She grins, rising on her toes to kiss me. Quick and sweet and full of promise. “Take me home, cowboy. Before we scandalize any more innocent kayakers.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I help her back into her swimsuit, stealing kisses between each adjustment. She retaliates by running her hands over every inch of skin she can reach. By the time we’re decent enough to walk back to the truck, I’m half-hard again and seriously considering round two.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she says as I open her door.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re already planning the next time you can get me naked.”
“Sweetheart, I’m always planning the next time I can get you naked. That's just my default state now.”
She laughs, bright and free, and the sound settles into my chest like it belongs there.
Because it does. She does.
And in three days, she’s going to be my wife.
Chapter 12
Delaney
The dress is white.
Not ivory, not cream, not “champagne” or whatever word bridal shops use to charge extra. Just white. Simple. A-line skirt that hits below my knees, fitted bodice, thin straps. The kind of dress a woman wears when she’s getting married in a backyard under an oak tree instead of a cathedral.
The kind of dress a woman wears when she’s getting married for real.
I stare at it laid out on my bed—our bed after today—and my hands won’t stop shaking.
I never planned to get married. Marriage was a risk. A vulnerability. Another person who could leave, who could die, who could look at me one day and decide I wasn’t worth staying for.
But Daniel won’t leave. He shows up. Every day. In every small way.
The tea he stocks without being asked. The pens he noticed I prefer. The way he pauses outside my door at night like he’s checking I’m still there, still real, still his.
Today I get to show up for him.
A knock makes me jump. “Lanie? Can I come in?”
Kitty. My sister. My reason for everything—ten years of sacrifice and survival and white-knuckled determination.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Come in.”
She slips through the door, and we just look at each other. She’s wearing a soft blue dress that makes her eyes glow, her blonde hair pinned up with little flowers from Ruth’s garden. The mother-in-law she never got to meet.
“You’re not dressed yet,” she says.
“I’m working up to it.”
She crosses the room and picks up the dress, holding it against me. “It’s perfect. You’re going to look beautiful.”
“I’m going to look terrified.”
“Same thing on a wedding day.” She grins, then her expression softens. “Sit down. Let me do your hair.”
I sink onto the edge of the bed, and Kitty moves behind me, her fingers gentle as she works through the tangles. The role reversal hits me like a punch to the chest. How many times did I do this for her? Braiding her hair for school, pinning it up for her first dance, styling it for her own wedding just weeks ago.
