“I thought we were already married, but it doesn’t matter to me that we’re not. I feel married to you and I want to be married to you. If you’ll do me the honor, I’ll take you to the courthouse on Monday and make it official.” He pulled the ring out of the box and held it up. “I bought this the other day when you came into town. I was going to give it to you since we never had a chance to get one before. But now, I guess it’s an engagement ring.”
He took my left hand in his, holding the ring right at the end of my finger. “So, what do you say? Will you marry me? Will you join Clan MacKenzie?”
“Shine not burn?” I managed to say.
He smiled, making his puffed up black eye look even worse. “Yes. Come with me so we can shine together.”
EPILOGUE
The musicians were playing the prelude to the wedding march, and I was poised at the end of the aisle, my arm wrapped tightly through Angus’s. My bouquet of white roses and baby’s breath trembled in my hand. A little tuft of purple troll-doll fluff stuck out from between some of the flowers.
“You okay there, sweetie pie?” he asked, looking splendid in his black tux.
I nodded, looking out over the small crowd of people seated in white chairs on either side of the aisle I was about to walk down. Most of them were still strangers, but I knew in time they’d be like family to me.
“I’m glad you agreed to let your mom come.” He looked pointedly at the left side of the aisle, near where Candice and Kelly were standing and holding their bridesmaid flowers.
I looked at the thin woman sitting in the front row wearing the purple dress. She was a stranger to me, but she didn’t want to be. She’d gotten healthy and was happily single, no longer looking for a man to guide her through life.
“It was Mack’s idea, not mine.” I still wasn’t sure it was possible for my mother and me to put the past behind us, but I was willing to try for Mack’s sake.
“He’s a good man. He’ll do right by you, I’ll see to it.”
I smiled. “I’m glad I’m getting you as my father-in-law. It’s like a special bonus package deal.”
He patted my hand that rested at his elbow. “We’re both kind of lucky, aren’t we?”
I nodded. “Yeah. We are.”
He gestured down the aisle with his chin. “You ready to do this?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Angus and I walked to the end of the aisle and waited for the beginning of the music. When it came, we took slow, measured steps up the walkway, the short train behind my dress swishing along the white runner that had been laid down over the grass in the back yard. An arbor covered in flowers waited for me, and under it was the man I would marry for the second time, only this time it would be official in the eyes of the law. Standing next to him was his younger brother and the hulking form of a man-bear-pig.
Mack wore a tux with a bolo tie and a black cowboy hat. He’d never looked so stunning, his bright blue eyes drawing me in from all the way down the aisle. He kept them locked on me, never looking away, never wavering. Just like his love for me, they shined like beacons, leading me out of darkness.
We reached the altar and Angus put my hand on Mack’s arm. “Take good care of her son, or you’ll have to answer to your mother and me.”
Mack nodded. “I wouldn’t expect or want anything less.”
Angus took his seat next to Maeve who was quietly dabbing tears from her eyes and holding Ruby’s hand. Ruby wore a bright red dress and her best hat, little berries and a bird dangling off the side. She pursed her lips at me and nodded slowly. Her approval made me happy. I knew I’d made her proud.
“Do you have your vows?” asked the priest.
I shook my head no, but Mack nodded.
“What?” I whispered at him, confused.
He reached into his pocket with a grin and pulled out a bar napkin.
A flashback hit me like a freight train. The bar napkin…
“That’s…” I pointed at it, remembering the bar we’d drank our last cocktails in.
He nodded. “These are the vows you wrote with me that night.”
“You kept them?” I whispered, tears coming again. I’d thought I was fresh out of the damn things after a week of talking and crying and laughing, but here they were again, threatening to destroy the makeup job Candice had done an hour or two ago.
“Of course I kept them. Memories are important.” He shook the napkin to unfold it and nodded at the priest. “We’re ready.”
My mind flashed through memories that were finally coming in a huge rush, unblocked by the magic bar napkin. Mack and I had left the hotel room after having crazy monkey sex and had walked the streets of Vegas arm-in-arm and hand-in-hand, reveling in the lights and the noise and the crowds of happy people. All the while we kissed and hugged and laughed with the emotions that were overwhelming us. We found a corner of a busy street and just sat on a bench and talked and talked and talked about our dreams and our pasts and our hopes. We joked about having kids together and what we’d name them. And then he suggested that we go get married, getting down on one knee right there on the dirty sidewalk, and I said yes. We kissed the entire way there and the entire way back.
“Andie?”
Mack’s voice snapped me out of my trance.
“Yes?”
“Are you ready?”
I nodded. “Yes. I’m ready.”
“Go ahead with your vows,” said the priest, nodding at Mack.