“When you came to Blueberry Hill, you were trying to figure out who you were without all the things you’d lost. I watched you plant a garden when you didn’t know if anything would grow. I watched you take in a scared kid who needed a family, and a girl with nowhere else to go, and you just—” He paused, his jaw working. “You just made room. For all of them. For me.”
Somewhere behind her, Ally sniffled.
“I can’t promise you a perfect life, but I can promise you I’ll be there when things get hard. I’ll build you whatever you need—a porch swing, a garden bench, a whole inn if that’s what it takes.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “I’ll learn to like your cooking shows. I’ll hold your hand when you miss Patty.”
The ache in her chest spread, warm and full.
“I loved you when we were seventeen,” Will said. “I love you now. And if life taught me anything, it’s that you don’t always get a second chance—but when you do, you hold on tight.”
Tara laughed, a wet sound that broke something loose in her chest. “Will?—”
“I know. I know.” His eyes crinkled. “One more thing. I promise to always tell you where your glasses are.”
“They’re usually on my head.”
“Exactly.”
Pastor Mitchell turned to her. “Tara?”
She hadn’t written anything down. She’d tried, sitting at the kitchen table with a notebook and a cup of tea that went cold while she stared at the blank page. Everything she wrote sounded like a greeting card or a speech at an awards ceremony. None of it sounded like them.
So, she’d decided to trust that the words would come when she needed them.
“Will.” Her voice caught on his name. She steadied herself. “When I was seventeen, I thought I knew what love looked like. Turns out I had no idea.”
She drew a breath, feeling the weight of the years between then and now.
“I broke your heart back then. Or you broke mine—we never did figure out which.” A soft ripple of laughter from the guests. “We went our separate ways. You found Emma. I found Harry. And for a long time, I thought that was how the story ended.”
Will’s hands tightened around hers.
“I spent thirty-three years in a marriage where I was never quite enough. Where the moment I fell in love didn’t matter because real life wasn’t supposed to include those feelings. Where I made myself smaller and quieter and tried so hard to be what someone else needed that I forgot who I was.”
Her voice steadied as she found her footing.
“Then I showed up here with a broken marriage and absolutely no idea what I was doing. The cottage had a leaky roof and a squirrel living in the attic, and I remember standing in the kitchen thinking, What have I done?”
She squeezed his hands, feeling the strength in them.
“And then you knocked on the door. The boy I’d loved at seventeen, all grown up with silver in his hair and sawdust on his boots. You didn’t try to sell me anything or ask what had happened to my husband or look at me like I was someone to feel sorry for. You just showed up. With your toolbox and your terrible jokes and that quiet way you have of making everything feel manageable.”
A breeze stirred the roses on the arch, releasing another wave of sweetness into the air.
“I didn’t know I was allowed to want this again. I spent so long believing I’d had my chance and wasted it—that second chances were for other people, not for women who’d stayed too long in the wrong life.”
“Tara.” Will’s voice was rough. “You didn’t waste anything.”
“I know that now.” She met his eyes, those steady blue eyes that had become her anchor. “You taught me that. Not with words, but with showing up. Every single day. Even when I pushed you away. Even when I didn’t believe I deserved it.”
Behind them, the lake lapped gently against the shore. A bird called from the pines.
“We both loved and lost before we found our way back to each other. Emma. Harry. All those years in between.” She lifted their joined hands. “But maybe that’s what makes this mean something. We’re not kids anymore, dreaming about what love might look like. We know. We’ve lived it—the good parts and the hard parts and the grief that comes when it ends.”
Her throat tightened, but she pushed through.
“So this is my vow. I will choose you. Every day. Not because it’s easy, but because you’re worth it. Because we’re worth it. Because building a life with you—a real life, with all the mess and the hard parts and the moments where we don’t know what comes next—that’s the only adventure I want.”
She took a breath, steadying herself for the last part.
