“It all looks so beautiful,” I breathed, looking around me in wonder. My sister had made the most beautiful arbor for us to stand under for our marriage. Then she found some guys to place it near the creek and tied fresh wild flowers from the mountain around it. Tea light votive candles hung from the top of the arbor. It was rustic and simple and beautiful.

“You’re not just saying that? I mean, you could have had the grandest society wedding America has seen in forever. Better than Kim Kardashian’s wedding.”

“Which one?”

“OK, OK,” she said with a laugh.

I looked into my sister’s eyes. They were sparkling with health and I had to swallow hard to stop myself from crying. After her first operation, she opened her eyes and thanked me. She told me I was not her sister, but an angel sent by God. I shook my head and told her she was the angel sent by God. If she had not been sick I would not have taken Lynn’s job. I never would have met Cade. And my life would have been that boring humdrum existence.

“Yes, I promise you this is exactly what I wanted,” I said, leaning forward to kiss her cheek. “As long as you are here to see this then I don’t need anyone else but Cade to be here.”

She laughed. “Fine with me. If you’re happy, then I’m happy.”

“I am happy. Wildly, unreasonably, incredibly happy.”

She grinned. “Ok.”

“Come on then, I need to get into my dress.”

We waved at Big Bill and left him waiting outside the cabin. Big Bill was the only guy in town ordained to perform marriages. I think he went to some kind of spiritualist group to be given the right, but whatever. He was a really nice guy, and was endearingly happy to come out and perform the ceremony for us in exchange for a few freshly caught trout from the creek and a bottle of homemade gin.

Yup, I made the gin. I found out I have a special talent for making moonshine.

We went into the cabin. Did I mention that the cabin looks completely different now? Cade increased it to double its original footprint. I insisted on one thing though, that we keep the sleeping arrangements above, exactly as it was when I first arrived. For some strange reason, climbing into bed with Cade at night always gives me a flutter in my stomach. Sometimes it makes me a bit sad that we no longer live here full time.

Cade announced one summer morning that he was done hiding on the mountain. He wanted to start a brand-new life and he was going to move the sculpture of me that he made when we first met from the cabin back to our home in the city. It was the first piece he had not thrown away or destroyed. He told me he planned to, but when he lifted his axe he simply couldn’t do it. Something in him had changed forever.

So Cade and I started to spend more and more time in the outside world. Only retreating here when we wanted to be with only each other.

Then one day, while we were out fishing, he got on his knees and proposed. Saying yes was the easiest decision I ever made. Actually, it wasn’t even a decision. I always knew he was my fate. From the moment I opened my eyes and saw that bear of a man my heart always knew I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

And it was right. There was no chewing this one.

This one swallowed me whole.

Without Cade knowing, I had a wedding dress made for me by a little old lady in town. A gorgeous, simple white dress with a sweetheart neckline and scoop back. It was perfect. Simple and beautiful just like everything else around me, and what existed between Cade and I. Anna helped me into it, then she pinned flowers in my hair.

“Oh, my God, Katrina. You’re so beautiful.”

“If only Mom and Dad could see us now.”

“They’re looking down on us, Katrina. They’re looking down on us,” she said softly.

Tears filled my eyes then. “I love you, Anna.”

“And I love you more.”

When I walked out of the cabin and down the path to the arbor by the creek, Cade turned to look at me. The expression on his face when he saw me in my white dress will be engraved in my memory forever. I saw him blink back tears and then, of course, I started crying, like a damn waterfall. Thank God for waterproof mascara.

He put his thumb under my chin. “You’re my life.”

I knew then that we may not always have happy moments in our life together, but these good ones are so good they could outweigh any bad life could throw at us.

Later tonight, I will tell him about the child growing in my belly.