So we gathered all our friends and family, pretty much the whole town, and had a spur-of-the-moment wedding. I wore my new white skirt and the floral top Amos was so crazy about.
And he wore his lucky horseshoe shirt. The one I’d given him for Christmas last year.
Mina had been my maid of honor, and his three nieces had been our flower girls.
I’d pulled together abiggroup of bridesmaids at the last minute. Hope, Kelly, Jenna, and Marissa had all stood there next to me, rooting for us.
Amos had just as many groomsmen on his side of the aisle.
And… since this was Amos we were talking about, he and all his groomsmen had broken into a song and dance when it came time for him to read his vows. It had been a hell of a good time.
I smiled at the memory.
The bed beside me was already cool, which meant Amos had been up for a while.
I pulled on his flannel shirt, then padded out to the kitchen to start the coffee while I made a mental note to call Mina back after breakfast.
She’d left a voicemail yesterday that I hadn’t gotten to yet, and knowing Mina, she was calling to fill me in on the scoop about her new job.
She’d been hired at the logging camp where Amos used to work.
They’d doubled their lumberjacks recently and needed her to handle the domestic duties.
She was theonlywoman out there, surrounded by a dozen hot, burly loggers.
PoorMina.
Everyone was certain she’d be married within the year. We just didn’t know which one would snag her heart.
They were all fighting over her cute butt. Since Mina had sworn off men a while back, she wasn’t making it easy for them.
After the coffee brewed, I wandered to the back door to find my husband.
As I glanced out my eye snagged on the garden.
Amos had planted it in early spring with tremendous enthusiasm and absolutely no horticultural instinct whatsoever.
The tomato cages leaned sideways, and the herbs had mostly given up. One determined zucchini plant was making a valiant effort in the corner, but the rest of the plot looked like something you’d use to illustrate a cautionary tale about optimism.
He’d been so proud of himself when he put it in that he’d even bought a little garden tool set.
And I had loved him so fiercely in that moment that I hadn’t said asingleword about the fact that he’d planted the basil in full shade.
My eyes found him, and I forgot all about the garden.
Amos stood at the chopping block about twenty feet from the back porch, sexy and shirtless, splitting firewood with the kind of casual, easy rhythm that made it look effortless.
His shoulders rolled with each swing, the muscles of his back on full display, and his dark hair was loose and a little wild from sleep.
He was the most unreasonably beautiful man I’d ever seen in my life.
A whole year of marriage, and the sight of him without a shirt could still make my pussy do somersaults like I had no self-control at all.
I took a sip of my coffee and decided replanting the basil in the garden could wait.
Gardening had never competed successfully with that man’s bare torso, and today was not going to be the exception.
He must have felt me watching because he stopped mid-swing and turned, and when he saw me standing at the doorway in nothing but his flannel shirt, a slow and wicked grin broke across his face.
