I nod, clutching her hand. “I do. God, I do.”
Abby opens the door, peeking out into the hallway. “All clear. No grooms sneaking around.” From somewhere down the hall, Chris’s voice drifts through, low and teasing. “I heard that.”
Abby rolls her eyes. “Focus on your vows, mister.” There’s laughter in his voice when he answers, but it fades quickly under the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.
Mom smooths her hands down the bodice of my gown, fussing like she used to before high school dances. “You’re sure you’re ready?”
I let out a shaky laugh. “I’ve been ready for a very long time.”
Mom and Abby busy themselves with the last details—the bouquet, the veil, the tiny silver pins for my hair—but I stay still for a moment longer, staring at my reflection. When I walk toward the door, Mom slips her arm through mine. “You ready to let him see you?”
I nod, blinking back tears. “More than ready.”
She smiles. “Then let’s go make him cry.”
We step out into the corridor, the sound of music swelling slowly as we near the doors that lead to the ceremony space. My heart races with excitement when I see the faint shimmer of light through the crack—golden warmth, spilling across the floor.
Abby stops and turns, eyes glimmering. “Reese,” she says softly, “you look like every bit of peace that man’s been fighting for.”
“Don’t make me cry again,” I whisper, laughing through it.
She smiles. “No promises.”
When she opens the doors, the guests rise, faces blurring into a haze of warmth and color. And at the far end of the aisle—Christopher.
He’s standing there in a dark suit, crisp and tailored, his jaw tight, eyes locked on me with such raw intensity that my knees nearly give way. For a moment, everyone else fades away. There’s nothing but the two of us.
I take the first step down the aisle, and every ounce of nerves I have washes away. It doesn’t feel like I’m walking into the unknown. It feels like I’m cominghome.
The chapel is nothing like what I had imagined. The building is all open-frame timber, hand-carved and worn with age. Every inch of the space is exposed to a patch of old forest on the outskirts of Chicago. The vaulted rafters point toward the dusky sky as the sun approaches the horizon for the evening.
Candles flicker along the aisle in iron sconces, their flames bending slightly in the draft that blows through. The air smells like pine and gardenias from the floral arrangements meticulously placed throughout the space.
It’s perfect. It’s more than perfect.Though I would’ve married her anywhere.
Waiting at the altar, I’m trying like hell to breathe as I stare at the doors to the cottage Reese was readying in. To my left, Gunnar, Damon, Jagger, and Mattis stand shoulder to shoulder, a wall of loyalty and half-suppressed grins. They look like soldiers forced into suits at gunpoint. Every one ofthem tugging at their collars, trying to pretend they aren’t as emotional as hell.
To my right, Abby joins us at the altar in a soft rose-colored gown, her hair swept up, eyes glistening with that fierce mix of pride and protectiveness. In the front row, my parents sit with their hands clasped in their laps. My mother is already crying, and my father is pretending not to.
The music fades to silence, and the minister gives me a small nod. “Ready?”
I open my mouth, but before I can answer, the first notes of the wedding march fill the air. Every head turns toward the back of the chapel.
And then I see her.
Reese.
The world goes still. Completely, utterly still.
She steps through the open doors on her mother’s arm, framed by the soft golden light spilling from the trees outside. Her dress is simple and impossibly elegant—white satin that skims her body, billowing into a full skirt at her waist. Her hair falls in loose waves, and the veil trails behind her like white smoke.
But it’s her face that wrecks me. The adoring look in her eyes. Like she’s seeing me for the first time. Her mother glances at her, whispering something that makes Reese smile through her tears, before they start down the aisle together.
Each stride closer, my chest tightens a little more. By thetime she’s halfway to me, my vision is blurring. I don’t even try to stop it.
How the hell could I?
This woman walked into my war zone of a life and made it something worth surviving. She burned through the walls I’d built with nothing but truth and mercy and that goddamn stubborn heart of hers. And now she’s walking toward me like a fucking angel, ready to be mine forever.
