid so.”
The first notes of “La Mer” trickle from the speaker, and I step into his arms.
“I remember my parents dancing around our kitchen when I was a kid. They were happy back then. Maybe even as happy as I am right now.” He lifts our joined hands to his lips and kisses my fingers.
“But what I feel for you isn’t fragile, Maggie.
It’s the kind of thing that doesn’t break.
You and Hannah…you’re everything to me. That’s not going to change. ”
I swallow around the sudden lump in my throat. “Okay, well now I have to marry you.”
His laughter vibrates between us as we move in time with the music, gliding from the blanket to the packed dirt floor, cool beneath my bare feet.
“I love you so much, Holden Shaw. And I love Hannah and I love this life we’ve built together. I don’t need to marry you, but I can’t wait to marry you.” My cheek finds his shoulder. My eyes close. “You’ve made me happier than I ever dreamed I could be.”
Hannah’s footsteps scuff across the gravel drive, but we keep moving.
“I thought we were having a picnic,” she says from the doorway, her sweet voice edged with betrayal.
I lift my head and smile.
Holden nods toward the basket, those gray-blue eyes never leaving mine. “Start without us.”
We dance to the crinkle of cellophane, the slurp of a juicy peach, the fizz of sparkling cider.
“Feel free to take that with you,” he says, and as quick as she came, she’s gone.
At some point, the music ends, but our feet carry on.
Night falls.
Moonlight replaces the sun.
Hannah slips in to steal the rest of the macarons, then slips back out again.
We continue to dance.
Quick, quick, slow, slow.
And for the rest of our lives, we don’t stop.
THE END