“Heather Louise Chadwick, will you do me the honor of being my wife? Will you marry me?”
The sparkling round diamond was adorned on each side by a beautiful opal—my sister, the fallen angel who’d brought us together. I normally shunned thoughts of her, but in this moment, I let myself feel her presence. It warmed me as the sunlight illuminated the stones. My sister was here with me now, shining through their brightness. I knew she was looking down and blessing this.
With my hand on my chest, I did my best to form words. “From the moment you walked into my life, nothing else seemed to matter. That feeling has only grown. I’ve wanted to marry you for a very long time, longer than I should probably admit. Heck, I would have said yes if you’d asked me in New Hampshire. I am crazy about you. So, yes—the answer is yes! I will take this adventure with you today, tomorrow, and forever.”
EPILOGUE
* * *
NOAH
THREE-AND-A-HALF YEARS LATER
Today we were ringing in Heather’s twenty-fifth birthday. I won’t mention the fact that I was now pushing thirty-nine and flirting with forty. It seemed like just yesterday we’d celebrated her twenty-first. We still had the Poltergeist cake top in our freezer, right next to the ice trays. It had traveled from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania in a cooler. Pretty sure that thing would outlast all of us.
Heather was a little over halfway finished with her nursing degree. She’d enrolled at West Chester University near our house shortly after we returned from our travels. When she wasn’t studying, she was either bartending at a restaurant down the road or helping me with admin stuff at my studio.
The biggest recent change was that Heather’s mother had come to live with us in Pennsylvania. After a few years of watching over Alice, Katy had had enough of living with her sister. She’d said she really missed Boston and wanted to move back to the city. Just before Katy left, Heather and her mother sold the New Hampshire house. While Alice had been doing better mentally than in years past, Heather still worried about her living alone. I knew she didn’t want to ask me if Alice could move in with us. So I saved her the trouble and suggested it first, making it seem like it was my idea.
That meant Fathead now lived with us, too. Between the dog, the almost-mother-in-law, and the guinea pigs, it was a full house. But I knew Heather felt more complete with her mom here. She no longer had to worry about her from afar. So that made Alice’s occasional meddling worth it. The long-term plan was to buy a bigger house with an in-law apartment.
I should probably get on that soon.
Still engaged, Heather and I hadn’t yet tied the knot. We wanted to plan a wedding after she finished her undergraduate degree. Right now she worked hard to balance school and work.
I wanted to make her twenty-fifth a special birthday, so I’d surprised her with a trip up to Burlington, Vermont, to visit her best friend, Ming. Heather hadn’t had many chances to spend quality time with her over the past few years. Ming lived with a boyfriend now, and the four of us had a blast just chilling at their house and barbecuing. It made me happy to watch Heather and Ming reminisce about the short time they’d lived together. Ming was a forever friend. Don’t think I didn’t arrive at her place without a case of baby powder, either. Luckily, she has a great sense of humor.
After leaving Ming’s, we hit the road pretty early on Sunday morning. Heather assumed we were heading back to Pennsylvania, but we had a stop to make on the way home.
“We’re going to the lake?” she asked when we turned toward New Hampshire.
I winked. “Maybe.”
When we pulled onto Heather’s old property, she got a bit emotional. It looked exactly the same as I remembered it.
I parked over by the boathouse, and we got out.
She looked around. “I didn’t realize how much I missed this place, but being here again brings everything back. It feels like just yesterday.”
“Let’s take a walk down by the lake.”
We held hands as we enjoyed the tranquility of the water.
When we returned to the truck, I asked, “Wanna take a peek inside the boathouse for old time’s sake?”
“Can we do that? Wouldn’t that be trespassing?”
“Nah. It’ll be fine.”
I reached into my pocket for the key, then opened the door.
“What’s going on? Why do you have a key?” Heather froze as she entered the room. Nearly everything was the same as it had been when I’d stayed here.
“Welcome home,” I said, opening my arms wide.
Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “Home?”
“Well, not our permanent home, but our summer home—or our place to escape to whenever we damn well please.”
“What?”
“I bought the boathouse from the owners.”
Seeing her expression go from shock to pure joy made all of this worth it.
“Oh my God. This…is ours? The boathouse is ours?”
“All ours, baby.”
She walked slowly around the space. “How? When?”
I took her hand. “This lake means everything to me. It’s where I met you. It’s where some of our most special memories were made. It represents your childhood and your sister, and it always broke my heart a little that you had to sell the houses. Then you moved to Pennsylvania to be with me, and that was a sacrifice. I wanted to give you a little piece of your history back.”
She turned toward the corner of the room. “You even brought the old loveseat. When did you do all this?”
“Well, remember a couple of weeks ago when I had that out-of-state shoot? I was here setting everything up. I’d been working on the deal with the owners for almost a year. They had to split the land a bit as part of the sale, so it wasn’t that simple. Back when I first contacted them, I figured it was a long shot, but it turned out they didn’t like having to deal with renting it. They just wanted to be rid of it.”
“I can’t believe it. This is the most special thing anyone has ever done for me. I thought my life felt complete before, but man, now? Even better. Thank you.”
I took her into my arms and kissed her head. “I know we’d planned to wait a while longer, but I was thinking maybe we could get married here next summer. What do you say?”
I wasn’t expecting her to start crying. “What’s wrong?”
“A wedding here would be perfect, but—”
“But what?”
“Not sure we can get married next summer. It might be…busy.”
“Why?”
“I was waiting till we got home to tell you. But I don’t think there’s a better time than right now.”
“What’s going on?”
“I messed up recently.”
My heart sped up. “Okay…”
“Remember that stomach bug I had? When I thought I was dying?”
“Yeah, of course. How could I forget?”
“Well, I didn’t know that when you…eliminate like that, it can rid your system of things you need—like birth control.”
It took me a few seconds to figure out what she meant. And once I did, I couldn’t speak.
“I took a test this morning in Ming’s bathroom. It was positive. I don’t even know how it happened, I—”
All that would come out of me was, “What?”
“I’m pregnant. Only a few weeks along, but I was late, so I had a feeling. I looked up all the reasons birth control can fail, and sure enough, there it was: excessive vomiting. I should’ve known about that. I should’ve used a back-up—”
“You’re pregnant?” My eyelids fluttered as I processed it.
She bit her lip and nodded. “Yes.”
“Wow. I wasn’t…this is…the last thing I ever—”
“I know. Me, too,” she said. “This isn’t the ideal time. I—”
I cut her off with the longest kiss to her lips. I held her so tightly. I’d held Heather like this many times, but it felt different, knowing she was carrying my child. It felt surreal.
Holy shit.
I’m gonna be a dad?
I’m gonna be a dad.
I’m gonna be a dad!
“So that sofa is going to have to go to make room for a crib,” she said.