Noah threaded his fingers through mine. “Now we take it slow. But we take it.”
We walked back towards the reception hand in hand, the night settling gently around us. The marquee glowed in the distance, the sounds of the party drifting like lazy smoke across the lawn. For the first time all week, the sight didn’t bring a rush of responsibilities or mental checklists. It simply looked beautiful.
As we stepped beneath the lights once more, the laughter and music wrapped around us warm and familiar.
The wedding was over.
And somehow, impossibly…
something else had begun.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Eight months later.
Salt wind moved through the vines, carrying the faint sweetness of summer roses and the ocean beyond the cliffs.
I stood on the veranda outside the new events office, barefoot, holding a mug of coffee and watching the rows of vines sway in the breeze like they were stretching after a long nap.
The wedding season was in full swing, flowers blooming, barrels humming, tourists drifting through the estate with cameras and oversized hats, and somehow my life had fallen naturally into step with it.
Behind me, the screen door creaked open.
“You’ve stolen my jumper again.” Noah’s voice slid out, low and amused.
I glanced down at myself. His grey wool jumper hung halfway to my knees and smelled faintly of oak barrel and cedar soap. Cozy, sinful perfection.
“It was on the chair,” I protested. “Unattended.”
“You mean folded,” he said, walking past me to kiss my temple. “On top of my laundry basket.”
I sipped my coffee. “So, essentially free range.”
He shook his head, amused, and leaned against the railing beside me. He seemed deeply content.
The truth was, we’d fallen into a rhythm so natural that sometimes I forgot there had ever been a life before this.
I ran the weddings; he ran the grapes. I organised; he brooded attractively in corners until I kissed him out of it. He fixed things around the estate with a level of concentration that really had no business being that attractive. I stole every jumper he owned.
We wandered the Margaret River Farmers’ Market most Saturday mornings, always leaving with twice as much as we’d planned and at least one pastry we definitely didn’t need. We’d grab coffee in town, argue over whose turn it was to cook dinner, sneak down to the beach for a quick swim after work, and somehow never get tired of watching the sun disappear over the ocean.
Nothing dramatic. Just a life, a real one, in Margaret River together.
I stared out at the little art studio by the fig trees, a once-forgotten storage space that now housed Sophie’s paints, canvases, and the faint scent of eucalyptus oil she dabbed behind her ears when stressed.
She wasn’t stressed much these days.
Through the veranda rails, I spotted Lucas leaning against his cherry-red sports car, sunglasses on even though the sun was practically behind us. The engine idled at a low, indulgent purr, apparently the car “didn’t like to cool down too fast.”
Across from him, Sophie stood outside cottage, flipping through her sketchbook while Lucas listened with the hyper-focused intensity of a man being briefed on national security rather than colour palettes.
“Is he… consulting on her art studio again?” I asked.
Noah followed my gaze. “He’s offered to install custom gallery lighting.”
“Oh dear.”
“And a misting system. For ambience.”
