“Your taste in art is atrocious,” she said, relaxing against him. “How could I have ever fallen for a guy like you?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out how I fell in love so hard with the most stubborn hard-ass woman in the world. I had to rethink everything about my life until I realized that the only thing I could do was admit to myself that I loved you—the woman you were, the woman you are, and the woman you’re going to be. I love all of you. Forever. So let’s do it; let’s get married.” And now he meant to be hers as much as she was going to be his. He adjusted his stance so that his hand with the quarter was free and angled his thumb for the best odds just like he’d practiced for years, not realizing that it was all for this moment. “So let’s flip for it. Heads you say yes.”
The coin went flying into the air and he held his breath because everything was riding on the outcome. Everly snatched it out of midair.
She handed it back to him without looking. “Heads.”
Cupping her face, the one he wanted to be the first one he saw every morning and the last one every night, he moved in to kiss her, stopping just short of heaven. “You told me once that you don’t believe in happy endings. I didn’t, either, until I met you. I love you, Everly Ribinski from Riverside.”
There was no missing the emotion in her eyes. “I love you, too.”
Kissing her like it was the beginning of forever—because it was—he lost himself in the woman who’d sent every plan and plot he’d ever made on its ear. By the time they broke apart, everyone in the church was clapping.
“I guess there’s only one thing left for us to do,” he said, unable to take his gaze from Everly’s beautiful face.
“Get married,” Carlo said. “You have the minister here.”
Everly threw back her head and laughed before giving Tyler some prime, grade-A Riverside smack talk. “No way—you’re gonna have to work to get me in white.”
That was his girl, never one to take the easy route without offering a challenge of her own. “Oh, believe me, I’ll come up with the perfect scheme to make that happen.”
“Well, bellissima,” Alberto said from somewhere behind them. “It seems it’s up to us to take advantage of having a church full of family and friends.”
…
Dumbfounded, Helene turned to Alberto. This was not what they’d discussed. A quiet courthouse wedding and then waiting for the right time to break it to Hudson and Sawyer.
“We can’t just get married now,” she said, looking around at everyone watching them, her gaze stopping on Hudson and Sawyer standing in the fourth pew with Felicia and Clover, all four of them looking completely and utterly shocked.
“Why not, bellissima?” Alberto asked, picking up her hand and kissing it. “I know we were planning on having your judge friend do the ceremony and then breaking it to your boys when the time was right, but the minister is here. We have a license. And I love you.”
Torn, Helene looked around at the church filled with the people she’d spent most of her life with, those who helped her with fund-raisers, those who’d seen her through Michael’s funeral, those who made her grit her teeth and remind herself that it wasn’t polite to tell them to go shove off, and—most importantly—her boys, who didn’t look angry or offended at the idea. They looked…hurt.
“Mom,” Sawyer said, striding forward to where she stood holding Alberto’s hand. “You were going to get married without us?”
Mommy guilt—it never went away no matter how old her children got—twisted her stomach into knots. Her job was to protect them. To keep them safe. To see them into adulthood and help them become the men she knew they could be. Did that job end? Shouldn’t that be her first and only priority? And they both had loved their father so much, she hadn’t wanted to make them think they had to divide their loyalties.
“I was waiting for the right time to tell you,” she said in a rush, for once floundering for the right words to say. “I know it will be hard, and your father, what would he say?”
Hudson walked over, a soft smile, so much like his father’s, on his face. “That he’s so happy you found love again.”
“Exactly what we would say,” Sawyer added.
And for once when the tears spilled down her cheeks she let them flow, unashamed and owning them fully.
“Bellissima.” Alberto wiped away her tears. “Say yes.”
The three-letter word was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t say it without making certain. She looked over at Hudson and Sawyer. “Are you sure you’ll be okay with this?”
“On one condition,” Hudson said, his face turning serious. “We get to stand up with you. I’ll be your maid of honor, of course, since I’m prettier than Sawyer.”
Her eldest snorted. “And so much more of a pain in the ass.”
“Boys,” she said, her tone the sharp one of rebuke that every mother used on occasion. Then she smiled. “That would make it perfect.”
After that, it happened quickly. She stood up at the front of the church saying “I do” to a man whom she loved with all her heart and who had taught her one of the most valuable lessons of all. A new love didn’t mean forgetting who came before, it only meant remembering that there was always more to come.