Not for anything.
Epilogue - Tucker
One year later
I'm standing at the altar. Well, not really an altar, more like a wooden arch that Mason built last week and Boone decorated with wildflowers this morning, and I can't stop fidgeting with my tie.
"Stop messing with it," Wade mutters from beside me. "You look fine."
"I look like an idiot in a suit."
"You look like a man about to marry the woman he loves. That's not idiotic, that's lucky as hell."
I glance at Wade, who's standing next to me as my best man, wearing his own suit and looking almost as uncomfortable as I feel. Sierra must have forced him into it. But he's smiling, and there's something in his expression that tells me he gets it. The nerves, the anticipation, the overwhelming feeling that your entire life is about to change in the best possible way.
The ranch looks incredible. We set up chairs in rows on the hill overlooking the valley, Frank's hill, the place where Marley and I had our first real conversation and our first kiss. White fabric is draped between posts, fluttering in the breeze, and there are flowers everywhere. Wildflowers, mostly, because Marley said she didn't want anything too fancy. Said she wanted it to feel like the ranch, like us.
It's perfect.
The guests are starting to take their seats: about fifty people, which is more than I expected but less than it could have been. The other ranch owners and their girlfriends are scatteredthroughout the crowd, all of them grinning at me like they know something I don't.
I wish my dad could be here. I wish my mom could be here too, though I barely remember her. Just flashes of her smile, the sound of her laugh, the way she used to sing while making breakfast. But I like to think they're both watching somehow, and that they'd be happy for me.
Emma appears at my side, wearing a white dress with pink flowers on it and her pink cowboy boots because she refused to wear the fancy shoes Marley bought her. She's holding a small pillow with two rings tied to it, and she looks so grown up it makes my chest race. Time is moving too fast.
"Daddy, are you nervous?" she asks, looking up at me.
"Terrified, Bug."
"That's okay. Marley said you'd be nervous." She grins. "But she also said you'd be fine once you saw her."
"She said that?"
"Yep. She said you always calm down when you see her. Like magic."
I crouch down to Emma's level and adjust one of her pigtails. "You know what's about to happen, right? When I marry Marley, she's going to be part of our family. Officially."
"I know, Daddy. We talked about it." Emma's smile widens. "She said I can call her whatever I want. Mom, Marley, Dr. Marley, whatever feels right. But I think I'm going to call her Marley-Mom."
"Marley-Mom?"
"Yeah. Because she's Marley, but she's also going to be my mom. So, Marley-Mom." She says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
I pull her into a hug. "I love you, Bug. You know that, right?"
"I know, Daddy. I love you too." She pulls back and pats my cheek. "Now stand up. The music's about to start."
She's right. The guitarist we hired, some kid from town who plays at Maria's on weekends, starts strumming something soft and sweet, and everyone turns in their seats to look toward the house.
And then I see her.
Marley's walking up the hill with Boone at her side. She asked him to walk her down the aisle since her father's gone and Boone's the one who convinced me to go after her in the first place. She's wearing a simple white dress that hugs her curves, her dark hair is down and curling around her shoulders, and she's wearing those black-framed glasses I love.
She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
The moment I see her, the nerves disappear. Everything else fades away-The crowd, the decorations, even Emma tugging on my sleeve, and all I can see is Marley walking toward me with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes.
When she reaches the altar, Boone wishes us good luck, then he steps aside and she's standing in front of me, close enough to touch.
