by Nicole Snow
Hectic weeks drift into a lazy late summer, giving way to a fall where the days get shorter and cooler. The hills around Heart’s Edge come alive with late wild blooms and the first hints of brilliant autumn.
It’s a fine day when we can finally march into Reid Cherish’s office with a check to pay off everything in full. That robot of a man snaps off a frigging salute when we’re finished, and it’s a chore to man up, shake his hand, and walk out without giving him shit.
Even Cherish deserves a reprieve today. We’re celebrating.
It took a whole lot of wrangling, but it’s done.
Last week, we turned that Mars rock over to a rep from a big museum and space center down in Texas. They gave Libby an eye-popping check. She split part off for Sierra, part for charity, and part she damn-near forced on me. I only agreed to take it as an investment in my company I’d pay back.
Then we waited a couple weeks to see if we’d break out in hives or fall over dead from food poisoning or black cats crossing our paths.
So far, so good.
Seems like that old space rock wasn’t as cursed as Mark thought.
Now we’re standing on the hills overlooking that special heart-shaped cliff where all the locals here go when it’s time to make a big damn promise in the name of love. The same place I picked out on that hazy day after we found out her father’s name was clear, the first day we found hope for a normal life.
Libby blinks, gasping and slipping her hand into mine.
Even as she swings her leg over and slides off Frost’s back, she looks around as if she’s just realized where we are.
“Holt Silverton...what...what are you doing?”
I wait until she drops down lightly to the ground before I sink down on one knee, still clasping her hand tight and grinning. “What does it look like, honey?”
“You can’t! You don’t—”
“I can, and I do. For once, it’s too late to argue.”
Well, maybe it’s a little early for those words.
It’s not too early to pull out the ring I’ve been carrying in my back pocket since this morning.
I've had it for a couple months. It’d been an impulse buy when I went into town to the jeweler’s, after Cindy called me with an appraisal and a sale offer. Only forty-thousand dollars on the old designer ring, but when you’re hard-up, you’ll take it.
I’ll tell her about that in a little bit, though.
Libby stares at me like her eyes might fall out.
I swear to God my bright, brassy girl trembles as I open that box.
Inside is a delicate silver ring.
For her it’s gotta be silver since she’s all radiant gold. Silver makes me think of the stars, and she’s my whole damn sky.
The diamond’s not huge.
It’s not some obscene thing that used to belong to some kind of royal or something.
But I picked it just for her, and that’s what matters.
From the way her breath catches and the overwhelmed swallow she makes...
Yeah, I think she likes it.
It’s a simple setting—a diamond cut into a four-point star, surrounded by smaller diamonds like a constellation.
And tangled around the ring? That crescent moon bracelet, a memory of the night I realized I was falling head over boots for her.
“Liberty Potter,” I say. “When I came back here looking for home, I never thought I’d find it in a hellcat who pushed me down in the muck and called me every filthy name in the book.”
She lets out a shaky laugh, pressing her hands to her mouth, eyes gleaming.
I grin. “But I did. After dancing with you that night at the Norton place, looking down at how beautiful you were under the moon, that’s when I knew. Didn’t know how to say it then, but I sure do now.”
I pause, watching a crystal tear come sliding down her cheek.
“Holt...” she strangles out.
“I’m past falling, Libby. Way the hell past falling. I’m just in. All in with you.” I can’t even find words for how my heart thumps, putting it out there like this. “I love you, Miss Potter. If you’ll do me the honor of having my hand, I’d like to make you Mrs. Silverton.”
Libby lets out another overwhelmed laugh, turning her face away, tucking her hair back and scrubbing at her eyes with a little sniffle.
“Aw, hell. Can’t you just say ‘will you marry me’ like a normal dude instead of making a smooth speech?”
“No.” My grin widens, because I think I can feel her answer coming and that hope lifts me up until I’m a hot mess. “But I’ll say them too. Will you marry me, Liberty?”
“You’re the biggest fool in the world if you don’t already know my answer,” she snaps, beaming like the sun.
Then she reaches out to touch the ring, fingering the fine chain of the bracelet.
Her fingers are so warm as that touch shifts to me, resting on my lips, gentle and sweet, as if she’d caress that proposal from my skin to hers.
Her eyelids slip down.
I still can’t believe this stunning firecracker looks at me with that much emotion in her soft blue eyes.
“Yes!” she whispers. “Holt, yes. Because dammit if I don’t love you too...and it’s been building up for so long I think I’m gonna burst if you don’t kiss me right now.”
I’m springing up off my knees in a heartbeat, clasping that ring box to keep it safe while I bury my fingers in her hair and drag her in.
Nobody told me how sweet a kiss can taste until I’m sharing the first kiss I’ve ever had as someone’s fiancé.
Nobody warned me I didn’t know love or passion until Libby goes loose in my arms in a way that says she trusts me completely—now and forever. Body, mind, and soul.
Nobody said I wouldn’t know joy until the person who means more than anything else says I matter just the same to her.
And I don’t know how I ever called myself a man until I became the man I needed to be for Libby.
Our kiss comes slow, soft, like we’ve just transformed from lovers to betrothed, and now we’ve got to test it out to settle into our new identities.
That subtle hint of something else that makes every stroke of our lips somehow richer, fuller, filled with so much emotion it rocks through me.
I devour my fiancée, my future wife, my everything like a starved wolf.
We’re both breathless by the time we pull back.
Breathless, but smiling like the lovestruck fools we are. And her smile gets bigger as I steal her hand.
First I loop that bracelet around her wrist, then slide the delicate ring home on her finger. I’d guessed her size.
Guess I was an eagle eye because it goes down snug like it’s always belonged there.
Her eyes gleaming, Libby spreads her fingers, looking at the ring in awe.
“I never really thought about what kind of ring I’d like,” she murmurs. “Never even thought about getting married. But it’s like you picked what I’d choose for myself. It’s simple but it’s delicate and lovely and just...it’s perfect, Holt. How did you find the perfect ring for me?”
“By trying to know you better than I know myself, honey. Watching what you love, and what you care about. That’s what love means.” I curl my hand over hers, relishing the feeling of the ring captured between us, warming our fingers as I give her a tug toward the cliff. “Now let’s go throw some flowers, lady.”
25
One Horse Town (Libby)
First, a few words of advice.
Never make your sister your maid of honor.
Never let your sister plan your wedding.
Never let your sister sweet talk you into Ladies’ Night at Brody’s with dick-shaped drinking straws; never let your sister pick out her own bridesmaid’s dress, and never, ever let your sis know you forgive her for a lifetime of pure bull.
Because by the time it’s over?
You might just be down one sister.
I know I’m about to be, if Sierra doesn’t stop d
riving me out of my mind—and if she doesn’t stop fussing with my freaking hair.
I still don’t even have my dress on.
She’s standing over me in front of the mirror in the room at the Charming Inn that we reserved for bridal prep. I fidget in my chair while she curls my hair up into this mess on top of my head.
I look like I should be presenting a car or something on The Price Is Right.
Not like I’m about to get married.
“Stop it,” I growl, swatting at her. Carefully, seeing how she’s holding a hot curling iron. “Jesus, pile this up any higher on my head and they’re gonna think I’m a backup singer for Conway Twitty.”
“Who?” she asks, blinking at me in the mirror.
She’s looking better now.
She’s calmed down with the gaudy Vegas showgirl looks, and gone natural with her hair loose and breezy, comfortable in jeans and cute flowy sleeveless blouses.
She doesn’t look so starve-yourself-thin-until-you-die anymore, either.
I help, feeding her fresh-baked pies until she’s blue in the face every time she comes around the ranch. I’ll remake a country girl of Sierra Potter yet.
Her bruises are long healed.
Outside, anyway.
What’s hurting her deep down will take more than time to heal, and it’ll happen on her schedule.
But it feels like maybe she’s ready to try as she smiles at me in the mirror.
“Quit it, Libby,” she says, flicking the curling iron off and setting it down. “You’re giving me sappy looks again.”
“Am not!” I half-heartedly jab my elbow back at her. “Look, just let me have a moment of being glad you’re back, okay? It’s my wedding day. Can’t I do that?”
“You can.” She leans down, draping her arms over my neck and resting her chin on one of my shoulders.
When you look at us in the mirror like this, we don’t look that different.
“I’m sorry, Libby. Sorry I left you here to handle things alone.”
“Enough apologies. You had your reasons.” I curl my hand against her forearm and lean into her. “Crappy reasons, but still...reasons.”
“Hey.” She nudges her cheek against mine with a laugh. “Please don’t forget I got the crap beaten out of me by a gorilla pretending to be a man, just trying to save your butt.”
“And you’re gonna remind me of that every time I give you hell?”
“Yep!”
We both laugh—but it’s a quieter laughter, a sweeter humor that reminds me of when we used to play together as girls.
“Hey,” I murmur, squeezing her arm. “Remember the first time I tried to learn to ride?”
“I remember you eating a faceful of dirt,” she teases.
“Yeah.” I chuckle. “And you got down and kissed my forehead, picked me up and made sure I wasn’t broken, and then put me right back on that horse. Remember what you said to me?”
“I do,” she answers, her voice softening with emotion. “We don’t fall. We never fall. We just learn how to stand up again.”
I smile. It’s surprising how hard that hits me.
“I feel like I’ve been falling down and learning how to stand up again too much, Sierra. All by myself. And now I’ve got Holt, and you...”
“Now now, no getting teary-eyed on my account.” She squeezes me tight. “But I know the feeling. I just...I ran away, yeah. I kept falling and was so stubborn that I couldn’t admit that where I wanted to be was here.” She bites her lip. “I missed y’all so much, but I felt like you didn’t see me at all. You and Dad had each other, after Mama died. So I thought you wouldn’t even notice if I was gone.”
“I noticed,” I say thickly. “We noticed. You messed up, but we all do. You’re my sister, and I love you.”
“Dammit, Libby, I’m going to ruin your hair.” She buries her face in the messy tower of curls on top of my head. “I love you too.”
I let out a shaky laugh.
“Gonna ruin my makeup if you make me cry.” I scrub at my eyes, making sure not to smudge my liner and eyeshadow, and nudge her. “Screw the hair, let me take this mess down and get in my dress. Can you do me a favor?”
In truth, she’s already done me a lot of favors.
Sierra’s half the reason we’ve been able to get the ranch up and running again so fast with my new money. It helps having her to hire folks and show ’em the rounds.
The other half?
Totally Holt, the man who’s waiting on his “I do.”
God, it feels good to be able to pull together after pulling alone for so long.
I smile as Sierra gives me a puzzled look in the mirror.
“Sure, what can I do?” she asks.
“Go outside,” I say, “and get me a handful of flowers.”
I can hear the crowds outside by the time I shimmy into my wedding dress and take my hair down into a deliberately messy tumble.
Then strew it with flowers, Sierra and I rushing to thread the stems of the delicate pink and blue blooms in so they’re scattered evenly throughout.
A lot like stars against the sky.
Just like the stars in the constellation necklace I still wear around my neck. It makes me feel like Dad’s here today with us. And I think he’d be glad at the man I picked to marry.
Sierra gives me a tight hug before rushing out to take her place in the bridal procession, thrusting my bouquet of daffodils into my hands before she’s gone.
I start to follow...
...and then nearly trip on my heels.
And my dress.
Look, I’m not used to this, okay?
But even if I’m rough and foul-mouthed, I want my wedding to be that kinda day.
A little extravagant, a little overblown, where I get to be a little bit of a princess.
So while my dress looks simple, a pretty white silk sheath with stars embroidered along the bodice in little specks of diamond, it’s long enough to trail the floor in flows that look graceful.
Just wish I could say the same for the heels. They’re taller than what I’m used to with my boots.
I right myself, grabbing at the wall—only for a thin, wizened hand to gently take my arm, helping me up.
“I’ve got you, dearie.”
Ms. Wilma.
Pretty as a picture in a slim white skirt and matching jacket with a daffodil pinned to her lapel.
She hooks her arm in mine, holding me steady in more ways than one when my heart races a mile a minute. We step outside, where my future husband waits.
Maybe we’re a cliché in Heart’s Edge, having our wedding here on the cliff like so many before us.
I don’t care.
I want our forever.
I want the happy ending that legend promises.
I’ll be a cliché today and walk down an aisle of silk cloth laid over a meadow of flowers.
We head out into the open autumn sun with half the town watching. All of my friends plus his friends and family, gathered neatly in chairs to either side.
Up by the altar, next to the arch of flowers, it’s him.
Holt Silverton, looking finer than ever.
Alaska, Blake, Warren, Doc, and Leo stand behind him, his men of honor, while Felicity and Sierra and a few of my other friends are there as bridesmaids.
Honestly, they’re just pretty blurs of color eclipsed by the bright light of one man.
Holt looks like a natural lady-killer, clean-cut and perfectly groomed in his tux.
Underneath that fine-tailored wool, that tightly trimmed beard and combed hair, there’s a wild man who’s ready to take on anything.
Including me and my ridiculous heart.
He’s my Zorro. He’s my Rhett Butler. He’s my Lone Ranger.
He’s my everything, and the moment those whiskey-fire eyes lock with mine, I forget everything else.
There’s music somewhere. Ms. Wilma walking me down the aisle when my feet can’t remember how.
Everyone turnin
g their heads to watch, soft approving murmurs, warm encouragement as I pass by.
They’re all just background noise when all I hear is the beat of my heart growing louder and louder the closer I get to Holt.
There’s a heat between us that sizzles the closer we are to each other.
It’s nearly burning by the time I stop in front of him, and Ms. Wilma gently hands me off to take her place in the front chairs.
There’s a hushed, pure silence.
Reverence for this moment when we stand here looking at each other, mere seconds away from being man and wife in the eyes of all.
Don’t cry, don’t cry.
I’ve said it so many times, fighting with everything in me.
Only now I don’t bother.
Not when I’m so happy I can’t stop the tears as I look up at him and smile.
“Hi, you,” I whisper.
Holt’s eyes flash, his smile so warm, so tender, it captures my heart more than anything.
“Hey,” he answers, reaching up to stroke my cheek with his thumb, wiping away the tracks of my tears. “Ready to get married?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be!”
He grins. “Never thought wild horses would drag us here, huh?”
“Kicking and screaming all the way,” I tease, laughing.
But there’s no kicking. No screaming. No second guesses.
No protest, no hesitation, no doubt.
The priest begins reading off the litany that leads us to our vows.
I know.
I know one thing as sure as I know the stars will come out and the heavens will turn and the constellations will come and go with the seasons.
I flipping love Holt Silverton.
And I want to be with him for the rest of our lives.
I feel like I’m floating on a dream as that ring slips on my finger, then his, and then it’s all echoes.
With this ring, I thee wed.
“With this ring, I thee wed.”
I do.
“...I do.”
Just like that.
A few simple words and it’s real, and suddenly everyone is shouting and cheering, and the dazed bubble around me bursts. Reality swoops in on us with my pulse pounding and my entire body buzzing with joy and—
