We stop a foot away and my father ceremoniously takes my hand and transfers it to Tag’s waiting palm. I turn to him before he can go. “Thank you, Daddy,” I say, not having called him that since I was a little girl. It was something playful between us when I was growing up—he’d call me Weathervane and I’d call him Daddy. And then we’d both smile and he’d ruffle my hair. It was how he said “I love you” and how I told him that I knew. And I did, back then.
Surprisingly, his dark blue eyes mist just before he leans forward to kiss my cheek. “Be happy, Weathervane.”
My happiness is doubled as I watch him move quickly away to sit beside my teary mother. That was his way of saying that, no matter what, he loves me. Still. Always.
And I’ll take it.
Tag’s fingers squeeze gently around mine and I step forward to stand at his side. I sneak a peek up at him as the minister begins. He’s looking down at me, unabashedly, smiling. I wonder if the happiness that he wears so easily right now could be because of me. I hope and pray that it is. I hope and pray that he won’t one day regret his capricious decision to marry a woman he hardly knows just to help her out. Or just because they have phenomenal sex. I hope and pray it’s more. So much more.
With his shimmering eyes fastened to mine, Tag raises our joined hands to his lips. He presses them firmly to my knuckles and lets them rest there for several long seconds before he drops them back to his side and turns to face the minister.
We listen in silence to his words and when it comes time to repeat our vows, Tag surprises me with vows of his own.
“Some of life’s most beautiful things come at unexpected times and in unexpected ways. I never expected to meet you, here of all places. I never expected to feel the way I feel about you, now of all times. I never expected to be standing here with the most breathtaking bride I’ve ever seen, me of all men. I promise to give you every part of me that I can, from this day forward.”
He kisses my hand again, right over the ring that he placed there just a matter of weeks ago. And when he lowers it again, I feel his thumb brush back and forth over my skin, like he’s marking me—always marking me—giving me another physical reminder of this day, of this moment. But he needn’t have bothered. I won’t ever forget this day or this moment. Not for as long as I live.
When his voice has stopped reverberating through my soul, the minister moves to finish the ceremony. “Do you, Taggart Gregory Barton, take this woman—”
“Wait!” I interrupt impulsively. My heart is trampling my lungs from the inside, but I can’t let this poignant ritual go on without confessing how I feel. It just seems wrong to start our life together without being totally honest with him. Without fear, without hesitation, without deception.
“I love you,” I whisper, my throat clogging around the admission. I swallow hard and force my eyes to hold on to his. “I’ve been falling more and more in love with you every day. The longer I’m with you, the harder it is to imagine my life without you. I’m not here for any reason other than you. Just you. And I want you to know that I’ll put you first in my life. Before everyone and everything else, you come first. I don’t have anything else to give you, but I can give you that. I can give you me. Always.”
Time slows, spinning in a hazy circle around us, blurring out the rest of the world. Tag’s silvery eyes turn dark and stormy. I know that look. I don’t know all the things that it means, but I know how it makes me feel. It makes me feel loved. Wanted. Like I’m the only girl in the universes that he can see.
Tag raises his hands to cup my face and inches closer until his nose is almost touching mine. “Say it again,” he breathes.
My pulse thunders. My lungs freeze. My hands tremble. “I love you.”
And then he’s kissing me. Like we aren’t in front of a crowd. Like we didn’t just ruin the ceremony. Like we are the only two who matter.
And I kiss him back.
Because we are.
A muffled whoop and the resulting laughter draws us back to where we are and what we’re supposed to be doing. Tag lifts his head and smiles down into my face. I glance behind him to an innocent-looking Rogan, whose wink at me is his only admission of guilt as the whooper.
The minister clears his throat, drawing my eye back to him. “Taggart Gregory Barton, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” he begins again, as if there was never an interruption in his service. I slide a sidelong glance over to Tag. He’s still smiling at me. And I’m still falling deeper in love.
TWENTY-TWO