Page 111 of Hard to Lose

Between that thought and the sight of my family happy and healthy in front of me, my heart has never been fuller.

So full it’s almost bursting.

“I know. I know,” he says.

Gunner looks across the distance and his eyes meet mine. His soft smile is all I need in this world. Just that and him.

“I love you,” he mouths to me, and I pat over my heart in response.

The DJ interrupts the moment and announces it’s time for the bouquet toss. “That’s you,” my dad says, as he puts a hand on my back to guide me to the dance floor.

“I’ll let some other woman catch the damn flowers.” I laugh as we step onto the dance floor.

“You’ll do no such thing,” he states emphatically. “It’s called tradition, Chase. Just suck it up, stand there, and take part in it.”

“Save me,” I mouth to Gunner, who’s having a good laugh watching my dad practically hold me in place.

The DJ goes through the instructions of where to line up and what to do. I stand in the crowd as Brexton turns her back to us and the DJ does a countdown.

Three.

Two.

One.

But instead of throwing the bouquet, my sister turns and walks toward the lot of us. We all turn to look around, confused and thinking something has happened. Especially when she puts the bouquet directly into my hands.

“What? No. That’s not how this works. You don’t get to pick who gets these. You don’t get to choose—”

“But he does,” she says with tears welling in her eyes and a smile on her lips that has chills chasing down my spine.

“What—Who—Brex—”

When she looks over my shoulder and gives an even softer smile to the person behind me, I turn, confused.

And the rest of my thoughts are knocked out of my head just like the breath that’s lost at the sight before me.

The crowd of ladies has separated, and Gunner Camden is on one knee before me. His eyes are swimming with a love that’s uniquely ours, and his smile says I’m all he sees. All he knows. All he wants.

“Gunner . . .”

“You’re a hard one to corral, Chase Kincade. From the moment I met you, you told me that love wasn’t your thing. That kisses are overrated. That being with someone wasn’t on your oh-so-busy agenda.” He chuckles with the slightest shake of his head. “But somehow I proved you otherwise. Somehow, I was able to break through that very motivated brain of yours and show you that you can still be you with your aspirations and ambition while loving me.”

“Gunner,” I whisper through tears I’m not remotely trying to fight.

“So when I asked your dad and your sisters for your hand in marriage, I told them this might be a hard one for you to accept. Tying you to me for life is a big step for a woman who didn’t have time for love to begin with. But they agreed with me. They told me that somehow, we—you and I—were better together. That somehow, our two broken and jagged halves made one incredible whole.”

I glance up to the body of Kincades behind him. My dad. Dekker. Brexton. Lennox. And the honorary Kincades, the men in their lives, who have completed my sisters and our family in ways we all never expected. All of them have smiles on their faces and hope in their eyes.

I’ve never felt more loved.

I’ve never felt less alone.

“And I tend to agree with them. There’s no one else I’d rather go through life with, Chase. There’s no one I want to fight and make up with, to love and laugh with, to sit and hold their hand in silence with. It’s always been you. Maybe that’s why that letter found its way to you all those years later. Maybe not. But something greater than us has worked in our favor since the get-go, so who am I to question it?”

“I love you,” I whisper.

“When it was suggested I ask you here, at their wedding, I told Brexton and Drew that I didn’t want to upstage their day in any way. They told me I was being ridiculous. That it wasn’t a true Kincade family function without their littlest sister getting special treatment.” A chuckle ripples through the crowd of friends and family, because that might be true. “So here we are, Chase. One orange envelope, one mistaken identity, and one dance in the rain later, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be or person I’d rather be with. Will you marry me, Chase Kincade?”