Bonus Epilogue
WED(DING) POETS SOCIETY
Cricket, some months later…
Stress is the worst.
Not that today’s stress is any worse than some other stresses we’ve had in the last few months as we barrel—pun intended—toward the grand re-opening of the winery, but today’s stress is up there.
Things just keep going wrong.
Little things here.
Little things there.
Glittery things here.
Glittery things there.
It’ll all be okay though.
It has to be okay.
But today, when I’m supposed to be out in the fields looking for any vines that aren’t growing the way they should be this spring, and when we’re mere days from opening our doors, I’m ducking into the barrel cellar to breathe and re-center myself.
I slip past Dori in the bottling area of the fermentation building and open the door leading downstairs as softly as possible.
But when I push open the cellar door on the basement level, voices drift up to me.
Familiar voices.
Including one particular familiar voice that immediately calms my pulse.
“So not the thing about the smoke alarms?” Heath’s saying.
“Dad. Do you want her to say no?” Lav says.
My smile grows.
“Try again, this time without the death thing too,” Pip says as I turn the corner around the row of barrels and spot my family.
I open my mouth, but before any sound can come out, Heath drops to his knee in front of Pip and holds out a small, open, ring-size velvet box.
What?
He’s angled just right so that I can only see part of his profile and none of his face. Pip’s beaming at him. Lav has her back to me, watching both of them.
“Oof, I’m nervous,” he says.
“Duh. There’s a lot riding on this,” Lav replies.
“Not helpful.”
“I thought you did well under pressure.”
“Shush.” He looks up at Pip. “Okay. How about this? My love—”
“My dearest, truest, most foreverest love,” Pip says.
My eyes start to water as the man I love more and more every day takes one of those breaths that he needs when he has to center himself.
“My dearest, truest, most foreverest love,” he starts, but Lav interrupts him.
“You can’t say foreverest. That’s not a word.”
“You can say anything you want to when you’re my age,” Pip replies.
“But Daddy’s not your age. He’s still old, but not that old.”
“Can a guy please get a little support practicing a proposal without getting called old and told to use words that aren’t in the dictionary?” He wipes his brow and huffs, then rises.
My heart swells in my chest while the heat in my eyes condenses and slips down my cheeks.
“You did ask us for help,” Pip points out.
“The lady’s not wrong,” Lav says. “You knew what you were getting yourself into.”
“Do you want her to say yes or not?” Heath asks them.
Pip tilts her head and squints at him. “Eh? Do we want her to stay in a juggernaut? That’s not a word to use in a proposal.”
“We want her to say yes, but it wouldn’t be bad for you to sweat a little first,” Lav says.
“Lavender,” I say through a laugh, finally finding my voice.
And my feet.
All three of them spin and look at me as I stride between the rows of new barrels toward the most wonderful man in the universe.
Heath’s eyes go wide, his cheeks pink, and he thrusts the box into his pocket.
Pip’s mouth forms an O, but her eyes take on an amused twinkle.
“Cricket, what are you doing here?” Lav squeaks. “Get back to work, lady. We have a winery to open and your job isn’t in the cellar!”
I step around her, stress gone, worries gone, anxiety all poof as I go up on my tiptoes and wrap my arms around Heath’s neck. “Hi,” I whisper.
He grips me by the waist. “You—you didn’t—you didn’t see anything, did you?”
I’d lie to him, but the tears still leaking down my cheeks and my smile are likely a dead giveaway. “Yes.”
“Yes, you didn’t, or yes, you did?”
I thread my fingers through his hair, falling more and more in love with this gentle giant, this man who sees me, this man who’s brave and compassionate and tries so hard every day to be everything for everyone.
“Do you know how much I love you?” I ask.
His voice is thick and husky as he studies my eyes. “That’s supposed to be my line.”
“I love you more than the stars and the moons and the planets and the heavens combined.”
“Cricket.”
“I love your heart. I love that you’re my home. I love that you let me be your home.”
“I love your laugh. I love your dedication.”
“You saved me.”
“You brought me back to life.”
“And I—”
He silences me with a kiss.
With an everything kiss.
Reverent and desperate. Gentle and demanding at the same time.
His arms circle me, pulling me tighter against his solid chest, saying with his kiss everything that I feel about him too.
I love you.
I want you.
You make life better.
You make me better.
“Ew,” Lav mutters.
“So gross,” Pip agrees.
I start giggling.
Heath chuckles.
We break the kiss and stare into each other’s eyes, both of us smiling, both of us with wet eyes and cheeks.
“I love you so much,” I tell him.
“I want to grow old with you,” he murmurs back.
“I want to help you stay young as we do.”
He holds me close, tucking my head under his chin and dropping kisses to my hair. “I was going to do this under the stars.”
“You are my star, and no matter how you ask, where you ask, when you ask, the answer will always be yes. Always yes for you.”
“Every day, I think I can’t possibly love you more, and then I do.”
He releases me, drops to one knee, and pulls the black velvet box out of his pocket, opening it to reveal a teardrop diamond ring set in a whimsical pattern of ruby, emerald, and sapphire chips. “Cricket, will you—”
“Fluffy, no!” Lav shrieks.
The cat comes out of nowhere, moving faster than I’ve ever seen her move, jumping higher too, as she yowls a war cry, leaping onto Heath’s thigh and attacking the ring box.
Heath yelps and drops the box.
Lav dives for the cat at the same time I do, and we bonk heads.
“No wine for you!” Pip shrieks. “Bad cat! Bad cat!”
Just as quickly as she appeared, Fluffy dashes under the nearest wine barrels.
Heath’s on his hands and knees. “Where did it go?”
“The ring?” Lav says. “Dad. Did you drop the ring?”
They make eye contact, then look at the barrels.
“Fluffy,” they cry together.
All three of us rush to the edge of the barrels, bending down and searching for the cat.
Her eyes glow in the light of Heath’s phone flashlight.
But the ring—the ring sparkles in her teeth.
“Don’t eat that,” Heath says to her.
“Fluffernutter Sandwich Ice Cream Pie, get out here right this minute,” Lav orders.
And me?
I’m trying not to giggle.
Because this?
This is so our life.
“Is that her actual full name?” I whisper.
“I was three. Don’t judge,” Lav replies.
As if she’s seventeen instead of seven.
Just like she always does.
I love this kid.
I love this man.
I love this cat.
I love this life.
“Guess I still have to do everything around here,” Pip says.
She pulls a can out of—you know what?
I don’t want to know where she’s pulled it out from, considering she’s in one of her miniskirts and a feather boa and nothing else.
She pops the top of the small can of chili cheese dog macaroni soup and sets it on the floor.
I tilt my head and squint at it.
Huh.
That is in fact what the can says.
Along with condensed.
“Dinnertime, Fluffy,” Pip says.
Heath whips his head around to stare at her. “Stop feeding my cat bad food.”
“If this was good enough for my mama, it’s good enough for your cat,” Pip replies. She tilts her nose in the air. “And you’re welcome. Good kitty.”
Fluffy slinks out from beneath the barrels, drops the ring at Heath’s feet, and sashays to the open can, where she delicately licks at the brown, chunky mixture.
Heath looks at me.
I stare back at him.
And the next thing I know, he and I and Lavender are piled together on the barrel cellar floor, right about the same spot where Heath caught me filming myself what feels like ages ago, surrounded by symbols of our family and our future, hugging and laughing and crying.
This life?
It’s the best life.
And I wouldn’t change a single minute of it.