Maggie would be there to help considering there was still so much to do for the wedding.
“Nervous. Excited. Just…ready to have my family together,” he said.
“I can’t wait to have this time with her,” Emily said, love riding through her features. “I love her already, and I hardly know her.”
She almost blushed at that, turning self-conscious as she peeked at her fiancé.
God.
She was amazing.
So good.
So kind.
So real.
“I imagine it’s natural to immediately love a child you know you’re going to be responsible for. That you’re going to care for. A child who’s going to look to you to teach her. To protect her. To love her. It doesn’t matter if she was born of your body or not.”
There was Maggie again.
The empath.
So insightful that it stole the words from everyone’s tongues.
But Richard was looking at me.
Understanding the stark, instant impact of what Maggie had said.
The crash of devotion.
The truth that I would do whatever was required for Daisy.
Live and die and fight and pray.
She was the core of who I was.
The focus.
The reason.
Our gazes danced. Twirling and twirling as the silence hovered around us.
The truth that by stepping up, she’d become his, too.
He reached for my hand. “Almost finished?”
With shaky hands, I set down the last of the jars I’d been working on. “I think so. It’s all coming together.”
Emily came for me, hugged me tight. “Thank you.”
Why I suddenly felt like crying, I didn’t know. But I felt awash in it. In the emotion. In the love. In the true meaning of family.
I hugged Melanie something fierce, Maggie the same, Lincoln and Rhys.
Royce, too, his voice a murmured, “Thank you,” at my ear.
I swiped the tear that got free. “It is my honor.”Thirty-ThreeViolet“You look stunning.” I smiled softly at my sister-in-law where she stood at the full-length mirror in my bedroom.
Wearing her wedding dress.
Twenty minutes from walking down the aisle.
Waves of blonde were twisted in a loose side braid, and tons of wisps fell out, fresh flowers from the field pinned into the plaits.
“Um. Stunning might be an understatement. Royce is gonna lose his shit.” Mel grinned.
Emily released a shaky exhale, and she spread her hand over her belly, emotion cresting in her eyes that were the same color as her brother’s.
Her mama stepped up to her and took her by the hand. “You are so incredibly beautiful, sweet girl. Look at you. Mel is right. Royce is gonna lose his shit.”
I choked out a laugh, and Maggie took Emily’s other hand. “I agree. You walk in the room, and my brother can’t look anywhere else. Come in looking like this? You’re going to be lucky if you make it all the way through dinner before he’s hauling you to privacy to get you out of this dress.”
Mabel tossed her a grin. “That’s what weddin’ dresses are—a gift for the groom. A present to be unwrapped.”
“Torn to shreds, more like it,” Mel said. “It might as well be five-thousand-dollar tissue paper.”
“Um, if he destroys this dress, he’s in trouble.” Mia sent a playful smile to Emily.
Mia Godwin was dressed in the same bridesmaids dress I’d modeled just a couple weeks before. The clingy, gorgeous fabric hugged her shape flawlessly.
I’d met the wife of Carolina George’s drummer two days ago. Emily had been right.
I loved her.
Instantly.
So honest and open. Direct but soft.
This striking beauty who undoubtedly stopped traffic when she walked on the street.
Melanie hadn’t been exaggerating—there were gonna be some epic pictures from the event. The way the photographer was currently scurrying around and clicking a gazillion shots and groaning in pleasure as she did was proof of that.
“Mommy!” The door banged open to Daisy running in with Anna in tow.
The two little black-haired angels had been inseparable from the second they’d met.
“Me and my’s bestest new cousin friend are all ready. We didn’t even get no dirt on our dresses when we went down the slide.”
Lord help me.
“Daisy. You were supposed to be reading books in your room. Not playing on the swing set.”
“Well, I was telling her a story when we played. That counts, right?”
“This kid’s gonna be an attorney.” Mel sent me one of those looks that prayed for my sanity. “Pretty sure she can talk herself out of any bit of trouble. Hell, all she needs to do is smile.”
Daisy beamed the evidence.
Exhibit one.
Emily giggled at poor Anna standing looking like she’d been cornered.
“I think my daughter is a bad influence,” I said, twisting my face up in a hapless apology.
“That’s what cousins are for,” Daisy informed me. “We gotta learn from each other. And have all the fun together. Right, Anna?”
Anna nodded in her shy way.
The child was quiet and timid and probably feeling a bit out of sorts, but we were doin’ our absolute best to show her this was where she belonged.
That she fit right in.