He follows my line of sight and exhales. “Dad told her it was time for her come back home and he was over the nonsense.”
I won’t act like I know everything about Eleanor, but I feel like I know her well enough to understand what happened. “I’m guessing that didn’t go well.”
Cole’s mouth tightens. “No.”
He watches them a little longer. “They’ll work it out. They always do.”
Then a little quieter, he adds, “It may just get a little messy first.”
Robert lifts his glass, never looking away from Eleanor.
Cole wraps his hand around mine. “Come on. Let’s tell them bye.”
We go to his father first. Robert hugs me and shakes his son’s hand. He walks over to Eleanor with us, and Eleanor ignores her husband and focuses on Cole and me.
She hugs both of us, welcoming me to the family.
We say our goodbyes, one hug at a time, and when we get outside, I’ve never felt more hopeful. The crowd follows us out, and Cole helps me into the car. He walks around, eyes on me the whole time, and when he gets in, he instantly holds my hand. The partygoers are all cheering as we drive away.
His hand tightens on mine. “Mrs. Kingston.”
I smile and rest my head against his shoulder. “I like the sound of that.”
He presses a kiss to my hair. “Good. I plan on saying it for the rest of my life.”
EPILOGUE
COLE
I’m sitting on the couch, holding Luna in my lap with Leo curled up on her stomach. Luna sighs happily.
I brush back a piece of hair covering her face. “You could have picked anywhere for our honeymoon, and you picked this.”
She turns in my arms and looks up at me. “Cole, I wasted three thousand dollars on a wedding dress that we had to trash. I just hired staff at the shelter, and it’s too soon to leave.”
I gasp. “Is that why you turned down Hawaii?”
She shrugs and leans her head on my shoulder. “I don’t know. I feel like we’ve spent a lot of money and thought we should cut back.”
I groan. “Luna.”
She shrugs. “Plus, I thought we should maybe stick close to home and let last week die down.”
“I promise I can protect you, honey.”
She nods. “I know you can.”
I pick my phone up off the end table. “And the money…” I log into my app and hold the phone up for her to see. “This is our bank account, Luna.”
She gasps, no doubt surprised by the many numbers before the decimal. “You have your own card to this account, Luna. My money is your money.”
There’s a sound from the other room, and Luna lifts up. “What was that?”
I grip her shoulders. “Oh, I forgot about your gift. I better go get it.”
She slides forward to let me up. “Gift? You’ve already given me so much, Cole. I don’t need you to spend more money on me.”
I kiss her forehead. “I think you’ll like this gift.”
