He pressed his fingertip against my lips, silencing me. “Making you happy is the only thing that matters to me, Gia. You don’t think I’ve been watching you. I know you’re torn between your old life and your new one, baby. And I know why. You need passion and purpose in your life. You thought the show was your dream, but now you know it’s not. I can tell by the way your eyes lit up when you saw this,” he said, gesturing to the iPad. “That this is still your dream. So let me help you make this come true. It can beourdream. A way to start our new life together.”
My mind was racing. This man was too good to be true. But before my inner bitch could claim I didn’t deserve him, I shut her down. We did deserve each other. In fact, we were made for each other.
“But…” I wanted to protest, but I couldn’t think of a single reason to let this opportunity slip through my fingers. The man who loved me was trying to give me this gift. How could I turn him down? “Are you sure?”
“The only time I’ve ever been surer of anything,” he said, letting his gaze drift to my hand. “Is the day I slipped that ring on your finger.”
“I love you so much.” I let the tears glide down my cheeks unchecked because he’d earned these tears of happiness by loving me and believing in me so much.
“I know you do.” He smiled, brushing my tears away with his thumb. “And you’ll have the rest of our lives to show me.”
Epilogue
Joel
I couldn’t believe a year had passed since I’d made Gia my wife. And we were celebrating our anniversary by launching our new business and hosting her parents’ vow renewal. They would be celebrating their fortieth anniversary next month, but her brother and paternal grandparents were in town now, so we decided this would be the perfect time to celebrate them and christen our new event centre.
“This place is amazing,” Rhett said, slapping me on the back.
“Thanks.” My wife had been running herself ragged pulling it all together, but I knew it was a passion project that had exceeded her expectations so it was worth every dime I’d poured into it.
We’d kept the barn where we’d had our wedding intact, because she claimed it was perfect. But we’d built a separate full-service kitchen, hired catering and service staff, who were on call as needed, and we had a separate out-building to house all of the rustic décor Gia had painstakingly selected. There was a separate stone building for restrooms, bride and groom suites, and coat check. I didn’t think we’d overlooked a single detail, but tonight was the test run, before we started booking events for the upcoming season.
“I’ve never seen Gia happier,” Rhett said, tapping his glass of scotch against mine. “You must be doing something right, my friend.”
“I’m trying.” But loving Gia required no effort at all. Her joy was infectious these days and she just dragged me along for the ride of a lifetime. I thought I’d had a full life before moving back to Ashland, but it was nothing compared to my life now. I got to wake up next to my best friend. Spend all day working next to her and all-night loving on her. It was pretty damn perfect.
Gia’s eyes were shining as she slipped into my arms. “Can you believe this?” she asked, tipping her head back as she wrapped her arms around my waist. “It’s finally happening, Joel. You made my dreams come true.”
“Then we’re even,” I said, threading my hand through her silky hair. “Because you’ve made all of my dreams come true too.”
“Not all of them,” she whispered in my ear. “But soon.”
We’d talked a lot about starting a family lately, but I convinced her we should wait until the peak wedding season ended before we planned for it. Getting pregnant could take some time, and I didn’t want her to stress over getting pregnant and running a new business.
I wanted to take my time and savour every second of this life journey with her. If my parents’ fate taught me one thing, it was that your days with the love of your life could be numbered so you had to make every one count.
“Rhett,” Gia said, grabbing his hand. “I need your help with something.”
I mock-frowned. “Hey man, quit holding my wife’s hand.”
Rhett laughed, letting her drag him away before Gia’s dad approached me.
He shook my hand and tapped his glass against mine. “You’ve turned out to be a half-decent son-in-law, you know that?”
I smiled, knowing with Mike that was as close to praise as I was likely to get, until I gave him a grandson, which he’d been riding me about since the day we exchanged our vows.
“You’re not a bad father-in-law either.” Truth be told, he’d become like a second father to me, which I never would have expected. It may have been because of his friendship with my dad, or the fact I loved his daughter beyond all reason and treated her like my queen, or maybe it was simply the fact that I’d earned his trust. Whatever the reason, I was glad we’d become friends… and family.
“Thanks for doing this,” he said, casting an appreciative glance around the decked-out barn. “Means a lot to my wife… and me.”
“It’s our pleasure, Mike.” I nudged his elbow with mine. “Besides, you’re kind of our guinea pigs. If all goes well tonight, we know we can start charging for this.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. You’ve turned this into a top-notch venue. Even people from the city will want to book here.”
“Hopefully.” I didn’t care if we were fully booked or not. Expenses were low since we already owned the property and had paid for the project out of pocket, so it wouldn’t take much to turn a profit. But I knew how important it was to Gia our business venture was a success and that made it important to me too.
“Is this gonna mean I have to wait for that grandson you keep promising me?”
