I stare at the coin in my palm.I can’t believe he still has this thing.
The sun shines into the room, filling it with a brightness that feels intentional. The warmth spreads across my skin, melting away any residual tension I’ve carried for the latter part of the day. It’s not the overwhelming anxiousness that I expected. Instead of being in a full-out panic becauseI’m getting freakingmarried, I’m more concerned with what this marriage looks like when we walk out of the church.
Last night, I lay in bed and tried to wipe the smile from my face. It’s a predicament that I’ve become very familiar with because I battle it every time I spend more than five minutes with Hartley. But this time, I can’t hop in my car, blow past the closest gas station, and speed to wherever I’m calling home at the moment.
This time, I’m going to be in his house. Sometimes, in his arms. And I shouldn’t be in his bed.
“I don’t think I’m strong enough for this,” I mutter, clutching the coin. “You better still have some lucky powers left for me because I’m going to need them.”
“Hey,” Markie says, returning from her quest to find bobby pins. “You didn’t see Hartley, did you?”
My cheeks flush. “What? No.”
“You better not have.” She drops a pile of pins on the table. “I passed him in the hallway, and he had a smug grin on his face. And the only person I know who makes him smile like that is you.”
I hum, enjoying that little fact. “Hey, while I’m thinking of it, what did you do with the ring I bought Hartley?”
“We nabbed Violet Crowder’s granddaughter and crowned her the bearer of the rings. Her mother’s with her, and she has the rings.”
I swallow at the use of the plural form of ring.
I wasn’t sure if we were participating in that tradition, so I had Markie do a little investigating last night when I panicked that I didn’t have one for Hartley. His cover story at the park was perfect but made it hard to tell whether he was getting me one or not. Once Markie confirmed he did, in fact, purchase something for me, I ran to the jewelry store in Sugar Creek and found a simple, safe one for him to wear while working on the ranch.
“Okay, I think we should get you in the dress before we fiddle with your hair,” Markie says. “Especially considering we don’t even know if it fits.”
She lifts a brow in displeasure.
“It’ll fit,” I say, hoping that I’m right. She tried to make me try it on last night, but I refused. Right now, Mom was the last person to wear that dress. Once I put it on my body, that will be one more piece of her that’s been written over. And that’s something that I haven’t put to rest emotionally.
Markie unzips the garment bag. Every inch it’s lowered makes my heartbeat notch higher. Once it’s exposed, so is my heart.
The dress is beautiful with lace and silk in an almost pearly white. My memories of Mom stop when I was twelve. We didn’t have time to discuss her wedding day, or talk about how she chose her dress, or how she fell in love with Dad. I wish so badly, now more than ever, that I’d had the opportunity to talk to her about those things.
Quietly, I slip off my shorts and undo my top, discarding it on a bag I brought from Markie’s. I ignore the butterflies in my stomach as Markie takes the dress off the hanger. When her eyes meet mine, my lip trembles.
“Hey,” she says softly. “Are you okay?”
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, thankful that I haven’t put on my mascara yet. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I sniffle. “I don’t know why I’m getting emotional. I’m probably going to start my period or something.”
“It’s okay to be emotional, Mira. If it’s just nerves, that’s one thing. But if you’re having regrets, that’s another, and I want you to tell me right now, and I’ll call this whole thing off.”
My breath is shaky as I attempt to calm myself. “It’s just nerves.”
“About marrying Hartley?”
“Yeah, that and the dress.” I shrug helplessly. “It’s a lot to deal with in such a short amount of time. I wish Lolly had given me more time to think this through.”
She folds the dress over her arm. “We can call this off.”
I take another breath—a steadier one this time—and meet my sister’s gaze.
Even if I had more time to think about this, I would’ve done it. Sure, having a couple of weeks to process the situation and sit with my decision would’ve been nice, but at the end of the day, my decision would’ve been the same.
I’m not upset about having to marry Hartley Adler. In fact, I’d begun to think that I might never marry anyone because no man could meet the bar he set years ago. And marrying him seemed impossible.
It almost feels like a blessing to be in this situation with him. Even though we’ll have rules to keep our hearts safe, marrying him is an opportunity that I never thought would surface. And if spending a year with him with a ready-made way out is what it takes to make Lolly happy, then life could be so much worse.
So much worse.
