Chapter Forty-Two #3
“Yeah.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. “Me too.”
She steps closer. Smooths her hands down the front of my shirt, and tips her chin up.
“The second they leave, Jensen.”
“The second.”
“That’s a promise.”
“You’re already wearing my promise.” I catch her hand, press my lips to her ring finger. “This one’s just a bonus.”
She exhales a laugh, soft and warm, and rises on her toes to kiss my jaw. Then she steps back, re-buttons the flannel—correctly this time—and runs her fingers through her hair.
“Okay. Brunch. I can handle brunch.” She finger combs her hair. “How do I look?”
Like the woman I’m going to marry. Like home. Like the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Like someone I was inside of three minutes ago, which is information I’m going to have to sit on while I eat quiche across from her father.
“Perfect,” I say, meaning it.
She narrows her eyes like she knows exactly what I’m not saying, and heads for the porch.
I take a breath. Then another. Then I pour two cups of coffee and follow her outside.
The porch is already a Linda Marshall production.
She’s dragged the chairs into a semicircle, laid out the casserole, alongside a box of muffins, a fruit salad in Tupperware, and what appears to be an entire loaf of banana bread wrapped in foil.
Robert is sitting with his ankles crossed, coffee in hand, looking out at the trees like a man who has found peace and intends to keep it.
The morning is stupidly beautiful. October in Broken Bow—the trees turning amber and rust, the creek running somewhere below us, the air cool and clean and smelling like pine.
I built this porch with my own hands last spring, sanded and stained every board, and I’ve never loved it more than right now, watching Emmie settle into the chair beside me and tuck her feet under herself.
“This is wonderful,” Linda announces, spreading her arms wide. “The air! The quiet! Robert, we should get a cabin.”
“We have a house, Linda.”
“A cabin is different. It’s rustic. It’s romantic.” She waggles her eyebrows at me. “Right, Crew?”
“It’s, uh. Yeah.” I take a very long sip of coffee.
Emmie reaches over and squeezes my knee. It’s grounding. We’re in this together.
I cover her hand with mine.
Linda dishes out the breakfast casserole and launches into a detailed account of the drive—the traffic on I-35, the gas station where Robert refused to stop, the audiobook she’s listening to about a woman who renovates a farmhouse and falls in love with the contractor.
“It reminded me of you two,” she says, beaming. “You’re both the contractor and the love interest, Crew. You’re very versatile.”
“Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.” She takes a bite of muffin. “So. How’s wedding planning? Have you picked a date? A venue? Colors? I think sage green would be beautiful. Or dusty blue. Robert, don’t you think dusty blue?”
“Whatever they want, Linda.”
“Well, obviously whatever they want. But dusty blue.”
Emmie groans. “Mom, we’ve been engaged less than twenty-four hours.”
She waves one hand. “The good venues book up a year in advance, Emmie. A year. If you want a spring wedding—”
“We haven’t decided on a season.”
“Spring. Trust me. Texas summer weddings are too hot.” Linda turns to me. “Crew, do you have a preference? Season? Colors? Theme?”
“I—” I glance at Emmie, who mouths save yourself. “Whatever Emmie wants.”
“Smart man.” Linda nods approvingly. “Very smart. Robert wasn’t that smart. He wanted a fall wedding and I wanted spring and we didn’t speak for two weeks.”
“We spoke,” Robert says mildly.
“You spoke at me. There’s a difference.”
Emmie leans into my shoulder. I feel her body relax, the tension from the mad scramble finally draining.
She turns her hand over and laces her fingers through mine—the same way she did twenty minutes ago in bed, when she was close, when she was reaching for me like I was the only solid thing in the world.
The ring presses warm against my palm.
I look at her. She’s watching her mom argue with her dad about seasonal flower availability, a half-smile on her face, and the morning light is catching the freckles across her nose and she’s so goddamn beautiful it makes my chest hurt.
She catches me staring. Tips her head. Mouths: Later.
I mouth back: Try and stop me.
Her smile widens. She turns back to her parents, and I take a drink of coffee and look out at the trees.
A year ago, I didn’t have this. Any of it. Not the cabin, not the porch, not the woman, not the ring on her finger or her parents at my table or the easy, aching knowledge that I’m loved—loudly and imperfectly and without conditions. I’m loved. Full stop.
I’d tell that kid—the one in the foster homes, the one who thought he was unlovable and flinched from touch—I’d tell him this was coming.
That someday he’d sit on a porch he built with his own hands and drink coffee with the family he chose and it would be chaotic and interrupted and completely, ridiculously worth it.
He wouldn’t believe me. But that’s okay.
I barely believe it myself.