Epilogue
CATHERINE
He’d planned his proposal with the care and patience of a lawyer arguing before the Supreme Court. He’d had the ring, the place, and the time.
Unfortunately, my flight out of Sri Lanka had been delayed. He’d spent the first week with me, then gone back to New York. I was supposed to follow, and he was supposed to propose at the top of Freedom Tower. Instead, he’d met me at the airport, carried me upstairs half asleep, and put the ring on my finger while I was dreaming.
Of course I’d said yes. I may have been crazy busy, but I wasn’t crazy.
And now, here I was under a tin ceiling painted with roses in a designer wedding gown my fiancé’s ex-wife had commissioned. It was gorgeous. The veil was set in my hair with roses. My nails were done, and my lipstick softened my face.
Lucia was behind me in a pink business suit, hooking the back of the dress closed. Marsha was pinning and repinning my hair.
“I love it,” I said.
“Of course you do,” Lucia replied.
“Chris is going to fall in love all over again,” Marsha said. “He hasn’t seen you yet, has he?”
“Not for a week.”
We’d been separated for that long before. We had been apart for three weeks when I was setting up a school for girls in Morocco, but this week had been the hardest. He had stayed with Johnny while I stayed at the house, planning everything with Lucia and Harper. And Taylor, of course, who’d found his way back to Harper. But that was another story entirely.
Outside, I heard kids playing and guests laughing. Everyone was coming. The entire town, the board of Montano, our friends from New York. Everyone.
There was a commotion downstairs, in the living room. Someone was calling for Father Grady. I wasn’t supposed to go down. Chris had promised a surprise.
Harper banged up the stairs and threw herself into the room. Her sentence was one long word. “Cassie-the-pregnant-FBI-agent-her-water-broke-so-they-need-to-get-married.”
Cassie the Pregnant FBI agent was with Keaton the Handsome Brit in the Dark Shirt from my birthday party.
“Okay?”
“She’s trying to leave. She doesn’t want to take the wind out of your sails.”
“Nonsense.” I gathered up my skirt.
“Can’t they have the baby first?” Lucia objected.
“I don’t know!” Harper said. “It’s a thing!”
“Americans are such prudes.”
Whatever the reason, it wasn’t for me to judge why they felt as though they had to get married first. I flew down the stairs as a voice with an English accent floated over the confusion.
“We need rings!”
“Use ours!” I called as I was halfway down. Father Grady was putting on his stole and flipping through his book of sacraments. “Chris! Give them the rings!”
Chris spun around and put his hand over his eyes. “I’m not looking at you!”
“Who has them?” I shouted, then froze. The mantel, the wall, the entire side of the room where we were to be married was crammed with roses.
“The best man,” Chris said from behind his hand. “Back upstairs, woman!”
I couldn’t back away. Couldn’t turn from the roses. “Chris.”
Johnny came in from the back in a long-tailed tuxedo jacket and bolero tie. “I got it.”
The clamor went on as people shifted and took new places. Taylor was Keaton’s best friend, so he acted as best man for the moment.
“The roses,” I said.
Chris had given up on not looking at me and laid his hands on the bannister. “You’re beautiful.”
“So many.”
“Seven hundred forty and, well, we were short five. Now we’re up five.”
I searched his face for a moment, trying to place the need for over seven hundred roses.
“The garden’s down ten though. I promised I wouldn’t cut from there, but we have some helpful people around who did it anyway.”
This is a guarantee. I pay my debts. I’m coming back with the money and more. And when I do, I’m bringing you a rose for every dollar.
“I remember.”
“I kept my promise.”
“You did.”
“Except about the garden.”
“You kept your promise, Chris.” I went down the stairs, and he met me at the bottom. “You kept promises you didn’t even make. You made me whole.”
“You made you whole. I just watched it happen.”
The impromptu ceremony ended with cheers as the groom kissed the bride. Taylor kissed Harper. Couples I barely knew kissed.
And Christopher Carmichael, the lost boy who’d become a man, the persistent letter writer, owner and friend to a puppy named for a knight, looked at my lips in their sweet pink hue and leaned in.
“No!” Harper shouted and wedged herself between us. “You waited thirteen years. You can wait another ten minutes.” She pushed me up the steps. “Go go go.”
“She’s not even hooked in back!” Lucia shouted from the top of the stairs.
Chris kissed my hand before it slipped away. “See you in ten minutes, Catherine of the Roses.”
“See you forever, Christopher Carmichael.”
I went back up to my room, and under a ceiling of roses, I prepared to spend the rest of my life becoming who I was meant to be.
THE END
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed Chris and Catherine.
Harper and Taylor’s story is told in . I put chapters in the back if you want to check it out.
Keaton and Cassie’s story is told in the standalone . I’ve put a few chapters in the back for your perusal.
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