“Hell yes,” she whispered, so softly she barely heard it herself, because when your heart is so full of love, sometimes it pushes right up and gets stuck in your throat.
Harry slipped the ring onto her finger for the second time in twelve months. And when he got to his feet he pressed the palms of his hands to her cheeks and she moved into him, kissing him.
“Happy anniversary, Belle,” he smiled.
“Oh my God… our anniversary!” she exclaimed.
Just then, the bell over the front door tinkled.
There were stomping footsteps across the floorboards. Belle tugged her mouth from Harry’s. A blonde woman wearing cut-off denims and a T-shirt with Harrison’s Wines emblazoned across the front was grinning from ear to ear.
“I guess that means she said yes, huh?”
Chapter Seventeen
“Tess, meet Belle. Isabella.” Harry tugged at Isabella’s hand, the ring back in its rightful place. “My wife.”
“Congratulations!” Tess ran to the two of them and threw herself into their arms. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, which tickled Isabella’s cheek.
“You’re my first sister-in-law. I already have a brother-in-law, Amy’s husband, and obviously he’s Harry’s brother-in-law too, but this is exciting!”
Tess finally let go of them, took Isabella’s cheeks in her hands and looked up at her. “So you’re the one who’s driven my brother batshit crazy these past twelve months.”
Isabella glanced at Harry, the tug of guilt still in the pit of her stomach. “Nice to meet you, Tess. But … I’m confused. Harry?” She turned to her husband.
Harry put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I mentioned the divorce papers were personally escorted all the way from San Francisco. Meet their personal escort.”
Tess was beaming so hard her eyes were crinkled up tight. Isabella could see the family resemblance. Although Tess was blonde and Harry was dark, there was a likeness in the eyes and the nose and there was something about their smiles, which they were wearing right now, that was the same. Big, open, happy.
“So,” Tess beamed. “It pays to have one of your friends working at the family law firm.” She shook her head. “After he spoke to Sarah Gupta about the divorce, she may have accidentally mentioned it to me. And imagine my surprise when I didn’t even know my brother was married.” Tess shoved Harry’s shoulder. “So I offered to deliver the papers myself.”
“I’m so glad to meet you,” Isabella said, still dazed.
“And Harry, I brought something else, too. The other papers you needed.”
“Oh, hell. Yes, the other papers.”
Isabella searched his face. “What other papers?”
Tess darted a look from her brother to Isabella. “You mean you haven’t told her?”
“Geez, give me a break,” Harry complained with a laugh in his voice. “We’ve only just decided not to get divorced.”
Tess harrumphed. “I kinda got the idea from that kiss. As kisses go, it was pretty damn good. It wasn’t the kind of kiss you give someone if you’re about to get a divorce.”
“You got something to tell me, Harry?” Isabella asked, tugging on his hand.
He beamed at her. “You finished up here?”
She nodded.
“We’re going for a drive. And Tess is driving.”
Tess tugged a set of rental keys from the pocket of her cut-off denims and waved them in the air.
Harry snuck another kiss. “Because my wife and I are going to make out in the back seat.”
*
A half-hour and twenty miles later, Tess turned the car into the parking area of Matthews Wines.
“You come here often?” Harry asked as he shut the car door behind Isabella.
“Once. It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” She looked beyond a pair of black wrought iron gates to a central paved courtyard, where a weeping peppercorn tree provided shade for a few tables and chairs.
She noticed Harry and Tess exchange a glance and then she followed the siblings over the cobblestones to the tasting room. It was small, its stone walls lined with empty bottles featuring labels that were peeling and covered in dust. A framed poster on the wall described the evolution of wines, from the lightest whites to the heaviest cabernets and ports. Harry had barely set foot inside when a voice bellowed, “Harry, me old mate!”
“Toby. How are you?”
The burly barrel-chested man enclosed Harry in a big hug. “You’re a bloody sight for sore eyes.”
Harry chuckled. “This is my sister, Tess.”
Toby gasped. “The Tess Harrison?”
Isabella did a double take. What did he mean the Tess Harrison? Tess wasn’t a famous actress of something, was she? Had Isabella failed her first sister-in-law test? She searched Tess’s face for a hint. All she saw was blushing cheeks and a beaming look of pride.
“Yeah, it’s me. Glad to finally meet you in the flesh, and I look forward to working with you, Toby.”
Isabella looked at Harry. “What?”
Toby dragged Tess away from Harry and Isabella to the bar and in a flash, he’d popped the cork on a dusty bottle and was sharing a drink with Harry’s sister. Harry took Isabella by the arm and led her back outside to the peppercorn tree.
“Harry, what’s going on?”
Harry pulled up a chair and waited until Isabella sat down before joining her. Her migraine may have finally faded but all this, everything that had happened today, was making her feel fuzzy in the head again. Harry sat opposite her and reached for her hands.
“Belle, this is the surprise.”
“What? You’re buying me some wine?”
He laughed. “No. I’ve bought into this winery. My family now owns 49 percent of Matthews.”
Isabella stared at her husband.
And then stared some more.
“What?” What had she done? Did she even know him at all? Who was this man who could throw millions of dollars around on a whim?
“If you’re trying to impress me, you’re not succeeding,” she blurted. “You think this is why I married you? Because you have some spare change to spend on a winery?”
“Wait up, Belle. I can see this is freaking you out. Let me explain.” He took a deep breath. “Damn, I should have grabbed a bottle and a couple of glasses while I was in there.” He edged his chair closer.
“This is about us, Belle. I meant it when I said my life was forever changed when I married you. Why the hell would I want to go back to Napa when everything I love is here? When you are here in Wirralong? I’m a winemaker. I can make wine anywhere. And I want to do that where you are.”
Belle’s head pounded. “I hadn’t even thought this through. About where we’d live. What we’d do. Do you even have a visa? What if you’re deported? I can’t leave Wirralong. I can’t.” She felt the wooziness take her over and quickly spread her legs and dropped her head between them.
“Belle. You okay?”
She sucked in a few deep breaths and managed to sit upright. Harry looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“It’s not another migraine is it?”
She shook her head. “No, no. Just a big old dose of reality. We’ve done it again, Harry. We’ve been total idiots.”
He smiled, then chuckled, then let out a full-on laugh that echoed around the stone buildings of the winery.
“Belle. Listen to me. You’re not going anywhere. I’m staying. This is my future, Belle. You and this place. In that order. Tess and I have decided that Harrison’s should invest in organic winemaking. I came out here a few days ago to do some tasting and Toby and I got talking and I had an idea. After all, how could I ask you to stay married to me if I had no prospects, huh?”
“But what about Tess? What’s she got to do with all this?”
“She’s going to work here a while. Learn from Toby and his team.”
Belle leaned in close and whispered, “Is your sister famous or something? Am I supposed to know
who she is?”
Harry cocked his head. “She’s won prizes, she’s got a reputation in wine circles.”
“I had no idea …” Isabella decided it was about damn time she googled Harry’s whole family.
“Belle. When you were sick, Maggie told me about your last migraine. About when it happened, I mean.” He dipped his eyes then looked back at her, his expression so full of love that she wondered if this was a dream instead of her new life. “I understand all about the timing. It was a year ago, just after we got married, right? And then this latest one, just after I arrive in town. It kills me to think that somehow I’m doing this to you. Buying into Matthews … this is about proving to you that I’m staying. That I love you. That I see my future with you, wherever you are.”
There was a flutter of wings in the peppercorn tree overhead. Isabella looked up. Two kookaburras had taken up position on a branch above, so close she could make out the shimmering blue highlights in their dark brown wings, the reddish-brown tail with black stripes.
“Look,” she said. “Kookaburras.”
Harry looked up into the tree. “They mate for life, right?”
Their eyes met and they reached for each other’s hands.
“I love you, too, Harry. So much.” And then Isabella Martenson kissed her husband. And Harry Harrison kissed her right back. Then she pulled back a little, nudged his nose with hers. “I’ve spent all this time thinking going to Vegas and marrying you was the biggest mistake of my life.”
“And now?”
“Best mistake,” she said, closing her eyes, resting her forehead against his. “Best mistake I’ve ever made.”
Chapter Eighteen
“What do you think?” Isabella twirled in front of Maggie, Elsa and Serenity and the skirt of her ivory wedding dress twirled along with her. She was standing in the middle of her living room, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world, with her best friends by her side and her husband just across the grounds at The Woolshed waiting to marry her for the second time in twelve months.
“You look gorgeous,” Elsa said with a hitch in her voice. “And I don’t just mean the dress or your hair. It’s you. Your smile. You look so happy, Iz.”
“We have to get this right,” Maggie announced. “The dress is the something old and something new combined.” She sighed and inspected Isabella’s wedding dress. The bodice was scoop necked and the sleeves were three-quarter length, with a floral lace pattern. “This is the best charity shop find ever. It fits you perfectly.”
“And what about the something borrowed?” Elsa queried.
Isabella held back her hair to reveal shimmering pearl studs. “Here they are, thanks to Maggie. And the something blue?” She leaned over to hitch up her skirt and revealed a cheesy blue-and-white-lace garter on her left thigh.
“Perfect!” Elsa clapped her hands together.
It did feel perfect. Isabella smoothed her hands over the fitted waist and then entwined her fingers in the flowing fold of silk in the skirt. Maggie had performed miracles. Isabella’s wedding – technically the renewal of her wedding vows to Harry – had been pulled together in just two weeks. That had been enough time to organise everything for a ceremony and reception at Wirra Station, and for Harry to ensure that his father, and his other two siblings, Amy and Everett, had flights across the Pacific to be there with them for the wedding. The Harrison family had booked out the B&B in Wirralong’s main street, and had arrived at The Woolshed in a minibus half an hour before. All the wedding guests were currently enjoying champagne and canapés with Harry in the sun-dappled shade of the lemon-scented gums, while Isabella spent these final few moments with her friends.
She was almost ready. She wasn’t nervous now. She felt light, unburdened, full of hope. She had already had her life mapped out before she’d met Harry, but now she would have someone by her side to help her navigate it.
That was more than she’d ever allowed herself to hope for.
And Harry’s family? She’d been like a cat on a hot tin roof the first time she’d met them. Two days earlier, they’d driven up from Melbourne after their long flight and, after a chance to sleep off their jet lag, Harry had arranged a celebratory dinner at Janu’s restaurant. His family and Isabella and her friends had been officially introduced to each other and it hadn’t been as terrifying as Isabella had thought it would be.
*
“They’re going to love you,” Tess had reassured Isabella as they pulled up at the restaurant.
“Aren’t I the woman who stole their son away from Harrison’s Wines?” Isabella pointed out.
“Well, yes, that’s true. I won’t lie. Dad did take a few days to come around to the idea. Charles Harrison does like to be in control of everything, but Amy convinced him that having Harry here to run the Australian operations was a great business strategy. Who better than a Harrison to look after the family’s interests, right?”
“A Harrison or two?” Isabella asked. “You’re staying, too, aren’t you?”
Tess grinned. “Of course I am. But until you two get back from your honeymoon, it’ll be me. All on my lonesome.”
A honeymoon. A real honeymoon. Isabella and Harry were set to go to California for three weeks. He needed to finalise some details of the Matthews Wines merger, pack up some of his things, and she really wanted to see Harrison’s Winery, the place that had helped shape Harry’s family, the place with so many fond family memories. Perhaps being there in person would help her feel that she was truly part of Harry’s family. Of someone’s family.
How had Harry known that was so important to her? How incredible did it feel to Isabella to be known, to be understood. To be loved.
He’d been right by her side the whole night, his hand on the small of her back or holding her hand tenderly, smiling at her just when she needed it the most. She wasn’t sure what Harry – or Tess – had told them about her, but from the first moment his family stepped out of their hire car and onto the grounds of Wirra Station, they’d all embraced her with warmth and love, teased her about taking Harry off their hands, demanded to pay for everything, and made her feel, for the first time in her life, embraced within the loving arms of a family.
Just before dessert orders were taken, she excused herself to go to the bathroom, suddenly needing to catch her breath, and Harry followed and waited in the hallway for her.
He smiled when he found her and it seemed to reach right into her heart and squeeze it. He reached for her hand and she held his.
“You’re doing great,” he whispered as he leaned down to press his lips to hers.
Isabella took in a deep breath and looked deep into his eyes, dark and full of love. “They’re really lovely. All of them. And your father … he’s so proud of you. He can’t stop talking about your skills as a winemaker, your exquisite palate.”
“Did he happen to mention anything about my taste in wives?”
Isabella laughed.
“They love you as much as I do.”
She chuckled. “I suppose they’ve had a week or so to get over the shock. I don’t reckon they loved me so much when you broke the news to them that you had this strange Australian wife.”
He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Strange?”
“How else to describe a runaway bride, huh? They must have hated me for just a little bit. Tess mentioned something about Amy coming to my rescue.”
Harry nodded. “That’s Amy. She was furious for about five seconds, until I told her.”
“Told her what?”
“That I was going to move to Australia to be with you, so I could wake up every day next to you. That you changed my life. That you’re the love of my life.”
Isabella knew the truth of it. They had found each other not once, but twice and they weren’t letting go this time.
*
And now, standing in her living room getting ready to commit to this man again, she felt the truth of it in her heart too. This wasn’t f
alling in love or jumping into something reckless or ridiculous. Together, they were taking a leap of faith into a future together.
And she’d never been surer of anything in her life.
Isabella reached a hand to her décolletage, felt the warm pearls under her fingertips, and tried to hold back her tears and any smudging of her mascara. They’d been a gift from Harry’s family and Charles had placed them around her neck that night at Janu’s. They’d belonged to his wife—Harry and Tess and Amy and Everett’s mother. They were warmed now by her body heat, by the love she felt in her heart for her husband, for his family, for Maggie and her Wirralong family. For her life.
“Isabella,” Elsa shuffled in front of Isabella, mumbling around a dozen hairpins clamped between her teeth. “Let me fix that stray curl. You’ve got so much hair it’s determined to escape.”
Isabella stilled, letting her friend do her work. Serenity watched on from her position on the sofa, already having checked that Isabella’s manicure was still perfect. Maggie moved around in front of Isabella and looked her over. She reached for her friend’s hands and they held on to each other.
Maggie’s eyes were welling with happy tears. “What were you wearing the first time you married Harry?”
Isabella chuckled. “My very sensible marriage celebrant’s attire. A knee-length skirt and a tailored jacket, a white shirt, low heels and a smile.”
“This is better, Iz. It really is.”
Isabella reached for Maggie’s hand. “Thank you, for everything.” She didn’t have to explain what that everything was. Maggie knew.
“This is such a good day.”
“A perfect day.”
There was a knock at the front door. Maggie, Serenity, Elsa and Isabella looked up.
“Safe to come in?”
Isabella shared a grin with Maggie. It was Max. When he stepped inside, his eyes went straight to his wife. He paused, exhaled, grinned.
“You look incredible,” he said, his voice deep and full of longing. He wore a tailored suit and a bright white shirt, and although he wasn’t wearing a tie, a coloured pocket square of sky blue poked out of his top pocket.
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