by M. Leighton
I knock on Mom’s door before I enter the kitchen. It smells like garlic, which leads me to believe she made herself some lunch. Although I’ve been having the kitchen staff bring her meals as well, I’m glad that she felt like cooking and that she felt like eating. “Mom?”
No answer, so I go peek in her bedroom door to see if she’s sleeping. It’s empty. If she’s not there, she’s out on the porch. It’s one of her favorite places, too.
I find her knitting a blanket that she’s been working on for a year, it seems. She’s humming to herself and I notice that her color looks pretty good today. Less . . . yellowed. My heart twists a little in my chest.
I went on dozens of missions, did things that will haunt me to my dying day, but watching my mother die a slow death in front of me is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, ever had to see. Although her color looks better today, her end will still be the same. It will come, and it will come painfully. And it kills me that there’s nothing I can do to change that. That’s why, if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure she can at least spend her last days in the only home she’s known for half her life.
“You have to be the slowest knitter in the history of the world,” I tease, bending to kiss her cheek before I take the rocking chair beside hers.
“This is a labor of love. It can’t be rushed.”
“A labor of love? Who’s it for?”
She reaches over to pat my cheek. “Who else but my boy?”
I eye the soft pastel colors. “You do realize that I’m twenty-seven, not seven, right?”
“Maybe you won’t be the one using it.”
“Well, if you’re making it for me, who else would be using it?”
“Maybe you’ll have a baby to wrap it around one day.”
An image of Weatherly rubbing a belly rounded with the child she’s carrying—my child—rolls swiftly through my mind and I smile.
“Okay, I can see that.”
Mom puts down her knitting and fixes her pale blue eyes on me. “Is it Weatherly?”
“Is what Weatherly?”
“The one you just imagined.”
“Who says I imag—”
“Ah-ta-ta. Answer me.”
She always knew when I was lying.
“What if it is?” I ask good-naturedly.
I thought we were still playing until she reaches over and curls her fingers urgently around mine. She squeezes them so tightly, her hand trembles.
“Don’t you make decisions that will affect the rest of your life because of me. Don’t marry her just to get this place.”
“How do you know—”
“I know you tried to buy this place. I know he turned you down. Now I see you running around with Weatherly, and I’m hearing things. I can put two and two together.”
I frown. “That doesn’t mean—”
“No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t have to mean anything, but I know you, son. I know how you love—with your whole heart. You won’t listen to reason. Won’t let anything stop you. Won’t let anyone get in your way. But I don’t want you doing things like that for me. If you marry that girl, marry her because you love her, not because you love me.”
I take her thin, cool hand in mine, wondering briefly if it was ever this frail before. It seems that I could crush the bones if I squeezed even a tiny bit tighter. “This is your home, Mom. No one will ever force you out of your home just because you’re sick.”
“This place was my home, but it was also my job. You can’t expect them to keep me around out of the goodness of their heart. When I’m no longer useful, they’ll find someone who is. I knew it all along. But that’s life, son. That’s business. This is still just a place. I can make a home anywhere. As long as you come by and see me from time to time . . .”
“But this is where you lived with Dad. It’s where all of my childhood memories are. I’m not going to let anyone take that away from you.”
“Tag, I’m telling you,” she says warningly. “Don’t do this for me. Don’t. Please.”
I give her my brightest smile and gently pat her hand. “Why don’t you worry about finishing that blanket before the second coming and let me worry about the rest? I’ve got this, Mom. I’ve got this.”
TWENTY-ONE
Weatherly
Twenty-one days. It’s been twenty-one days since Tag put a beautiful ring that probably cost him his whole life savings on my finger and asked me to marry him. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t been certain that I’m insane, that I haven’t been certain that he’s insane. But neither has a day gone by that I haven’t been, at least when I’m in his arms, the happiest that I’ve ever been.
The more I learn about him, the more compatible we become. We have so much in common in some ways—our love of the land and the grapes, our bond to family whether good or bad, our connection to Chiara—but in other ways, we are very different. He’s a risk-taker. I’m not. He’s a free spirit. I’m not. He’s willing to give up his life to help his mother. I feel like I’ve given enough to help my father. Our differences, however, seem to bring us even closer. It’s hard for me to find anything that I don’t like about him. Or even love. The way his eyes sparkle when he watches me walk toward him, the way he reaches for my hand like it’s automatic, the way he kisses me so often like he’s drawn to me without realizing it. The way his laugh seems to rumble in my chest, like he’s actually becoming a part of me.
If we weren’t getting married, I would probably worry more about falling in love with him. I would be afraid of giving my heart away to someone who might break it. But now, I don’t think much about it. I just feel. I just go with it. And it feels wonderful!
At first, I was content to just be able to spend my life with someone to whom I was so desperately attracted. But now, more and more with every passing day, I feel as though I’ll be spending it with my soul mate, with someone I’ll love for the rest of my days. Because I do love him. I think I have for a while now. I only hope he will one day love me in return.
I do think about that sometimes—what if I fall in love with Tag, but he never learns to love me the same way? But I try not to let those thoughts take root in my mind. Right now, it feels like we’re both falling. And there’s hope in that.
We were going to elope because my father is so against this union, but my mother had a cow and convinced him that we should at least have a small ceremony so that he can walk me down the aisle and she can see her only child get married. He grudgingly agreed to that. I think for a while he kept thinking it would all fall apart and he wouldn’t have to worry about it, but it hasn’t. We haven’t. Tag and I have spent every day together, every night together, too, and we are even happier as the days go by.
Dad and Michael left Chiara two days after Tag gave me the ring. I don’t know what Dad has cooked up to replace the way he expected my marriage to Michael to affect the company, but I feel sure he’s got something up his sleeve. As long as it doesn’t involve me, though, I don’t really care what it is.
Mom came to visit after that, ostensibly to talk me out of the “ludicrous notion” of marrying beneath me. It only took her three days to see that she wasn’t going to make a bit of headway. That’s when she went home and talked to Dad about a real wedding. Since my charity received the anonymous donation and I no longer have to rely on my father’s money to keep it afloat, they have no leverage to force me into or out of a marriage. As I’d always dreamed, I got to pick who I want to spend the rest of my life with.
And now, here we are. My wedding day. I went from the prospect of marrying Michael, a man I had zero feelings for (unless vague disdain counts) to marrying a man I can’t wait to wake up to every morning, all in the span of a month. It’s surreal, but in the best fairy-tale kind of way. Even my friends are envious, especially when they met Tag. I think then they understood how things could’ve ha
ppened so quickly and how I could be so happy.
I haven’t seen Tag since last night. He left my room two minutes before midnight so that he wouldn’t risk seeing me on our wedding day. We decided to have the ceremony here at Chiara. It seemed fitting somehow. He could’ve spent the night anywhere, but I’d be willing to bet he’s at our cabin. It gives me chills just to think about it.
My closest friends and family are all waiting for me downstairs, as is Tag. Mom hired a decorator from Atlanta to come and make the grounds and the main house wedding-beautiful, and it is. I peeked over the upstairs railing this morning and it nearly stole my breath. This small, intimate wedding is more perfect and more fitting than the grandest of events could be. For me, anyway. And for Tag.
A soft knock at the door has my stomach clenching into a nervous knot. One of my best and oldest friends, Shannon, my maid of honor, pokes her expertly coifed head in. “It’s time.” Her smile is bright and beautiful, if a little envious. She has no qualms about marrying for money and very much looks forward to her impending nuptials to Avery, the son of one of her father’s associates. Shannon is attracted to Avery, though, so her situation isn’t as . . . distasteful as mine was.
She leaves the door ajar and walks away, probably to get in line at the top of the stairs. Seconds later, I hear the harpist begin her first song, the one that the wedding party will enter to. The one that comes right before mine. My stomach flutters and I get up to walk to the heavy, floor-length mirror that leans up against the wall in the corner.
I see Weatherly O’Neal. She looks the same as she’s looked every time I’ve seen her for the last month, only today there’s a shine in her purple-blue eyes and a slight flush to her cheeks. Her black hair is drawn into loose curls artfully arranged on top of her head. The few tendrils left dangling frame her small smile, a smile that doesn’t betray the way her heart soars. She was bred to remain calm and collected during stressful times. Times like these. But I can see it, though. I can see the change—the happiness, the hopefulness. I can see that she fell in love with the most unlikely of men in the most unlikely of ways. And I can see that, despite the convenience of the arrangement and its questionable origin, she is thrilled to be walking down the stairs, down the aisle toward Tag Barton.
I make my way out of my room, along the hallway that’s dripping with bunches of white roses and purple wisteria. It smells like heaven. It feels like heaven.
My father awaits me at the end of the hall, standing at the top of the stairs. His face is expressionless at first, but when his eyes rake me from the top of my veiled head down to my richly beaded, A-line, Sarah Burton gown, he softens. Minimally, but still he softens. When I reach him, he turns to face the stairs and holds out his arm for me.
I don’t want to start an argument, but I hate the thought of walking down that aisle and not telling him how much it means to me.
“Dad . . . I . . . I wanted to thank you.”
“For what?” he asks, eyes still trained straight ahead.
“For walking me down the aisle. For giving me away. To Tag. I know you don’t approve, but . . .”
Long seconds elapse before he sighs. I see it more than I hear it. His puffed chest visibly deflates.
“You deserve better. Is it so wrong for me to want the best for my daughter?”
“No,” I admit. “No more than it is for me to want to be happy.”
“I only wanted to keep you protected and cared for.”
“That’s something that you can’t spend the rest of your life worrying about, Dad. I’m grown. This is what daughters do. And their fathers worry about them. But they try to make it work.”
“I’m not most fathers.”
“And I’m not most daughters. I’m an O’Neal. Can’t you just trust that you raised me right and be happy for me? Just this once?”
Finally, he drags his eyes over to mine. Reluctant, but willing. It’s a first step, anyway.
“I’ll try.”
I hate to press my luck, but while I’m at it . . .
“And Tag. Do you think you could take it easy on him? Just give him a chance?”
“Weatherly, I—”
“What if you’re wrong about him, Dad? What if he is the best thing for me? Would you really want to take that from me? To risk ruining it? Everything we both ever wanted for me, for my life?”
He studies me. Closely. Quietly. Almost as though he might find answers or assurance somewhere in my eyes. So I do my best to give him what he’s looking for.
“I’ll try,” he says again, but this time I believe him. Something about the small smile that curves one side of his mouth tells me that he’s finally admitting that this is happening and that maybe, just maybe, he should make the best of it. “At least he knows how to make good wine. Looks like we’re gonna need a helluva lot of it.”
I laugh softly. From William O’Neal, this is the best I’m going to get.
Impulsively, I stretch up on my toes to kiss my father’s expertly shaved cheek. This is the man I remember from my childhood and that little glimpse makes this day all the more perfect. “That’s more like it, Dad.”
As we look into each other’s eyes for a few more seconds, our truce is cemented. I’m marrying Tag because I want to. Because I’m falling more and more in love with him every day. Because I think we can be happy. Maybe not rich, but happy. And that’s worth more to me than millions of dollars, especially now that my charity is taken care of. And my father is walking me down the aisle. This is as close to perfect as I’m likely to get.
The familiar, traditional wedding march begins to play and I hear the shift of clothing as everyone in the room below stands to their feet. I wind my shaking hand around my father’s elbow and he reaches up to place his fingers on top of mine. Together, we begin our descent.
Guests start to come into view as the staircase sweeps toward the formal living room. Most are smiling, all are standing, facing us. I see them, but I don’t see them. My eyes and my mind are waiting breathlessly for one man to appear.
And then he does.
My foot touches the floor, my father and I turn, and there he is. Tag. Standing at the front of the aisle, flanked by his friends on one side and the minister on the other. I’m aware of all these other details, but still, he is all I see.
His raven hair gleams like black ink in the afternoon light and his pale eyes shine like silver moonbeams from the chiseled planes of his face. There’s a smile in them, much like the one that graces his full lips.
His wide shoulders and trim waist are displayed perfectly in a brilliantly cut black suit. The creamy white of his shirt matches my dress as though it were taken from the same swath of silk. His big hands are clasped lightly in front of him and he never takes his eyes off me as I approach. It’s as though we are the only two people in the room. No guests, no musicians, and no air. Just us, in a beautiful vacuum adorned with fresh flowers.
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 tha
t 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.”
