Chapter 48
MAGGIE
The Ferris wheel carried us higher, creaking softly as it paused to let someone off or on. Ryan and I sat in a car almost right at the peak, swinging slightly back and forth as we looked down at the riot of lights and color that was the carnival below.
I leaned a little closer to the metal bar, peering down at the wedding reception that appeared to be devolving into complete chaos across the lawns. “Look at them all. It seems impossible that these people arrived here with terribly strong opinions about the thread count of the table linens.”
Ryan chuckled, his arm slung around my shoulders pulling me closer. “If you ask me, it’s just good to know there’s some humanity in them. Tomorrow, they can go back to debating the thread count of a tablecloth. For now, let them cut loose a little. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“That’s true. There’s nothing uptight or formal about what’s going on down there.” I leaned into his side, resting my head on his shoulder as I tried to believe how this day had turned out. “We’re married, Ry. How on earth did that happen?”
He chuckled, turning his head toward mine and burying his face in my hair. “Honestly, I have no idea. I wasn’t even going to come until I got your voicemail.”
“Really?” I pulled back a tiny bit to glance up into his eyes.
For someone who’d derailed a wedding a couple hours ago, he seemed completely relaxed, happiness shining brighter from his eyes than the stars above and a lazy, satisfied smile on his lips.
“Are you serious? You were going to let me marry Daniel until I tried calling you?”
“It’s not up to me to let you do anything,” he said, bringing a hand up to my cheek and stroking it with the pad of his thumb.
“It’s your life. Your decisions to make.
I wasn’t going to come because I couldn’t bear the thought of watching you marry him, but then I got your message and I couldn’t stay away either. ”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I murmured, so positively overwhelmed by everything that had happened that it all felt entirely surreal. “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt before?”
“Oh, you mean, why didn’t I tell you that I’m in love with you while I was planning your wedding to another man?” A slow smile spread on his lips. “I don’t know, Mags. Maybe because I didn’t think I stood a chance?”
“It should’ve been our wedding all along,” I replied, moving my head forward to rest my forehead against his. “I just didn’t think you wanted that. You told me you hadn’t met your wife yet and that you’d know when you did. I was convinced that meant it wasn’t me.”
“It’s always been you.” He exhaled a long, slow breath before pressing a kiss to the tip of my nose. “I adore you, Maggie. I love you. I worship you. From now until the end.”
Happy tears flooded my eyes. I wrapped my arms around his neck and sealed my lips over his for a kiss that stole my breath, murmuring against his mouth once I pulled away. “I love you too. I can’t believe how close we got to never getting to be together.”
“Too close,” he agreed, sliding his arm around my shoulders again and turning to lean back against the seat when the ride resumed its slow movement. “I don’t want to think about that, though. Not tonight.”
I inhaled a deep breath, smiling as I cuddled into his side once more. “You’re right. Not tonight. Let’s just enjoy our carnival.”
He chuckled and tightened his grip on me. “It’s still your carnival, baby. But everyone else seems to be enjoying it too.”
I peered back down at the guests. All of them seemed to be having a roaring good time.
One of my mother’s friends was riding a mechanical bull instead of clutching her pearls.
A group of my father’s business associates were hogging a games booth, evidently challenging each other to some kind of ring toss.
Meanwhile, Cathy was barefoot in the grass and I laughed when I caught a glimpse of her from the corner of my eye. “My mother is going to kill her.”
Ryan squinted in her direction and his eyebrows shot up. “I don’t think so. Look again. Your mother is currently dancing with her.”
When I leaned forward and got a clear view of what was going on down below, I realized he was right. My eyes nearly bulged out of my head, but there she was, Adelaide Pembroke, with one hand in the air as she rocked back and forth on her heels.
“Oh my God,” I muttered. “They’re so going to regret this tomorrow.”
Ryan laughed. “Nah, they’re having fun.”
As we watched, a carnie danced his way up to Cathy, leaning closer to say something that made her shriek with laughter. My mother didn’t even flinch, simply laughing along before excusing herself and joining her friends at another ride to give them some space.
I half expected Cathy to wave the guy off, but she didn’t, flirting with him and pulling him closer for a dance instead. Ryan gaped at the scene for a moment and grinned. “That guy looks like he could fix a transmission with his teeth. I didn’t know that was Cathy’s type.”
“It’s not,” I said, struck dumb but giggling before I swept my gaze from one side of the carnival to the other.
The view from up here was incredible, kids running around with cotton candy while someone seemed to have started a conga line. Clusters of people surrounded every game, ride, and booth, and while I’d never seen them do anything like it, they all really seemed to be enjoying themselves.
The only person who wasn’t was my dad. He sat alone at the bar, nursing a drink. Holden appeared beside him as we started our descent and clapped him on the back, saying something I hoped was uplifting.
Dad looked up at him when he spoke, but I lost sight of them before I could see if whatever Holden had said made him smile or scowl. I sighed, feeling tension return to my muscles the closer we got to the ground.
Ryan seemed to sense it, reaching over and gently turning my face toward him. “Hey. Don’t worry about it now.”
I blinked at him, looking into those clear blue eyes I loved so much and wishing I could feel as relaxed and confident as he looked. “I’m not trying to worry about it, but what we did was huge, Ryan. The backlash—”
“Tonight is our night,” he said firmly, holding my gaze. “There will be a time for family drama, but it’s not right now. This is about us.”
My throat constricted. “I still can’t believe there is an us.”
“Neither can I, but that’s exactly why we’re going to take tonight for ourselves, and then tomorrow or maybe even the next day, we’ll get into everything else.
We’re married, Maggie. After everything we’ve been through, we’re really, actually married.
Let’s just allow that to sink in before we start allowing anyone to try to break us apart again. ”
I slid my hand into his and gripped it tight. “That’s not happening. I won’t let them treat us like they did Viola and my grandfather. Just in case that’s what you were thinking.”
He wound his fingers around my own, bringing our joined hands to his mouth and brushing a kiss to my knuckles. “No, we definitely won’t let that happen, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try, so let’s just enjoy tonight while we’ve got it. Okay?”
“Deal,” I said, smiling until we finally had our feet on solid ground again.
Ryan’s hand didn’t leave mine for the rest of the night. The two of us moved from group to group and ride to ride for hours before we finally snuck off. I laughed as we stole away to his car like two thieves in the night.
“What about Holden and Nora? Didn’t you all drive over here together?”
“They’ll live.” He grinned as he opened the passenger door for me. “I’m pretty sure Holden would’ve already scheduled a ride of some sort. Either an Uber or with a friend. I think he knew what I was going to do before I did.”
I lowered myself into the car. As soon as he slid in behind the wheel, I turned to face him, bursting with disbelief and excitement and already looking forward to whatever came next. “Where are we going?”
“The cottage.” He turned over the engine and backed out of his parking spot, carefully turning around before gunning it down the drive. “We’ll come back to clean up our mess, but I’m not spending our first night as husband and wife in a guest room that was meant for you and Daniel.”
A shudder sped down my spine as I imagined what it would’ve been like to go up to a room with my ex-fiancé.
While I was confident we wouldn’t have shared a bed, even if it meant one of us having to spend our wedding night on the floor, the future sure wouldn’t have been looking very rosy right about now.
“Yeah. The cottage is much better. I agree.”
As the lights disappeared behind us, we escaped from our own wedding down dark roads with only the tall trees on either side as witnesses. The occasional pair of headlights flashed past us, but outside of that, we didn’t see another living soul all the way to Deerfield.
My pulse started racing when we pulled up outside of the cottage and I realized my wedding night was going to look very, very different from what I’d thought it would this morning.
Ryan Thayer was back here with me, at the cottage I’d rage-cleaned when I had thought I had never meant anything to him at all.
By this point, he and I had created many memories here, but this was the first time we were arriving as a couple. With no marriage to someone else looming over us and our feelings out in the open. Ryan Thayer was my freaking husband.
He’d barely gotten the door open before I caught his jacket and pulled him to me.
He laughed against my mouth, his arms automatically coming up to wrap around my hips. “Well, hello, wife.”
“Hello, husband.”
When his lips crashed into mine, all the worries about everything we still had to face fell away. The door swung shut behind us, sealing us into a place that had seen so much heartbreak, but maybe this could be a new beginning for the cottage as well.
“I cleaned up,” I murmured against his lips as I looped my arms around his neck.
His mouth stilled against mine. “What?”
“When I came here before, I cleaned up. I can’t promise there are no racoons in the attic, but the bed has clean, new sheets on and there’s no more dust.”
He grinned, then nipped my lower lip before kissing me again. “We’ll take care of the critters eventually, and get rings, and go on a proper honeymoon, but for now, clean bedding, no dust, and you sound like a dream come true.”
When we finally broke apart, I was slightly out of breath, my body humming with need and my heart fuller than it had ever been. Ryan looked at me like he felt the same. He took my hand and led me to the bedroom, sliding in at my back to undo the buttons trailing down my spine.
He cursed every so often, clearly getting frustrated with them, but once he was finally finished, he even took the time to swipe the dress up off the floor and hang it over a chair.
Before he came back to me, still in that ridiculously sexy suit while I was down to only my panties, he glanced back at the dress and smiled.
“You know, I really wasn’t convinced by that thing until I saw you in it.
You were stunning, Maggie. You literally took my breath away.
” He closed the distance between us in a couple of long strides and wrapped me up in his arms, punctuating his words with kisses as he pressed his lips to mine.
“It nearly killed me, seeing you looking like that while you were walking toward someone else.”
“It nearly killed me too, but we’ll never have to go through that again.
” I hooked my fingers under his jacket and pushed it off his shoulders.
“I love you, Ryan, and the dress was perfect. Don’t get me wrong, it was exactly what I’ve always wanted, but I wore it to feel closer to you.
Honestly, I don’t even think Daniel noticed what I was wearing. ”
Ryan chuckled and kicked off his shoes. “Well, his loss is my gain.”
“I was never his to lose.”
“Fair enough,” he murmured, kissing me again as I started on his buttons. “Either way, I’ll never stop being grateful to him for calling it off.”
“Neither will I,” I admitted quietly. “If he didn’t, I was going to, though. He just beat me to the punch.”
“Good to know.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.” Ryan turned to sit down on the bed, pulling me with him as he lay back. “We were meant to end up together, Mags. Daniel will find the person who’s right for him too. Eventually. Let’s just hope he’s bought himself some time to do it.”
“I hope so,” I whispered as I finally pushed the two sides of his shirt apart. “He deserves that.”
“Agreed.” He wound his fingers into my hair and gently pulled my head down toward him. “Now can we please stop talking about the guy you almost married so I can make love to my wife?”
I giggled and pressed a hot, hard kiss to his lips. “I can honestly say that there is nothing else I would rather do, and no one I would rather do it with.”