A week had passed since the altercation at the Featherstone Inn. It had been a week of rest and healing, as Reeves, Bridget, and Emma had spent time sitting together, reading books, and only very occasionally talking about everything that had happened.
“Emma wanted to see the children again,” Reeves said. “Didn’t you, Emma?”
“Yes!” Emma enthused. “And I want to give them the toys we brought along for them! Do you think they’ll like them, Bridget?”
“I’m sure they will.” Bridget smiled. “And I’m sure everyone will be very happy to see you again, Emma, and to see how well you’re doing.”
They climbed out of the carriage. Vicar John was waiting on the steps, and Emma ran ahead to greet him, but Reeves caught Bridget’s arm and held her back for a moment.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to make this visit all you want it to be,” he said. “I know it means a great deal to you to be back here, after all the time you spent away.”
“It means a great deal to me that you’ve agreed to let the orphanage continue to be a part of my life now that we’re getting married,” Bridget amended. “I would have been heartbroken if I’d had to choose.”
“What would you have chosen?” He gave her a canny grin.
She laughed. “You know I’d have chosen you,” she said. “But it would have devastated me to give this up, and I’m very grateful that I don’t have to!”
“Of course you don’t.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Your devotion to helping children is a great deal of what drew me to you in the first place. I would never want to take that away from you. And I look forward to helping you with it.”
She smiled at him. “I look forward to that too,” she said. “Having you by my side at the orphanage is like a dream. Although I can’t help but look back on what happened the last time the two of us were here together!”
He laughed. “You’re referring to the day you yelled at me for daring to take my own daughter home with me?”
“Well, that isn’t the way I remember it! I don’t believe Iyelledat you.”
“You’ll have to take my word for it,” he told her. “You were positively terrifying. Why do you think I was so reluctant to bring you back to Greystone with me? I didn’t know whether the place would remain standing after a hurricane force like you had passed through it.”
“I know, I’m very frightening,” she teased him. “I don’t know how you sleep at night with me in the house.”
He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, and warmth spread through her. “The truth is,” he said softly, “I don’t know how I ever sleptwithoutyou in the house.”
They approached Vicar John, and his smile warmed Bridget like sunshine. “How wonderful it is to see you again!” he said. “I wondered whether we ever would.”
“Vicar John, I’m awfully sorry that I won’t be returning to the orphanage full-time,” Bridget said. This was something that had plagued her from the moment she had agreed to marry Reeves. She couldn’t have been any happier with the way things had turned out, and yet she felt pangs of guilt for abandoning the orphanage.
“Don’t worry,” Vicar John said fondly. “You must realize that I knew this was a possibility from the moment you went away, Bridget. You’re a young woman, and he’s a young man, and I’ve always known that a day might come when you would find love and leave us to begin a life of your own.”
“I never meant for it to happen,” Bridget said.
“I know you didn’t. But I’m glad that itdidhappen, Bridget.” Vicar John smiled at her fondly. “You deserve every bit of this happiness, and I know you’re going to be a wonderful mother to that little girl. And, of course, we’ll be happy to see you back at the orphanage whenever you’re able to visit with us. You know how much you mean to us here.”
“We brought a bottle of wine for you.” Reeves held it up. “And my driver is unloading toys for the children right now, if that’s all right.”
“More than all right!” Vicar John beamed. “Perhaps you and your lovely daughter would like to bring the toys in and hand them out? The children always get so excited about visitors. I know it will just make their day to have you here. And then perhaps Bridget and I can catch up a bit. It feels as if it’s been such a very long time since we saw one another.”
“Well, that sounds fine,” Reeves said. He turned to Emma. “What do you say? Would you like to go in and give the toys to the children?”
“Oh, yes,” Emma said happily.
Together, the two of them went back to meet the driver and help with the bags of toys.
Vicar John watched them go. “He seems like a good man,” he said to Bridget. “I wasn’t so sure about him when he was here before, but seeing him now, I think you made a good choice for yourself.”
“I was hoping you’d feel that way,” Bridget said. “Because I wondered whether you would be the one to marry us, Vicar John.”
“Goodness. Is that really what you want?”
“More than anything,” she said earnestly. “There’s no one in the world better suited to perform my wedding. Nobody knows me as well as you do.”
