Holding her breath, she turned the brass knob and stepped inside, chills dancing up her spine as she imagined Dominique Parrish seeing this room for the first time.
How could anyone not fall in love with this warm, inviting, extraordinary space?
The wide pine floor glowed golden in the waning daylight pouring in from a wall of French doors and huge windows. All that glass showcased a magnificent mountain view just beyond a brand-new gazebo built for summer weddings and private toasts. The white gazebo sat tucked into dark pines that glistened with new snow.
Cream silk drapes framed the windows in long, graceful lines, giving the room the perfect balance of elegance and coziness.
Her gaze lifted to the cathedral ceiling, its rough-hewn beams strong and proud, all holding bronze and glass chandeliers that spilled a gentle glow into the corners of the room.
But what pulled at her heart was the small, raised platform at the far end of what would be the “aisle” when the chairs were set up for weddings.
In the middle stood a wooden arch, big enough for a couple to stand under its curved canopy, its weathered frame more beautiful than anything polished and new.
No, the trellis—as they’d called it for decades—wasn’t as perfect as the rest of the room, but Owen Starling had made that arch from the trees on this land for the occasion of his wedding to Irene in 1939.
To anyone with Starling blood, that trellis was perfect.
Cindy felt the weight of that history, of family and love layered into a room that so beautifully captured the old and new.
When Dominique saw this in person, she’d?—
“Imagining your pitch?”
At the sound of Jack’s voice behind her, she turned to see him leaning on the door jamb, arms crossed, a sweet smile on his handsome face.
“As a matter of fact…”
He chuckled, coming toward her, reaching for her hands. “Or are you thinking about our wedding?”
She heard the hopeful note in his voice, and it touched her. “I was admiring the trellis that you and Cameron literally packed into the UTV and hand-carried into this room.” She chuckled at the memory of how determined Jack had been to transport the beast from what was once her grandmother’s garden to this room. “I’m so glad you did that.”
“I had to, Cin.” He lifted one brow.
“Had to?” she asked.
He just shrugged. “Your family’s history is important to me. It’s what makes you…you.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “You’re so romantic, Jack.”
“Hopeful and happy,” he corrected, kissing her hair in a familiar move that always made her melt into him. “Not quite as happy as you are about this Dominique woman, though.”
“It’s exciting,” she said. “We’ll get advertising we could never afford and, honestly, that message just made all our lives easier. Not that I want it to complicate our special day.”
“Then we won’t let it,” he said calmly. “And speaking of our day…” He pulled her a little closer, lifting his arm into a classic dance pose. “I’ve been thinking about our wedding dance,” he admitted, swaying her a little.
As he started to move to music only he heard, she dropped her head on his shoulder, echoes of all the things MJ had said before dinner still in her head.
Shehadchanged this past year, Cindy thought. Jack was a huge part of that change, too. He’d taken away a sense of loneliness, filling her life and her heart. He’d brought so much laughter to her days and peace to her nights.
And when he suggested taking over the lodge management, he’d given her a new professional purpose.
Instead of battling the spreadsheets that taunted her, instead of juggling vendors and payroll and reservations, she felt wildly creative and liberated by her new venture in weddings.
At sixty, she felt like her life was just starting, and that was truly the thing she was most grateful for on this snowy Thanksgiving evening.
Nothing could change that, just like nothing could tear Cindy and Jack Kessler apart again. She simply wouldn’t let it.
The thing about marshmallow frosting, Benny decided as he licked some from the top of a cupcake, was that it might as well be classified as an unstable molecular compound. Not technically, of course, because if you said that in front of a real chemist, they’d start asking for atomic weights and formulas and ruin the fun.
