Emma looks over her shoulder at Violet and the guilty look on her face. "What? I knew he wouldn't stay away, so I thought it would buy some time if he started looking for you. I didn't think he was going to tear the church down to get to you though."
We both stare at Violet until she throws her hands up and walks down the hall. "I'll be waiting on you in the church. I guess since you're not where you're supposed to be you'll just bring her with you when you come."
I nod at her, but my eyes are trained on Emma. "I'm not leaving you, Brett Barrett. You're stuck with me."
"Do you promise?" I ask her, but I already know the answer.
She takes a step toward me, and I take a step back. She turns her head to the side and looks at me curiously. "What are you doing? Why are you backing up?"
I clear my throat. "Uh, because I want to get married."
She smiles. "I know, but that doesn't explain why you're backing away from me. What's going on?"
"I don't trust myself with you, Em. I know as soon as I get my hands on you that I'm going to throw you over my shoulder and take you somewhere that we can be alone."
She does a little skip toward me and grabs on to my hand, threading our fingers together. "It will probably be the car, because Violet has something planned at her diner for us after this."
"Fu—dge," I say, remembering that I'm in a church.
"So..." she starts.
"So what?" I ask.
"Are you going to take me to get married or what? The sooner we do, the sooner I get to kiss you."
I nod my head, and before she knows it, I have her up in my arms striding through the door into the church where the pastor, Violet, Raymond, and Peter are all waiting. Emma's probably embarrassed. I know this isn't probably what she expects, but now that we're to this point, I'm not letting her out of my sight until she has my ring on her finger. And even then it's a little iffy.
I put her down, right in front of the pastor. "Let's go," I tell him, and then Emma does blush. It's obvious that I'm wound very tight right now and what I plan to do as soon as this is over.
The pastor clears his throat and goes through the vows. When we're getting to the end, where the pastor asks me if I take Emma to be my wife, instead of the easy I do, I tell him, "Yes sir. She's mine."
The small crowd laughs, but I don't think it's funny. I want the whole town of Whiskey Run to know that Emma is now mine.
As soon as the pastor says, “You may kiss the bride,” I don't waste another minute. I pick her up into my arms and stride from the room. The way I plan on kissing her, well, we don't need an audience, and there's no guarantee I can stop with a kiss.
"I love you, Mrs. Emma Barrett."
"I love you, husband," she says right before she kisses me.
She was right: I barely made it to the car, but I made it. Then I showed her just how much she's mine.
Epilogue
Violet
Iwipe the counter harder as I think about what I’m about to do. I hope I’m not screwing this up. Surely, after all the couples I’ve managed to help get together, I’m not completely wrong on this. They haven’t seen each other in four years, and heck, they really didn’t hang in the same circles then, but I just know these two are meant to be together. Plus, it’s not like I’m going to set them up on a date or anything. Nope, I’m just arranging for them to be here at the same time. If fate takes over, fate takes over. If not, I’ll leave it alone.
“Hey, Vi! I have those books you wanted,” Sierra Jensen says as she walks toward the counter. Sierra is the town librarian, and even though I’m older than her, we have a good friendship with a lot in common - such as our love of books.
“Thank you. I didn’t think I would be able to make it over there today, so I really appreciate you bringing them,” I tell her.
She sets the books down with a smirk at the cover of one of the books I requested. “Look, don’t judge me. You know romance books are my guilty pleasure.”
Sierra laughs. “Oh, I know. That’s actually one of my favorite books.”
We laugh conspiratorially. “So what do I get for bringing you books? A piece of cake, a shake, what are you offering?”
“Whatever you want,” I tell her. That’s one thing I’ve always loved about Sierra. She’s always been confident with her curvy body. Well, I can’t say always. She says that in high school she wasn’t. But who’s confident in high school except for the popular crowd, which the way she tells it, she wasn’t.