EPILOGUE
The musicians were playing the prelude to the wedding march, and I was poised at the end of the aisle, my arm wrapped tightly through Angus’s. My bouquet of white roses and baby’s breath trembled in my hand. A little tuft of purple troll-doll fluff stuck out from between some of the flowers.
“You okay there, sweetie pie?” he asked, looking splendid in his black tux.
I nodded, looking out over the small crowd of people seated in white chairs on either side of the aisle I was about to walk down. Most of them were still strangers, but I knew in time they’d be like family to me.
“I’m glad you agreed to let your mom come.” He looked pointedly at the left side of the aisle, near where Candice and Kelly were standing and holding their bridesmaid flowers.
I looked at the thin woman sitting in the front row, wearing the purple dress. She was a stranger to me, but she didn’t want to be. She’d gotten healthy and was happily single, no longer looking for a man to guide her through life.
“It was Mack’s idea, not mine.” I still wasn’t sure it was possible for my mother and me to put the past behind us, but I was willing to try for Mack’s sake.
“He’s a good man. He’ll do right by you; I’ll see to it.”
I smiled. “I’m glad I’m getting you as my father-in-law. It’s like a special bonus package deal.”
He patted my hand that rested at his elbow. “We’re both kind of lucky, aren’t we?”
I nodded. “Yeah. We are.”
He gestured down the aisle with his chin. “You ready to do this?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Angus and I walked to the end of the aisle and waited for the beginning of the music. When it came, we took slow, measured steps up the walkway, the short train behind my dress swishing along the white runner that had been laid down over the grass in the backyard. An arbor covered in flowers waited for me, and under it was the man I would marry for the second time, only this time it would be official in the eyes of the law. Standing next to him was his younger brother and the hulking form of a man-bear-pig.
Mack wore a tux with a bolo tie and a black cowboy hat. He’d never looked so stunning, his bright blue eyes drawing me in from all the way down the aisle. He kept them locked on me, never looking away, never wavering. Just like his love for me, they shined like beacons, leading me out of darkness.
We reached the altar, and Angus put my hand on Mack’s arm. “Take good care of her, son, or you’ll have to answer to your mother and me.”
Mack nodded. “I wouldn’t expect or want anything less.”
Angus took his seat next to Maeve, who was quietly dabbing tears from her eyes and holding Ruby’s hand. Ruby wore a bright red dress and her best hat, little berries and a bird dangling off the side. She pursed her lips at me and nodded slowly. Her approval made me happy. I knew I’d made her proud.
“Do you have your vows?” asked the priest.
I shook my head no, but Mack nodded.
“What?” I whispered at him, confused.
He reached into his pocket with a grin and pulled out a bar napkin.
A flashback hit me like a freight train. The bar napkin . . .
“That’s . . .” I pointed at it, remembering the bar where we’d drunk our last cocktails.
He nodded. “These are the vows you wrote with me that night.”
“You kept them?” I whispered, tears coming again. I’d thought I was fresh out of the damn things after a week of talking and crying and laughing, but here they were again, threatening to destroy the makeup job Candice had done an hour or two ago.
“Of course I kept them. Memories are important.” He shook the napkin to unfold it and nodded at the priest. “We’re ready.”
My mind flashed through memories that were finally coming in a huge rush, unblocked by the magic bar napkin. Mack and I had left the hotel room after having crazy monkey sex and had walked the streets of Vegas arm in arm and hand in hand, reveling in the lights and the noise and the crowds of happy people. All the while we kissed and hugged and laughed, with the emotions that were overwhelming us. We found a corner of a busy street and just sat on a bench and talked and talked and talked about our dreams and our pasts and our hopes. We joked about having kids together and what we’d name them. And then he suggested that we go get married, getting down on one knee right there on the dirty sidewalk, and I said yes. We kissed the entire way there and the entire way back.
“Andie?”
Mack’s voice snapped me out of my trance.
“Yes?”
“Are you ready?”
I nodded. “Yes. I’m ready.”
“Go ahead with your vows,” said the priest, nodding at Mack.
Mack grinned at me and began to read.
“I, Gavin MacKenzie, sexy cowboy man of Baker City, Oregon . . . being of sound mind and hot body . . . do hereby declare that I love you, Andie Marks, lawyer extraordinaire, and want to be married to you until I’m so old, I either die or my pecker falls off.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered, my face flaming red.
Candice snorted and someone out in the crowd giggled.
Mack continued. “I will have sex with you whenever you want, and I will always give you the option to be on top if that’s what will make you happy. Blow jobs will always be optional but appreciated.”
I dropped my head and bit my lip to keep from laughing out loud. This was nuts. I hadn’t realized until this moment just how off plan I’d gone that night with Mack, but it was strangely liberating. Mack had set me free somehow, his love unlocking the door to my heart and freeing me to just be myself.
“I will change diapers when called for, both for our children and for you when you’re old and decrepit. I will never spit in public or burp too loudly or say mean things about your friends.”
Candice nudged me with her flowers. “Good one,” she whispered.
“And finally . . .”—his voice went softer—“I promise never to raise my hand against you in anger or tell you that you’re useless or threaten to hurt people you love. Ten-four, over and out, happily ever after. Those are my vows.”
I was crying before he got to the end. I’d written the promises of a drunken fifteen-year-old falling into her first love. I could see myself . . . a silly girl writing on a bar napkin as she wandered the lonely road of the past, following the beacon of light that she saw as her future. A future with Mack.
“Thank you,” I whispered. I looked out into the crowd to see how badly I’d embarrassed my soon-to-be husband, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. My mom was sobbing quietly into a handkerchief while Maeve wrapped an arm over her shoulders. Grandma Lettie was nodding her head like she was at a revival meeting. Praise the Lord.
“And now for your vows,” said the priest looking at me.
“I . . . didn’t write any. I didn’t know . . .”
“Just say whatever you want,” said Mack. “Or you can use these.” He waved the napkin between us.
“No thanks,” I said, unable to keep the grin from my face. I cleared my throat. “I can do this.”
“I know you can.” He leaned over and kissed me tenderly.
“Hey, no kissing until after,” said Kelly, tapping me on the shoulder with her flowers.
I pushed Mack away gently and cleared my throat. “Okay. Vows. Take one.” I looked at Mack, trying to express with my eyes how much I loved him in that moment. “I promise to be faithful to you. To always listen to you when you want to talk. To have sex whenever you want, wherever you want.” His eyebrows went up at that, and I continued, a smile refusing to leave my face. “I promise to learn how to cook a mean beef brisket, to rope a calf, and ride a horse. I’ll stick around for as long as you’ll have me. And I promise to be as good a mom to your kids as I possibly can be.”
A tear came out of each of Mack’s eyes, and his lips quivered just the slightest bit. “Thank you.” He mouthed the words before turning to face the priest.
“Well, I guess that about does it then,” said the man in front of us. “Does someone have the ring?”
Ian leaned in and handed the gold bands to Mack. Mack gave me his and held out mine.
“Please place the bands on your future spouse’s finger.”
A wave of warmth washed over me when Mack slid the band over my knuckle and settled it onto my finger, where I knew it would reside until the day I died.
He closed his fingers over mine as I finished pushing his ring onto his finger.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride, cowboy.”
Mack grinned and bent down, blocking my view of the guests with the wide brim of his hat. “I love you, Andie MacKenzie,” he said as his lips came up against mine.
“I love you too, Gavin MacKenzie,” I said, pressing my lips to his.
THE END