EPILOGUE

 

 

The wedding was simple and small, but it still took a few weeks to arrange. Cooper didn’t want to wait, since his Mom’s health was so delicate, and the Westons pulled out all stops to make it happen in as short a time as possible.

They’d had their first real argument when Cooper wanted to go back to that jeweler in Quinn Valley to buy another ring, and Jackie had insisted he save his money for something more important—like a car seat or their first month’s rent in their new apartment.

“Besides,” she’d said, “you never know, the ring might show up!”

Cooper had quit arguing then and started laughing. Then it had turned out to be irrelevant anyhow, because he took Jackie and Kalli to meet his parents and told them all about their Fourth-of-July adventure.

Wilfred Weston II had teared up when he met the baby, his first grandchild, as he pointed out. And Susan, Cooper’s mom… Well, at the end of their visit, she called him over to her wheelchair. She hadn’t been able to walk or talk in a while, and Jackie noticed the older woman sometimes didn’t seem to know or understand what was going on.

But with her son kneeling beside her, Susan slipped her own wedding ring off her finger, and placed it in Cooper’s hand. She carefully folded his fingers around the gold band, met his ice-blue eyes, and nodded solemnly.

Later, Jackie had cried with Cooper at his mom’s way of blessing their marriage.

Susan was in her wheelchair at the front of the church now, a hunched shell of the woman Jackie had seen pictures of before the illness. But she was holding her husband’s hand, and smiling up at her sons in their lovely tuxedos.

Jackie had been bowled over by how identical Cooper and Kenneth looked, but as soon as they opened their mouths, it was obvious who was who. Even Kenneth’s smile was tight and controlled, nothing like Cooper’s carefree and joyous one.

She was obviously marrying the more handsome of the twins.

Across the aisle from Susan and Wilfred Weston, in the row usually designated for the bride’s family, sat Angela and Sheila and Karen…and Father George. He’d recovered enough to fly out to Idaho, and it meant the world to Jackie to have him here at her wedding.

Jackie slowly lowered her daughter to the carpet beside her. “You ready, honey? Let’s go get Daddy. Walk to Daddy.”

She and Cooper had decided that no one needed to give Jackie away, but it was particularly meaningful to have Kalli walking beside her, especially since her first steps had been for Cooper anyhow.

The little girl toddled proudly down the aisle, clutching Jackie’s hand, in her fluffy white dress with tiny roses all over. She’d even let Cooper put a white bow in her hair! Jackie had protested the extravagant dress, but her soon-to-be husband had insisted.

“You got yours for free, sweetheart. Let me spoil my daughter,” he’d drawled, and Jackie’s heart had melted.

With her other hand, she smoothed the front of her borrowed wedding gown. As it turns out, River’s End Ranch has a plethora, like fifty or something of them lying around, and so many women had offered her one.

She and her soon-to-be husband hadn’t bothered with flowers, but as she approached the altar, Jackie saw Cooper step forward with a bundle of wild daisies.

He presented them with a flourish, and Jackie blushed when she took them. He reached down to scoop up Kalli. “There’s my big girl!”

Their daughter giggled happily, and Jackie met his eyes with a smile, trying to show him everything he meant to her.

Ignoring their audience, he bent down to kiss her. There’d been plenty of kisses since that action-movie-hero-finish to Independence Day, but this one was…special.

“Jackie,” he whispered as he rested his forehead against her with his eyes closed. “I thought of something important I need to tell you now.”

A part of her —the part which still thought this was too good to be true, and wondered when it would all come crashing down—stiffened, suddenly afraid he was going to tell her it had all been a big joke. But no, she knew him better than that…

“Now, Cooper?” she teased.

“Your name is legally Jackie Novak.” His ice-blue eyes opened and bore into hers. “You chose that name when you changed who you are. I fell in love with Jackie Novak and I don’t want you to have to…to…”

Even when the gentle shuffles and sighs of the people behind them began, Jackie couldn’t shush him; she needed to understand what he was saying.

“To what, Cooper?” she whispered softly.

He took a deep breath. “You’re Jackie Novak. I don’t want to ask you to change your name until you’re ready. You’ve already reinvented yourself once…”

“Will you still adopt Kalli?”

He straightened in surprise. “Of course,” he said indignantly, then seemed to remember their audience and lowered his voice once more. “I’ve already got an appointment for us on Monday with the judge.”

“So it’s just my name you’re worried about.”

He seemed chagrined. “Look, I’m sorry I mentioned it. I didn’t think it— I mean, I thought you’d agree.” Against his shoulder, the baby was babbling at someone in the church, but both adults ignored her. “Your name is important to who you are, and as much as I want to marry you, I don’t want to change who you are either.”

He got it.

With a soft smile, Jackie lifted her makeshift bouquet to his shoulder and pulled him closer. “Thank you for understanding me, Cooper.”

He gazed into her eyes for a long moment, then nodded and took a deep breath. “I love you, Jackie Novak.”

“And I love you, Cooper Weston.”

He kissed her again, just once, then straightened. She wrapped her arm through his and pressed her cheek against his broad shoulder.

Then, with one of his ladies on each of his arms, they stepped towards the waiting preacher.

 

 

 

 

Did you miss Marybeth and Mack’s Christmas romance? You’re going to love And don’t worry, Kenneth will (eventually) find his love…and we might even get to find out what happened to the mysterious Tripp!

 

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 

Back in May of 2016 I had the utter pleasure of meeting , , and in Chicago during a conference. Soon after, they invited me to be part of this delightful world they were creating, and introduced me to the wonderful . I was thrilled to join their team, and have had hours and hours of fun, playing via our imaginations at River’s End Ranch.

 

Thank you, ladies, for letting me be a part of the magic.

 

And thank you to Alyssa, to my beta readers and Cohort members, to our continuity reader Amy, and to CM Wright, my editor.

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Caroline Lee has been reading romance for so long that her fourth-grade teacher used to make her cover her books with paper jackets. But it wasn't until she (mostly) grew up that she realized she could write it too. So she did.

 

Caroline is living her own little Happily Ever After in NC with her husband, sons, and brand-new daughter, Princess Wiggles. And while she doesn't so much "suffer" from Pittakionophobia as think that all you people who enjoy touching Band-Aids and stickers are the real weirdos, she does adore rodents, and never met a wine she didn't like. Caroline was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 2006 and is really quite funny in person. Promise.

 

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