First Comes Love (Love Comes To Town)

I peer down at Harley, in my arms. One look, and I know. It’s right. We are. She is.

We’ve been travelling for two months now, after I managed to snag that last-minute ticket, and never have I thought twice about it. I barely remember there’s a home.

“Greyson?” Harley says with a tentative smile.

“Yeah?”

“About what you said…”

“Forget it,” I say. “I mean, not for good. But for now.”

I have an idea. If I’m going to propose to her, it can’t be anything less than perfect. Not for my girl.

“Oh?” Eyes closed, I can hear the smile in her voice.

I kiss the top of her head. “Just… right now is perfect as it is. Isn’t it?”

“It is,” she agrees. “We are.”EpilogueHarley

One Year Later

“Who loves you?” I coo at the baby in my lap. “Mama loves you.”

The chubby little boy in the cow PJs (a joke gift from Hannah, of course) with Greyson’s dancing eyes and a curl of my wavy blond hair giggles, delighted.

“Are you sure about this?” I ask Greyson as I eye Janie critically. She has become a close friend recently and has always been amazing with little Dakota, but still. Every time I have to be away from my little boy, there’s a pang.

“It’s just for an hour,” he assures me, crouching to give our son a kiss on his fat cheek. “And we’ll be less than twenty feet away. I told you: I’m not missing date night with my fiancée for anything in the world.”

I can’t quite hold back the smile forcing its way onto my face. “Oh, alright. But just an hour.”

Greyson’s hand finds mine. “And not a minute more.”

Outside, the plains spread before us, wild and dusty. I sneeze.

“Do I get to find out what the surprise is?” I ask, peering around. I can’t see anything but desert and tents.

“Just a bit farther,” Greyson says, leading me along. “And then…”

“Surprise!”

I gape as people burst out of a tent I thought was suspiciously large. First up is Hannah and Roger. “But… how?”

Hannah’s beaming as she holds out the lace and macramé dress we picked out together a few months ago. “You’re getting married!”

“Now?” I turn to gape at Greyson.

He just smiles. “Now. You said you wanted it to be a surprise and in a wild location, remember?”

“Yeah, but…” I laugh, surveying the endless-seeming plains. “This is perfect.”

Twenty minutes later, after Hannah helps me get my dress on and my hair and makeup nice, we come outside to see that the team Greyson hired has set up the lily flower hangings, a golden lily-twined archway and the chairs. Russel is the first to sit down, wearing a mustache that looks recent, bushy and hilarious, throwing a wink my way.

“I always knew you two were soulmates,” he says lugubriously. “Just like me and my Esme. We will find our way back to each other, somehow.”

Another mystery is how they got Anchovy here. He’s scurrying around everything delightedly while Hannah tries to chase him down. She pauses to smile at me. “You look gorgeous.”

“Thanks. I… this is crazy.”

“C’mon everyone!” Greyson says, hurrying everyone along. “I told my bride one hour and I intend to keep my promise.”

And, the wildest thing of all, he does. The ceremony is quick: my dad walking me down the aisle, the priest having us say our vows. When Greyson says: “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You have made me into the man I am today,” I know he means it, has as little doubt about it as I do. Together, we’re just right.

And then we kiss, and then it’s done. We are husband and wife.

It’s weird, all this. I never cared much for the institution of marriage, but with Greyson, it just feels right. Just how it felt right the second time he proposed to me, on one of the Aeolian Islands he’d booked just for us, with a candlelight dinner under the stars.

The food is delicious, the highlight, of course, being the caramel corn. Landon has to step out to call a lawyer he’s setting up a meeting with, but he gets back in time for his speech. He and the rest of Greyson’s brothers deliver speeches that get everyone laughing. Hannah delivers a toast so good that I tear up and we hug for a long, long time.

And then Greyson and I dance, chest to chest, as Elvis Presley croons, “Can’t help falling in love… with… you.”

Partway through the song, Greyson catches my eye. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I say.

He brushes a tear off my cheek. “What’s up?”